A recent Christianity Today article calls for lament as a response to the border crisis in the US. “Lament is a cry for mercy or help in a time of sadness and regret.” I understand the sentiment—the feeling of helplessness, or at least a sense of helplessness brought about by doing little about the problem; helplessness because there are no concrete actions planned to be taken. This can indeed make us feel sad; sad to the point, perhaps, of lamentation; at least lamentation seems to be doing something, even if it isn’t doing anything significant to change the situation.
Biblically, however, lament occurs only when all is lost, the tragedy is settled, finished, and there is no recovery to be had. The people of God will lament upon destruction when all hope is lost. Think Job, Jeremiah, etc.
But what is happening on the border between the United States and Mexico, while tragic and sad, is not lamentable–yet.
We are not at the point of lamentation, rather, we are at the point of action. Nations are judged by this sort of thing, and the actions of several nations at this time are inviting the wrath of God. Now passing the 60,000,000th abortion, the US has been courting wrath for a long time.
Western nations have not yet been on the receiving end of God’s wrath. When that happens, we’ll know, and all we can do at that point is lament: lament for our sin.
No, rather than lamentation we need, and can, announce God’s judgement on the evil that is the present border crisis. What follows is a brief response to the article I made on Facebook:
Regarding the US border crisis.
I think it is terrible that children are abused in this way. They must be terrified. It is a demonic power that is behind the caging of children, then, instead of helping them, to use them as a political football.
The game is this: open borders in a welfare state means votes for a party that will give the most stuff-for-votes: Democrats. This is no secret, nor is anyone surprised by it.
The losing party will be the one that has lost its moral compass and nerve: Republicans. The Republicans have forgotten that they believed in a supreme moral authority and now struggle to keep their power.
There is a bloody thread that runs from slavery, to the KKK, to segregation, to Jim Crow, to the removal of the black father from families to the slaughter of children throughout pregnancy, and now even after birth. This is the Democrat party. Is it any wonder that they will encourage this behaviour at the border because they know they can make political capital off of it? Is it any wonder that a party that believes children are disposable would permit this to continue? Is it any wonder that this same brutality existed under eight years of a recent Democrat president only now to be a backdrop for outrage?
What is outrageous that these satanic pimps would dare lecture others about compassion and caring.
The Republicans. At least there is a philosophical justification for their existence, but morally they are merely pragmatic and seek to retain power at any cost. As Rand Paul said, “Republicans won’t vote to outlaw abortion because they might win.” They seem more afraid of the Democrats than they are of God. If they held to their principles, abortion would have been banned long ago, and the welfare state of the USA would be much less attractive–adequate, but less inviting. Having allowed the Democrats to write their playbook, they continue to fail.
But children and families suffer because it works for those seeking power.
Ignored are the millions of dollars spent by Christian relief agencies at the border to try to save lives and offer comfort. One thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon: the problem is something for the government to fix, and it will only be fixed if one side wins at great expense of the other. This guarantees that the suffering will continue.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Eph 6:12.
The political systems that allow this to continue are demonic, and we must pronounce the judgement of God’s word upon them. Lamenting is a passive response, but not an appropriate one. Christians must take the stance that the Democrat party is a cult that is set against the Kingdom of God and His Church. It is a party that actively seeks to reject the Lordship of Christ. The Republican party is a spineless party that will bend to the whim of what it perceives to be the mood of the people, forgetting its principles. I do believe that to claim to be a Christian, and a Democrat is contradictory and should be a matter of church discipline. I also believe that the parallels in Canadian politics, Liberal, NDP, and Conservative fall along the same lines.
Christians must roundly condemn evil in the political realm. This too is where Christ is king.
The younger generation of today has grown up in a world in which in school and press the spirit of commercial enterprise has been represented as disreputable and the making of profit as immoral, where to employ a hundred people is represented as exploitation but to command the same number as honorable. Older people may regard this as an exaggeration of the present state of affairs, but the daily experience of the university teacher leaves little doubt that, as a result of anticapitalist propaganda, values have already altered far in advance of the change in institutions which has so far taken place. The question is whether, by changing our institutions to satisfy the new demands, we shall not unwittingly destroy values which we still rate higher.
