Sacred Rebellion
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Sacred Rebellion Evangelicals’ corrupting influence in Spirituality – Society – Culture – Politics – Economics With a view on how the Columbine Massacre was an evangelical disaster in the making. My next book to be released: Evangelical Decadence Theme: How mistaken theologies among us create an evangelical idol god that yields spiritual apathy, immorality, and false security; and how this also contributes to our godless youth. Copyright © 2012 by Jearell C. Kelley PO. Box 63901 Colorado Springs, CO 80962 Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain.) Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International ® ® Version , NIV . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, IncTM. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Copyright © 2001 James Davison Hunter. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group. 2 Dedication This work is dedicated to all families who lost a child in a violent senseless crime. There are many Christians who believe in a divine blueprint plan such that all things that happened are of God’s design. This author, while a Christian, does not believe this. We live in a fallen world that is in rebellion against God and God’s agenda. The crimes against these unfortunate families could happen to anyone. I pray this work does not cause pain to them who have suffered so much already. Instead, this work is dedicated to the task that their children will not have died in vain. However, the fact remains that we are all guilty in God’s sight and are thus venerable of hurting each other either directly or indirectly by our ignorance and apathies. Jearell C. Kelley September 26, 2010 3 “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. ‘Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.’ ” Hosea 4:6 (NIV) 715-710 B.C. “The same was true in education and the fine arts. Now, however, these fields of study and practice have been taken over by humanists, and the great tragedy is that Christians, by their indifference, have acquiesced in this Satanic takeover.” Dr. Henry M. Morris The Remarkable Record of Job, page 100 4 Table of Contents Dedication ……………………………………………………………………. 3 Preface …………………………………………………………. 6 Acknowledgments ……………….…………………………..….. 7 Chapter 1: Introduction to VOID ….…………………………………….... 9 Chapter 2: The Class of the Secret Agenda ...……………………………. 28 Chapter 3: Political Pressures, Prophets, and Public Spirituality ……… 58 Chapter 4: Profound Secondary Effects of Humanistic Education and the Cry of God’s Heart ..…………………………………. 88 Chapter 5: Values in Vacuum in Vain …………………………………… 103 Chapter 6: Evangelical Mistakes …………………………………………. 133 Chapter 7: Misleading Sound Bite Theologies …………………………… 159 Chapter 8: Easy Evangelicalism and Their Coming Judgment …………. 175 Chapter 9: Our Future Society ………………….………………………… 206 Chapter 10: Options and Strategies..………………………………………. 224 Appendix A) School Violence ……………………………………………………… 241 B) Public School Sex Abuse ……………………………………………. 248 C) The Columbine God Question – Why It’s Debated and the Ramifications …… 248 D) Loss of Christian Liberties .………………………………………... 256 References ………………………………………………………………….... 261 5 Preface Does it matter if evangelical children reject the faith, the culture is unashamedly decadent, and public policy is anti-Christian? These are the signs of our times and a common cause for all this exists that many evangelicals ignore. I accepted Christ in the second grade but could have been an atheist in the sixth. My parents never knew. The Church is still apathetic to the state’s promotion of secular religion. What held me in the traditional faith was God’s grace through a different source. It was not the institutional Church. Readers should be warned. If they take pride in our past efforts of protest against humanistic influences in public schools, or focus on the godless decisions of liberal judges, or specialize alone in the nurturing ministries to the poor and social outcasts, they are likely to blame others for social decadence. The purpose of this book is to point evangelicals back to the many prophetic voices and wise men they are ignoring—voices (authors) that clearly show how we, with God’s help, could be much more effective in reaching our world for Christ, as well as a preserving element in society. Yes! A significant single strategy exists to reverse our society’s decadence! Evangelical apathy exists today for multiple reasons. In fact, Jesus gave multiple reasons why the ungodly could be more effective than the godly. “For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” Luke 16:8b KJV “...the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.” Matthew 13:22 KJV “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:” Matthew 23:34 KJV We do not kill prophets and wise men today. We kill their message. We simply do not read their books. This too explains why the children of this world are wiser than the children of light. We are either too busy, believe other organizations are meeting the need, or focused on the nurturing ministries alone. We are creatures of traditions and habits and thus mistakenly believe we are fully pleasing God. This is our sacred rebellion. The result is as Hosea was inspired to write many years ago…by ignorance of God’s knowledge our children suffer (My paraphrase of Hosea 4:6). Life can be very busy and demanding. Yet, our spirituality is reflected in our priorities. This book is an attempt to condense these god-sent, forgotten, and ignored voices, many of which are evangelical, into one book. God has already provided solutions if we could listen, learn, and obey. Abortion, marriage, economics, liberal courts, and other issues evangelicals deeply care about could be positively affected for Christ by focusing on one main issue. In other words, our children’s future could be significantly better. How can this be if we are living in the last days? Answering this question involves a willingness to honestly evaluate our spirituality. We are living in the last days accelerated and our apathies have been the catalyst to this acceleration. When the Church becomes non-responsive to society, the affect is the same as a society without the Church after Christ takes His bride home. 6 Acknowledgments For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Apostle Paul - Romans 14:7 (KJV) Today we would say… No man is an island to himself. For a moment this seems like a contradiction for those that have buried themselves with books, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, notes, and research from others. Even for these isolated individuals, there comes a time to emerge from their cocoon and begin to share what was learned. When this happens the learning for the new butterfly does not stop. There is the whole world of personal responses to the new ideas to explore. This is also true for any new author, and it happens through the sharing and evaluation of ideas. For this, I am indebted to those who have provided their thoughtful feedback and valuable assistance. Adrienne Martin and Tammie Kuhn are professional proofreaders. Their attention to detail and critical evaluation was greatly appreciated. Any errors that remain are due to the fact, the target kept moving and they were not privileged to shoot at the final version. Renee Gray-Wilburn was another critical evaluator. I’m pleased she forced me to rethink my approach on a few points. I’m not confident I met her goal. I’m most thankful Erin Shepard was able and available to apply her artistic skills in displaying this book’s primary theme in its cover design. Dr. Mark Hartwig was another example of selfless giving while he struggled with serious health issues. I am thankful for his friendship, advice, and encouragement. I am also indebted to those willing to share resources: Cindy Caruso of NavPress for granting permission to borrow a major quote from J.P. Moreland’s book, Love Your God With All Your Mind. Chuck Asay’s Media Scrutiny, Wayne Stayskal’s public school detectors for guns, knives, and religious materials, along with Michael Ramirez’s Forum on School Violence plus other illustrations describe segments of our society succinctly. Each is a picture worth a thousand words. I am grateful to them as supporting references of social events that others fail to see in real life. Their artistic gifts will be rewarded. Thanks to Basic Books to quote extensively from James Davison Hunter’s The Death of Character – Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil. Thanks to David C. Cook for approval to quote Larry Fowler, Raising a Modern-Day Joseph: A Timeless Strategy for Growing Great Kids (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2009), pages 28-30. It should be carefully noted that no implied concurrence to this thesis should be assumed to be associated with any individual or organization listed above. 7 Lastly, I’m thankful for an understanding wife and family. Their willingness to share me with the passion that drove me should be rewarded. Hopefully, for their sacrifice, Christians everywhere will take advantage of opportunities that have always existed but are commonly ignored. These significant opportunities could cause many to be much more receptive of accepting Jesus the Christ as the incarnate resurrected Son of the living God, if only evangelicals could wake up from their carnality, repent, and put into action the cry of God’s heart.