The Christian Betrayal of the United States

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© 2010 Carl Wells. All rights reserved.

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First published by AuthorHouse 10/15/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-5295-3 (sc)

ISBN: 9781463490591 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1.

Why Christians Have

Betrayed the United States

Chapter 2.

Christians Won’t Think,

and Refuse to Help Our

Neighbors to Think

Chapter 3.

Christians Have

Acquiesced in the Murder

of 50,000,000 People

Chapter 4.

Christians Have Worshiped

the False God Democracy

Chapter 5.

Christians Have Conspired

to Steal the Wealth

of Our Neighbors

Chapter 6.

Christians Have Lied to Our

Neighbors About God

Chapter 7.

Christians Have Destroyed

the Education System

of the United States

Chapter 8.

Christians Hold in Contempt

Knowledge, Learning, Reading,

Thinking, History, the Arts

Chapter 9.

Christians Have Failed

to Model Love in Family

Life and in the Church

Chapter 10.

Christians Have Refused

to Help the U. S. Find a

Wise Pattern for Our Laws

Chapter 11.

Christians Have Destroyed Countless

Lives Due to Our Acquiescence in the

Humanist Criminal Justice System

Chapter 12.

Christians Have Betrayed

the Black People of

the United States

Chapter 13.

Christians Have Killed

and Crippled Tens of

Thousands of U. S. Soldiers

Chapter 14.

Christians Have Given

the United States No

Hope for the Future

Appendix I.

A Final Word to Non-

Christians: Good News

and Bad News

Appendix II.

A Prayer for Forgiveness

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Other Books by the Author

For Gary North, with love, and with gratitude for his great contribution in helping the church to think biblically.

For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

1 Peter 4:17

Introduction

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

Luke 12:47-48

For every non-Christian in the United States.

Non-Christians, so the theory goes in Christian circles, are destroying the United States. Wherever Christians gather, we discuss what they are doing to us. Non-Christians are taxing us into the Stone Age, killing unborn children, pushing the homosexual agenda, and in countless ways refusing to acknowledge and obey God. They are bringing disaster on the United States.

There is a glimmer of truth to this theory, which makes it, for Christians, a plausible and acceptable explanation for what is happening to our country. Many non-Christians want extremely high taxes, they want to kill unborn children and indeed do so in large numbers, they do support the homosexual agenda, and they do refuse to acknowledge and obey God, in every area of life.

But there is a group of people who are infinitely more to blame for the problems of the United States. Islamic terrorists? No. No, the group most to blame for the problems of the United States is: American Christians.

It is the thesis of this book that American Christians have betrayed the United States, and have brought disaster on our country. The more honest and useful discussion would not be about what they are doing to us, but rather would be about what we Christians are doing to them.

By Christians, I mean people who truly have been supernaturally regenerated by the Holy Spirit, saved by the blood of the savior Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died on the cross so that His people might escape eternal separation from God, and these saved people therefore will be with God for an eternity of joy.

By Christians, I do not mean those countless professing Christians who are unregenerate, unconverted enemies of God—enemies who currently occupy most of the pews in U. S. churches. With a little help from my friends*, I estimate this unconverted mass of pseudo-Christians to be about 70% of the adults professing Christ. These pseudo-Christians, deceived and deceiving, represent a tragedy of epic proportions. They are a topic worthy of much prayer, worthy of a lifetime of study and action, and worthy of many books. This is not one of those books. These pseudo-Christians for whom Scripture is a rubber nose to be twisted into whatever shape pleases them, are enemies of God, and will have their own betrayal for which to answer, but they are not Christians (except as official members of Christian churches). For the purposes of this book, they have nothing to do with the price of tea in China.

No, the betrayers I am speaking of are truly converted, truly Christian people.

Their number is not small. The New York Public Library Desk Reference, fourth edition, reports the number of official Christians to be approximately 150,000,000. Seventy percent we can eliminate; they are pseudo-Christians. That still leaves 30%, or 45,000,000 people. Let’s throw out 15,000,000 as being children not yet bearing adult responsibilities. That leaves 30,000,000 adult Christians.

