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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

7/01/2006


Time And A Half On Christmas Eve


Las Vegas cab drivers love Christmas Eve. Most of December is dead in the gambling capital of the known universe. And the week leading up to Christmas is the deadest week of all. But Christmas Eve is like a grunion run. The frenetic crush of late arrivals and departures are in a blind, plunging panic to get out of town, get to Grandma’s house, or get to the nearest casino bar for one of their world-famous 50¢ drinks.

So the cab drivers get time and a half on Christmas Eve to motivate them to pick up the slack. Or at least they used to. I’ve been gone long enough to no longer be able to speak with authority on the subject, but I’d be surprised if things have changed to the point where this time-honored holiday tradition in the party capital of the western world is no longer the case.

At first glance, the lure of Las Vegas on Christmas would seem contradictory. What possible appeal could this glitzy tourist Mecca promising easy money and fast women hold for the celebrants of quite possibly the most revered holiday of the year? Actually, you might be surprised. Las Vegas – the community now, not the gambling halls – is a sucker for sentiment and schmaltz and could rival the finest Norman Rockwell masterpiece when it comes to tugging at the heartstrings of America. But, the traveling public isn’t aware of this well-kept secret. So, for the uninitiated, the town attracts fundamentally three types of travelers on Christmas Eve.

The first are people who are coming home. That’s right, campers. Las Vegas is actually home to a great many people who grew up there, spread their wings, and flew the coop to seek their fame and fortune elsewhere. But Christmas tugs at the heartstrings of wanderers making their journey through life, and many of these sojourners make a beeline for home. They take a break from the struggles of the weary round of life, the hardness of the world, and relax in the warmth of family, friends and familiar environs. And it doesn’t matter if the billboards along the way advertise no-cover totally nude strip clubs and double odds on craps.

Then there are relatives who are visiting family who moved there. Mom and Dad retired, sold their palatial Malibu beachfront estate for hundreds of millions of dollars, bought a ranch-style Vegas home – probably in Summerlin – for a fraction of that, and the kids are taking a few days off to visit the folks over the holidays. And the money they save on a hotel can be put to good use nursing the nearest quarter progressive slot machine.

And finally, there are those lost souls who have no family, no friends, no home to speak of and nowhere to go. Las Vegas is a great anesthetic to dull the never-ending ache of alienation, isolation and solitude, if only for the moment. And it is especially enticing when that dull, numbing ache flares up into a massive pain in the heart.

These are the desperate, empty husks of humanity you see early Christmas morning, if circumstances bring you to any of the hotels, working a row of slot machines, red-eyed from working them all night long. But hey, the lights are bright, the Christmas decorations next to the roulette wheel are colorful, and the drinks never stop. So what’s not to like?

The circumstances that brought me there last Christmas were a combination of all three. I lived there long enough to put down roots. The place qualified as a home, of sorts. So in a sense I was returning, to visit friends who pass for family. There are a great many people who moved there like I did. Some got out while the getting was good. Others stayed on. So I was playing the role of the prodigal son, and at the same time, I was part of the conga line of lost souls who visits the party capital of the world because when you have no place to go on Christmas, you go to Vegas.

Ultimately, the circumstances are not important. How I spent my time there was. I decided to attend Christmas Eve services at the Methodist Church where I became a Christian twenty years before.

I had been warned what to expect.

It was a small church, one of many that dotted the landscape of the Las Vegas Valley. Driving by, if you were not looking for it, you would never know it was there. Twenty years before, my spiritual, intellectual and career wells ran dry. The relationship I had with the woman I came to think of as the love of my life, long ailing, had expired. I was adrift in my career. I had no direction. And in my mid-30s, I expected to have more to show for half a lifetime.

It was a professor at the local university who, over lunch, invited me to the Methodist Church one Sunday. Having nothing else that resembled a good idea, I took him up on his offer. I walked in to the middle of a study of Matthew 11:28-30:

28 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The minister teaching this study was an interesting combination of Methodist intellectual dogma, and Southern Baptist theology. He held advanced degrees from several Methodist seminaries. But he was also the Georgia-born son of a Southern Baptist evangelist. And try as he might, he simply could not escape the grace of God.

