The Hope of the World

The Hope of the World

(Based on an Advent devotional given for Millen Methodist Church, Millen Georgia,

with an Appendix on Hope, Copyright by E.T. McMullen, 12 December 2000.)

The big question facing our society is whether we are created, or are the products of chance. If God created us, then He has standards and expectations of us, as spelled out in the Bible. If we are the products of chance, then there are no absolutes, we can make up and change our own standards as we go alone. This thinking is reflected in the current political mess over the election of our president. In the past, elections were governed by the Constitution and the law based on it. However the backers of presidential candidate Al Gore want to change equal protection rights, Article II of the Constitution, and Florida election laws because they did not win. The Gore camp claims every vote should count, but they have done their best to throw out the military votes while seeking not to count, but to subjectively interpret the voter's intent from certain heavily Democratic counties of Florida. (More on this in the Appendix.)

Charles Wells, the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court and a Democrat, issued a very perceptive minority opinion concerning his court's recent decision to reverse a lower court decision, and to order hand counts, for the purposes of interpreting voter intent, for "under counted" Florida ballots. He wrote that this reversal of the lower court's decision "propels the country into an unprecedented and unnecessary political crisis." He is right, and that is why the United States Supreme court ordered a stay. I view this political and constitutional turmoil as one aspect of the cultural war in the U.S. and the broader spiritual battle worldwide. This broader battle is pointed out by the apostle John who wrote that the "whole world [system] is under the rule of the Evil One." (1 John 5:19b, TEV)

The big boost for the idea that we got here by chance came from Charles Darwin's ideas about human evolution - that we descended from a common ancestor. Darwin had no proof of evolution, only of adaptation (change within a species). There was (and is) no solid evidence of the many predicted transitional forms from one species to another. There was (and is) evidence that the earliest animals (like the trilobites) were complex, not simple. The eye of the trilobite was fully adapted right at the start. This eye even corrected for spherical aberration, something that took a long time for us to do with our telescopes. There is evidence that the earliest animals were more diverse than today (the Cambrian explosion of multicellular life). All this is the exact opposite of what evolution predicts. Darwin's idea went against the Judeo-Christian belief that God created all things in the beginning. The implications of naturalistic evolution also undercut Judeo-Christian morality, replacing it with notions that "might makes right" and that the "unfit" do not deserve to survive.

The idea of survival of the fittest influenced many intellectuals and eventually the Germans. The implied atheism of Darwinism influenced Marxists and eventually the Russians. Human evolution by natural selection fed the idea that the Germans were a superior race and that the Jews and others were inferior. This idea was developed by Darwin, applied to human culture by Herbert Spencer, and promoted in Germany by Friedrich von Bernhardi, Ernst Haeckel, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. They gave a scientific-appearing basis to age-old European racism and anti-Semitism and thereby made them look respectable.

World War I (WWI) was critical for both Nazi and Marxist successes. The great losses in this war led to the fall from power of both Kaiser William and Tsar Nicholas. Republics replaced the monarchies in both of these countries. Lenin, aided by Trotsky, used violence to overthrow the government in Russia in 1917. Then, by force, he consolidated power into his hands. When Lenin died in 1924, Trotsky and Stalin vied for control within the seven-member Politburo, with Stalin winning. Trotsky was eventually murdered.

Hitler's rise to power was more legitimate. He and his party increased in size and popularity in a nation devastated by runaway inflation in the early 1920's, and depression in the early 1930's. Because the Nazis had the most seats in the Reichstag, President Paul von Hindenberg accepted Hitler as his Chancellor 30 January 1933. The constitution allowed the President to take power during an emergency. When the Reichstag building burned down, Hitler successfully persuaded Hindenberg to issue a decree authorizing the government to exercise emergency powers. Hitler then got the Reichstag to pass legislation giving the executive branch full control for four years. When Hindenberg died in 1934, the office of President was abolished and Hitler assumed full power. He had done it all legally and constitutionally, but not morally.

Hitler also had plans for a state church. This National Reich Church would do away with the Bible and the Cross in all churches, replacing them with Mein Kampf and the swastika. Religiously, he wanted to take Germany back to pre-Christian times. This plan was published in The New York Times in 1942. Hitler failed to take Germany back to pre-Christian times, but the idea lingers on.

The Marxist plan failed too. Alexander Solzhenitsyn reports that sixty-six million prisoners died in Russian prison camps from the Revolution to 1959, but nothing has been done to those responsible. He points out that after World War II, the West made an effort to track down and punish major known Nazi criminals (and by 1966, 86,000 had been convicted). But this did not happen in East Germany, and similarly in the Soviet Union for Stalin's crimes. There was and is an attitude in Russia of letting bygones be bygones. They replaced traditional values with lawless expediency. The lesson, taught to the youth of Russia and elsewhere, is that terrible deeds are not punished on earth and they often bring prosperity. In his Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn predicted that "It is going to be uncomfortable, horrible to live in such a country."

