As the fires burn across Africa it is not only our embassies that are falling in flames but our foreign policy as well. Our foreign policy has been burning to ashes for decades but now, the physical aspect, flames to the sky, is a cogent reminder of our inability to achieve true success in our national efforts. The killing of our Libyan ambassador and other Americans, the burning of American businesses, and the attendant riots gives testimony to the ineffectual nature of our attempts to convince the Muslim nations that we should all get along. Our foreign policy has been a mess for a hundred years, and these recent disasters are merely a reminder of the on-going failure of our humanist-driven agenda as we propagate its’ nonsense around the globe.

It was a century ago that we made the decision to join the fray in Europe to fight, the war to end all wars and, to make the world safe for democracy. Predictably, we achieved neither, and in the process, set up Europe for further war and destruction just a few years later. Ever since, we have been striving to build a world-wide Garden of Eden by means of every humanist stratagem. We have bribed nations across the globe, in amounts of hundreds of billions, to take on a national character we thought better, one more like ours. We have fought wars too numerous to count, and applied the intimidation we thought necessary, to enjoin compliance with our every national whim. We have helped to overthrow foreign governments in the sincerely-held hope that we could implant better men at the centers of foreign nations. What we got were men like Castro and Mugabe. All of our secular efforts continue to crash into concrete barriers like a re-run of a crash-dummy test film. The realities of the human condition endlessly thwart our relentless striving to re-make the nations to coexist.

The real answers to finding peace among the nations, and for returning to the garden, are found in a place the humanists will never look. Their history, our history, has left a hint however, within their own current system. If I understand it correctly, the second in command, under our Secretary of State, is the C.O.M., Chief of Mission. His work it seems, is to oversee the doings of our foreign missions. Yes, there it is, right in the middle of the humanist household, that Christian word, mission. It was the Christian church that established footholds worldwide. We called them missions because they were established by Christian missionaries, the first on the ground. Long before the United States sent its ambassadors and built its embassies, the Christian church was at work.

Our ambassadors carried a different philosophy, theology really, and used different means than our civil servants now do. Instead of offering bribes or threatening with military massacre, they preached a peaceful gospel of life in Christ. It was this Christian strategy of missions that not only created the word mission, but brought real moral and civil change to wicked nations. The power of Christ did and still does change people from the inside out. Civil governments are always trying to change people from the outside in. We think we can force people to be better but it never succeeds. It is the power of God working through His word and people that transforms nations for the better.

A large part of the seeming loss of Christian influence in shaping nations has to do with the shift in our theology over the last 150 years. We no longer think of ourselves as a nation. We do not understand the nature of our calling as having anything to do with a Biblical culture of Godly nation building. We think we are called only to evangelize a few souls and wait for Jesus to return.

It was God Himself, who instructed the chosen people,

Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the sons of Israel.  (Exodus 19:5-6)

St. Peter reiterated this promise in his first epistle exhorting the church (still the chosen people);

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God… (1 Peter 2:9-10).

So, there it is. The chosen people of the Old Testament were to build a holy nation, meaning literally, a nation, a kingdom, as God said (He was to be King), that was a light to all other nations. Peter is reminding the saints (that would be the faithful church), that we are them. We are the chosen people. We are to be building a holy nation. Once again, we have been reminded, to fill the entire earth. For all the Earth is Mine, is what the Lord claimed in Exodus, and that claim has not been changed. We are therefore ambassadors for a nation growing within the nations. While America flies its emblem of stars and stripes wherever its’ territory extends, the church puts forth the cross as its flag. Our embassies have pews and our soldiers carry Bibles instead of machine guns. We do not seek to conquer with flotillas of flat-top carriers and swarms of fighter jets. Rather, we advance God’s nation by the preaching of the Word and by serving the bread and wine of faithful service. It is by these means that the kingdom of God advances, building holy nations, and a holy nation, that grows and fills the earth.

The humanists will always be foiled in their attempts to fix the nations. They do not have the power of God with them. They forever scramble to unite the nations under their banners of blood and money. Their works teeter and crumble but they never learn. It is like a dog that returns to its vomit. Back in 1979, when Americans were held hostage in Iran, we faced the Muslim world in a stand-off that lasted over a year. They despised us then, and they despise us now. Our foreign policy is ineffectual to change the situation. Three decades of our best efforts have come to nothing.

This is a potentially great era in history for the church. The only nation that can effectually conquer the morally dark people in this world is the peaceful nation of God and His Christ. Our ambassadors have died by the thousands to proclaim the only real message of hope and peace the world has ever known. The gospel will advance to fill the earth. The wild Muslim fighters will eventually be converted to citizens of the only righteous kingdom that ever was. This is a perfect time for us to renew our vision and our commitment to build the one kingdom that will bring peace to the nations. This marks a moment for the church that I am praying we will not miss.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

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