Prayer and Courage will save us.

 J. B. Shurk has a post today, following onto yesterday's post, but puts the religious talk in more familiar terms.  The article is entitled Win With Wisdom.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued, "A man's character is his fate," by which he meant that we are all capable of shaping our futures. It is also true that a nation's character is its fate and that countries prosper or perish by their own hands.

Taking these two truths together, it is easy to look around today and lose hope about what lies ahead. Western civilization is in moral peril and spiritual decay. Increasingly authoritarian political leaders have abandoned Enlightenment principles recognizing the sanctity of individual rights and a social compact ensuring that legitimate government arises only from the "consent of the governed." Virtue is maligned, while sin is lauded. Constitutional protections and inherent freedoms are ignored. Manipulated language and propaganda supplant both meaning and the pursuit of truth. Surely, we are damned.

Please understand that when Shuk speaks of "chaos," "sin," and such words, he is speaking of the effects of the Evil One. We have been convinced by the Evil One that the Devil does not exist. But he does. Totalitarianism is a thing of the Devil. totalitarianism shuns God, because it sees itself as a god.

Totalitarianism demands absolute conformity with the ideology. It can not be from God, because God wants a relationship with us. Relationship requires a two way street. It requires freedom.  We have to want a relationship with Him. He wants it badly, but if we don't want it, he is quite willing to let us go our own way, which is straight to the Evil One and totalitarianism.

I will tell you now that the West will survive only if America survives, and America will survive only if enough Americans awaken to the real threat of encroaching totalitarianism quietly descending all around them. Speech codes, thought police, digital tracking, universal surveillance, political persecution, unrestricted government power — these are the calling cards of tyranny. Either Americans will wake up to the bitter reality that their lives and liberty are already on the line, or they will one day be woken up by the same jackbooted enforcers who always come knocking on the insufficiently indoctrinated's doors. In the space separating these two possible futures, there will be a moment — a spark, if you will — that will either catch fire in the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere or be extinguished before it takes hold. That moment will decide everything.

The question for anyone alive today is this: what will you do with that moment? Will you let it slip by because you have convinced yourself there is nothing to be done? Will you throw up your hands in despair at overwhelming odds? Will you hope that someone, somewhere does something in your stead? Or will you dig deep and armor your resolve with iron courage?

I say that for a large number of Americans, iron courage will take the day. I say this because deep down in Americans' souls is an indomitable yearning passed down from one generation to the next demanding to be free. It may lie dormant or even unknown to those who have yet felt it coursing through their veins, but there is an American spirit burbling just below the surface of polite society packed with feral energy and begging to be released. When Americans realize they're being trapped and prodded and backed against the wall, righteous anger will transform into unmitigated and unrelenting rage. The tormented will rise and finally have their say.

There it is again, that Christianity requires courage; even "iron courage." We must all face the possibility of death if we are to save ourselves and our posterity. What Shurk says is true: that this is a war of wills. But it is not a war where guns will save us. Still, we must have guns, but they will not save us. Prayer will save us, and courage that comes from sure convictions.