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Wednesday Update

What we want to continue doing in some of these Wednesday Updates is begin to look at major events in the news in their larger historical context.... And maybe even how some things will be viewed in 50 years, 100 years or even 500 or 1000 years...

Subject: President Obama's First 100 Days...

(Wed., May 20, 2009)

(approx. 6445 words, 11 pp.)

This means, quite possibly, the question arises...

The final Part 3 of this miniseries on the First 100 days of Barack Obama’s Presidency will look at how this new leader and administration might all fit into "end times" Bible prophecy, and how this truly unique and amazing political figure might signal "the end of the age" and be a true turning point in man’s history on earth because of this man’s truly unprecedented vision to re-make America, morally and politically, and even the world! Such "audacity"? Maybe, maybe not...  Maybe "vision"? Maybe, not? So, to continue from last time, with this final Part 3...

To start with a basic question: What if the Biblical Cosmology from the Creation to the Final Judgment is true? There have been many great calamities in war, pestilence, famine, natural disaster, etc. in the history of man, but the Bible indicates in many places that at the end of the Church Age, there will be one great final time of calamity and tribulation, indeed great tribulation, the likes of which has never been seen before and will never be seen again. Could this particular time of tribulation be at hand? I would say possibly, even quite possibly. But, why is that?

This final so-called "Great Tribulation" is a specific Judgment for sin sent directly by God, or it is a Judgment where we are given over either to our military adversaries or to demonic forces because the thoughts of man’s "heart" are on "evil (or un-Godliness, self, etc.) continually," etc. or "God is in none of their thoughts" etc. And God becomes tired of "striving with man."

Apart from arguing the literal truth of the Biblical cosmology from the Creation to the Final Judgment at the end of time (as we have known it), there is also the entire question of the specific content of what the Biblical cosmology holds to be in store in what the Biblical text specifically states, apart from whether it is true or not, or whether it will actually happen or not, etc. Still, if Christ walks out of the grave, we have very good reason, rationally speaking, to believe the entire cosmology is true (whatever it specifically entails) from the Creation to the Final Judgment, and hence, everything in between, whatever that might be as stated in the Biblical text.

The crucial point here, practically speaking, is one cannot make Biblical prophecy work and have a sovereign God working his will in history without a literal cosmology, with a literal Creator God in heaven writing a script, as it were, of the story of Creation playing itself out, as it suits His good pleasure. This means at some point (in a way we cannot understand) God through Christ made everything "in the beginning." Not just the physical universe, as we tend to think of it, but also heaven, angels, and so forth and ultimately us as humans. The dates no one seems to really know, but we have historians say there are roughly 2000 years of "civilized" man on earth prior to Abraham, and roughly 2000 years from Abraham to Christ, and another 2000 years from Christ to our present time. But this is the easy stuff.

In reality the whole thing of the Creation is being scripted by God in a way that is really, really unknowable and mysterious and in a way that we can only just begin to understand. The Calvinists get into this stuff better than anyone else, in my opinion, though one must avoid falling into a fatalism, as they sometimes do. Still, if there really is a Creator God, we are all just playing out our parts in various times and places, as Cicero says, and as Paul says on Mars Hill, and as common sense would also indicate, that is, if there really is a sovereign God of Genesis 1:1.

Look, the very hairs on our heads are numbered, right? Yes, but it follows, so also numbered are the very molecules of the hairs on our heads? This speaks of the knowledge of God and the creative power of God, but it also speaks of the sovereignty of God in a way that we can barely even begin to understand. I do not think one can deny free will without getting into many, many serious problems, but having said that, something is going on in the entire big picture of all history in the mind of God from the very beginning that is totally more than we can understand. It is, I think, a theatrical "play" for God, but very much "reality" for us!

Indeed, Augustine talks, at length, about the complexity of this story, and this particular point concerning the sovereignty of God and the fall of Satan from heaven, which was, presumably, part of God’s plan and intention from the very beginning, as well! What does this come down to? Even Satan's fall from heaven and his taking, some estimate, one third of the angels with him was in the mind of God from before the Creation! As was Adam's fall, which can be explained easily, as Augustine and all theologians say, if there is a Satan. And, as Paul says, even the redemption of man in Christ was in the mind of God from "before the foundation of the world" as both Paul and Peter say! Where are these comments going? Well, there is some bad news, and there is some good news for the story of man on earth as God has preordained and scripted the entire story in the Bible, at least in its essentials, if not everything, in some sense, from "before the foundation of the world."

