A Call To The Remnant

As an immigrant to America I have many thoughts about what is going on in the country right now. I hear reports, mostly unsubstantiated, of people being abused because they are different in some way. This does not represent the America I know. It hurts for me to think that the foreign press would pick up on these stories and give the world the wrong impression of American people.

I have traveled a lot and met people from all over the world. I can say from my experience that the American people are the most friendliest and welcoming people in the whole world. They have loons on the far right and the far left just like everyone else but a handful of anecdotal stories in no way represents the heart of America and who they are. Your average American is warm and friendly and generous to all people.

I hear a lot about tolerance, yet the irony is that those who constantly speak of tolerance tend to be the most intolerant people you will ever meet. They are only tolerant to those of a similar view. If they meet someone of the opposite view, watch the venom pour forth. This dividing of the people for political purposes is evil. I think of the 49 people killed in a nightclub recently by a terrorist . That story became a gay story when the real story was that 49 Americans were killed.

Why is it always a gay story or a black story or a white story? In a mad effort to be inclusive, the politicians who push such an agenda have managed to make this country more divided that it has been since the time of the civil rights. By focusing on the rights of a tiny minority of people such as gay people and transgenders (perhaps 3.5% combined) the President( President Obama) has driven a huge wedge between the folks. There is no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their agenda.

The truth is I can completely disagree with the notion that people are born gay and still be tolerant and inclusive. I can think that there should be stronger border control and not be a racist or a xenophobe. Those who do not allow for this thought are truly the folks who are dividing this country. The true reason for Brexit and the recent election results in America is that regular folk are pushing back against the powers that be, who spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on a tiny minority of people to the exclusion of the majority. And it is not just the exclusion, it’s the demonizing of that mostly silent majority. They are considered to be toothless morons because they disagree on issues of morality and economics.

Where will all this lead? I have no idea. I am cynical of people in general. Our younger generation was supposed to the most inclusive generation ever, yet we see by their reaction to the election that this inclusiveness and tolerance is nothing but a thin veneer. Underneath that thin veneer lies the ugliness that has haunted mankind from the beginning. They hate people they do not know or understand and would like to destroy them.

Outside of Jesus Christ, people, no matter what generation they belong to are as flawed as they have ever been. We live in a modern world surrounded by technology and comfort in the West. Yet we still hate as we have always hated We still divide along lines, does not really matter what the lines are, all that matters to the enemy of our souls is that we do divide and hate one another and seek to destroy one another. The utopian dreamers and liberal thinkers are just as full of hate for those they do not understand and with those with whom they disagree with.

As a young man growing up in poverty in a housing scheme in Scotland, I hated the middle class and the upper class. The region that I came from was known as the “Red Clyde.” The shipyards that dominated my town and many towns in Scotland were full of socialists and Communists. This was my heart as a young man. Come the revolution I would have manned the guillotine and gladly pulled the lever, over and over again. I longed for the revolution.

I finally got my revolution. I personally met the most radical revolutionary ever to walk the earth. I met Jesus. He upended everything I thought I knew. He invaded my very DNA. He took all of the hate and all of the jealousies and all of the insecurities I had and he dismantled them piece by piece often with me kicking and screaming. I learned not to judge ” groups,” but to encounter individuals. I encountered true love and the enormous power of it. I learned that it rested in truth, that truth and love were one and the same thing and If I could learn to speak the truth in love then I could become an agent of incredible change, one person at a time.

And so my appeal today is that we saints on earth be radical lovers who speak the truth without fear or favor, in love. If God so loved the world, and He did, that He sent His only Son to die for that World then we as saints must be radical lovers of every man and every woman no matter their background or how they perceive themselves. The greatest dividers are always those who seek power, no matter if they are wonderful orators or speak brutally and bluntly.

In this time of disunity and hatred and division, let the true lovers of all men and all women step forward as representatives and ambassadors of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Love people as you find them saints and speak the truth in love. The true revolt in men and women is the revolt against the schemes of the enemy. Let us be revolutionaries for the cause of Christ. No man or woman can fill the void that is in the hearts of those on the left or on the right, only in the radical center of God’s will is there wholeness and fullness of Joy as opposed to the schemes of men which is full of bitterness and division.