Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-6-26

We are coming through a spate of celebrations surrounding the 250th “birthday” of America. Literally, the signing of the Declaration of Independence – not independence from the British monarchy itself, nor of the country known as the United States (1787), but the Fourth of July is a traditional and useful date. So we celebrate.

Dates are useful tools when they assist people who are losing touch with important aspects of their heritage; and aspects of our heritage are useful indeed when we need, as I believe, to appreciate their current situations. We cannot know where we are, in an important sense, unless we know how we “arrived” here. Who founded our nation – and are we a nation or a country? – and what was rejected, not just established, in that founding? What gifts did leaders bestow on their people and design with us in mind? What lessons did they learn and impart? What dreams did they have… and do we appreciate them?

More essentially, do contemporary Americans know the difference between a democracy and a republic? How many students – how many adults – understand the details of sacrifices made by uncountable American patriots since 1776? Why (according to many statistics) are most Americans either indifferent or hostile to principles of earlier American leaders – individual responsibility; personal probity; marital fidelity; the nuclear family; the sincere practice of Christian religion; not being, as a nation, subservient to a foreign country.

Old-fashioned standards? Yes. Principles that carried expiration dates? God forbid. Yet we have let that happen.

History has eras and chapters. Recognition of this viewpoint helps us understand our society, and ourselves, for good or ill; but conveniently for instruction. If we pay attention. For humankind, the life and Resurrection of Jesus is the dividing line of our “story”: one life, one covenant, one relationship with God and man before; a new life, a new covenant, new relationships with God and humankind after.

Regarding America and its current state, readers will note that I am a student of Theodore Roosevelt. Many are the reasons that I admire him and in major ways have devoted my life to his career, his example. He possibly was the most observant Chrsitian of all our presidents, certainly no less so than others. He titled three of his 40-odd books from Bible verses. After the presidency he shunned lucrative job offers to become Editor of a small weekly Christian magazine. He wrote an article for a popular family journal, “Nine Reasons Why Men Must Go to Church.” On a West Coast trip he altered his schedule to deliver, totally impromptu, five 90-minute speeches about the duties of a Christian in American society…

TR did not explicitly wear his faith on his sleeve, as it were, despite his vaunted exuberance and these forms of witness. But he practiced it.

This is one reason that Theodore Roosevelt stands as a human fulcrum in American history. Presidents since him have seldom referred to Christian faith as frequently, or with such zeal, as he did. Exceptions would include, at least at times, Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan. Before TR the list is long: George Washington, John Adams, James Garfield, William McKinley, and especially Abraham Lincoln, the speeches and proclamations of whom, during the last year of his life, are like sermons.

There are many other before-and-after aspects to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. With rare exceptions, the office was weak until TR, who invented the Imperial Presidency, a strong chief executive. For good or ill, America itself became an empire under TR, and has not looked back. He developed the Regulatory State, with the national government playing a positive role in many aspects of life from the national parks to public safety. (As the author of three books on TR, I am convinced that the current Bureaucratic State he would view as a Frankenstein monster; it was Wilson who perverted progressivism).

Theodore Roosevelt’s role is more significant, especially this year, than all these reasons. Coincidentally, he became president exactly 125 years after the Declaration of Independence. And this year is exactly 125 years after he became president.

We can see this, mathematically, as a trivia fact… or we can pause to consider What Now? What’s Next? What can we learn, what should we regret, what can we restore? I maintain that we have nearly squandered the riches and blessings of Almighty God; that we have in many ways sinned against Him and frankly are deserving of punishment, individually and as a country. Our churches are frequently apostate, our popular culture is shallow and filthy, our society often is immoral, abusive, and indulgent. We are an aggressive, far-flung, corrupt empire… a bankrupt, rude, resented city on a hill.

Is there a civilization that has ever sustain itself, having made such choices? Should we assume that America can long endure thus?

Rather than seeing America’s “birthday” as of the “first 250 years,” let us see Today as the starting-point of a Revival… maybe the commencement of a third, bright, shining, course-correction for the next 125 years. Pray to God – the god of Our Fathers – that this may be so.

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Click: Faith of Our Fathers | The Great Controversy

3-13-17

There are rhythms to all things in life, and in life itself. Cycles. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, they are called “seasons.”

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die”… Later, “A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance”… Condensing the chapter’s long list of dichotomies, Byrd-like, “A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace.”

To everything there is a season, indeed; we all know this by intuition and experience. But most of us do not notice a huge qualification to this wisdom and poetry… later in the same chapter:

“I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.”

In other words, one thing does not change. Truth is immutable. Truth does not depend upon cycles, nor rely on “times” or seasons, nor wait upon our opinions. God’s Word is unchanging; God Himself is eternal. Jesus came once, for all.

