https://larryalextaunton.com/2020/11/letter-to-christians-in-troubled-times/

The following article by Larry Taunton was published just prior to the last American election on November 8, 2020:

Dear Friends & Supporters:

I know that many of you are as unsettled by the events of recent days as I am. Dead people voting. Hundreds of thousands of ballots suddenly appearing that are all—every single one—magically in Biden’s favor. Voting machines that turn Trump votes to Biden votes. A refusal to allow poll observers into polling station in spite of a court order. The collusion of Big Tech, mainstream media, and corporate America.

We have seen this coming. In this article for The American Spectator last year, I interviewed Harvard researcher Dr. Robert Epstein, a lifelong Democrat, who warned that Google and Facebook were rigging the election. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a coup d’état masquerading as a lawful election.

When my eldest son, Michael, was at Yale Law School a few short years ago, he made this insightful observation:

“The Left is consumed with ‘Right Wing’ conspiracy theories. They assume conservatives think as they do because there really is a ‘Left Wing’ conspiracy, and it starts right here at Yale Law. We are trained to ‘complexity’ obvious moral issues and to undermine truth for the sake of a progressive agenda.” 

But it is much more than a conspiracy. This presidential election isn’t merely a political battle. It is a spiritual battle, and I assure you Satan and all of the demons of hell are active in it. They, too, have a candidate and an agenda.

Years ago, when we were taking on prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, and Daniel Dennett, et al., I said that it wasn’t them that we had to fear. Their moral sensibilities had been formed in a Christian culture. No, it is, I said, the next generation, the readers of their books, that we must reach with the gospel because they will be willing to take atheism to its natural conclusion. That is, in the words of Dostoevsky: “If there is no immortality, there can be no virtue, and all things are permissible.”

In just the last decade Democrats have been radicalized as this element has filled their ranks. These are not the days of Democrats like FDR, Truman, or even a JFK or a Carter. Today’s Democrats represent the evil policies of abortion, infanticide, homosexuality, the sexualization of children, open borders, lawlessness, censorship, violence in our streets, anti-Semitism, rigged elections, militant secularism, and the horrors of Marxism. They are what Paul in Romans 1 calls “haters of God.”

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider the following tweets:

Democrats haven’t even taken power yet and here is Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez telling her 10 million Twitter followers that she and her radical colleagues are compiling a “hit list” of anyone who has supported Trump. That includes many—most?—of you. It certainly includes me. And if you think you’ll be left alone, you are kidding yourself.

Here’s another:

These aren’t fringe elements of the Democrat Party. They represent the mainstream. Jennifer Rubin is a columnist for The Washington Post. Echoing the sentiments of Ocasio-Cortez, she is making their intentions of a Stalinist-style purge clear. And look at the number of “likes” each tweet has! Alarming, eh?

If this sham of an election is allowed to stand, if we sit back and do nothing, it isn’t simply that your taxes will be increased (they will) or that the welfare state will be expanded (it will). It is that America, a light and hope to the free world and people who long for freedom, will perish from the face of the earth only to become yet another social, economic, and spiritual ruin. As I said in this video short that we recently released, Christianity is the key Jenga block upholding American society, and America is, in turn, the key Jenga block upholding the free world.

But, you say, you dislike President Trump. You find him boorish and rude. Perhaps you think he tweets too much or that he has an immoral personal life. This is the naïve attitude of pastors like Tim Keller and John Piper who are, in effect, leading a generation of evangelicals off of a cliff. (I addressed that concern in this recent article.) Whatever Donald Trump may be, he is not corrupt as Democrat leadership most certainly is. Democrats have turned over every stone to find proof of his corruption and, finding nothing, they invented it. Furthermore, the same people who have demonized him as a white supremacist, a Russian agent, a rapist, etc. once adored him, befriended him, and gladly accepted his contributions to their own political campaigns. As my friend Dinesh D’Souza points out, the only reason the Left now hates him is because he ran as a staunch conservative and has governed as one.

In some ways, it isn’t a fair fight. Luke 16:8 says, “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” In other words, unbelievers are much savvier in the use of unscrupulous means to achieve their wicked ends than are the children of God. That said, we serve a sovereign God who will never abandon us. Let that comfort you. He is surprised by nothing. But don’t let that become an excuse for inaction and cowardice. Pray. Hard. Contact your senators and congressmen. Speak out. If Democrats succeed, you will see many Christians fall away. Many have already done so thanks to the failure of leadership in our pulpits. But you, dear Christian, must stand fast and stand firmly on the Word of God.

I have found myself reflecting on the words of Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller. Neimoeller witnessed the rise of Hitler in 1930s Germany and the slow tightening of the noose as the Weimar constitution was gradually ignored, civil liberties were pared down, political enemies were identified, Jews and Christians were persecuted, and “Black Shirts”—Hitler’s version of Black Lives Matter and Antifa—attacked political opponents in the streets until the regime surrendered power to the Nazis. They hoped that having made this Faustian bargain that normalcy would be restored.

They were spectacularly wrong.

Niemoeller was sent to Dachau for preaching against Hitler and his thugs. He later made a powerful observation about how most Germans found justification to do nothing throughout all of it. I have tweaked those words to fit our current socio-political context:

When they killed the unborn, I said nothing because it didn’t affect me.

When they opened the borders to every criminal element, I said nothing because I accepted the party line.

When they destroyed the economy, I said nothing because I had a job.

When they attacked and defunded the police, I said nothing because I believed the “police-are-evil” narrative.

When quarantines allowed lawless protests but barred synagogues & churches from meeting, I said nothing because I was neither a Jew nor a Christian.

When they began suppressing free speech and censoring conservatives, I said nothing because I was not a conservative.

When they committed voter fraud, I said nothing because I didn’t like Trump.

When they spoke of Marxism and then implemented it, I said nothing because I didn’t understand what it was until …

It was too late.

Some of you will think me unnecessarily alarmist. Indeed, many have already told me so, often hatefully. No one hopes you are right more than I do. But I have seen this movie before, and, throughout history, the ending is always the same. In a relatively short time, the US population has become increasingly comfortable with the surrender of privacy, the suppression and censorship of political opponents, the rise of anti-Semitism, a grossly unequal application of the law, violence in the streets, a new kind of racism and injustice absurdly disguised as “social justice,” and, now, voter fraud on a scale that beggars the imagination. Can total disenfranchisement of whole swaths of the population be far away? I don’t think so.

The agenda of the radical Left is as much of an idol as that which Nebuchadnezzar set up and demanded the people worship. Will you be found worthy or will courage fail you as you kneel before it?

This present darkness must be confronted and defeated.

In His Service,

Larry Alex Taunton 
Executive Director
Fixed Point Foundation

Larry Alex Taunton is the Executive Director of the Fixed Point Foundation and a freelance columnist contributing to USA Today, Fox News, First Things, The Atlantic, CNN, Daily Caller, and The American Spectator. He is also the author of The Grace Effect, The Gospel Coalition Book of the Year The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, and the soon-to-be-released Around the World in (More Than) 80 Days. (Available for pre-order now) You can subscribe to his blog at larryalextaunton.com and find him on Twitter @larrytaunton.