Things came to pass as Solzhenitsyn predicted. It did not matter that communism collapsed or continued. Although the details of the collapse are varied, the root cause was and is no value system. There was no moral basis on which to continue the old way, and there is no moral basis on which to build a new society. Thus, expediency is the order of the day in post-communist Russia. No one is building or investing for the future. People at all levels are taking what they can get, any way they can get it. Tens of billions of dollars in aid from the West have been siphoned off into the hands of Mafia types who dominate the banking system and ruthlessly destroy anyone in their way. The agriculture land distribution programs are bogged down and are half-communist, half-free. A similar thing is happening in industry where communists set up sweetheart deals for themselves and took over the big businesses for their personal gain. And, as earlier, no one has been convicted for the horrible crimes committed under the communist police state. The future looks bleak for the former Soviet Union, and especially Russia.

Going back to WWI, U.S. servicemen were given pocket New Testaments with messages from General Pershing former president Teddy Roosevelt, and/or President Woodrow Wilson. Pershing's message begins: "To the American soldier aroused against a nation waging war in violation of Christian principle." It is interesting to note that Pershing thought we were going to war because of Christian principles.

In WWII, pocket New Testaments had a message from Franklin D. Roosevelt "commending the reading of the Bible" and calling it a "Sacred Book." Roosevelt's D-day prayer begins "Almighty God: our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity." (The emphasis is mine.) It is interesting to note that one of Roosevelt's reasons for waging war was to preserve our religion. By the Grace of God we stopped Hitler, but did we stop his unchristian thinking? The answer is no.

Since WWII there has been an increasing secularization and de-Christianization of U.S. society. One measure of this trend is shown by court decisions. The first article in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." (This is the "Establishment" clause.) In 1947, the Supreme Court ruled that this ban on the federal government making laws concerning religion also applied to the states. Based on the Everson 1947 ruling, the Court ruled in 1948 that religious instruction could not be given in public schools. The Court said "the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere. Or, as we said in the Everson case, the First Amendment had erected a wall of separation between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable."

There had been no new constitutional amendment concerning the "Establishment" clause of the Constitution. Rather, the Court had introduced a new interpretation. Traditionally, this clause banned an American national church, such as the Anglican Church in England, or the National Reich Church in Germany, but this obvious application was circumvented after WWII.Using this new interpretation, the Court outlawed prayer in schools (1962), and then the reading of Bible verses and The Lord's Prayer (1963). In many different legal actions in various places, the American Civil Liberties Union used this Supreme Court precedent to push Christianity out of public life. That is why there was no President's or General's message in the Vietnam War New Testaments.

In November, U.S. Marshals, under court order, seized the fifty-year-old Indianapolis Baptist Temple for failing to withhold income taxes and Social Security contributions from their employees' pay. This is the first known case in the United States of church confiscation by the government. So much for the high and impregnable wall of separation between Church and State. We have come a long way from what our country was founded on. The back of the WWII Victory Medal lists four reasons why we fought Hitler. One is freedom of religion. But here we have a church that refused to recognize state control over religion. The church employees paid their taxes and Social Security, but not the church. In effect, the government made and enforced a law against churches, in spite of the Court's earlier ruling that church and state be left "free from the other within its respective sphere." The courts are establishing control over the churches in the United States, which is what Hitler did in Nazi Germany.

What can we learn from the past about the future of the United States? The lesson for the United States is that it has stepped onto the same slippery slope of expediency and no accountability. In the process of creating a secular society, it has been busy expending its moral capital. When, and if, the U.S. becomes morally bankrupt, as Russia did, then it too will "be uncomfortable, horrible, to live in such a country."

The hope of the world is what we are celebrating this season. God became a man and dwelt among us. The Bible tells us how to live, but Jesus Christ showed us how to live. His sacrifice on the cross made it possible for us to live the Christian life, in spite of our fallen natures. This how we can be what Jesus called us to be: "like light for the whole world." (Matthew 5:14a) The hope of the U.S. and the world is neither with politicians nor judges. It is Christ living in us.

Postscript

Driving back from Millen, I heard on the radio a message from the manufacturer of the voter recorders used by the contested counties in Florida. These recorders are the Votomatic and Poll Star, which are made by Election Data Corporation in Valley Center, California. The CEO of Election Data Corporation claims that it is nearly impossible for a voter to create a "dimpled chad" on the ballot with the stylus - a situation where the stylus used by the voter does not penetrate the chad on the ballot. If there is a dimple, it is most likely from handling, and does not reflect voter intent.

