NC Renegades

With my progressive social media friends posting articles about the need to take away the right to vote from racist MAGA Hat wearers and my conservative friends posting memes about “Libtards” and the inevitability of a civil war, for the first time in my life I’m wondering if our country can stay together, or if it’s not time for what Gwyneth Paltrow famously called the dissolution of her marriage to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin: Conscious Uncoupling.

While Americans were once separated primarily by race, ethnic origin or even class, today we’re mostly separated by beliefs and those like-minded people tend to cluster in certain geographic regions. So, why not accept those differences and redefine our North American borders a bit to reflect that? The results could give us all a lot of peace, both on and off of social media.

Here’s what it could look like:

Those who rally around the American flag, wear patriotic garb and dress like the founding fathers on the 4th of July tend to be Red Staters-so let’s let them keep the USA brand and give them three massive Canadian provinces that also generally share the same values: Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. This nation would be the United States of America (USA).Ads by scrollerads.com

Then, let’s ask our friends to the north to slightly adjust their branding by calling themselves the United States of Canada (USC) and give them a dozen or so of our like-minded states like Washington, Oregon, California, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts and Hawaii.

To be sure, USC will get most of the cool cultural centers like Seattle, L.A., Manhattan and Silicon Valley, but I’m not sure Red-Staters will miss them since they were never very fond of them anyway. And while those are significant revenue bases to lose, they’ll be made up for by all of the shale in those Canadian provinces and the drilling that will commence immediately when the newly configured USA legalizes oil drilling in Alaska.

The best news of all and what will immediately bring peace to our lives is the end of the culture war as we’ve known it since the 1960’s for the USA will be free to pursue conservative social and economic policies that the Right has dreamed about since the days of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and the USC will be able to implement the dreams of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders with no opposition from the Right. A blue USC and a red USA will also provide us a living laboratory of sorts to compare which ideology works best in practice.

The USA will quickly make most abortions illegal, the right to carry firearms absolute and marriage only available to a man and a woman, once again. Taxes will be drastically lowered and social services scaled back.

In the USC on the other hand, firearms will only be carried by police officers, government will stay out of all reproductive issues and all forms of marriage between consenting adults will be legalized. Tax policy will follow the vision laid out by Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders and the Green New Deal will become official national policy.

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Christ as Means and End
By John Piper

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Why did God create the universe? And why is he governing it the way he is? What is God achieving? Is Jesus Christ a means to this achievement or the end of the achievement?

Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God. He is God in human form. As such, he is the end, not a means. 

The manifestation of the glory of God is the meaning of the universe. This is what God is achieving. The heavens, and the history of the world, are “telling the glory of God.” 

But Jesus Christ was sent to accomplish something that needed doing. He came to remedy the fall. He came to rescue sinners from inevitable destruction because of their sin. These rescued ones will see and savor and display the glory of God with everlasting joy. 

Others will continue to heap scorn on the glory of God. So, Jesus Christ is the means to what God meant to achieve in the manifestation of his glory for the enjoyment of his people. No one would see and savor and celebrate the glory of God apart from the saving work of Christ. The aim of the universe would abort. So, Christ is a means.

But in that accomplishment on the cross, as he died for sinners, Christ revealed the love and righteousness of the Father supremely. This was the apex of the revelation of the glory of God — the glory of his grace.

Therefore, in the very moment of his perfect act as the means of God’s purpose, Jesus became the end of that purpose. He became, in his dying in the place of sinners and his resurrection for their life, the central and supreme revelation of the glory of God.

Christ crucified is therefore both the means and the end of God’s purpose in the universe. 

Without his work, that end — to reveal the fullness of the glory of God for the enjoyment of God’s people — would not have happened. 

And in that very means-work he became the end — the one who forever and ever will be the focus of our worship as we spend eternity seeing and savoring more and more of what he revealed of God when he became a curse for us. 

Jesus is the end for which the universe was made, and the means that makes that end possible to enjoy by justified sinners.

Good evening, America. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any guy. But in the spirit of commemoration, whereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle are celebrated with a nice holiday. I thought we could mark this July the 4th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered how it should be, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the government. They promised you order, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. We should seek to end that silence. More than two hundred and forty years ago our founding fathers wished to embed the 4th of July forever in our memory.  Their hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the 4th of July to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me this 4^th of July, outside the Capitol, and together we shall give them a 4th of July that shall never, ever be forgot.

The Perfect City
By John Piper

He has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

No pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism, and no ugliness. 

The city of God will be perfect, because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there. 

Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ in this world. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.

When you desire this city above everything else on the earth, then you honor God, who, according to Hebrews 11:10, is the designer and builder of the city. And when God is honored, he is pleased and not ashamed to be called your God.