Morality
Wake Up Left Coast!
I recently had lunch with a Washington State businessman who’s run a successful company for nearly forty years. He has fought many battles over those decades with county inspectors, state regulators, and cultural trends. He’s had his share of family problems, including some dark days when one of his children was far from God.
But I’ve always known him to persevere. He wants to make a difference in our world and is one of the greatest givers to God’s work that I’ve ever known. He’s a fighter, a scrapper, a man of his word that does not give in easy.
So I was surprised during the meal when he looked me in the eye and said that he was considering moving his entire family to another state for their spiritual and economic health.
He wants to get off the Left Coast.
I’m beginning to understand what he means.
Left Coast is a political term implying that the west coast of the United States is politically left-wing. This means the population is more secular and thus hostile to Judeo-Christian values. The implication is that the states of California, Oregon, and Washington (particularly, the coastal counties and cities within those states) vote predictably for the Democratic Party, or that the people who live there have a generally more liberal attitude than the rest of the country. The phrase plays on the fact that the west coast of the US is found on the left of the contiguous 48 states when looking at a map.
I would include the state of Hawaii as a part of the Left Coast. They have become another bastion of liberalism, including the 2010 election of Neil Abercrombie (D) as governor with a 58% vote and the defeat of many conservative Christian candidates around the state.
In the 2010 elections, many secular-liberal politicians were swept away in most parts of the country. Conservative Republicans picked up over sixty seats in the US House, but few of these were on the Left Coast. The governors map changed radically in the center, south, and east of the nation where conservatives won the states of New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even Maine. Overall, the Republicans picked up twelve governorships to the Democrats two (California and Connecticut)
If you need a visual, imagine a significant amount of “red” being added to the 2008 map that is shown above–but not on the Left Coast. In governor’s races, Jerry Brown won by twelve points in California and John Kitzhaber eked out a one point victory in Oregon. Washington’s governors race will take place in 2012, but liberal Democrats have controlled all aspects of Olympia for twenty years.
What does that matter, you ask? Well the secular-liberal stranglehold on the Left Coast brings some serious consequences.
Taxes. Left Coast states produce big spending governments that overtax and overburden their people. Hawaii is the number one taxed state (per capita) at $3,050 per person per year. California is number nine at $2391 and Washington is number thirteen at $2238. Washingtonians had the good sense to reject an income tax proposition this fall, but the Evergreen State’s gas and sales taxes are among the highest in the nation.
Jobs: Whereas states like Texas keep churning out jobs due to its conservative policies, Left Coast States are in the lower half of job growth due to their anti-business climates. Washington has an unemployment rate of 9.0 percent though it sports some of the great entrepreneurial companies in the nation (Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon.com etc.) Boeing has moved its headquarters to Chicago due to the bad business climate. Oregon has a 10.6 percent unemployment rate which ranks it 8th in the nation.
But California, which just re-elected Governor Jerry Brown has a whopping 12.4 percent unemployment rate, and for the first time in fifty years, more people and businesses are leaving California than arriving. California may face default this coming year due to a mind-boggling 500 billion dollars in unfunded pensions. That liability around its neck won’t create many jobs.
Morality:It’s hard to place a rank on these categories, but it’s beyond question that the sexual mores of San Francisco and Seattle have made them a hot-bed of immorality and the push for gay marriage–which would totally unravel the moral fabric of America. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is being challenged in California (of all states), and two of the three states in the nation that allows its people to kill themselves with the help of doctors (physician assisted suicide) are Oregon and Washington. The third is Montana–which is almost a bed-room community to the Left Coast.
This list of the consequences of secular-liberalism could go on–but I think you get the point. The liberal worldview does not create prosperity or strong families. It leads down a road to tyranny, poverty, in-ability to economically compete, and moral confusion.
So, with much of the nation in 2010 turning back to Judeo-Christian principles and conservative applications in government, why is the Left Coast still stuck in the grip of liberalism?
That’s the million dollar question–and I don’t profess to have the answer. I do have some hunches that might be contributing factors.
First, the independent spirit of the West fosters a tendency to reject God and his principles for living. The cowboy mentality can easily morph into a spirit of rebellion that displays itself in humanistic laws and sexual dysfunction. On the Left Coast, I believe that demonic powers have been given a stronghold that impacts the lives of our people and political leaders (Ephesians 6:12).
I remember flying out of the Soviet Union in the 1980s while it was under communist oppression. On one flight, the experience of leaving “tyranny” and heading into “freedom” caused spontaneous applause on the aircraft! You could “feel” the leaving behind of demonic dominions and traveling into “freer space.” It was a tangible experience, undoubtedly related to the reality of spiritual warfare.
Many people say the same thing about the Left Coast. They feel a heaviness and discouragement here that is not felt in other parts of the nation. It’s not just the clouds (in Washington). The peoples of the Left Coast have attracted the presence of demonic principalities that are affecting this region of the country.
Second, the Christian foundations on the west coast are much weaker than any area in America. Many of the Left Coast states are later entries to the Union. California was 31, Oregon 33, Washington 42, and Hawaii 50. We missed most of the spiritual awakenings in our history; We didn’t have Pilgrims or Puritans to lay our social foundations; Our governing documents don’t contain phrases and concepts that pointed to God’s sovereignty and his natural laws; We were the “younger spoiled kids” of the Republic who did not form our corporate character at Valley Forge or Gettysburg.