So, first, what is the bad news...

The story of man seems, to me, to unfold by how much leeway God gives to the demonic, which outside of Christ we are absolutely no match for, clearly. So, first, what is the bad news? The bad news is seen in Romans 1 & 2, and even more specifically in 2 Timothy 3, and in numerous other places in Revelation, Isaiah and other prophets, and even in Jesus' teaching. Things are prophesied to get extremely bad, that is, morally decadent, where evil is called good, and where spiritual and moral error, deception, and just plain foolishness come to be seen as truth, rational, and profound! This means if things were not getting really, really terrible and crazy, we should be very worried, because God says they are, in essence, supposed to and are going to, period.

And then, the prophecies say, comes the end of the Church Age culminating in a great tribulation Judgment for our sin, and many think this "Great Tribulation" will climax with a great military (not merely spiritual) battle in the Middle East. That is the bad news, but the good news is we emerge on the other side of this relatively brief time of turmoil, judgment and perhaps even outright war into a new era of peace, justice and righteousness on earth when the demons, which have deceived and tormented the nations and individuals since Adam, are bound for 1000 years! Could I make all of this up? No, I could not, and in fact scholars and people generally, who hold that the Biblical cosmology is literally true, pretty much agree on this story as pre-ordained by God and foretold in Scripture.

Again, there is pretty much agreement that this is the story Scripture states, whether actually true or false. However, people argue whether Armageddon is a spiritual battle or a physical one, and if The Great Tribulation is 3 or 4 years long or 7 or 8 years and that sort of thing, but the cosmological story God has planned in his role of Sovereign Playwright is pretty clear from Genesis to Revelation. What does this mean? History is a play or drama, as it were, but it is a real play or drama! For us anyway! The Bible says God sits in the heavens and laughs (a lot I think) at the foolish vanity of man and maybe of even Satan?!

As Satan's fall from heaven and limited time to roam and torment and deceive man was in the mind of God from the very beginning so too, presumably, was Adolf Hitler every bit as much as Mother Teresa! And so too are "the end times" of great decline, decadence, and deception and the Judgment/ chastisement they will bring on. I do not "think" we are headed for an imminent great Judgment or even "feel" that we are, rather, I "assume" we are, but I have no inside track on this. All things happen in God's story in "the fullness of time," which only the Father knows, says Jesus. Before Noah's flood God waited, so the story goes anyway, 120 years. Why not 118 years or 130 or even 98 years? Beats me. (In truth, the answer is 120 years was the just right or completely perfect number of years in "the fullness of time" for the Father?)

Jesus says no man knows the day or hour when things like the End of the Age will happen, only the Father, and not even himself. The Father lets things play out to a certain point, and then there is intervention and Judgment (or whatever the specific intervention is for good or ill). In the story of Noah, God simply says, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever." I have always found that to be one of the most interesting lines in the entire Bible! And it could probably be applied with equal appropriateness to Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as the Babylonian Captivity, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and to the point at hand, The Great Tribulation at the end of the Church Age?

Clearly, we will not be Judged by God for our sin or given over to demonic forces in America or the world unless our sin is great enough, but if it is, presumably, we will be, and this means we could very easily be approaching the final Great Tribulation before the Kingdom Era, in my opinion. On the other hand, it is also possible that our decline (at least "decline" by all traditional moral standards) will continue for the next 50 or 100 years, as it has for the last 50 or 100 years.

For example, we have about 40% of the country for homosexual marriage. Forty or fifty years ago it was probably around 1% (I would guess); so this means about a 1% decline a year which could happen for the next thirty years as well. This would give us about 70% pro homosexual marriage by the year 2040. However, we may have a great spiritual awakening to the truth and reality of the Gospel and stop the social, cultural, spiritual and moral decline and actually reverse it, and, hence, ultimately restore the Republic to its original vision, etc. Will this happen without a Great Tribulation of some sort? Maybe, but I assume not. But when the Titanic is actually sinking, people will starting finding God in earnest, left and right? Presumably?

