If we take time to discern people’s motives and methods, we can better understand them and what’s going on. If we stop to think about why Joe Biden wanted to become president, it’s probably because he no doubt thought Trump was taking the country in the wrong direction, and he wanted to make things right. He wanted to use his influence to take America in a better direction. When you think about Democrats and Republicans, they both want America to be great, but they have very different visions of what greatness is and how to achieve it. If we watch people like AOC, I think it’s fair to say that in her heart she thinks America is an unfair place, and she wants to make it more fair for everybody. I think Rashida Tlaib[1] and Ilhan Omar[2] want America to be Muslim because they perceive that as a better way of life.
Whereas America used to be a melting pot where people would come together to conform to an American ideology of freedom and justice for all, now America is more like a boiling pot of competing forces to conform America to their ideology.
We have secularists who want to separate religion from everyday life. We have Christians who want to bring America back to biblical ideas and ideals. We have anarchists who see all government and authority as evil and want to bring power to the people. We have Leftists who want to bring ideas of identity politics and LGBTQ rights and multi-ethnic multi-culturalism to America in a different way from the melting pot concept. We have Conservatives who cherish the American values and ideals of previous generations and want to influence Americans to hold that course. Instead of “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all,†we are seeing multiple subgroups of people whose minds will never meet with the worldview of other subgroups, and so the power struggle becomes one of dominance rather than cooperation. We no longer share an identity as patriotic Americans. Instead, each group is trying to define America according to their ideology and worldview.
Many Christians are well aware of our decline from the dominant worldview of America to merely one of many subgroups, and at times a marginalized subgroup at that. Our task as Christians is not manipulation of the socio-political environment to regain our position as the dominant worldview of America. Instead, our Commission is to live out our witness faithfully and to make disciples of those within our relational orbit. While we never stop working for justice and peace in the larger cultural context, our mandate is not to change culture by political influence. Instead, it is to change hearts by faithful living, a credible witness, proclaiming the truth, and loving one another, The Great Commission is not to change our political structure, but rather to disciple, teach, and baptize. The Great Commandment is not to alter social structures, but to love God and love our neighbor. If we do our job faithfully and well, political structures will be changed, social structures be transformed, and society will become more conforming to a Christ-like ideal.
[1] Rashida Tlaib is a Sunni Muslim and a Palestinian. She advocates to make America Socialist instead of Capitalist. She is so strongly outspokenly anti-Israel that she has at times been accused of being anti-Semitic. To her swearing in as U.S. Rep, she invited to stand with her Linda Sarsour, who called for jihad against Pres. Trump, and Nihad Awad who has direct ties to Hamas. At a Hamas-linked CAIR conference, in a speech she said not only “The Muslims are coming,†but also “Muslims are now here in US Congress.†CAIR is a Muslim Brotherhood organization in the US whose agenda, about which www.Israelunwired.com said, “The agenda of this Sunni Muslim organization is to take over the world. In the Middle East they use terror. … In the West, they have a strategy of stealth cultural jihad, where they take over the countries from the inside.†Tliab in office as a US Rep is perceived as a step in their agenda. “The Muslim Brotherhood vision for the world is Sharia Law.†According to the Middle East Forum (https://www.meforum.org/7537/rashida-tlaib-is-not-fit-for-congress), “Tlaib spoke at the 2014 annual joint conference of MAS and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). (ICNA is linked to the South Asian extremist movement Jamaat-e-Islami, and seeks to ultimately incorporate the United States into a global caliphate.)â€
[2] Ilhan Omar considers herself a Progressive in political description. Many of her comments have been considered to be anti-Israel. Her comment about 9-1-1 (where “some people did somethingâ€) was subject to widespread criticism. She also has ties to CAIR. She has been criticized by Muslims themselves (Former Miss Iran Sarah Idan; a group of anti-Islamist Muslims) from several directions as pushing Sharia Law in the US. She also has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/08/ilhan-omar-is-pushing-sharia-law-in-us-former-miss-iraq-says/).(https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/ilhan-omar-and-her-muslim-brotherhood-ties/)