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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Dear Friend, We're witnessing a growing polarization in America - sometimes labeled 'The Culture Wars.' This conflict has very strongly shaped what we now know as the Democratic Party. The God Gap & Washington Word for the Month & for Thursday, Nov. 1 Scripture: Lights To The World See Message: Joshua 24:15 First, the point of this is not political. There are Democrats who love God and Republicans who don't. No party or candidate is the answer. The answer is God. And the means is the Gospel. But the Gospel touches every realm of life and we cannot ignore a growing phenomenon taking place in the political realm of our day. There has always been a divide between the two major American political parties. But it has never been so dramatically drawn along biblical lines. When Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for the presidency accepted his party's nomination in the mid-1950s, he spoke of his party as the party of "reverence for life" and the belief in the relationship of God to every human being. He called for America to reclaim its "Christian values." Fast forward to the Democratic Convention of 2012, a party that removed the mention of God from its platform. When the move was discovered and the party under pressure sought to reinstate it, along with Jerusalem as Israel's capital - about half of the convention loudly booed the proposal. The Democratic Party has dramatically changed from what it was at mid-century. At that time it was opposed to abortion. It had no problem with prayer in school. And the idea of redefining marriage to mean homosexual union would have been so abhorrent and unimaginable that no one in the party would have taken it seriously. But in the 2012 convention one of the most repeated and most loudly cheered positions was that of supporting abortion. And for the first time in American history, a president and his party have endorsed the redefinition of marriage to include gay marriage. It is called the "God Gap." Statistics bear it out. If you don't go to church regularly, if you wouldn't be considered religious, you are statistically more likely than not to be a Democrat. If you're an atheist, you're more likely to be a Democrat. And if you're not in favor of Israel, you're more likely than not to be a Democrat. This "God Gap" crystallized in the late 1970s and early 1980s with evangelical Christians reentering the political realm in mass numbers -and as the Republican Party embraced them, while the Democratic Party increasingly embraced those who opposed them. This divide has only increased with time, to the point where the very mention of God could actually be booed at a Democratic Convention. The "God Gap" represents the increasingly polarized nature of American culture. At the same time, pollsters and statisticians tell us that demographic changes in the nation are leaning heavily toward the Democrats. If that is true, and not reversed with revival, it will likely mean that the "God Gap" will not merely be a Democratic phenomenon but a national phenomenon and that hostility to God will increasingly become a new American value.This month, pray for the future of this nation and do everything you can to be a light and spread the Gospel of salvation to the lost and perishing. Your brother and co-laborer, in His love and service, Jonathan