American Churches: The Lamb's Bride or the Devil's Workshop? (Part 1)

The Ugly Duckling Heaven Doesn't Want!In God We (er?), In Us We Trust!Fundamentally, the problem for America in the eyes of the Holy One of Israel may not ultimately be so much a matter of a few warts, shortcomings and failings as much as the fact of its prevailing, hypocritical stubbornness across the board (among the churched and the un-churched) {That hypocritical streak was never completely washed out by the Blood (during its colonial days; the settlers were chiefly religious protestants protesting against what they felt was the tyranny and corruption of the Crown as well as Britain’s Anglican version of Rome’s Catholicism, who came here in search of religious freedom). It was not cleansed by its own blood (during the Civil War years—fought chiefly to eradicate the horror and the inequity of the slavery it had grown to cherish, and to nourish—or any war since!). While said hypocritical streak was indeed exposed to the eyes of the world, it was yet not eliminated by the Bible in black hands (during the Civil Rights years, to demolish the inequity and double standards promoted by Jim Crow and its Black Codes—last great, mass struggle for equality, orchestrated and led by an African American preacher)}. Again, that streak remains an unyielding, arrogant blight of stubbornness and pretense that persists to this very hour, as the whole country teeter-totters on the brink, the very edge of that which is both anti-God and anti-Christ (both in the churches, and out!). Nonetheless, “God bless America” is a common refrain, particularly in time of duress and uncertainty—words penned in the early 20th century by an American Jew named Irving Berlin; re-popularized by G. W. Bush following 9/11/2001. The potential for any reality on His part is acknowledged only in time of need, when per their social gospels, they demand that God show up on their behalf, as if He were some sort of Cosmic Butler, a jack-in-the-box, a bottled-up-genie, or just some extraterrestrial, cosmic ‘jack-ass’, whose job it is to jump up or pop out, on demand—whether from His box or His bottle—working magic, in their favor. Few and far between are the pastors and congregations who actively, regularly seek His face, via His word the Bible, when times are good (during those times, the money-based expression to which certain white pastors/preachers like to allude, “in God we trust”, could better be rendered, “in ‘us’ we trust”—God, be damned!).