In any case, there is a fourth possibility for the coming years besides a continual slow decline or a great spiritual awakening to the truth and reality of the Gospel (whether by tribulation or no), and that is we could continue for decades as we are now with about 30% of the country as conservative and/or Bible Christian, 30% as radical humanist or liberal, and 30% undecided, but I, for some reason, just do not think this will happen. One side or the other, either the Bible Christians or the humanists and liberals, is profoundly wrong, and one side is profoundly right, though, of course both sides make some very valid points at times, and each side thinks it is "correct" (and even "moral" of all things, says our current President.)

This all means there are two major possibilities here concerning the Presidency of the United States: Barack Obama may well be our first postmodern (radically multicultural) humanist President among many more to follow, breaking new "moral" ground with his Presidency and all that business. Again postmodern humanism is the 1960s hedonistic humanism of overt homosexuality, abortion, and radical feminism, which cannot distinguish one culture or society from another or as any better truly etc., (or distinguish men from women, or homosexuality from heterosexuality, etc.,) and this is in contrast to an amoral modern humanism of the 1920s and 1930s and of the spiritual liberal, which is not outright hedonistic but merely tolerant (of these absurdities), and which definitely holds American culture to be superior to the run-of-the-mill state of many, indeed most, societies through the ages.

However if we do not continue our slow decline over the coming decades, but rather have a great awakening to the (theological) truth and (spiritual) reality of the Gospel, Obama may well be our first and last postmodern, radically multicultural, humanist President. He, personally, is not the issue, of course, nor the problem, he is just an example or particular manifestation of the radical cultural split that has taken over America in the last 50 years. And this cultural, educational, political, legal, human rights split is caused by the underlying wellspring source in man's spiritual/ moral condition, in essence, concerning man's spiritual heart relationship to God, and ultimately to Christ in Christian salvation.

We are, in an all-round sense, in a spiritual/ religious, wellspring crisis of unprecedented proportions historically. The Roman Catholic Church has been in great crisis for 500 years since Trent, and Vatican II did far too little, far too late, to fix that. Trent was not a Bible Christianity, but actually officially opposed it, and Vatican II was an outright official embracing of all religions are essentially the same, though some do religion better than others, etc., (reflecting a similar confusion in Protestant liberalism of prior decades). This does not mean that all individual Catholics hold to these official errors, of course, many, or at least some do not, (polls tend to show?) just as there are said to be many ("believing and receiving") Christians still in white mainline Protestant denominations.

But, regardless, the mainline white Protestant denominations have been in a great "liberal" apostasy for 100 or more years, which is, presumably, "the great falling away" of the end-time church, and the black mainline Protestant church has, apparently, sold its soul for political power (as Obama seems to think), and, hence, the black church is where Jeremiah Wright is now more popular than Jesus!!! What a mess? And by such standards Barack Obama certainly appears, at any rate, to be a false messianic leader (if he is any such "messianic" leader at all), such that the black church voted for him in 90% numbers! Indeed, Obama has united these 3 off-track Christian groups together (he says, and I think correctly, that is, mainline Protestants, liberal Catholics, and the black church generally) with his humanist (that is, "community organizer" little-Lucifer) base to form a powerful political coalition, and a cult-like following not ever seen in American politics previously.

"My Kingdom" for "a vision"

This is all very strange because Obama is a "visionary" without a "vision"! ("Change," "hope," "re-making," are not a vision, only mere slogans, etc.) But, further, Obama looks at the great spiritual, moral, and political leaders of history that most of us admire and even marvel at and says he simply cannot marvel at them and their gifts and accomplishments because they just do not quite measure up! But measure up to what? Himself, of course! But the same grandiose self attitude could be said of the "pragmatic humanist" Dewey because of his supposedly unprecedented, new, great role in education and philosophy. In truth pragmatic humanism (and its fallacies, no less) was the central issue explicitly in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and implicitly in Solomon.