This tense combination of theological orientations was the perfect formula for someone like me – suspicious of both, and yet empty, and searching for an answer that would bring some meaning to life.

It worked like a charm. I attended during the fall of that year. In January, I confessed Jesus Christ, took baptism and became a Christian. No other approach would have worked for me. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Twenty years later, I was warned that times had changed.

Aside from the place looking smaller – a common complaint for prodigal sons returning home after years of wandering in the desert – I concluded that times may have changed, but the geography certainly had not. Everything was exactly where it had been. The cast of characters had changed in the persons of a new minister and staff, but other than that, déjà vu was working overtime on Christmas Eve along with the cab drivers.

That’s where the similarities ended.

The Methodist Church does not do a Bible study per se in its services, at least not since I’ve been familiar with their rituals. Coming back after twenty years, I found this to be an awkward part of the service. Over the years, I’ve graduated to more conservative, evangelical congregations where a Bible study is standard practice, and woe be unto the parishioner who forgets his or her Bible on Sunday morning. But the Methodists do provide a Bible reading. And the passage for Christmas Eve was Luke 2:1-7.

1 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the world should be registered. 2 This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4 Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. 6 So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

The choice of a Scripture passage to read on Christmas Eve was not surprising. Its interpretation, however, was.

The minister spoke of how – by virtue of this passage – Jesus entered the world an outcast. There was no room at the inn, after all. Jesus was oppressed, alienated, and cast his lot with the human flotsam and jetsam of his time. His (Jesus’) was a ministry to the downtrodden, the poverty-stricken, and the wretched refuse of the world. Those unfortunate souls who were cast into the gutter to die alone, penniless and without hope by an oppressive ruling class were Jesus’ people.

The minister went on to point out how part of the local church outreach in Las Vegas was concerned with ministering to the hospitalized “undocumented migrants” locally, who courageously crossed an arid desert to claw out a desperate foothold in an inherently hostile country (America) in the meager hope of building a better life for themselves and their children.

He concluded by stating that this passage clearly calls us as Christians to open out homes, our hearts, and most importantly our wallets to these innocent victims of bigotry and hate so they may throw off the yoke of oppression of the fascist oppressors of the innocent peoples of color of the third world. Only by abolishing all borders, dissolving the sovereignty of an inherently unjust country (America, again), and calling for increased state and federal aid for our downtrodden brethren can Jesus’ vision of a harmonious one-world utopian society be realized. Only in this way can there be true equality for all peoples of the world. Only in this fashion can we be known as true followers of Jesus Christ. . .

I had been warned, after all.

People told me the Methodist Church wasn’t what it once was. I guess you can’t go home again, after all. Looks like Liberation Theology is alive and well and living in the Methodist Church. Sad to say, that’s not the only place it is thriving.

The problem with the mantra of such philosophies is that it sounds good and feels even better. Who could possibly be opposed to freedom for the oppressed peoples of color of the third world? What cold-hearted beast could endorse throwing indigent, sick people who don’t even speak the English language being out of their hospital beds on Christmas Eve to freeze to death on the streets of a heartless country? Not even Ebenezer Scrooge was so ruthless.

The problem is it’s a lie.

At a time when the foundations of American identity are being knocked out of the bottom of the societal infrastructure one pillar at a time, the marriage of international Marxism and the radical revolutionary theology of the 1960s make strange bedfellows indeed. But they both serve the same purpose – to question, weaken and ultimately abolish the character of American culture.

The practice of using Christian doctrine to validate secular policy has precedent in American history. 19th century evangelical preachers of the antebellum South used Col. 3:22 to justify the righteousness of slavery. The Robber Barons of the post-Civil War era used II Thessalonians 3:10 to validate the horrendous working conditions of their factories.

In more recent years, traditional churches, now dominated by liberal leadership, have used Mt. 11:28 as a validation for gay marriage. The aforementioned passage from Luke’s gospel fits nicely into the globalist new world order of many contemporary politicos from both sides of the aisle. Let’s face it, the slave masters of the Old South may have denied their “property” the most basic of human dignities, i.e., personal freedom. But they openly offered them the comfort of the Gospel, in whatever form they (the masters) deemed fit to present it.

