Contents
UnGodly War Intro
The UnGodly War on America is expected to be published and available for purchase in mid-June, 2008. Below is the introduction to the book and should give you a look at what the book is about and let you see the format. The book continues with dialectical conversations with God, encompasses flashback technique to tell stories of my past as it relates to questions I have for God, and gives Biblical backed answers to important, contemporary questions of religion and morality. It speaks from a Christian, Biblical worldview and is explicit in its' delivery of the problems our country faces.
Introduction
It’s autumn now, physically, spiritually and in reality. And I’m remembering things and contemplating meaningful events of long ago. I live on a bayou and have a dock just a few steps away from the front door to my apartment, and I watch over it to see the sun set in the evening. This is possible due to the fact that my two large windows face west. I think the builders must have planned it that way. The water is so still at times that it looks like a mirror, with the fire-bright red and yellow sunset reflecting off the water and fascinating me in my solitude.
Around dusk, dive-bombing pelicans invade the bayou, and I usually go outside with my binoculars to get a close-up view of the action and enjoy the evening breeze coming off the water. Solitude can be delicious as well as inspiring. Within my view, maybe 5 or 6 pelicans soar above the water, spy out a fish, and dive headfirst into the water for the daily bread in their lives, now followed by pesky seagulls trying to steal a bite from their mouths before they can swallow it. At these moments it is easy to look up to the heavens and thank God for his grace and reflect on life and the salvation available to those who love God.
My name is Vance, and I’m not writing this because I want to. I’m a Christian. (Sort of rough around the edges, but still a Christian.) I have a feeling that the writing of this book was preordained, but I’m not sure I really believe in that anyway. The idea of preordination has given me a problem in the past and continues to be a thorn in my theological side. It might just be one of the many options God makes available to me in the process of living my life and doing His will. It has now been almost two years since my wife died and I moved here, and my future was in question. I didn’t have a clue as to how I wanted to spend the rest of my life or what I wanted to do. Much of my life had been dedicated to the failure and disaster of same, and I know I don’t want to go back to that depressive existence. I have considered many things, but until recently had neither the energy, inclination, nor the motivation to do little more than dream.
My wife’s name was Stella and I miss her. I’ve been retired since her death, and have become accustomed to sleeping late whenever I wish and doing little more than the aforementioned dreaming, reading and praying for some little direction from God for my life. My reading habit has caused me to obtain a personal collection of books that has grown until I am quite impressed with it. At times I am also quite impressed with myself, and that is baffling to say the least, because I know me better than anybody else and I know there is nothing to be impressed about. God designed me the way I am, but there isn’t much to get excited about. Maybe it’s a false, self-image sort of thing, but I’m not sure. Ever since I read Joel Osteen’s new book, “Your Best Life Now,” I seem to be developing a healthier self-image, but that too is just a smile and a nod I share with God when I think about it.
When I said I was a rough Christian, I meant just that. If I’m becoming conformed to the image of Jesus, it’s being measured in inches rather than miles. I haven’t been growing in Christ as much as I want to. I’m sorry to admit that I’m still a part of this world and at times, have worldly, sinful thoughts and actions. I must say that God moves me to give more than I have in the past and to be concerned with others, such as starving children around the world, and neighbors in need, but I sometimes revert to my old ways and extol the benefits of cluster bombs when I see people gleefully dancing in the streets after the bombing and killing of Americans both at home and abroad. I’ve retreated to a position not unlike that of Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans where he finds that when he truly wants to do right, evil lies close at hand. And I don’t like it. This forgiveness stuff is hard and definitely not my first reaction to violence.
I’m trying to get a grip on this and am having some success, but it’s not coming easily. I am finding it easy to make excuses, though. So here I sit, contemplating my sedate lifestyle and comparing the sunset to my own diminishing life, and there comes a vision of God: and I can feel His presence in the silence and I watch with awe as he approaches me in a cloud; then fades away as his spirit seems to enter my body. And He speaks to me:
“Remember! Remember and gain understanding and renew your faith, and then write. It’s time for you to tell a story and continue My work. Some may listen and some may not, but whether they believe or refuse to believe, they will know that I am among you and that I am speaking also. Study My words and as you study and write, receive my blessing and say that I have spoken. When you hear a word from my mouth, you shall relay that message to others. When you relay my message of hope and love, you will also be giving a warning. But whether people listen, read, and come to believe or not, is not up to you, but to they that hear the message. In giving the message you have obtained a blessing in your own life. But for those who will not listen, they will discover that my wrath is not just a philosophical or theological exercise, but a real consequence of sin.”