And, of course, the spiritual liberal Fosdick had the same notion of unprecedented in all history concerning himself and about his supposedly starting a new and better "Christianity" for the centuries to come, etc., etc. when, in truth, Fosdick’s faulty "new" Christianity was very similar to a long discarded ancient Gnosticism. Bottom-line here is let us not be too hard on our self-proclaimed greatest moral and political leader of all time! Some humanists just seem to have this latest-and-greatest (in all history) way of thinking about themselves. My personal opinion is that Obama is not the greatest "moral and political leader" of all time, but he may indeed go down in all history as a truly unique figure in, seemingly, thinking that of himself, so overtly, no less.

The country seems pretty evenly divided on President Obama? About half see him as he sees himself, the greatest moral and political leader of all time, easily, by far, etc., etc., and, by contrast, about half of the country are a bit troubled by all of this and actually see history to be full of some truly great men of moral, spiritual, and political vision and accomplishment that not only surpass our current President, but far surpass him, at least for what he has done so far. Not a lot of middle ground here?

Many people still hold there is a very valid church and political tradition in history (our President notwithstanding) as seen clearly in many major figures from antiquity to our present day, both in the church and in politics: in the church, in antiquity in Augustine, in modern times in Luther, Calvin and Wesley, and then Spurgeon and to our own time in C. S. Lewis or D. James Kennedy or Adrian Rogers, but these figures often stood against the backdrop of a culture as a whole which was going downhill and even humanist, as we are clearly doing today.

And, similarly, there is a great and even interconnected political tradition with this religious tradition from the politics of ancient Israel, to Greek democracy and political science, to Cicero and the Roman republic, to the Magna Carta, to the British Parliamentary system, to (the very Christian) John Locke, followed by the (very Christian) American founders and to later figures such as Lincoln and Reagan, all missed and unappreciated by our great leader, who is supposedly unequaled in all history! Yes, but to be fair and not too hard on our President, the far humanist left for several generations has not been on board for almost any of this great history of man and the West in religion, politics, culture, and civilization and how the American ideal was seen as an amazing historical, moral, political fulfillment of Greek, Roman, Christian and even Hebrew antiquity, truly unprecedented in all history, and in actual fact, and not merely in some autobiographical fantasy and muddled theory of revisionist history!

Given our current historical political situation, and spiritual, moral, cultural, and educational mess, the left has become a patchwork quilt of various humanist interest groups, though they are all generally humanists, just of different stripes, whether modern humanist, postmodern humanist, or spiritual liberal humanist. However, not only were both Hitler and Mother T (if I might) in God's mind before the Creation of the universe, so too was Jean Paul Sartre who says he cannot tell the difference in the two of them, and so too was today's Democrat Party, whose members often say they cannot tell the difference between Adolf Hitler and George Bush! (Nuremberg II, now!)

In reality, I think, God intended to create a story of history with real evil, and real spiritual deception and real good, truth and righteousness and real redemption, and we are all just playing out our parts "from the least to the greatest." From Hitler to Mother T and to everyone in between and to everyone who can't tell the difference! And Obama may also be just playing out his role as the last great false (by Biblical standards, anyway) messianic leader. But at least he does it not just with "audacity" but with good cheer!

In any case, the humanist patchwork quilt of the Democrat Party is a spectrum of humanists from legal positivist trial lawyers, humanist educators, radical feminists and abortionists, homosexual activists, black power politics, and even that crucial swing group vote of white mainline, liberal (that is, theologically apostate) "Christians," whether so-called Protestant or Catholic. I would even put liberal Jewish individuals in with this last "religious" liberal group. And, of course, the Democrats have some just flat humanists, that is, atheists. We do not want to forget or leave out all the atheists, who are almost always so much smarter than all the rest of us! However, if you believe, as Jefferson or Cicero, that there are over the nations Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, you will never convince John Dewey or even your average Democrat today that there are. But why is this?

