“Americans have no appetite for war.” Used currently to describe the public sentiment about the conflict in the Middle East, that reflection underlies a deep desire to live in peace, on all fronts. What are the chances of that happening?

            There are two ongoing wars festering within the American cauldron that have little to do with the effort to quell nuclear ambitions in Iran. Allow me to speak into those two battlefields while shining some light on the strategies currently in play by the enemies who are out to defeat us.

            Here’s the Executive Summary: will we allow the opposing forces to advance in their effort to attack and destroy America, and the Kingdom of God?

            When someone buys a home in your neighborhood, the future can unfold in radically different ways. Some will move-in and meet their next-doors with a desire to fit into their new community. Others will binge-watch HGTV and become frequent flyers at Home Depot, intent on doing a significant facelift. The exception will be the insensitive who hire the wrecking crew to begin their tear-down-and-rebuild effort that will change the block without concern for the locals.

            Growing up in America, we lived through “The Cold War,” as the western countries worked to defeat the threat of global communism. Today, “socialism” – the gateway drug that leads to communism – is on the ballot in the ’26 mid-terms. Their agenda is not suspected; it’s headlined: tear down the structural framework whose blueprint is the Constitution of the United States and replace it with their own radical and progressive alternative. Look at New York City to see their test-lab for tomorrow.

            New citizens – who come into America in accordance with immigration policy – must declare their Oath of Allegiance to the USA. It’s a concise declaration of commitment (see it here) that includes this phrase: “I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” Apparently, people running for Congress in America do not have to express the same loyalty to our system of government.

            My view: if you don’t like who we are – constitutionally – there are other places you can choose to live. In America, we’ve agreed to our way of life: love it or leave it. No one is making you stay…

            The same battle is underway in the Church in America. As the Constitution is no longer the shared foundation for life in the American neighborhood, the Bible is no longer the accepted non-negotiable standard for someone to appropriately declare themselves to be “Christian.”

            Paul saw this time coming when he wrote to Timothy, as a church leader: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4). Is the Bible still the gold standard?

            Chuck Colson said it well: “The Bible: banned, burned, beloved. More widely read, more frequently attacked than any other book in history. Generations of intellectuals have attempted to discredit it; dictators of every age have outlawed it and executed those who read it. Yet soldiers carry it into battle believing it more powerful than their weapons. Fragments of it smuggled into solitary prison cells have transformed ruthless killers into gentle saints.”

            In America: the Constitution is the final word. In the Church: the Bible is the final word. Today’s classrooms are producing graduates who are Constitution-clueless; too many of today’s churches are producing attendees who are Bible-clueless.

            Will we allow the clueless among us to move into the neighborhood with an express intent to tear it down and rebuild to suit themselves, without standing our ground to protect who we are?

 — Bob Shank