And then He told me to rise up and go to my desk and begin my task, and I obeyed.
Well, I’m not Jonah! I don’t have his guts. That means I have no intention of taking off and catching a boat to parts unknown just to wind up in the belly of a leviathan. (Whale, to you. As in Moby Dick.) God has chased me up one hill and down the next for years, and I’m not running any more. Besides, I sort of like my apartment and the water and the pelican show in the evening. Mark it down to age.
Shades of Ezekiel! I’m sure a lot of folks will wonder at this introduction, but one thing I know for sure is that a revelation from God will not come to those who refuse to do His bidding. And God compels me to speak out against the lack of standards and the moral degeneration of our day. That sin brings suffering for both individuals and for nations is a divine law of the universe. And as spoke the prophets of the Old Testament, catastrophe is the inevitable consequence of an immoral, virtueless society.
Personal experience of a negative nature has taught me the truth of that statement as effects the individual - and it holds true for society as well. And to put it gently, America has mocked God. It is a fact that our culture in America has corrupted the moral standards that have been in place since the founding of our country, and because of this, I believe we are now in mortal peril. Secular humanism and unGodly activities have weakened us to the point that we have embraced false values that are not only accepted, but are being honored as though they were genuine. These false values have persuaded us that we have become wise and tolerant, but we seem totally unaware of the fact that we have, in fact, become perfect fools.
I have also come to realize, even if only partially, that the result of sin in my life has affected not only myself, but has reached out in ever-widening circles to affect family members and even people I have never known. And, dear reader, if I have experienced the consequences and judgment of God due to sin in my life, you are, and will continue to experience both in your lives. Even repentance doesn’t change that simple fact. The same holds true for each of us.
Fact: Those who reject God are by definition, unGodly. They are caught up in a world of sin, hatred, selfishness, and a spiritually unfulfilled and degraded life. And that unGodliness spreads like a virus throughout society. Do you think I’m exaggerating? Look around you. Take a close look at the division and belligerence in evidence in our nation. Check the courts for the large number of legal attacks against Christianity itself, brought on by the unGodly. There is a cultural war going on and unless the Christian community gets it together, we will lose the battle and lose our country as well.
Now, I have to tell you: While as previously stated, I am no Jonah, neither am I Moses! And I let God know it.
“God, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Take a look at my record; my past. Don’t you have it written down? Don’t you remember who I am? Let’s face it. I’m just not qualified. If it had been me that you asked to lead your people out of Egypt, they would have all drowned trying to hang onto reeds. For God’s sake, er . . . excuse me, Lord, I can’t even talk right!”
“Well,” God told me, “even Moses stuttered.”
“Yeah, well let me tell you, that don’t make me feel any better. Besides, like that guy Chris Baker says on the radio, I talk with a cancer kazoo. I sound like a glorified answering machine; a robotic voice that a lot of people find funny!” I frowned at the very thought of it.
“I understand you perfectly,” says God right back, “and I didn’t ask you to give a speech anyway. I said ‘Write’! And that’s what I expect you to do. I know that you have been giving a lot of thought to the subject and I want it on paper.”
“But God, I don’t know where to start.”
“What’s bothering you the most?” he asked.
“Seriously? Well, a lot of things, really. God, I guess that it is time we do this thing again. (Referring to my first book, ("The Book of Bird’). I don’t like the way things are going. I believe the world is going to hell in a hand-basket and you seem to be just sitting there on the sidelines. I’ve been an optimist for some time now, but that has begun to change. I have a bunch of questions and some complaints, and I need to give you a chance to answer them. I know that’s big of me, but what the heck, you deserve it.
