Let’s dream a little. Imagine, if you will, that our nation begins a dramatic shift toward righteousness in 2023. There is nationwide repentance and a renewed commitment to Christ among His people. Human dignity becomes more than a slogan. The unborn are welcomed into life, racial and ethnic injustice is curtailed, marriage is recognized for what God intended it to be, and religious liberty is acknowledged as the cornerstone of all freedoms.
Government supports religious liberty. Families grow strong and healthy. Economic opportunity and sound fiscal policy join to create widening prosperity. We remedy the drug crisis and criminal violence becomes the extreme exception to a socially peaceful norm.
Now, ask yourself this: Will such a place ever exist? And, if it does, will sin vanish? Will human nature, fallen and, as the prophet Jeremiah described it, “desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9), become sweet and full of light? And will the vision of America we have just considered be permanent?
The answer is that such imagine things are merely a dream. This thought-experiment is not intended to deflate hopes for a better nation. We should work and pray to advance those things that reflect God’s desire for America and the world.
Yet
we are mistaken if we think there will ever be a final resolution to the
problems we face or that the contentions of our time will one day be only a
distant memory.
Human evil is to life in this world what water is to a sponge. It permeates all facets of our beings individually and collectively. This does not mean that everything is sordid and wicked. There is much good to celebrate in many areas of life.
And as followers of the Savior, we have a deep obligation to stand for those things He most values — the sacredness of human life and the justice and liberty that are each person’s God-ordained due. This means ongoing, persistent engagement with all spheres of public life.
However, we cannot forget that sin is both distortive and enduring. It promises and seduces, lying the whole time and turning good gifts into broken ones. For example, sexual intimacy is a great gift. In the context of the covenantal union of one man and one woman, it enables two to become one and provides new generations of God’s image-bearers. Yet from abortion to pornography to sexual abuse and more, what God planned for good man uses for selfishness and harm. And therefore, we have come to live in the society that we have personally created for ourselves.
On
a national scale, America’s great promise can and should be better realized,
but perfection this side of heaven will never be our lot. Moreover, a
culturally friendly Christianity should never be equated with godliness. Even
if the United States were to embrace expressions of orthodox faith and if our
cultural institutions — the media, the entertainment industry, public
education, the business world, etc. — jettisoned their current allegiance to
moral relativism and radical sexual autonomy, sin would remain observant and
eager, ready to pounce in ways small and large.
Our goal is not an America that will never be. Nor can it be only a society where we feel at ease and unthreatened, luxuriating in the friendliness of our cultural surroundings. Such a place is inherently deceptive. It urges us to forget the crouching presence of sin and softens the sense of urgency compelled by the gospel.
But, nevertheless, we press on, preserving what little remains in the form of righteousness and goodness, always remembering with the writer of the Book of Hebrews that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (13:14).
For
the sake of that city and its King, let’s move into 2023 with humble confidence
in His eternal victory and a keen sense of our temporal duty to be His
instruments here on earth.