Differences of opinion concerning law, politics, culture, education, and morality are generally not matters of intelligence, as often thought, and often not even "reason" (since everyone tends to think they are the "reasonable" one). Rather these radical differences of opinion are the result of the differing heart/ spiritual wellsprings of the people involved, as everyone from George Washington to Barack Obama and the Humanist Manifesto discuss, argue about, and generally maintain, to one degree or another, and usually explicitly so, no less. This means the truths that Jefferson holds to be "self-evident" starting points are only "self-evident" to the traditional rational moral theist, who believes in a traditional concept of an actual Creator God in his heart, and who believes in his heart in God’s literal Final Judgment, and in His Truth, Righteousness, Goodness, and Justice.

The entire point of humanism in all its variations is there is no actual Creator God, and generally no real, transcend notions of Good, Right, and True to live by and by which we will Judged by God in the Final Judgment. But this is all the result of a rejection of God in the atheist’s heart, his "wellspring," simple enough? This is the nub of the matter and why we are talking past each other with different worldviews. It is because we start with radically different spiritual hearts to God positions, and hence, the problem is generally not the actual specific foolishness and irrational substance of the Humanist Manifesto or Communist Manifesto or the ACLU or of any other humanist in his cultural, educational, moral, political or legal positions. However, these positions have a certain rationality to them given a "saying no to God in your heart" starting position. (In fact, Barack Obama usually just parrots these atheist views because he is mostly just a victim of a 1980s humanist, leftist, even postmodern educational experience, tragically.)

A Bottom-line... Everyone tends to be "rational" given his "starting points"

This starting heart condition to God means everyone tends to be rational given his "starting points," no matter what his worldview. In fact, the humanist's positions do (pretty much) follow rationally from his "no God" and "no real Good, Right, and True" starting point. If there is no God then A, and if there is no God then B, C, etc. This is in fact the structure of the Humanist Manifesto, without even bothering to prove the starting "no God" assumption.

This means you can argue in the culture war with the homosexual, legal positivist, Christian liberal, etc., until you are blue in the face (as the expression goes) to no avail because their philosophical positions are not the cause of the disagreement in the varying positions, but rather the problem is in the spiritual wellspring of the differing hearts in relationship to God. Indeed, this is Paul's point in Romans 1 & 2 where you come up with a new "rationality" that is based on foolishness that you think is actually wise. And this different heart relationship to God causes the differing philosophical positions. "The fool has said in his heart there is no God," the Bible says, and he has said "no to God" in his heart, the literal text also indicates as well.

The wellspring of traditional religion is "Fear God and keep His commandments because all things will be brought into Judgment." In the Great Books Video Series we have seen this endlessly in Solomon, Socrates, and Cicero, but Christianity, of course, adds to this (traditional wellspring heart belief in an actual Creator God, and his Judgment) a new, real, spiritual life in Christ. For the Christian, as Washington says, one's spiritual relationship to God and Christ is the well-spring of his thought individually but ultimately also so for the culture or society as a whole in its collective consensus, but tragically a rejection of God and Christ in the humanist's heart is also the well-spring of his confused and generally deceived and rebellious to God thought.

We have what is often called a bipolar nation on issues of morality, cultural, education, politics, and law because we have two different basic heart wellsprings in the culture or society, one to God and his Goodness, Truth and Righteousness, and one against God and his authority and His true Goodness, Truth, and Righteousness. And, further, one is not even a possible candidate for Christian salvation, as such, nor new spiritual life in Christ without a general belief in God and his Goodness and His authority (in your life).

The solution to all our problems in our having radically differing philosophical, worldview, cultural, educational, political and legal positions is to get a same spiritual wellspring in our hearts to God! Clearly, no less. In short, what the legal-positivist lawyer or jurist really needs is the wellspring of rational moral theism and of course new life in Christ, and of course the same can be said for the humanist educator, and ditto with the homosexual activist and the whole ragtag group of humanist intellectuals, liberals, radical individualists, and political activists that make up most of the Democrat Party, and even the Libertarians in my opinion because mere group-interest and mere self-interest alone will not create a just Republic with a harmonious interaction of the parts but rather only chaos, greed, confusion, and ultimate collapse, as we have seen, yet again, in the last few years, big time! This means, in my opinion, that Barack Obama does make some good points on occasion.

Barack Obama sometimes makes some good points...

