So, take your pick. Jesus is coming back because American evangelical comfort zones are being violated, there is growing gun violence, America will go Marxist if Joe Biden wins in November and a disease is racking the land; alternatively, revival will come that will miraculously stop it all.

First off, we don't know when Jesus is coming back despite endless prognostications of his return. It must deeply offend the prophesiers that Jesus himself said he didn't know only the Father knows and he isn't saying. The End Times have been around since the resurrection. It might further trouble American prophetic soothsayers that God might just be interested in converting more Chinese, which currently has 40 million Christians undergoing persecution with no constitutional safeguards and perhaps using Chinese wherewithal to build the silk road back to Israel for God's other purposes to be fulfilled. Equally, God is blessing Africa, which now has 475 million Christians, most of whom are evangelical. Still and all, only half the world has heard of the Incarnation and perhaps God wants that half to hear the Good News before Jesus sets foot on Mt. Olivet. I am reliably told that Iran is experiencing a low-keyed revival that the mullahs can't seem to stop.

So, before the Lord returns to rescue mostly middle class white American evangelical Christians, who are the biggest whiners, (black evangelicals are not caught up in this heavenly pleading) from their mortgage payments and car loans, consider the following.

For revival to take place, the spiritual soil must be adequately tilled. It is not. Why?

Firstly, American evangelical Christians consistently confuse American civil religion with authentic biblical faith. That's an abomination. Christians must separate out the two.

Second, American exceptionalism is nothing more than nationalist pride wrapped in an American flag. Another abomination.

Third, yelling 'God, flag and country,' while running around in a pick-up truck with a loaded AK-47 and you think Jesus us spelt Jaysus, is another cause for divine vomiting. Churches and Christians who wave flags or MAGA caps, confusing the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of America, must cause our Lord to shrink in horror.

American materialism is also another abomination. The richest nation on earth cannot take care of its poorest because it is deemed socialist to do so. When the church tries to help the poor, it is called Christian; when the state tries to do it, it is called socialist. Go figure.

Homosexuality. America has changed the definition of marriage to include sodomite arrangements that God has never approved of and never will. Americans need to repent of this. It would offend The Episcopal Church among other mainline Protestant denominations. It is not going to happen.

Abortion is another abomination. While it hit a high point under Ronald Reagan, 1.2 million abortions, it has steadily been going downhill from there. Nonetheless, it is still an abomination and the Supreme Court shows no interest in overturning Roe v. Wade. Add Obergefell and recent homosexual rights rulings to the list and God is not well pleased.

American individualism. The John Wayne, Marlboro man notion of me and Jesus, is not remotely Biblical. The Christian Faith has to do with faith lived out in community. Not happening. Rugged individualism is breeding death and despair, drug and alcohol abuse like we have never seen it, and suicides are at an all-time high. The church will need to repent of this isolationist mentality.

The belief that this president or any president can rescue America from whatever ails it, is blasphemous. 'Put not your faith in princes.' Well, America has done precisely that and is paying a deep price for it.

Global South Christians look at American Christianity and they are appalled. They feel pity for what is going on here. They want no part of it. Many of us would like them to come here and evangelize us. They see all these unholy alliances as distractions from the gospel.

If, by divine providence, God does bring revival, it is not because we deserve it. We don't. Add to the mix arrogance, pride, covetousness, education as salvation and massive contempt (see Dallas Willard) for others who don't look like us, and I see no basis for revival. None. America is in a massive narcissistic moment and the only sure hope for change is repentance.

The words of Amos 5: 21-24 are fitting. "I hate all your show and pretense -- the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy worship music! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living."

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