Dan Popp
What would a renewed America look like?
By Dan Popp
He says, "We'll walk right through heaven's door
And proudly raise our heads"
I say, "Man you must be dreaming;
Our hands are covered blood red." – Michael Been "Blood Red (America)"
I've been captivated by a thought sparked by the recent essay Yes, America can still be saved by RenewAmerica columnist Peter Lemiska. My purpose is not to challenge anything Mr. Lemiska wrote; instead I'd like to ask, "What if?"
His article responded to a piece by barbarian Paul Krugman which I would describe as an infantile screed. (Krugman doesn't seem to be aware, for example, that the Electoral College picks our Presidents.) What is Krugman's vision for a non-lost America? He doesn't say. But he feeds us clichés and overwrought adjectives: "And even if voters rise up effectively against the awful people currently in power, we'll be a long way from restoring basic American values." Unless Karl Marx was magically deemed an American while I was asleep, there are no American values, no matter how basic, in Paul Krugman's head. Krugman's view of national salvation would be a full-on socialist utopia, complete with mass murder. Maybe the national anthem would be "Back in the USSR." Krugman's ideal America would be yet another horrifying Marxist hell-hole.
So what would a truly rescued, saved, renewed America look like? I'm not using the word "saved" in the biblical sense, that of an individual rescued from sin and eternal punishment. I merely mean an America snatched from the rocks of self-destruction. It would be an America returned to "basic American" principles (not "values"), which are the principles common to every civilized (not leftist) society.
Having said that, I can't imagine America being saved, in any sense, without a tidal wave of national repentance. Could we ever say, "Catastrophe has been averted, the United States is restored...stop by your nearest abortuary and celebrate!?" There's no conceivable economic salvation or social salvation or even political salvation without an admission that we've been doing things wrong, very wrong, for a long time. But again, I'm not talking about every inhabitant of the country becoming a born-again Christian. I'm talking mainly about the Christians rising up and acting like Christians, and so affecting the rest of the culture that the corruption is arrested, and the tide is turned.
What I'm imagining isn't a pipe dream; it's happened before. The Great Awakening was such a spiritual renewal. The Second Great Awakening was another. During these brief periods, it was said that the bars and jails were emptied, and the churches were filled. The first Great Awakening occurred in the mid-1700s. Historians seem to agree that the Awakening loosened the ties of colonists to the English church, and therefore to the British crown. It's hard to envision taking up arms against an entity you need for your eternal well being. But after the Awakening, faith was seen in more personal terms, and the Church of England wasn't the only one in town.
The Second Great Awakening was poured out on America toward the beginning of the 1800s. And again, within a generation, we were at war – the bloody Civil War.
If God were to bless America with a Third Great Awakening, it would have to be greater than the first two. It would have to be wider and deeper. This is what I'm saying is necessary for the salvation – the aversion of destruction – of America. It would be a return to God and to righteousness such as Paul Krugman has never imagined in his most fevered nightmares. And we would be poor students of God's lessons indeed not to expect that a Third Great Awakening would bring war within a generation. This third revolutionary/civil war would fragment the country. But at least one of those fragments could hold the remnant that Scripture talks about.
Now, please don't worry about any of this happening. I don't see any signs that God is granting America repentance that would lead to another Awakening. But if that grace were to be given to us one more time, it would look to most people like loss, failure, and national death.
So what would non-salvation look like? I think it looks like the opposite. Stock market flush (with fake money), everyone employed (though tens of millions are still on the dole), happy days here again – except for a few little problems hardly worth mentioning like societal rebellion against God, drug epidemics, destruction of the family, poisoning of science, government lawlessness, brainwashing of children, holocaust of the unborn, war on objective reality, and obliteration of all distinctions except the ones like race that don't matter. Etc.
It might look like one hellacious party.
© Dan Popp
January 13, 2018
He says, "We'll walk right through heaven's door
And proudly raise our heads"
I say, "Man you must be dreaming;
Our hands are covered blood red." – Michael Been "Blood Red (America)"
I've been captivated by a thought sparked by the recent essay Yes, America can still be saved by RenewAmerica columnist Peter Lemiska. My purpose is not to challenge anything Mr. Lemiska wrote; instead I'd like to ask, "What if?"
His article responded to a piece by barbarian Paul Krugman which I would describe as an infantile screed. (Krugman doesn't seem to be aware, for example, that the Electoral College picks our Presidents.) What is Krugman's vision for a non-lost America? He doesn't say. But he feeds us clichés and overwrought adjectives: "And even if voters rise up effectively against the awful people currently in power, we'll be a long way from restoring basic American values." Unless Karl Marx was magically deemed an American while I was asleep, there are no American values, no matter how basic, in Paul Krugman's head. Krugman's view of national salvation would be a full-on socialist utopia, complete with mass murder. Maybe the national anthem would be "Back in the USSR." Krugman's ideal America would be yet another horrifying Marxist hell-hole.
So what would a truly rescued, saved, renewed America look like? I'm not using the word "saved" in the biblical sense, that of an individual rescued from sin and eternal punishment. I merely mean an America snatched from the rocks of self-destruction. It would be an America returned to "basic American" principles (not "values"), which are the principles common to every civilized (not leftist) society.
Having said that, I can't imagine America being saved, in any sense, without a tidal wave of national repentance. Could we ever say, "Catastrophe has been averted, the United States is restored...stop by your nearest abortuary and celebrate!?" There's no conceivable economic salvation or social salvation or even political salvation without an admission that we've been doing things wrong, very wrong, for a long time. But again, I'm not talking about every inhabitant of the country becoming a born-again Christian. I'm talking mainly about the Christians rising up and acting like Christians, and so affecting the rest of the culture that the corruption is arrested, and the tide is turned.
What I'm imagining isn't a pipe dream; it's happened before. The Great Awakening was such a spiritual renewal. The Second Great Awakening was another. During these brief periods, it was said that the bars and jails were emptied, and the churches were filled. The first Great Awakening occurred in the mid-1700s. Historians seem to agree that the Awakening loosened the ties of colonists to the English church, and therefore to the British crown. It's hard to envision taking up arms against an entity you need for your eternal well being. But after the Awakening, faith was seen in more personal terms, and the Church of England wasn't the only one in town.
The Second Great Awakening was poured out on America toward the beginning of the 1800s. And again, within a generation, we were at war – the bloody Civil War.
If God were to bless America with a Third Great Awakening, it would have to be greater than the first two. It would have to be wider and deeper. This is what I'm saying is necessary for the salvation – the aversion of destruction – of America. It would be a return to God and to righteousness such as Paul Krugman has never imagined in his most fevered nightmares. And we would be poor students of God's lessons indeed not to expect that a Third Great Awakening would bring war within a generation. This third revolutionary/civil war would fragment the country. But at least one of those fragments could hold the remnant that Scripture talks about.
Now, please don't worry about any of this happening. I don't see any signs that God is granting America repentance that would lead to another Awakening. But if that grace were to be given to us one more time, it would look to most people like loss, failure, and national death.
So what would non-salvation look like? I think it looks like the opposite. Stock market flush (with fake money), everyone employed (though tens of millions are still on the dole), happy days here again – except for a few little problems hardly worth mentioning like societal rebellion against God, drug epidemics, destruction of the family, poisoning of science, government lawlessness, brainwashing of children, holocaust of the unborn, war on objective reality, and obliteration of all distinctions except the ones like race that don't matter. Etc.
It might look like one hellacious party.
© Dan Popp
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