Barack Obama sometimes makes some good points in criticizing, say, the (radical individualist) Libertarian position. It is in this inadequacy of the Libertarian position where Barack Obama tends to make valid points in what he calls the "conservative position," I think incorrectly. Just to cite three or four major examples, Obama says outrageous executive pay is often a cultural phenomenon and not a market-driven one. Is that true? Yes, and further, it is even more true with outrageous pay in failing companies, no less. As Obama says (p.75) the libertarian and the Wall Street Journal just have ideological "blind spots" on such matters. And that is to be kind of him, if I do say so myself.

Also, not all trade agreements are necessarily in our best interest as a nation, he says. We should always ask what is in it for us as a whole, as a nation, and not just for some particular interest group, nor should we act simply on ideological commitment to something (like open borders, free trade, etc.) regardless of obvious larger potential negative consequences. Similarly, special interest tax havens (if and when they truly exist) are hardly fair to people who do not benefit from them. Who can argue with that or that dishonest or so-called "predatory lending practices" are bad and need to be regulated? No one, but the libertarian, who just blandly, foolishly, and ideologically says "the market" will take care of everything! (Get real?)

Obama is also correct, I think, in holding that...

Obama is also correct, I think, in holding that our current economic mess with trillions and trillions of dollars in bad paper in the financial system is the result of poor, virtually non-existent government regulation caused mostly by an irresponsible and foolish ideological commitment to "no regulation" and by outrageous if not ridiculous "legal" leveraging, market manipulation, and God only knows what else (at least as widely reported in the news). How this will play out is still unknown, of course. But big mess, and all but "no regulation" ideologues agree?

What I wonder is, Where did the twelve trillion dollars go? Presumably, it is still out there somewhere, and someone has it, or most of it? And at what point did everyone know the paper was bad except the suckers around the world who bought it by the trillions? Let us not forget that even Christ will not rule by license and deregulation but with wisdom, justice, righteousness and with a rod of iron. So, presumably if we ever do get to Kingdom Era, we will have good laws (rules and regulations), and we will all play by them to the benefit and prosperity of all involved! As often asked, correctly (a la Rawls), how would you want the system set up if you did not know in advance where you would be born into it? (This is not as easy a question to answer as one tends initially to think!)

Obama's good and profound insights quickly go off track...

In addition, and perhaps, most important of all, Obama understands, I think to his credit, and in a way that Libertarians do not, that the purpose of the legislator is to make good laws, or, that is, rules and regulations for the benefit of the whole society (pp. 91-92). However, problems arise here quickly for him because as a humanist he goes on to say, as all humanists hold and have argued since the Sophists argued with Socrates, and Hume and Marx and Engels argued with Jefferson and Cicero that "in the end laws are just words on a page." Not so!

As with most of his sweeping generalizations throughout the book, initially "laws are just words on a page" sounds so profound, but in the end this degenerates (as is well known) into a true, ultimately meaningless postmodernism because "laws are just words on a page" means there is no real good, true, right or justice, which it the purpose of the state to serve for the rational moral theist throughout history and as stated in the United States Constitution, and hence, what is the humanist left with? Merely competing interest groups each seeking advantage over the other, which is, of course, the current state, both in theory and in practice, of Democrat Party politics.

Some people counter this problem of the state as mere competing humanist interest groups by saying we need to return to mere "individualism, self-interest and liberty" to solve our problems, but that is really no solution at all, or a very inadequate one at best. The solution to Democrat Party humanist interest group nonsense is for the nation to return to traditional notions of liberty and justice for all as found in the Declaration of Independence and for the individual to find his particular God-given purpose-driven life, and not his mere self-interest life. As Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Solomon, Cicero and Benjamin Franklin say your true self-interest is in doing your moral good! Hence, we need to return not to an individual versus group mentality but to the idea of fulfilling yourself by doing your moral good as part of the body politic, and thereby everyone benefits. (This is not mere "self-interest," but moral good, that is, one’s true or wise "self-interest," sometimes called "enlightened self-interest.")

You do not have to teach people to live for self! (That comes naturally!) You have to teach them to live for self in a moral manner, respecting others etc., and, hence, that is your true "self-interest," just as salvation is, as Pascal famously shows. So, true "self-interest" is serving God (not self), and as each serves God in his particular purpose in the Body, it benefits not just one’s self directly, but the entire body politic as a whole as each member exercises his gifts and talents to the best of his ability.

