Do ever find yourself wondering, “What is happening to our country?” The nightly news and morning newspaper are filled with horrific stories of mass shootings, mob violence, road rage, drug abuse, sideline rage, human trafficking, child abuse, and corruption. More often than not, politics is practiced in the gutter, and we seem to be witnessing the demise of the traditional family. If these things disturb you, join the crowd. There are a lot of us.
In our new book, Tragic Consequences: The Price America is Paying for Rejecting God and How to Reclaim Our Culture for Christ (available at faithfultext.com, Amazon, and all major booksellers and retailers) , my co-author, Oliver North, and I answer the question about what is happening to our country and why. What is happening to our country is simple to explain but sad to observe: We are seeing what a culture without Christ at its center looks like. It is a culture of darkness and depravity, a culture lacking in moral restraint, and a culture where life has little value. When a nation rejects God by pushing him out of our schools, government, and public square, the heartbreaking stories carried on nightly news programs are the inevitable result.
Do you feel helpless in the face of the cultural degradation seen all around you? If so your feelings are understandable. That is the bad news. The good news is you are not helpless, and far from it. There is much individual Christians and churches can do to reclaim the culture for Christ by faithfully, consistently, and persistently carrying out the Great Commission and the Greatest Commandment. Tragic Consequences offers specific strategies individual Christians and churches can employ to turn America from the path of destruction to the path of salvation.
Every day anti-God ideologues and organizations scheme to remove all vestiges of Christianity from a nation founded on Biblical principles and Christian values. Worse yet, they are making substantial progress. The more progress they make, the more America’s culture—a culture once centered on Christ—is characterized by sin. It is time for Christians to heed the admonishment in Matthew 28:19 to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This is the most important thing we can do to encourage a nationwide tidal wave of repentance that is the first step in reclaiming the culture for Christ.
We have reached a point in our nation’s history when Christians must stand up and be counted before it is too late. The coarsening of our culture is happening because Americans who reject God are using the courts and other avenues of attack to drive God out of our lives. Christians cannot justify sitting back and letting this happen. Believers who remain silent about cultural degradation and hedonism are complicit in the decline.
Silence in the face of evil is a sin. This is the message in James 4:17 where we read: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” If those of us who have given our hearts to Christ won’t stand up for him, who will? If those of us who profess Christianity won’t show our neighbors a better way, who will?
Our new book will equip you and your church to speak the truth in love to people whose actions or lack of action are contributing to the cultural darkness engulfing American society. A message repeated over and over in our book is this: Don’t condemn, but don’t condone. Rather, share the truth about the inevitable and predicable consequences of rejecting God and point unbelievers to Christ as the only way to illuminate the cultural darkness we find so disturbing.
©2022 David L. Goetsch and Oliver L. North (P)2022 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Dr. Goetsch is the author of Christian Women on the Job: Excelling at Work without Compromising Your Faith, Fidelis Books, an imprint of Post Hill Press and Christians on the Job: Winning at Work Without Compromising Your Faith, Salem Books, an imprint of Regnery Publishing, 2019: www.david-goetsch.com