Obviously, only God knows the exact number of His own people in this country. Thirty million represents only a rough guess. Optimists may think 40,000,000 adult Christians a more reasonable figure. Pessimists (realists?) may think 20,000,000, or even 10,000,000, more likely.

The main point is, whatever the number is, it’s not small. Christians in some countries are a ragged band. They don’t have leisure for betraying their country. Christians in Indonesia, the Sudan, and numerous other countries, are focusing their efforts on staying alive. True Christians in the U. S., whatever their exact number might be, represent a very large number of people. Their options and their responsibilities are correspondingly large.

One point needs stressing. Assume, just for the sake of argument, that my criticisms of conservative, Bible-believing American Christianity, are basically correct. If they are correct, I believe most (perhaps even all) of them are obviously correct. These are not esoteric arguments accessible only to an intellectual elite. These are things that the ordinary honest thinking Christian should be able readily to understand. They are things that children of ordinary intelligence (or even a little below) will be able readily to understand. My level of insight is approximately like that of someone saying, Oh look, the sun is in the sky today! on a clear day. Thank you, Einstein, for that riveting lesson in natural science. If the things I say—assuming they are correct—seem unusual, it will only be so because we American Christians have been so dishonest about ourselves for so long. If there’s anything esoteric or brilliant in this book, it’s probably wrongheaded. The things that are true are obviously true. A few things that might not seem obviously true at the moment will seem obviously true upon the further reflection of a few weeks or months.

A word to anti-Christians

You have sensed, in your gut, that Christians—that is, fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians—were enemies to the United States. You have despised Christians. You were right.

This book will detail specific ways in which Christians have betrayed this nation. They may not be the specific ways you expected, but they are very real nonetheless. You are invited—urged—to use anything you find here as a hammer to crush the Christians. Look, even one of their number admits that the Christians have betrayed and are betraying the United States. Buy lots of copies to give to your friends who aren’t yet completely sure about the venal nature of American Christianity. Read this book and enjoy it. We owe you a tremendous debt—far more than we can ever repay. If you can enjoy a few hours reading about the behavior of Christians, I’m glad. Please consider it only the tiniest down payment on our enormous debt to you.

Full disclosure

I consider myself one of the 30,000,000 truly converted adult Christians in the U. S. I believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, His true communication to mankind. My only hope to escape the punishment I have earned by my behavior—which punishment would be exactly just according to the judgment of God, who is never unjust (Deut. 32:4, etc.)—is the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:11-12).

The foundation of everything I write is that the God of the Bible exists, and that the Bible is a supernatural communication from Him. If that presupposition is wrong, we can safely assume that every evaluation which I make about life, about good and evil, is also wrong. On the other hand, even if my presupposition is correct, I might still be making wrongheaded evaluations if I have failed to interpret the Bible correctly. But my presupposition is utterly central to everything I write.

I was converted in my mid-twenties. I’m 63 now.

I am going to say some very hard things about American Christians in this book. I don’t think I’m basically a grumpy man, or an intrinsically bitter man. I have come to believe the hard things about American Christianity, only slowly and gradually. With all the hard things I have come to believe, and which I will write about here, there is nothing I would rather be than an American Christian. I’ll leave the country when I’m thrown out. (That can be arranged, some may find themselves thinking.) Jesus Christ snaked me in out of the wet, to borrow Huck Finn’s phrase, when the wet was very wet indeed, and I am grateful.

It may not seem like it, through much of this book, but I know there is no better place to be, than the church. Earthly Christian fellowship, at its best, is a delicious foretaste of heaven.

The Bible tells us that Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Prov. 27:6). This book will attempt to inflict many wounds.

While I don’t think I am a grumpy person who can only complain about things, I readily admit that I am bitterly, corrosively disgusted by what American Christianity has done and is doing to our nation. It would be futile to pretend otherwise.

