It’s high time we deal with this.

The greatest threat to the Church in America isn’t a political candidate for president, AOC, or even immigrants coming over the “border.” It’s not Russia or climate control, or radical Islam.

The greatest threat is, very simply, statism. But even that’s not the root, though we’re getting closer. The reason full-blown, fully metastasized Statism is the greatest threat is tied to the fact that it exists as a rival religion–a rival social order for all of life–because the Church has allowed its tentacles to grow and we’ve even perpetuated and participated in its growth. It’s our greatest threat because it’s our problem: we’re complicit. At the core is a violation of the First Commandment: Thou Shalt have no other gods before the One True God.

And yet we’ve replied with boisterous glee, “Challenge accepted.” 

Statism is the idolatrous elevation of the State past its covenantal, juridical boundary. When this happens it becomes a false god that demands we pledge our allegiance of it over against the kingdom of God. It lays claim to every area of life, and does so with vicious insistence.

And we, the Church, have given our unwavering allegiance and loyalty in many ways:

  • Government schools: Tax us to death, we don’t care, just don’t make us have to teach our children the biblical worldview!
  • Worship of the police: Just obey the law and that stuff wouldn’t happen!
  • Erosion of Liberty: Sure, you can wire tap us, grope us at the airport, and make us apply and pay money to exercise our right to bear arms: just promise us security!
  • Excessive Taxation: Muh roads!

And on, and on we go.

The rise of statism in our nation is commensurate with the rise of idolatry in the Church. The less we desire God’s law, the less we follow it, and the less we follow it, the less we want it altogether. This spills over into the world around us by default because salt and light is being withheld instead of dispensed.

When we truly preach the gospel of the Kingdom we are simultaneously preaching against idolatry. Thus, when we fail to preach against the idolatry of statism, we are failing to preach the gospel. That’s why this idol is our greatest threat. It’s not what goes into the man from the outside that defiles him, it’s what comes out of him from the heart that desecrates.