And so, many of our traditional churches embrace a philosophy that would make Karl Marx smile in satisfaction. No one may be allowed to embrace a philosophy of personal achievement – a practice that has worked so well up to now, that individual Americans are among the most generous of all the peoples of the world. No one may think in terms of national identity. To do so would be inherently bigoted, hateful, and blatantly ignore the suffering and oppression of the victims of injustice in the third world. All must provide the sustenance for the poverty-stricken around the world. From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.

The voluntary outpouring of the generosity of Americans to this end has been nothing less than spectacular. But only if it is a voluntary contribution, brought about by God’s conviction of each individual human heart who are so called to contribute. Not as a result of a moral imperative of the radical leadership of contemporary churches or secular leaders according to a clerical or social re-engineering agenda.

So too do international corporate power brokers offer a twisted view of God’s Word to assuage the concerns of the emerging serfs in the burgeoning world of post-modern feudalism. In their paradigm, America is not a sovereign nation where an individual human being can rise as far as talent and ambition can take them. It is one of many international markets, and must, by necessity, have a world view of radical egalitarianism in which no human being may ever rise to challenge the ruling elite.

So, those among the power structure who even bother to read the Bible, have redefined Jesus as a benevolent CEO, carefully doling out perks to the great unwashed and burdened by the heavy load of responsibility to provide for the needs of the little people of the world.

The secular, radical left has reduced Jesus to an avenging radical activist, poised and ready to visit retribution on the wealthy oppressors of the innocent victims of their wickedness and injustice.

But Jesus Christ transcends both warped world views. To consign Him to the corporate board room in a suit and tie, doling out hand-me-downs to the peasants, all the while being about his true mission of expanding the wealth of the organization, is absurd.

To reduce Him to some gun-toting revolutionary with twin bandoliers of ammunition criss-crossed across his chest, and an AK-47 at high port shouting “Power to the people!” is pathetic.

The corporate globalists and radical secular leftists are all about the same thing: power. Although they approach their objectives from opposite sides of the political sphere, their goal is the same: control. And in this quest, no means of achieving this end is beyond their willingness to use it. They will use the ballot box. They will use massive contributions of money. They will use moral suasion. They will twist every truth Americans hold dear in ways both subtle and convincing to attain the goal of holding the reigns of power and calling the shots.

But Jesus Christ transcends all feeble attempts to mold Him into a form that can be used by the various factions of our world. He came into the world to accomplish two things: Preach to good news of God’s grace, and die for the sins of the world. In this, He was singularly successful.

Jesus did indeed cast his lot with publicans and sinners, because those who were not sick had no need for a physician. He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. (Mark 2:17). His intent was not to overthrow the power elite (at least not yet). His purpose was to minister to the lost.

Jesus did not command us to overthrow the ruling authority or to enhance its power. He called us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. (Luke 10:27).

But Jesus did command us to go forth and make disciples in all the nations of the world, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Mt. 28:19).

As Americans, we can see the erosion of our country happening before our very eyes. There is no need to catalogue the specifics. We can simply pick up a newspaper, turn on TV news, or listen to the radio to know the truth of this. Many of us view this phenomenon with a growing sense of helplessness. Indeed, the prospect of what to do and how to do it in the wake of such an impending collapse is a daunting one.

Still others go through the motions of life, blissfully ignorant of the forces at work in our country that will ultimately lead to its destruction. We go to work. We go home. We take care of business. And beyond that, a good many of us simply don’t want to be bothered. I pulled up behind a car last week with a license plate frame that said it all: DON’T BOTHER ME. . . I GOT MINE.

The issue of situational awareness came up just recently, at church of all places. I attend a prosperous conservative evangelical church in the local area, having long since graduated from the implosion of the Methodist Church years ago. During our fellowship hour between services, the subject came up of “why do we go to church?” A very prosperous member of our community was questioned in this manner. A look of complete astonishment came over his face, and he answered with the impatience of a man who can clearly see the truth (his own at any rate), while others are somehow unable to digest the obvious.

