“The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.”*
As the American Renewal Project begins its mission of marshaling spiritual men and women to the public square, the goal is to restore the Founders’ vision of a Biblically-based culture. We’re looking for a few good men and women, “True prophetic leaders [who] evidence a close relationship to God and a thorough knowledge of His word, whereby he or she understands [the full nature] of God.”** It’s out of that understanding that a person can speak for God in the public square. Not all pastors are called to run for office, obviously, but in Early America, ministers in public office were not seen as unusual.
Secularism’s carcinogenicity should be obvious to all by now. We are “ruled by those who are children, figuratively speaking. To make great men the source of a nation’s greatness is always to end up with a dearth of great men. Unless the greatness comes from within the community itself, a condition that is ultimately the result of trust in God, no great leaders will rise from it. Instead, the leaders will merely reflect the spiritual poverty of the community.”***
Those who are called to the public square by God, and walking in the Spirit, will present “a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God.”**** Evidencing grace, love, gentleness, humility, and the indwelling Christ, as they serve and exercise authority. It’s my conjecture that those called will have been battle-tested and sufficiently equipped, trained, and strong as to engage the adversary. “It is not the raw recruit, but the scarred veteran, who is assigned a place in the front ranks in the battle.”*****
As an example, take my pastor Rob McCoy, senior pastor at Calvary Chapel-Thousand Oaks and current Thousand Oaks City Councilman. Rob ran for office in 2014 and touched many lives in California’s Assembly District 44. Rob held “coffee’s” in 150 homes across the 460,000 District, which became part of his normal Christian life. In a sense, the district became his parish to touch and influence people who would likely never darken the door of a church.
As the men and women of Issachar are elected to office in towns and cities across America, the collision of two competing worldviews, Christianity vs. Secularism, will take center stage. The Left’s secular, atheistic values, and ideological supremacy has dominated America for the last three-quarters century. It has to be bridled if America is to survive, for virtue is a key to sustainable freedom.
Secular dominance and political correctness have saturated public education, higher learning, newsrooms, sports events, the Courts, the Fortune 500, Hollywood, and medicine for the last two to three generations. The culture has been impregnated with a sensuous, self-indulgent, and promiscuous character condemned by Biblical Christianity.
Once Evangelical and Pro-Life Catholic Christians arrive at City Hall, they most likely will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God the ruin that Secularism has wrought on America. “They will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But [they] will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.”******
What do you suppose the backgrounds of those called to run will look like? I have a hunch. There is a narrative in Scripture for how the Lord prepares those He intends to use for deliverance. Dr. J. Vernon McGee described it as receiving a “B.D. degree, ‘Backside of the desert’.” Moses received his B.D. degree, David got his, Job got his, and Joseph got his…
This “sequence“, mentioned by Krell, is part of God’s never-ending order: exaltation, humiliation, exaltation, humiliation, etc. Those whom He tends to use find themselves, “… located in queer and unexpected places. Joseph in prison, the descendants of Abraham laboring in the brick-kilns of Egypt, Daniel in the lions’ den, Jonah in the great fish’s belly, Paul clinging to a spar in the sea, forcibly illustrate this principle.”*******
Pastors and pews, trained by Providence, are now moving into the public square (200 pastors ran for local office in 2016, an additional 200 pastors are running in 2018).
There’s going to be a tectonic shift in America over the next twenty to thirty years – a resurrection – I’d bet my life on it.
Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand.
American Renewal Project