I also readily admit that I am a sinner too, and could point out many ways in which I have betrayed God and my nation by my behavior. My family, friends, acquaintances, fellow church members would all be able—probably, powerfully willing and eager—to provide numerous details which would make my sinfulness abundantly clear. The messenger may be a bit tattered. He could probably use a bath. Worse, he brings a terrible message. By all means, shoot the messenger, if necessary. But be very, very sure the terrible message is wrong, before you reject the message. Because I believe the message to be objectively true. That has sustained me as I write a book with a terrible message. I’m not going to let the fact that I am a very flawed Christian keep me from writing hard truths that I believe need to be faced honestly.

Despite all the hard and gloomy things I have to say about American Christianity, I see light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not necessarily a freight train. There may be a freight train or two, but after that there’s daylight. I am basically an optimistic person. If people understood exactly how optimistic I am, I might be institutionalized for my own safety and for that of others.

The basic outline of the book

Each chapter has an epigraph. Each chapter is dedicated to at least one person. At the end of each chapter there is a book list (usually brief) for those interested in further reading. I have tried to avoid book list duplication, but a few books are listed more than once, where they seemed to apply to the topic of more than one chapter.

Chapter 1 will explore the question of why American Christians have betrayed the United States. The why is crucial for us to understand.

Chapters 2 through 10 will discuss various specific ways in which American Christians have betrayed the United States.

Chapters 11 through 13 are three more specific ways in which American Christians have betrayed the United States, but if anybody reads the book, these three chapters may be controversial even among those people—if any such there be—who are in some sort of sympathy with what has come before. The three chapters come with warning labels.

Chapter 14 is yet another specific way in which U. S. Christians have betrayed their country. But it deals specifically with our vision of the future—hopefully a useful way both to end the book and to begin to think about the future.

It occurs to me that each of the betrayals represents a breaking of one or more of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17). I won’t stress this, and leave it to the reader to make the match up if he, she, or it feels led to do so. I will say that the arguments made in this book, if correct, suggest that Christians should have been worrying less about posting the Ten Commandments, and more about obeying them.

This is a very dark book. It is a depressing story. I have tried to lighten the darkness by ending each chapter with a section entitled Groping toward a solution. These sections will focus on practical ways in which the betrayal listed can be reversed. They are called Groping toward a solution because they are exactly that. I am groping. The reader may have better solutions. Write and tell me, and if I agree I’ll incorporate your ideas in the certain-to-be-demanded second edition, and give you the credit.

The presence of an asterisk indicates a footnote; footnotes are in the back of the book after Appendix II.

Appendix I is a final word to non-Christians, with good news and bad news.

Appendix II is a prayer.

Footnotes come next, followed by Acknowledgements, then a final segment on Other Books by the Author.

Chapter 1.

Why Christians Have

Betrayed the United States

But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

Matthew 15:18-19

For the God of the Bible: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We have betrayed the United States because our hearts are bad. We were told to Watch over your heart with all diligence,/For from it flow the springs of life (Prov. 4:23). We have not done so.

We were warned by Jesus Christ of the centrality of our heart attitude (see epigraph above).

We were told by Jesus Christ that the two great commandments were, ‘‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’ (Matt. 22:37-40).

We have not loved God with all our hearts. That is saying almost nothing, however. Virtually every Christian is at least intermittently aware of how difficult it is to love God as He deserves to be loved. But the point is, we have been content to love Him almost not at all. Loving Him very little, it is no surprise that we have also loved our neighbors even less. Hence our betrayal of our country.

We don’t really care about hurting God, and we don’t care about hurting our neighbors. I’ve got mine, Jack, just about sums up our attitude. I’m going to heaven because of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, and that’s good enough for me. I’m not going to waste a lot of time learning how to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind. I’m going to use that time doing important things like watching television, and upgrading my middle class lifestyle.

Christianity is a religion of the heart, as my former pastor Bill Roberts so often and so wisely said. Scripture confirms this truth over and over. God instructs us to love Him with all our heart.* Outward but grudging attention to His instructions is not loving God. God knows our sinfulness, and that we are not able to love Him as He deserves. But He also knows when we make an effort to begin to love Him better—and when we don’t. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise (Ps. 51:17). ‘But to this one I will look,/To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word’ (Isa. 66:2).

