I'm not liberal, I'm a realist

I recently saw a picture that made my stomach turn. It was a picture of an American flag on a tank. This by it's self is not too scary. It shows a bit of over enthusiastic patriotism, but that's nothing new, and it's usually rather harmless. The thing that made my stomach turn was the main point of the picture. The sun was shining through the flag, and its rays reflected off the nylon weave to create the pattern of a cross. Here were 3 things that make most Americans feel warm and fuzzy inside; a flag, military heroes, and the cross of Christ.

Fact 1: the average American doesn't vote
Fact 2: the average American has never served in the military
Fact 3: the average American does not attend church on a regular basis

Here is a popular culture that mixes church and state on a level never seen before, and the really scary thing is they do it without thinking. I don't know if most of you realize this, but church and state are a lot like nitroglycerin and matches. Both serve a purpose, but combining them isn't smart. Historically speaking they tend to lead to theocratic dictatorships, not liberty and morality.

Fact 4: (why on earth am I numbering these?) The average American reads the Bible about once a year, maybe.

There’s a book in the back of the Bible that leads to a lot of confusion. Few people read it, and those that do don’t really understand it. Most of the people that think they know about it will talk about Armageddon, which really isn’t as big as you would think. The “battle” of Armageddon covers a grand total of 6 verses, and never really amounts to much. Essentially the kings of the earth get together and get struck down by plagues without accomplishing anything. And this is what we are planning our foreign policy on? Perhaps we should pay more attention to what it talks about earlier in the book; famines and plagues, wars and pestilence.

The nations were angry; and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead,
and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your saints and those who reverence your name,
both small and great—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth. –Revelation 11:18

This comes as oil production falls behind demand at an ever increasing pace, leading to a collapse of unsupportable suburban living. It comes as people lose immunity to epidemic diseases, simply because we haven't been exposed to them for 300 years. It comes as we lose the ability to live without our steady hydrocarbon stream. Humanity didn't suddenly get smarter around the late 1800's, they suddenly got oil. Genetically we are not above the people of medieval Europe who fell before the plague by the millions, though we are less farm savvy.

I join the very, very, very small group of Christians that take the Bible seriously.