Is the American Church in Trouble?

                Is the Christian religion in trouble in the United States today? I personally believe that it is. I believe that Christians will continue to be persecuted here in this land of freedom because our people have turned from the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ. I am not alone in my beliefs that Christians are in trouble.

                Pastor Michael Harrington in Hood River, Oregon, believes it so strongly that he put up this message on the billboard for his church:  “Wake up Christians. Allah is not our God. Muhammad [is] not greater than Jesus.” As if that message was not clear enough, he added this one:  “Only the Bible is God’s word. `Holy book.’ Koran is just another book.” 

                Pastor Harrington’s billboard caused shock, dismay, offense, and opposition in his community. While I believe his message to be the truth, I believe he could have put it in kinder words such as:  “Jesus Christ is our God. The Bible is His `Holy Book.’”

                Radio host and conservative commentator Steve Deace also agrees with me. He believes our nation is “screwed” because Donald Trump appears to be the Republican’s choice for President. Mr. Deace believes the media is supporting Trump in order to use him “to denigrate Christians and conservatives. The [media’s] goal of elevating Trump has not just been ratings. For decades, the left and the media … have been looking for a straw man to brand the rest of us with. He’s the perfect douche bag for the job, and he even volunteers for it.” 

                The plan seems to be to make evangelicals look bad. “The goal is to brandish Christianity and conservatism with the negatives of Trump. That is the goal and that’s the endgame if they get him the nomination.”

                Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, claims that our belief that America is a Christian nation is false. He admitted that most Americans profess to be Christians, but he does not believe that God made a covenant to bless the United States of America.

                Dr. Thomas S. Kidd, a history professor and the associate director of Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, agrees, saying that Mr. Moore “gets this exactly right.” 

                “We need to ask, what do people mean by a `Christian nation’?  If you could have done a public survey in 1776, the vast majority of white Americans would have professed to be Christians. … Christian (or at least theistic) assumptions about creation, equality, and human nature undergirded the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. … But the idea that God made a special covenant relationship with America, like he did with Israel in the Hebrew Bible, has no scriptural or historical basis.”

                Dr. Kidd is wrong in his statement about “no scriptural or historical basis” for believing God made a covenant with the inhabitants of this land. The Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ contains histories for two great nations who came to this land and perished because they forgot their covenant with God. This covenant is found in many places in the Book of Mormon, beginning in the second chapter of the book.

                “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands” (1 Nephi 2:20). The next reference is two chapters further:  “… I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that:  Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise” (1 Nephi 4:14) (emphasis added). This same promise is repeated at least seven more times in the Book of Mormon.

                In our time – and after the United States of America was established as an independent nation – the Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith to “importune for redress, and redemption … According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles….

                “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77, 80; emphasis added).

                The God of this land, even Jesus Christ, did make a covenant with the United States of America, and that covenant is the Constitution. This Supreme Law of our land is sacred and must be preserved for the benefit of all human life. This means that our nation is definitely a Christian nation and America will prosper only as long as We The People worship Jesus Christ!