Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! - Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)
Never lose sight that the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) believes in the church conquering seven cultural mountains to facilitate the second coming of Christ. One of the top two mountains they like to focus on is government, or politics. To achieve these ends there is no level of duplicitousness they are not willing to sink to. They have become the Christian propaganda arm of the Republican Party who desperately needs the Evangelical vote. One deceptive narrative they always fall back on is a revisionist history of America. They always speak fondly of a time hundreds of years ago where everyone was supposed to be bible fearing, God loving, gun owning followers of Jesus Christ. Their original narrative involving the Founding Fathers has been debunked so easily that they have gone further back in time to the 17th century where they now claim the early settlers were the ones under covenant with God and if we could just recapture that by applying behavior modification to unbelievers today, then maybe God will stay His wrath on this country. So let us reason once more through the above linked article from Stephen Strang and bring everyone back to the 21st century and how the church moves forward.
"History is not taught in schools as it once was. And when schools do teach history, it's often with a very secular spin. But David Barton, a well-respected Christian historian, has deep insight into the United States' Christian founding that every American needs to know. He says only 2.8% of American pastors are willing to preach biblical truth on political topics, and if God's people won't step up, the trend will only get worse. I recently interviewed Barton on my "Strang Report" podcast, where he exposes the truth behind America's uniquely Christian founding--and why that matters for us today. Bible-believing colonists once devoted this nation to scriptural principles, but now, many American Christians don't even believe the Bible is true." -- Stephen Strang
David Barton is not a well-respected Christian historian. He is an NAR hack who mutilates actual history to serve his ends; which is the propagation of the false Christian-American narrative the NAR is so invested in. History is not malleable beloved. It either happened or it did not. Thus, it cannot be "spun"; it can only be lied about. For years all we heard was the narrative about how the Founding Fathers were all tongue speaking Pentecostals until that narrative was exposed as a hoax so now they are moving the goalposts back 150 years to focus instead on the colonists. They have little supporting this misdirection as well. When Strang and Barton refer to only 2.8% of pastors willing to preach biblical truth on political topics what they really mean is only 2.8% of pastors buy into the nonsense they are selling about NAR dominionism.
'"When you look at where we are now, my question is not 'Where has God gone?' But it's 'Where are His people?'" Barton tells me. "I say that for several different reasons. I work closely with George Barna. We just put three massive polls in the field on Christian values and beliefs, and we know that ... 72% of churches and senior pastors do not agree with the Bible and do not agree with its teachings." The Barna Group conducted that survey among 384,000 churches and senior pastors. That leaves 28% who actually believe the Bible is true and agree with its teachings. Among those 28%, Barton says, 97% say the Bible speaks directly to hot-button political topics today. But those same people said they refused to preach about those issues because they were political. "That puts us at 2.8% of pastors addressing what the Bible addresses if it's also in the news," Barton says. "Now that's a problem. We also have a problem when only 14% of Christians read the Bible every day. ... And only 9% of Christians have a biblical worldview. ... So we're looking at a nation that doesn't think biblically."' -- Stephen Strang
Talk about missing the forest for your little tree! Strang and Barton are so obsessed with their false notion of a Christian American utopia that they glossed over the fact that 72% of churches and senior pastors no longer agree with the bible and what it teaches. I call this the Andy Stanleyization of the church. Why is it that only 28% believe the bible to even be true? Let's do a deep dive there! What do you expect when the bible is continually marginalized by Christian leadership? When the purpose driven church teaches pastors to preach about absolute drivel instead of the Gospel. That is where the real story is; not in this focus on NAR global domination. It is not that 9% have a biblical worldview because that is code speak to Strang and Barton. What they are saying is that only 9% agree with their obscenely false teachings. I agree that only 14% of professing Christians reading the bible daily is a problem but that has nothing to do with the angle Strang and Barton are taking here. Why would Christians believe in daily bible reading when it is no longer emphasized within the church? We no longer preach exegetically. We no longer hold demanding bible studies. Heck, we no longer need to bring our bibles to church with everything spoon fed to us on the overhead! If Joel Osteen never reads a single verse during his sermon, why bother reading for ourselves during the week?