The only time we tremble at God’s word is when we contemplate the potential misery of reading His word. We avoid the misery by not reading it. Our Bible knowledge is abysmally bad, because we don’t even read the Bible. We don’t read the Bible because our hearts are bad. We don’t want to apply our hearts, souls, and minds to learning and obeying what His word teaches. That would take effort, perseverance—is far too much like work.

We have a cupboard love toward God, because He is saving us out of the suffering involved in eternal death. But when we are asked to demonstrate that love by actions—the agape love that Jesus Christ showed in dying on the cross for His enemies—we politely ask to be excused.

We’re like the husband who just loves his wife to pieces—verbally—but won’t take the trouble to take off his muddy shoes before he walks on the carpet, won’t stop strewing his clothes around the house, won’t take out the garbage, won’t do anything practical and useful that she requests.

We want all the benefits of a relationship with God, but few or none of the responsibilities. This heart attitude keeps us from growing in spiritual maturity. That’s fine with us, because we have little interest in growing in spiritual maturity. We want God to save us from hell and to put us in heaven (hopefully not too soon), we want to keep Missy from getting pregnant before she’s married and to keep Junior from being arrested for being drunk. Beyond that we have little to ask of God except for maybe perfect health, increasing amounts of wealth to spend on ourselves, and a life of exquisite comfort—all of which we consider our birthright anyway, and all of which is more or less expected by us.

Because we are self-absorbed, we have put the cart firmly in front of the horse. We have been instructed to seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness. If we do that, God will give us what we need (Matt. 6:31-33).

We haven’t sought God’s kingdom and His righteousness, but we have expected our blessings to go on without any intermission. Our minds are so dull that we haven’t even noticed that God is not a bland sugar daddy Santa Claus, and that our carelessness in loving and obeying God is keeping us from countless blessings, and is involving us (and our entire nation) in many chastisements. Our minds are dull because our hearts are cold.

We are similar to the church in Laodicea: ‘. . . you say, I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked’ (Rev. 3:17).

Moses warned us that our complacent self-absorption was a very real possibility.

Beware lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And it shall come about if you ever forget the LORD your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God. (Deut. 8:11-20)

Most of this passage reads like it was written by Fred Moses, Main Street, U. S. A., yesterday. We have forgotten the Lord our God by not keeping His commandments. In our wealth, our hearts have become proud, and we have forgotten the God who brought us out of slavery to sin. We have said in our hearts, My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth. We have not remembered that it was God who gave us the power to make wealth. We have forgotten God, and mix our worship of Him with the worship of many false gods such as wealth, democracy, comfort, respectability. We are in danger of causing biblical Christianity to perish from the land because we would not listen to the voice of our God.

The truth is, we have been corrupted by wealth, by ease. It was our duty, privilege, and vast opportunity to transform the United States into a nation pleasing in God’s sight. Instead it was we who were transformed by our environment. Instead of we Christians setting an example to the pagans surrounding us, they have set the example for us. If they fornicate, we learn to fornicate. If they divorce, we learn to divorce. If they treat civil government like an opportunity legally to gain our neighbor’s property, we learn to do the same. If their men poke holes in their ears and stick earrings in there, our men learn to do the same. Instead of being salt and light to a thoughtless and perishing people, we are salt without savor, and darkness.

I am talking about, remember, true Christians. Which means that, for all our disgusting betrayal of Him and of our nation, God loves us and is willing to forgive us. ‘‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent’’ (Rev. 3:19). The Laodicean church was generously invited to repent! So are we.

Because we are cold of heart, we have been dull of mind to see that God is reproving and disciplining us greatly even now. It is excruciatingly painful to see our dullness. We have been handed a very easy connect-the-dot puzzle suitable to the intellect of a three-year-old child, but we are too dull to connect the dots. Worse