If the above is true, then the Democratic Party's clamor for a "recount" of dimpled chads is a nothing more than brazen ballot stuffing. Normally the loser calls for a recount in those precincts where he or she has lost. The apparent reason for calling for a recount in three heavily Democratic counties is that amongst the members of the three canvassing boards in those counties there is only one Republican. Therefore, the Democrats control the processes of interpreting whether a dimple exists in Al Gore's chad. But the manufacturer has said that it is nearly impossible for this situation to occur with the stylus. So where are the extra votes for Gore coming from? Some could be from "hanging" chads, but others are from either handling the ballots or merely exist in the mind of the interpreter, and therefore have nothing to do with voter intent. In this case, machines are more reliable than humans, and the election had actually been decided on the first count. In which case, George W. Bush won by 1,784 votes and should have been certified the winner at that time. The first recount was an opportunity to handle the ballots and change the vote. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, an election judge reported that a common way to cheat in this situation is to punch out a vote for Gore. This would create a vote for Gore in a ballot that had no presidential vote, and invalidate the ballot if there already was a vote for Bush. Here is another explanation for the increase in Gore votes on the recount. If all this is true, then the actions of the heavily Democratic Florida Supreme Court were highly politicized and they do undercut the authority of the Judicial system, as Justice Wells feared. This result is to be expected in a country whose courts have worked hard to minimize, if not eliminate Christianity and the Ten Commandments in its society. There are dwindling standards of honesty, etc. and it is win at all costs. The stone that they are trying to roll onto Christianity is rolling back on them. (Proverbs 26:27.)

Appendix

HOPE

So, whatever it takes,

I will be one who lives

in the fresh newness of life

of those who are alive

from the dead.

By Cassie Bernall (This poem was found by her brother the day after Eric Harris murdered her at Columbine H.S. Reportedly, he asked her if she believed in God, and shot her when she said yes.)

Hope, in the New Testament sense, is the expectation of good. The Greek word is elpis, which appears 53 times, or elpizo, which appears 31 times. This original word denotes a joyful and contented expectation of eternal salvation (Acts 23:6; 26:6-7; Rom. 5:2-5; I Cor. 13:13). Because of God's manifested salvation in Christ, and because He is the Source of all the believer's expectations, He is styled the "God of hope" in Rom. 15:13. Paul calls his converts his hope, not as the cause, but as objects of his hope.

In the Old Testament, hope is expressed by several different words such as safety, security and trust (Heb. betah, Psa. 16:9; 22:9, etc.). Another Heb. word denoting refuge, in the sense of firm and certain expectation, is mibtah (Prov. 22:19; Job 8:14; Psa. 42:5; 71:5). The word "refuge" in the sense of a shelter was also used to denote hope (Heb. mahaseh, Psa. 62:8; Jer. 17:7, 17; Joel 3:16). Another expression denotes something waited for (Heb. miqweh, Ezra 10:2). In Zech. 9:12 still another term is employed (Heb. tiqwah; "the prisoners of hope"); here described are those cherishing expectation of deliverance.

In spite of these different words in the original languages, the fountainhead of hope is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (I Pet. 1:3). "Christ in you" is the "hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). In the N.T. hope is also marked by an eschatological significance. For example, Titus 2:13; where the coming of the Lord is called "the Blessed Hope," that is, the expectation giving joy to the Christian in promise of future glorification. As I remember, the Schofield Bible made this term, blessed hope, a heading for a passage on the rapture (I Th 4:16-17), but our blessed hope is not that narrow or limited. The rapture is merely the start of the fulfilling of our hope, our joyful expectation.

Rev. 11:15 - The rule of this world is transferred to God and His Christ, Who shall reign forever and ever. This great eschatological event that establishes once and for all the universal sovereignty of God is a recurring theme in OT prophecy. Daniel predicted the day when the kingdom of God would utterly destroy the kingdoms of this world (Dan. 2:31-45, esp. v. 44). The day is coming, said Zechariah, when God will be "king over the whole earth" (Zech. 14:9). As the drama of the consummation moves toward the final scene, the hosts of heaven in Rev. 11:15 proclaim it a fait accompli. During His earthly ministry, Jesus had resisted the tempting offer of Satan to hand over the kingdoms of this world in exchange for worship and avoidance of suffering (Matt. 4:8-9). Now this sovereignty passes to Him as a rightful possession in view of the successful completion of His messianic ministry. "Our Lord and . . . His Christ" reflects Ps. 2:2, which was interpreted messianically by the early church (Acts 4:26-28). Although the Son will ultimately be subjected to the Father (I Cor. 15:28), He will nevertheless share the eternal rule of God. The singular ("He will reign") emphasizes the unity of this joint sovereignty. We will rule with God in our resurrection bodies. This is the culmination of our hope and our joyful expectation - the same as Cassie Bernall's.