"This modern trend of unbiblical thinking stands in stark contrast to the common mindset during our nation's founding, Barton says. "When you look at the founding of America on the side that was the really biblical side, they were very covenantal as a people, and they believed in covenants," he says. "As John Winthrop said, 'If you deal treacherously with God in this endeavor, you'll bring judgment.' ... And they viewed their contracts as covenants. As a matter of fact, that's why the longest-lasting treaty back in history was between Pilgrims and the Wampanaugs. And it wasn't the Pilgrims who broke the treaty; it was the Wampanaugs who broke it." In this way, Barton explains, the Bible-minded colonists of early America acted like Israel. Israel had a covenant with God that could not change. That's how these early colonial Americans viewed their national covenant with God. But not all colonists had this biblical view." -- Stephen Strang
Beloved, this is not a biblical view at all. It is utterly blasphemous. Yes, Barton is correct to emphasize the covenant nature of the early settlers. Those that were not separatists escaping English law, were in fact delusional enough to believe God entered into a new covenant with them to purify the Anglican church. God entered into no such covenant. To compare it to the true covenant God has with Israel is the blasphemous teaching known as replacement theology. We must understand that this is the narrative of the NAR dominionist agenda that seeks cultural and political domination. They sell the absurdly false notion that God was under covenant with America and that the country needs to be revived. America has not now nor ever replaced Israel. The church is grafted in.
The covenant-minded colonists only represented one camp of the British settlers. The Spanish, Christians the French, the Dutch and the rest of the British all had different approaches to their faith. As a result, those nations often promoted or allowed slavery and broke their treaties with Native Americans. Even the Dutch, who were gentler than the harsh Spaniards, had no problem making money by transporting slaves. "They weren't really Bible-believing; they were Bible-professing and Christian-professing," Barton says. "The way that the Jamestown colonists treated the Native Americans is pretty poor. But then you get to the Reformation Christians, the back-to-the-Bible and the Puritans and the Pilgrims and the Huguenots and others, and you find that the Plymouth Plantation colony is completely different." Barton says these Reformation Christians wouldn't take a foot of ground unless they had bought it and had a title deed from the Native Americans. Their covenantal view affected their way of living so much that when they found corn buried during that first harsh winter, they refused to eat it until they had found the owner and paid him for the corn. "So they respected biblical rights of property, of life, of freedom," he says. "When you're in the U.S. Capitol, you see the embarkation of the Pilgrims. They're all gathered around the Bible. The reason is that the Geneva Bible drove their life. They spent hours a day literally studying the Bible." -- Stephen Strang
Yes, the Pilgrims and Puritans were different. They were more zealous but no less misguided. The Pilgrims were separatists who felt the Anglican Church was beyond redemption. As such they were outlaws from their own country. The Puritans believed that the Anglican Church could be redeemed but only by them because they were in special covenant with God. They may have spent hours studying the bible but that does not make them doctrinally correct nor our spiritual ancestors. If most of these folks were around today I doubt Barton or Strang would welcome them into their own congregations. The NAR are not strict biblical literalists. Hardly. They twist the word to suit their carnal agendas.
"Yet now, Barton says, most Christians in America don't hold that same reverence for the Word of God. The result of that disdain for the Bible is that secular America has grown more ungodly. "We're now in a place described three times in the Bible where everyone did what was right in their own eyes," he says. "[They say,] 'I can choose my identity if I want.' ... So we now have 92 legally recognized identities in America. ... So I would say that it's not 'Where's God?' It's 'Where's God's people and why have they stopped studying His Word and why do they no longer believe what He said?' That's where America is right now. That's where the crossroads is." If you agree with Barton, I encourage you to speak up for what you know is right. Don't be afraid to take God at His Word and love the Bible the way early God-fearing American colonists did. The more God's people boldly embrace His truth, the more we can make a difference." -- Stephen Strang
Christians do not hold reverence for the word of God because the church and its alleged leaders do not. Do you honestly think people cannot see through this NAR ruse? Anyone who has taken entry level American history knows Barton is a liar and Strang is only serving his NAR masters. Do you think they cannot see the blatant hypocrisy of siding with one political party over the other when both are evil and carnal to their core? When people like Strang continue to propagate the false Christian narratives about the current president an confer righteousness upon evil do you think they forgot the key verse? Woe to you who call evil good! If you want a return to biblical thinking and reading then fix the church; not the world. Woe to you indeed.
Rev Anthony.
