Riots in US - Anti-racism or anti-God?
by Tony Pearce (Light for the Last Days)
After the death of African American George Floyd in a police arrest, the United States experienced daily protests about police violence and racism, many of which ended up with violence, looting and burning of property. These caused more deaths and millions of dollars’ worth of damage. The protests have now spread across to Europe.
President Trump gave a speech promising to restore law and order and to send in the National Guard if necessary. He commented ‘The destruction of innocent life and the spilling of innocent blood is an offence against humanity and a crime against God.’ He then went over to St John’s Church which had been burned in the riots a few days earlier and held up a copy of the Bible, making a statement that God is the answer.
This sent the opposition into a fury with hostile comments in the media and from clergy. Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and Washington Post columnist, denounced Trump’s photo-op at St. John’s Church as an act of blasphemy and sacrilege. Diana Butler, a religion scholar and writer, said ‘As a person of faith, I utterly disavow this use of God as a racist prop.’
On the other hand Pastor Robert Jeffress of Pathway to Victory TV ministry said ‘Thank God for a President like Donald Trump who is intent on protecting our great country from anarchists who are trying to destroy it. As the Bible says, ‘Sin is lawlessness’ (1 John 3:4).
This division of opinion highlights the polarisation of American society, including its Christians. The left condemned Trump as a racist bringing in a fascist America, while the right blamed left wing agitators for stoking the flames of violence and division in the country and wanting to bring in a communist America.
The media has done much to stoke the flames with the incendiary accusation of racism on an incident which was basically a piece of bad policing, whipping up already anxious populations into a frenzy. Black lives matter, as do all lives, and black people have legitimate grievances about historical injustices of slavery and discrimination, as well as present problems of poverty, policing and a lack of respect. However violent protests do nothing to help black communities and actually increase feelings of fear and racial hostility, which are harmful to all people. This means more lives, that also matter, are lost to senseless violence.
Economists are predicting a death blow to small businesses that suffered attacks in the riots and were already under unprecedented financial strain. Many of these were owned or staffed by members of the black community, whose neighbourhoods will now feel the effect of urban decline and flight for years to come.
Of course this is not a concern of the ‘anti-racists’ who use this issue as a cover for pushing their violent revolutionary agenda, using the Black Lives Matter campaign to further their agenda of overthrowing Capitalism. Far left agitators from Antifa claim to be fighting fascism (Antifa means anti-fascist) but their methods are similar to those of fascists. Dr Andy Woods said in a YouTube talk, ‘Riots, Revolution and Civil Unrest’, ‘Floyd’s death has become a convenient tool to fundamentally transform one of the last obstacles standing in the way of the coming new world order which is an independent, free and prosperous USA.’
Former FBI deputy counterterror director Terry Turchie said on Fox News that these riots are not unlike those inspired by the extreme leftist Weather Underground Organisation (WUO), which claimed that one of its intentions was to "attack and dethrone God." The WUO was a militant organisation from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s which was opposed to the Vietnam War and identified with black power, and was designated as a domestic terrorist group by the FBI. "They had a major goal, and that goal was to form a communist revolution," Turchie said.
“This is over 50 years ago," Turchie said. "Racism, systemic racism, police brutality, systemic police brutality: These were the things they were saying then. They knew that these were nothing more than the kerosene you throw on the fire, but they knew they work. Police racism then and police racism now is a phony issue," he concluded. "It has always been a phony issue. It is the issue that communist societies use to literally tear apart Americans and to be divisive.”
Turchie’s point about attacking and dethroning God received a massive backlash online. Many supporters of the protests joked that they surely intend to do just that: ‘attack and dethrone God’.
America’s enemies around the world are hailing this as the beginning of the end of American supremacy. They deeply resent the way America became the world’s number one super power after the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe. An article in the Jerusalem Post (June 2nd) says ‘Iran, Russia, China, Turkey celebrate 'collapse' of US’: ‘These authoritarian regimes are gloating over the chaos unfolding in the United States. Iran’s media pushed stories that highlighted the ‘collapse,’ while quoting Russian sources portraying that the US is flailing about as its world order comes crashing down.’
These countries may be right about America’s decline, but they can hardly point the finger over human rights. In China there are thousands of people in concentration camps, brutally treated by police and guards with the approval of the regime and no redress to those committing these crimes. In Russia those who protest Putin’s corrupt regime generally end up dead, in jail or ‘disappeared’. Likewise in Turkey and Iran. No one in America or Europe organises protests about the massive human rights abuses in these countries.
One last point. The USA has more scholars of end time prophecy than anywhere else in the world. Many of them have noticed a singular absence of their own country in the prophetic line up for the last days. No power resembling America appears to line up with the US in the last days tribulation period. There is reference to the kings of the north (Russia), east (China), south (Egypt?) and to the revived Roman Empire, most likely in Europe, but not to the far west / America.
Could it be that the US is now in a state of permanent decline, to be hit by yet more disasters? If so, how will it affect Israel, its own Jewish community and the Christians? The US has been Israel’s main ally with President Trump particularly going out of his way to stand by Israel. Jews living in America have had their greatest freedom and prosperity in the history of the diaspora.
If America does fall apart it would be very bad for Israel and for its Jewish community. Maybe they should be thinking of what Rabbi Fish said and start moving out of America to Israel.
America, for all its faults, has done more to propagate and defend Christianity than any other nation in the world today. Its collapse would be bad news for its own Christian population and for Christians around the world. Already there are many, including Christians, in America who are ‘prepping’ with provisions of food and guns to defend themselves in preparation for a coming collapse of society.
Whatever happens we have to say that we live in perilous times, as the Bible says (2 Timothy 3), and that only Jesus has any answer to what is coming on the world. It is clear that guns and violence are no answer, but only love and peace in Jesus’ name.
While there is a great emphasis on racial identity today, there are only two identities that matter to God. Not your race, not your gender, not your sexuality, but whether you are lost or saved. There is one way to be saved, through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ who said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me’. John 14.6.
May the Lord come soon to save us. Meanwhile we probably have to think about how we are going to create the underground church.
Tony Pearce
No comments:
Post a Comment