2-22-21<\/p>\n
Rush Limbaugh died this week. Death is an eventually that comes to us all, but Rush had the somewhat unique disadvantage of knowing several months ago that his time was nigh. \u201cDisadvantage\u201d? Something to ponder.<\/p>\n
For his followers it was an \u201cadvantage\u201d \u2013 that is, versus a sudden death \u2013 because we could listen day by day to his reflections on faith, acceptance, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, encouragement, and\u2026 faith. Oh, I said that already. So did he, many times over.<\/p>\n
Over his career, Rush did not become a preacher; and not particularly so in his last days. But as is often said, you can share the Gospel \u2013 and sometimes even use words. No listener, of his millions across the Fruited Plain, doubted that he knew who his Savior was. The Radio Revolutionary surely inspired people in his last days in matters of faith as well as in politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cRest in peace,\u201d many said.<\/p>\n
But many people did not; have not; will not let him rest in peace. A tsunami of invective and hate began at the moment his death was announced. In conversations, on web posts, in the media. Gratitude, too; but people grateful that he died. People wishing that he suffered. Curses upon his family and friends.<\/p>\n
Unbridled hatred.<\/p>\n
With almost demonic fury, these people \u2013 fewer in number than his friends, I believe \u2013 have wormed into places of prominence, and cloned more such disciples. They allege horrible things \u2013 the worst of them tearfully refuted by his producer of many decades, a black man \u2013 but as with President Trump, the firestorm of hate from the Secular Left is not for things done<\/em> or said<\/em>, but for who these men were<\/em>.<\/p>\n More specifically, and this is a major point, Limbaugh did, and Trump does, \u201cget it.\u201d They looked over horizons and saw the broader landscape of ideas and challenges. What people call the 30,000-feet view. Their allies quibble over statistics, but Limbaugh and Trump knew that statistics don\u2019t lie\u2026 but statisticians do. The Dark State \u2013 and what is at stake today \u2013 they recognized.<\/p>\n Few people cut through the fog, perhaps occasionally checking \u201ccivil discourse\u201d at the door. In the church today there are few, too few, counterparts. Franklin Graham, even more than his father Billy, gets to the salvation message, the centrality of Christ, in the first minute. I don\u2019t mean in sermons; I mean in conversations and interviews. As we all should.<\/p>\n So it was not enough to defeat Trump: he has to be destroyed. Rush Limbaugh could not and cannot be dismissed \u2013 he has to be demonized and degraded.<\/p>\n In my little sphere, I have had phone calls and a note in my mail box wishing that\u2026 well, that I would join Rush in hell; and similar sentiments. When I once posted a photo of myself with Jack Phillips, the baker who declined to decorate a cake for a homosexual wedding, and was sued all the way to the Supreme Court\u2026 a Facebook \u201cfriend\u201d immediately posted a message calling me<\/em> (not Phillips) an obscenity. And this was a guy who previously put out feelers about collaborating with me on something or other. (Notice what Facebook does not<\/em> censor.)<\/p>\n So they dance on Rush\u2019s grave. They danced quickly on Herman Cain\u2019s grave too when he died an early COVID death. His great sin was being a black conservative, successful entrepreneur, and a presidential candidate with an economic plan.<\/p>\n Dancing on graves \u2013 that is, destroying and not merely defeating \u2013 is the new blood sport of liberals and secularists. And, like sharks, blood in the water attracts more of them, ever more bloodthirsty.<\/p>\n Sometimes it is not only people but symbols. This summer\u2019s onslaught on statues across America is of a kind. The arson against shop-owners\u2019 stores. The desecration of public buildings. The burning of churches. Few people decried the images of Jesus and Mary defaced and smashed; or the torched historic church in Washington DC. But how loud was the scabrous venom directed at the President when he made a statement, holding aloft a Bible at its shuttered door.<\/p>\n None of this is new \u2013 in human history, that is; in societies when they disintegrate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,\u201d Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar<\/em> (note to Andrea Mitchell: that\u2019s William Shakespeare, not William Faulkner). Which, in my thesis, is why the loosed demons inspire today\u2019s \u201cUnity\u201d squads to hate and destroy. They can\u2019t stand the truth.<\/p>\n One grave that we remember, however, could not be danced on. The memorials to Jesus suffered superficial effects, spray painting and sometimes sledge-hammer blows this summer. The church buildings dedicated to Him were vandalized. But his grave? No one could or can dance on that, even metaphorically.<\/p>\n Jesus walked out of His tomb. There was no grave that could hold Him down. He conquered sin, flesh, and the devil. He lives. After all, He had more work to do, through His children.<\/p>\n The living do not belong in graves.<\/p>\n And that goes for us, too. If you have Jesus in your heart, neither can you recognize a grave that can hold you down in this life. We too have work to do.<\/p>\n And certainly\u2026 do not let anybody start planning to dance on your grave.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n