A child’s game of we win and you lose has become the standard of good governance. No just person creates a narrative to make the same point for every defence and expect respect. Preachers do it and it gets amens. Christians are not taken in by cleverly designed political or religious talking points. Who gets these loose cannons?

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

2 Peter 1:16

This is Peter’s affirmation of the gospel over the traditional narratives which have no eternal outcomes. The usual defence of faith in Peter’s experience was not based on glory and virtue but law and personal performance. Peter had a contrasting message of divine power and promises as the operational elements.  It was not law and prophets that brought revelation and redemption, and no argument, long or short, can turn law and prophets into functional components of eternal salvation. Christ calls them all thieves and robbers.

The boom from infancy

The church was young when a fabulous talking point was introduced. The attempt to circumcise people turning to Christ and compel them to observe Mosaic tradition failed, and the church has ever since been drifting into the same rejected and one-way lanes. We reject circumcision but we keep grounding morality in the same eclipsed law and by adopting symbols of Jewish life and by building concepts even from the planks in a wide range of political views.

Patriotism – reverence for flag and country – turns out to be abominable foundation for a healthy society because it is idolatrous. Nationalism is a shallow pool in which many are swimming. No talking point can ever bring Christ and any secular power into an intimate partnership. The kings of the earth are all in Herod’s image. They oppose the virtue and interests of the Saviour of the world even though at times there seems to be mutual aspirations and methods.

3. According as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue: 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these all of you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

2 Peter 1:3-4

The freedom that Peter’s generation claimed was a hollow shell. The bondage that followed them around could not be denied, yet they proclaimed that they had never been in slavery. They boasted about the perpetual condemnation of the law as if it was a key that opened prisons. The law is not a document arising from free choice and it is not a document that makes men free moral agents.

Repeat until they think it is true

We have escaped.   Real freedom and real life come from Christ. His gifts are not loans or trials. We do not have to prove anything to anyone.  God has taken charge of his work, and the mystery of salvation is unfolding just as it should with no real help from anyone. Salvation is of the Lord. The lies we have told ourselves are coming out to haunt ua. The hateful policies of the GOP and the shallow sloganism of the evangelical church are out in plain sight with the sudden recognition that words matter. 

Our best words are chiseled and dangerous slogans. The cannons of the truth warriors are sounding like popcorn. They do not have the distinct certain sound of good news.

• die and go to heaven
• once saved always saved
• perfect obedience to all God has said
• walking in victory
• love is a thing we do
• God is love is commandment-keeping
• Grace and faith save us
• Grace, faith and works save us
• The new covenant is identical to the old

There is no national repentance coming. 2 Chronicles 7 is a fake revival model. People have been justifying lying, rape and abuse for so long that now the cannons are firing blanks. So little of what they say has a straight line to the death, burial and resurrection of Yeshua we wish they did not want to talk. So little of what the sworn officers of state say stands the test of fact and constitution we know that many are unaware of their perjured condition. Let them pop away. Ear plugs anyone?