“Why do I go to church?” He intoned. “It’s Sunday!” He answered and walked away.

How could we be so blind? It’s plain for anyone to see. Monday through Friday we take care of business. Saturday, we do our “honey-do’s”. Sunday we go to church.

Simple.

So. Those of us who have reduced the worship of God to a mere weekly ritual bear some of the responsibility for the erosion of the faith, and along with it, the country. Those of us for whom God’s Word is but one of many factors in our lives, and a minor one at that, will reap the consequences along with the rest of us.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And in the void produced by an absence of a commitment to the grace of God, something will fill that void. And what fills it will be whatever those who have a commitment to their own self-interest bring to the table. Hence, we live with an encroaching globalist corporate agenda, radical secular leftist activism, and an apostate view of God’s grace that sounds good and feels good, but is anything but.

The lessons of history dictate that the reign of empire is like a spinning wheel. And nobody and nothing can long stand erect on its rotating surface. Whether America’s day walk in the sun is approaching its twilight is something only time will tell. What replaces America – an EU-type North American super state or some vassal confederation to the emerging south Asian economic powers who even now do our heavy lifting and provide our essential services – no one can tell.

But, as Americans, we would do well to consider how we define ourselves, in this, the possible end times of our country. Do we define ourselves as Americans? And what will that definition entail if and when the heritage of America goes the way of the Old South? Or do we define ourselves as followers of the Risen Lord, when that may be all we have left? For many of us, that self-definition may be our last resort when it should well be our first priority.

Either way, we can rest in the assurance that Jesus Christ will come again. I will not speculate as to when and how. More accomplished scholars than I have tried and made fools of themselves in the attempt.

Whence last He walked the earth, He ministered to the lost and died on the Cross so those who believe in Him could be saved, forgiven and reconciled to God. Because there is no free lunch when it comes to Sin. Somebody had to count the cost and pay the price. Somebody did.

Whence next we see Him, He will come to judge the nations and rule them with a rod of iron. (Rev. 19:15) And for those who now corrupt and manipulate the truth of Jesus Christ to their own ends, whatever those ends may be, that judgment will be very great.

Very great indeed.

by Euro-American Scum

(contributing team member of Allegiance and Duty Betrayed)


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

The minister went on to point out how part of the local church outreach in Las Vegas was concerned with ministering to the hospitalized “undocumented migrants” locally, who courageously crossed an arid desert to claw out a desperate foothold in an inherently hostile country (America) in the meager hope of building a better life for themselves and their children.


He concluded by stating that this passage clearly calls us as Christians to open out homes, our hearts, and most importantly our wallets to these innocent victims of bigotry and hate so they may throw off the yoke of oppression of the fascist oppressors of the innocent peoples of color of the third world. Only by abolishing all borders, dissolving the sovereignty of an inherently unjust country (America, again), and calling for increased state and federal aid for our downtrodden brethren can Jesus’ vision of a harmonious one-world utopian society be realized. Only in this way can there be true equality for all peoples of the world. Only in this fashion can we be known as true followers of Jesus Christ. . .


This minister is way off base and so is his answer to "What would Jesus do?"

I reread your article because there was so much to take in. It is excellent.

Anonymous said...

Your ability to combine warm, heartfelt personal recollections with cold hard facts drives home a point far more powerfully than just about any other style of editorial writing.

How sad, and how accurate a commentary on so many of our (less important) institutions as well, is your description of the twenty-year transformation that took place in the church in which you first surrendered yourself to our Lord. And how maddening to know that so many of our church leaders increasingly corrupt the teachings of Jesus Christ in order to fulfill the leftist agenda. Sacrilege of the most wicked kind.

Your reference to the ‘abolition of the character of American culture’ is right on the mark. And it is occurring on so many fronts that, we no sooner have begun to take a stand in one area, and we find ourselves assaulted from yet another. And the most tragic aspect of this deadly cultural war is that our children (and, should we survive, their children) are falling farther and farther away from the American character as defined by our Founders. When America (as you and I once knew it) is no more, they will not quite comprehend what we have lost. You cannot mourn something you never knew.

