New Initiatives
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alliance to one
million members and to establish a grassroots leader in
each of the nation’s 435 congressional districts.
The plan, said Dr. Cass, is to “have one wonderfully
trained, bona fide Christian activist in every
congressional district in America, who can rally the
troops and begin to influence policy on a national
level.”
“We’re very excited about this new initiative,” said
Dr. Cass. “We believe it’s really going to make a
difference in the long run for our nation.” He
emphasized that the
Center’s
goal is not to fight the culture war alone, but to
“raise up a whole company of people that want to get
involved with us.”
The Center’s
new think tank, the Strategy Institute, will supply the
intellectual “firepower” needed to prevail in the
culture war. The Institute will bring together the best
and brightest analytical thinkers from around the
country, individuals with years of experience and the
ability to implement an aggressive plan of action. The
Center
will hire Chief Strategists with expertise in the
sanctity of human life, religious liberty, pornography,
the creation/evolution debate, and the homosexual
agenda.
“If we make a difference in just one of these areas, it
will have a profound effect on the culture,” said Dr.
Kennedy.
First Strategist Onboard
The Center
has already contracted with Dr. Kelly Hollowell to serve
as the first Chief Strategist in the pro-life arena. Dr.
Hollowell is a scientist with a Ph.D. in molecular
pharmacology and is also a patent attorney and adjunct
professor in bioethics at Regent University.
This new reshaping of the
Center for
Reclaiming America comes at a pivotal time in the
war for America’s soul. “If we don’t rise to the
challenge and return America to its biblical roots,”
said Dr. Kennedy, “I shudder to think what we will be
leaving our children and their children’s children.”
To learn more about the
Center for
Reclaiming America’s three exciting new
initiatives, be sure to watch
The Coral Ridge Hour in October. |
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Is Reclaiming America
A “Futile Exercise”?
By Gary DeMar |
First-century
believers could have offered good evidence that there
was little chance for the Gospel to have an impact on
the status quo of religious and civil oppression in
their day. How could a small band of men led by a
fisherman (Peter) and a tentmaker (Paul) and living
under Roman occupation ever conceive that their
circumstances would change enough that the Gospel
message would transform the world?
To add to the improbability of a world-wide impact,
soon after the victorious ascension of Jesus and the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit on His disciples, one of
their own was killed by the religious establishment.
What did God do? He converted the man who led the
persecution and made him a missionary to the Roman
empire!
After Stephen’s death, James, the brother of John, was
executed by the local civil governor, and Peter was
arrested and thrown in prison. What did God do? Herod
“was eaten by worms and died.” Through tradition, we
learn that every apostle, with the exception of John,
died a martyr.
The Roman empire was the major kingdom force in the
first century, and the Church was considered a footnote
in the annals by the historians of the day. What was
reality? The historians are footnotes, time is still
measured by the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire is a
memory, and the Church of Jesus Christ circles the
globe.
If God accomplished all of this with a few disciples
with little or no social influence and no political
connections, why does it seem incredible to accomplish
something similar with hundreds of millions of believers
today? Is the devil any more powerful? Is the Gospel any
less effective?
“Pointless” and “Futile”?
In his book, The Vanishing Conscience, pastor
John MacArthur tries to argue that
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We may live in a post-Christian world, but it wouldn’t
take much time or effort to reverse the trend.
_____________________________
“‘Reclaiming’
the culture is a pointless, futile exercise. I am
convinced,” he writes, “we are living in a
post-Christian society—a civilization that exists under
God’s judgment.” MacArthur believes that such conditions
are immovable impediments to reformation. Scripture and
history are not on his side. The Gospel entered a
non-Christian society and transformed it.
We may live in a post-Christian world, but it wouldn’t
take much time or effort to reverse the trend. Even Tim
LaHaye, author of the popular Left Behind series
that presents a pessimistic view of the future, thinks
MacArthur is off base.
“Personally,” Tim and Beverly LaHaye write, “we have
serious problems with that kind of thinking. . . . If we
just give up on our country, America may be sentenced to
an unnecessary hundred or so years living without the
freedom to preach the Gospel here or around the
world—simply because we gave up on our culture too
soon.”
Bright Future
Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious
studies at Pennsylvania State University and the author
of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global
Christianity, amasses evidence for the booming
growth of Christianity in Latin America, Africa, and
Asia. “Over the past five centuries or so,” writes
Jenkins, “the story of Christianity has been
inextricably
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