So, to get the Republic back on track we need to "return" to the idea of finding and using our God-given talents and abilities in order to find true fulfillment in them (as all the great philosophers have said), and not in mere self-centered existence of self gain, in power, pleasure, fame, and fortune, etc. And as each does this true fulfillment and "happiness" in his God-given purpose (not mere self-based power, pleasure, fame, and fortune purpose), it benefits the Body as a whole by allowing the so-called Invisible Hand of God to work for the good, health, wealth, and prosperity of the nation, as well as all the individual members in it pursuing their talents to the best of their ability, etc.

This is all the gist of and the point of my current essay A Just Republic, which of course, I am still working on! Pretty simple really, but one still needs the will and wisdom (or heart and mind) to make good laws (that is, rules and regulations), and on the whole the political process needs good faith participation to the ends of the good of the Republic by both citizens and legislators, and not bad faith action merely for one's self advantage or for one group's advantage over another (caused by a bad heart-to-God, wellspring, no less).

But, please note, not until we get back to the God of the Bible will be ready to get "serious" about a just Republic, or about making good laws, or having basic morality, or creating inspiring and uplifting art and entertainment in culture, or teaching traditional values and concepts of human fulfillment in education, or re-establishing fundamental concepts of human rights in law, and so on. So, again, clearly the underlying problem is individual heart rebellion against God... This is the determining, underlying, wellspring factor in the direction of a nation, without question, and the nation’s morality, culture, education, politics, and law...

Saul Alinsky says the people in rebellion against the establishment, in essence, a God-ordained "body model" of a Just Republic, are the rebelling followers of Lucifer, the original "community organizer"! Again, Alinsky, Obama's mentor, says this, not me! Do the math here, Alinksy holds it is rebellion in your heart against God that drives the "community organizer." Do with this what you wish, but my personal opinion, for what it is worth, is that Obama may have chosen to march in the wrong (spiritual) army, foolishly, and apparently he has serious issues in his heart, I would say, but we all, each and everyone of us, just play out our parts for what they are worth in our relatively brief time here on earth. However, maybe the Marxist, humanist community organizer is correct on one point? "History," with time, will prove one side right or another, a famous Marxist line, of course, and I think we can say that with certainty one side will prevail and set up "their" truth, justice and righteousness on earth.

But again, ironically, as all this craziness plays itself out in God’s story of man, Obama is a "visionary" without a "vision"! "Hope, change, and remaking" are not a vision, sorry! It is entirely possible that Barack Obama may prove to be the final, great, false (by Biblical standards) messianic leader at the end of the Church Age, in which case, this could be seen as good news because it means we may see the relatively brief Great Tribulation (soon) in our lifetimes, and then we emerge on the other side to set up or re-establish essentially the original American ideal. And, further, if demons are indeed bound "to deceive the nations no more" in God’s sovereign story of history, the American Republic will become, yet again, the model for all countries of the world, as it was so seen for so many generations prior to our own time (though not in Obama’s view, of course).

The Revolution of 1776 and God's will playing out in history...

The Revolution of 1776 (actually war for independence) was the result of the Evangelical, Biblically-Christian wellspring of the Great (spiritual) Awakening that preceded it, as even George Washington argued as a central truth of that time. But more important than that, 1776 was a fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, to be the father of many just and righteous nations, as also the American founders were well aware with our often being (for them) a new Israel, a new Jerusalem etc. and, further, 1776 was to be the actual, not mere theoretical, model for the just and righteous nation or republic for centuries to come, for man's time on earth (though, yet again, not in Obama’s view).

Finally, to complete the story of mankind in Christ, in Abraham are both the promises for all the nations of the earth to be blessed as nations, and, in essence, there are also in Abraham the promises for individual reconciliation to God by faith. And so, yet again, all history continues to play itself out in God's sovereign plan for man on earth, eventually to culminate in a time when Christ will be Lord over the nations for a proverbial, and even presumably, literal, 1000 years, ruling with a rod of iron in truth, justice, and righteousness...