My complaints are many. The United States has become a haven for terrorists, idiots, liberal antagonists, illegal aliens, and traitors. Personally, I’m not too thrilled with the throat cancer I got during the writing of the first book, and afterward, when they cut my throat open from ear to ear and removed my larynx (vocal cords). And I was more than upset with losing my wife to a debilitating disease; especially with all of the suffering she had to go through. But the last straw comes with the realization of the sick world my children and grandchildren will be living in with all of the rampant evil growing in the world, specifically in our own country, the United States.
The “Gay Marriage” agenda shows me that our society is not only changing for the worse, but may also be leading our country toward the same fate as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, it’s not difficult to see the judgment and consequences of sin already pouring out on our country. And some are not only accepting this lifestyle, but are actually supporting it as a normal, suitable choice.
We have a group of Congressmen now filing new legislation to add “sexual orientation” to anti-discrimination law covering federal employees. This has nothing to do with anti-discrimination, but is being used solely to normalize homosexuality. And who would have guessed it? Barney Frank (an openly gay Congressman) is leading the charge. If I remember correctly, isn’t he the guy that had his “Significant Other” running a homosexual prostitution ring out of his apartment? What ingenuity! What entrepreneurial insight! What a crock. Why would anybody want to hear his advice on anything? What’s he still doing in office?
Gay men are fighting to become Scoutmasters in the Boy Scouts of America and then call it discrimination when they are refused the position. Sure. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse because he says he is reformed and promises not to eat the chickens. Great idea. I can understand that. I shouldn’t mind if my grandkids have the opportunity to be educated and introduced to a deviant and perverse sexual lifestyle. There can’t be anything wrong with that since we have the Episcopal Church not only accepting, but promoting a gay minister to Bishop, even while he admits to having a continuous, illicit, sexual relationship with another man.
In a one-upmanship seldom matched, the Catholic Church has been able to turn the image of its priests, from wise men like Spencer Tracy in Boys Town to an image of homosexual and pedophile priests preying on our children. Hell, in the liberal bastion of Boston alone, John Geoghan, a now defrocked priest, was accused of more than 130 counts of molestation and the accusations began to pour in from all over the country. Liberals continue their assault on the church by taking over the admission authority of priests into the church and began to turn away, good, solid heterosexual men in favor of those with more “unorthodox” theology, lest the priests follow a more orthodox path and exhibit rigid and dysfunctional sexual morality. Gimme’ a break!
Besides, that stuff about the Bible condemning homosexuality is old news and just outdated anyway. Right?
And something as horrible as partial birth abortion? I don’t even want to get into it yet.
People oozing putrid rhetoric (like Michael Moore and Al Franken) are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to spouting lies and hatred, and I’m afraid this is only the beginning. Tom Daschl, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, and that moral icon, Ted Kennedy sounded little better with diatribes spewing forth, aimed at Republicans and especially, President Bush. According to Sean Hannity, these guys ‘have a disturbing habit of winking at evil – of ignoring it, or turning a blind eye to it. And in doing so, they put us all in jeopardy.’ The liberal’s diatribes (political hyperbole and outright lies) against our president are so vicious that they lack even the slightest hint of decency.
We have fundamentalist Islam trying to destroy us and mad bombers are blowing themselves up in an effort to kill Israelis, Americans and citizens of the western societies. Hatred accompanied by vicious behavior is everywhere. God, you’re losing the battle and it seems to me as if you aren’t even putting up much of a fight. Of course, when we see the headlines, such as “Suicide Bomber Blows Up School,” or “Airplane Hits Tower,” we can rest in the knowledge that all is relative and these bombers are really misunderstood freedom fighters and are only committing these terrorist acts in worship of their God, and besides, it is the United States that is at fault anyway, because of the way we dance, or how our women wear mini-skirts, or how we feel about the Middle East.
“Take a breath.” God said.
“Sure, okay,” I answered. “So when they kidnap and decapitate an innocent civilian, they are just worshipping Allah and obeying his word, the Koran. The same Koran, by the way, that the ACLU wants to force us to use in our judicial system so we can now begin to swear an oath on the Koran in our courtrooms. Of course, the Koran says that it is quite permissible to lie to infidels so I don’t know what good that will do and I’m trying to come up with a list of Founding Fathers that were named Muhammad, but it escapes me. Just imagine having a book that teaches hatred of Christians and Jews and the order to fight a holy war against them in order to exterminate or subjugate them, and to put this book on the same level with the same status as the Bible in America. This is the liberal’s politically correct solution to the destruction of our Christian Heritage. The ACLU should either take the word America out of its name or replace the whole name with Anti-Christian Litigation Unit. That fits a lot better.