Even if one is not a Christian – even if one does not believe in God, if one is an American who has read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the countless other historic colonial documents (First Virginia Charter, New England Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Colonial Rights, Virginia Declaration of Rights, etc.), it must be obvious, except to those who choose to deny the obvious, that this nation was founded by men who adhered to Christian doctrine, and whose greatest desires were (1) to establish a republic whose laws are based on Biblical foundations, and (2) to limit the role of government to the securing (i.e., protecting) of God-given rights for its citizens.

How ironic that so many of our church leaders (and so many of our largest denominations – just take a look at the membership of the leftist National Council of Churches) are now leading the movement that is bent on destroying the noble, Christ-centered foundation upon which this republic was built.

We are in agreement that our government is corrupt, and we are in agreement that the teachings of Christ have been distorted beyond recognition. In this piece, you have focused on the motive for both: the thirst for power and control. As lust for power, and the corruption that accompanies it, continues to increase among the leadership of our republic, sometimes optimism becomes a rare and all-too-precious commodity. It is then that we must focus on the final message of your essay: there is a life beyond this one. Those who know Him, and remain true to His teachings, will know eternal peace. And those who have corrupted His word for their own benefit will be severely judged. A man’s earthly quest for power over other men will ultimately come face-to-face with a genuine Justice that is incapable of being despoiled by the devices of man.

Thank you for the most powerful, personal Christian testimony … and wise counsel … that I have read in recent memory.

~ joanie

WTL said...

Such wisdom and truth-telling should be widely disseminated. A reading and thinking pleasure. Jesus is pleased!

Anonymous said...

Very interesting and thought provoking. However, bad mouthing corporations is an easy way to shift the blame from the true culprit…us. We choose to ignore what is right before our eyes; we choose to be more interested in who wins the super bowl than what is happening in Washington or on our borders; we choose to be led by politicians more interested in their own power than our liberty. Pogo had it right…”We have met the enemy and they are us”

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess I'm not much of a Christian, because my entire family spent Christmas morning 1986 in a casino at Laughlin, NV.

On Christmas eve while the movers were packing our belongings, we watched on TV as the Voyager landed at Mojave after it's nonstop circumnavigation of the earth. We then said our emotional goodbyes to our neighbors and left the home we had built by our own hands in California (see website), and driven off to a new (better?) life in Florida. We had packed our pickup truck with the kids, dogs, birds, frog and U-haul hitched to the back and headed East across the San Joaquin valley, and drove by Mojave where the Voyager had landed six hours prior. After a lonely drive through the trackless desert, we arrived at the bright lights of Laughlin, NV at 3AM Christmas morning.

In our motel room, we set up the little 16" Christmas tree that we had harvested from our property earlier that day, and opened the gifts we had brought for each other. That took about 5 minutes...

Being "wired" from the excitment of leaving one life for another - we couldn't sleep and decided to take the ferry across the river to "sin city".

Amazingly, the casino on the Nevada side was crowded at 4AM on Christmas morning. I played some craps (I enjoy the mathematics of the game), my wife played some slots, and my son played some video games.

We stayed for about an hour or so, unwound from our trip, and then went back to the "Riverside" Motel on the AZ side and slept until noon.

Later, I did wonder what all the other people were doing there on that day at that time, but us? - We were just travelers, passing through.

Anonymous said...

Good job.

Stuart Davis

Anonymous said...

This is one of the best political and spiritual commentaries I've ever read. You have common sense, great perception and a rare way with words.

Anonymous said...

Nature abhors a vacuum. And in the void produced by an absence of a commitment to the grace of God, something will fill that void. And what fills it will be whatever those who have a commitment to their own self-interest bring to the table. Hence, we live with an encroaching globalist corporate agenda, radical secular leftist activism, and an apostate view of God’s grace that sounds good and feels good, but is anything but.

Amen, brother! Your vision is 20-20!

Anonymous said...

Are you a professional writer? You write like someone who does it everyday, and who does it everyday well.

You should bring this to your local metropolitan newspapers. It needs readers.

Anonymous said...

Cheers! Applause! Standing ovation!

Encore please!

Anonymous said...

Intelligent and eloquent. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Just want to say what a nice site. Bye, see you soon.
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