There have been cycles of reform in the church of Jesus Christ. As inspired by the Holy Spirit, faithful servants of the Word have seen the need for renewed fidelity to scripture, and acted – often at the peril of scorn, rejection, ostracism, persecution, and sometimes death at the hands of fellow… Christians.

2017 marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses – complaints – to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. It is a convenient numerical commemoration, but no less worthy of recognition for it.

Change is not needed in the body of Christ every 500 years. Sometimes it urgently is needed more often, and has been throughout history. Councils and creeds were plentiful in the battles against errancy and heresy. The Truth of God does not need defense in the realm of ideas; but it does need protection “under this inverted bowl we call the sky, whereunder crawling, cooped, we live and die.” Hence, apologetics and evangelism. And reform.

Every 500 years? Every generation? No, every day.

Some of the greatest persecution of believers has come, and is coming, from fellow “Christians.” Yes, we face opposition from Muslims, the secular culture, governments, the world, the flesh, and the devil; but we also have Error and counterfeit Christianity as foes of our own household. In the Last Days, even the saints will be decieved. And we now are at a crisis point in spiritual history.

God has never needed the dilution, or perversion, of His Word in order to “attract the lost.” Just the opposite. Steel sharpens steel, as Proverbs reminds us! Today, the church in America, in the West, is conforming itself to the world instead of being transformed, instead of having others be transformed by the Holy Spirit to the renewing of minds. It is doomed to failure. Not of God, it is hellish.

In the many stresses of daily life in the 21st century, our paths to spiritual comfort ought to be clearer, not more complicated, than they have become… easier to embrace, not inaccessible. The church, itself in its blind flailing of good intentions, is a prime offender.

Relativism – substituting our logic for God’s Truth – is rife. The contemporary gospel would create God in mankind’s own image.

Religious imperialism – missions outreach that imposes our sort of Christianity on the third world – is offensive. And counterproductive: as the spread of the gospel explodes south of the Equator, even outpacing Islam, missionaries from Africa and South America now see Europe and North America as mission fields.

The deadly “works doctrine” – holding that we can earn our way to Heaven, or buy God’s favor – sparked Luther’s outrage but unfortunately did not die with him. Indulgences have new names, and they are not all Romish. Pentecostalism has been perverted by the Prosperity Gospel. “Seed faith” and “faith offerings,” paired with assurances of God’s material payback, are a stain on the church.

Mega-churches; uncountable “versions” of the Bible; Christian 12-Step programs; retreats and seminars; encyclicals; media ministries… do you notice a pattern? They all tend to be about selves, about each other. Abstractly, not horrible in such a hurting world. But. How many of them are about God? About meeting, knowing, loving Jesus? This should be the “first step” in any “12 Step” program that addresses our challenges.

Our problem – a sin, really – in the contemporary church is this: Too many programs, and Not enough Jesus.

The church has become fluent in identifying needs and creating programs to help alleviate stressors. But the Church itself should be discipled in such a way that these programs need not exist!

We are to bear with one another, not reflexively direct each other to a local church’s ministry program. We ought to shoulder each other’s burdens, umbrella each other when we can, in order to protect and love them. We are not only God’s children, but His witnesses as well. What more could we witness to others than the love, care, and protection that a Father offers? 

In the first century, when the Church was new and exciting and vital, before cathedrals and media ministries, believers met in small circles. Families and extended families. Neighbors. People who knew each other, and wanted to. Brothers and sisters who cared, and served. No microphones and rock bands and back-screen projections or gold-encrusted crowns and robes, or bingo games or mega-anythings…

“Yes, but…” missions? Youth trips? Building programs? Let the dead bury the dead. When Jesus looked down from the cross, he looked into our eyes, each of us, mysteriously, separately. He did not say that He came for programs and ministries. He certainly did not die for Denominationalism that parsed His word into irrelevancy.

He came for you, and your soul. You can take it from there… or, actually, the Holy Spirit can: it is the reason the Paraclete was sent to us.

God sent Jesus to save our souls, and the Spirit to be our Umbrella, our inspiration to overcome the vicissitudes of an evil and false generation. “For me and my household…”

We have been blessed to visit sites of the First-century church. In Roman catacombs (whose primary functions were as places of worship, not hiding) and Irish fields. The goal of Christian pioneers was to withdraw to intimate fellowships; not to expand so as to boast of unmanageable numbers and programs.

Do you yearn for the spiritual comfort and true fellowship of the first-century church?

Rick Marschall and Emily Joy McCorkell

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Click: Faith of Our Fathers