And what intelligent, faithful Muslim wouldn’t want to achieve martyrdom status and have immediate access to those 72 (perpetual?) virgins in an afterlife thought up by their most brilliant theocrats. I wonder where they get all of these virgins from anyway., but this is beginning to sound very politically incorrect, so I’d better just shut up. Besides, everybody knows that paradise is for men only.”
“Are you about finished?” asked God.
“Not yet, Lord. I’m on a roll here. (I saw the glare God was giving me, but I ignored it.)
Wars are everywhere. We have more troops in foreign lands than we can count. And it’s not much better at home. Our service personnel serve out their time in a foreign land only to come home to die during a drive-by shooting on a street corner in their hometown. Hatred is causing the most heinous crimes of violence. Mothers and fathers are killing their own children by drowning them in bathtubs, stoning them to death; and we even have a guy putting his girlfriend’s kid in the oven. Home invasions and carjacking have murderous results.
We have a court system that excuses murder by focusing on the killer’s past difficulties rather than the crime and victims. And our most intelligent response is to pass a law against “Hate Crimes!” Great idea! As if there were reasons for violence other than hatred. Do these brilliant and politically correct lawmakers think that warts cause violent crime? When somebody drags a person to death behind a pickup truck, or rapes and kills a child, or robs a store and kills a clerk, do these lawmakers think these things happen out of love for their fellow man and turn into hatred only when the crime happens to a victim of minority status? Hate crime? Is there any other? Do we need another law because a young gay boy is hung out to dry on a fence post and dies from the beating inflicted? Isn’t a charge of 1st degree murder and the death penalty sufficient? Is it a hate crime for a black man to savagely hurl a brick into the face of a female Hispanic store clerk, as caught on a security camera at a convenience store in Houston, or does the fact that both are minorities eliminate the need for “Hate Crime” status?
It seems everybody has an agenda to promote. The Ten Commandments worked fine in America for over 200 years, but now we can add a “Hate Crime” law to the books and get rid of the old Ten Commandments altogether. This is the goal of idiotic secular humanists because the Ten Commandments are religious, you know. What a joke. And one egotistical, publicity-seeking, atheist attorney takes a case all the way to the Supreme Court to get the school to which his daughter goes to eliminate the words, “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. He forgets to mention that he does not have custody of the child, the child’s mother is a Christian and prefers the words to be included, and he never married the mother in the first place. The liberal media seldom mentions those little facts. It could be too distracting from their agenda of eliminating all reference to God in the public place. I saw this same guy, Michael Newdow, on a TV program sitting next to Ollie North, and I was hoping Ollie would just reach across and smack the guy.
We’re in the middle of a cultural war and the Christians are losing most of the battles. It sickens me to hear about artists becoming famous by draping Mary, the mother of Jesus, with elephant dung and surrounding her with photos of vaginas from porno magazines and other acts of desecration, while the Christians help pay for the funding of such trash with their taxes, and many ‘sans’ protest. The liberals in our society are killing off every vestige of right and wrong and we are becoming so used to it that we are sitting back and just allowing it to happen without a fight. And if we don’t act, we deserve what we get. If we allow the degenerate minority to dictate our laws and morality, we can just sit idly by and watch as our values are torn apart and the Christian community gets beaten up in the media and the courts.
Political correctness has become the excuse for bad behavior and like Pat Robertson says, the Ten Commandments have become the Ten Offenses. All this makes me deeply concerned for my grandchildren and I see no way out of this mess.”
Silence.
“Well, Lord, you asked what was bothering me. So what do we do, Lord?”
“Well, son, I realize how serious things are, and even though these
hings are not really news to me, since you are so concerned, there is something I want you to do.”
“What’s that, Lord?”
“Build a boat for yourself out of good timber . . .”