Stan Moody:
It began in earnest in the postwar 1950s, a time when evangelism became a global industry. It seemed that we were forever on the cusp of a new wave of revival, with evangelists popping up weekly. I was a kid in high school, dragging along a history of growing up in an evangelical cult in which the measure of one’s standing with God was the ability to restrain from participation in a handful of carefully selected pleasures, among which were movies, roller skating, dancing “square” or otherwise, playing ball on Sundays, playing cards, reading comic books, long hair for boys; lipstick for girls, etc., etc. etc.
What we couldn’t know was that when the digital world opened up in the 1960’s, none of us had the strength of character or resources to defend ourselves against such “temptations”. Like a lot of my Christian friends, I found myself sampling many of them and more.
Getting Notches on the Old Salvation Belt:
We were all left with the question, “What does it cost to be a Christian in an un-Christian world?” To most of us, the cost was learning to be more effective in getting random folks to repeat the Sinners Prayer, whereupon notches were added to the old salvation belt! My first conquest turned out to be on the lamb from the law, disappearing into the woodwork as the cops moved in. My second was a Catholic lad whom I bullied into a profession of faith but who quickly recanted it after sharing the experience with his priest. A third was a buddy in college who pressed me to share with him what was different about me. He moved on to the military and likely fell through the cracks of life, as did so many of us all.
We had style and tactics but knew nothing about a call to selfless discipleship. As we entered the dog-eat-dog world of enterprise, there was almost nothing that distinguished many of us from the great unwashed masses of humanity struggling to become stars without the handicap of Jesus.
That was the world in which we were raised – a sheltered world that was shattered by fleshly lusts of all kinds that have waged war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). My 1989 book, No Turning Back: Journal of an All-American Sinner, began with a poem I crafted that described the overarching America that had lured us[1] far away from the present, dynamic, triumphant Gospel of the Kingdom of God inaugurated in the person and work of Jesus:
America! America!
America, America,
God shed His grace on thee!
It’s time to step aside, Dear God,
And leave it up to me!
We’re really not ungrateful, Sir;
You did real fine back then,
But things have changed a lot, You see.
The world’s not what it’s been.
We’ve all gone off to college;
Learned how to read and ponder.
We’ve even read Your book, You know.
If you don’t mind, we wonder, Sir,
Why You don’t rewrite that thing –
Bring it up to date.
Your plan just didn’t work for us;
We can’t afford to wait.
Your Church is doing well, though,
You’ll be glad to hear.
The brightest folks are deacons;
The temple’s free and clear.
It’s all become big biz today;
The coffers do You proud.
The Jesus group is on the tube,
Whipping up the crowd.
We’ve licked the population scare
That had us in a fright,
Land was getting scarce, You see;
Food was out of sight.
The pill has really done the job,
But in case we make a slip,
We have a way to change our minds
That’s painless, sure and quick.
You must be proud as punch
When you look down and see
How we’ve turned our fields and streams
Into productivity.
We’ve tamed our natural resources,
And we’re quite prepared to fight
When anybody tries to curb
Our growing appetite!
There is a nagging problem, Sir;
We wish You’d concentrate
On wiping out those nations
That thrive on fear and hate.
We’ve done do well ourselves,
We’re quite appalled to see
People all around the globe
Denied their dignity.
Why can’t they be like us, Lord?
Our people we have freed.
That leaves us time for helping You
Stamp out lust and greed!
How can we keep it going, Lord?
They’re shutting off our crude!
(We’ll turn our wheat to ethanol
And whip them with our food!)
Any Changes?
Perhaps there is a viable case to be made for positive spiritual change from this 1980’s perspective on America and its Confessing Church! Perhaps to the contrary, however, as fellow Evangelicals find more immediate hope in the worship of the American Dream of prosperity and success, a couple of additional stanzas of decay may well be in order!
May God continue to discipline us of His Confessing Church who have rendered Him largely impotent through our retreat from Truth, Justice and selfless Service: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matt 6:24).
The illusive American Dream of a people and a Church divided into financial winners and losers looms large over Christian discipleship.
[1] Moody, Stan. No Turning Back: Journal of an All-American Sinner. Uhrichsville, OH’: Barbour Publishing, 1989.
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