Thus, our foundations are not as rooted to the rock of Christ as in others states. We were planted on wild, slippery soil, and our roots don’t go as deeply into the truth of God’s Word.
Third, there is the reality that actions have consequences. For example, Washington is the only state in the nation that legalized abortion via a vote of the people before Roe v. Wade in 1973. Activist judges didn’t send our innocent babies to their deaths. We the people, voted their demise at the hands of abortionists–the only state to do so.
That was a horrendous decision that opened us up to the presence of evil and judgment of God. In many societal realms, are we simply reaping what we sowed? Only God knows, but there is certainly room for state-wide repentance on this and other moral issues.
But there’s another interesting theory that I learned from a respected scholar.
Dr. Gregory Boyd points out in his insightful book God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict, that Satanic power and presence have been historically associated with raging, chaotic waters–in particular, the raging seas–especially oceans.
Boyd says, “The authors of the Old Testament shared significant elements of the common Near Eastern perspective that the earth was part of a cosmic war zone. The chaotic waters and sea monsters were demonic creatures against whom God had to fight…The Israelites believed the earth rested upon waters, but that Yahweh pushed back the waters to make dry land appear. ..Something about the cosmic environment of the earth–the waters–was, and still is, hostile toward God and humanity.”
It’s a much bigger discussion (three chapters in his book), but Boyd says that in the Old Testament, water was either a symbol of demonic chaos, or even a place of demonic habitation.
In the New Testament, when Jesus cast out a legion of spirits from a man, the demons specifically asked to not be sent to the “waterless places” but rather into some pigs, who stormed down the bank and were drowned in the water (Luke 11:24-NASB). When the Book of Revelation describes the new heaven and earth, it specifically says “and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1). The only water mentioned is the River of Life whose trees bring healing to the nations (Revelation 22:1,2).
So, in the Bible, large amounts of raging waters are associated with evil. Fertile land is associated with blessing and good.
What’s the point? It’s interesting to me that the regions of our nation near the large raging waters (the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and the Great Lakes region) appear most susceptible to liberal influences. The states that are inland–closer to the soil–tend to be more conservative.
And in 2010, the only region that resisted the conservative tide was the Left Coast. Is this just coincidence, or is there something even in our geography that we don’t fully understand?
Regardless of the true reasons for our troubles, what should we do about the secular-liberal stronghold of the Left Coast? Should we all pack our bags and leave for inland havens? Should we follow my businessman friend to greener pastures elsewhere?
God may lead some to go, but many of us must stay and fight for freedom and God’s blessings:
- We must participate in an empowered prayer movement that will bind the principalities and powers that are deceiving and impacting the Left Coast.
- We must mobilize the Church to care for, educate, and encourage our fellow citizens to embrace a new heritage in God.
- We must get involved in the political process, and work for good candidates who can help us change our laws and culture. Reformation is one of the gifts of God. It can come to the peoples of the western states.
Gregory Boyd comes to the same conclusion: “All who name the name of the Lord are called to identify and resist, in the power of God, the structural forces of evil that work to thwart God’s plan for the earth…When we fight, we do not do so in our own power, but God Himself reenacts his primal victory over these destructive forces through us.”
So let’s get to work.
I’m not going anywhere.
Our most important response is to reject discouragment and not give up. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He can bring it in our individual lives. He can also “wake up” the Left Coast with his grace and power.
Send this article to your friends on the Left Coast. Ask them to pray and act.
Let’s make the Left Coast the “Righteous Coast” of the United States of America.
Lying to a Generation: What I Learned at the Fair
Shirley and I recently enjoyed a day at the eighth largest fair in the world–The Puyallup Fair. Located in Puyallup, Washington, thirty miles south of Seattle, the “Western Washington Fair” sports a delightful twenty acres filled with carnival rides, animal shows and displays, a rodeo, stadium concerts, and numerous buildings filled with art, hobbies, flowers, and every consumer good imaginable (all at unbeatable fair prices!)
We “ate our way” through the Fair enjoying corn-on-the-cob, elephant ears, smoothies, ice cream swirls, and famous country scones. It was a memorable day filled with delicious sights and sounds and many reminders of our illustrious western history and way of life.
But I also learned something else at the Fair. I was reminded of two spectacular lies that were told to the Baby Boom Generation in the 60s and 70s that haunt us to this day:
- The lie of creation without a Creator (evolution), and
- the lie of love without God (lust).
We, as a generation, are still reeling from the impact of those untruths.
First, the lie of evolution.
This subject was on my mind because of some reading I’ve done recently on a new evolutionary book. Written by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, Grand Design is the latest atheistic attempt to explain the origins of the world through the lens of godless evolution. In the book, Hawking and Mlodinow brazenly state:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
Really? The universe just creates itself? Like gravity?
Uh huh.
Grand Nonsense would be a more fitting title.
Back to Puyallup. How can you attend a fair of this type and not be struck by the wonder of God’s design on earth? As we walked around the hundreds of displays at the Puyallup Fair, we were amazed by both the incredible beauty of God’s creation as seen in the animal and plant worlds, and also in the unique creativity of human beings.
Watching the draft horses do their amazing stunts, seeing the hundreds of different species of foul and poultry–and gazing upon one of our favorites–a mother pig feeding her eleven little piglets–all these sights scream at the top of their lungs that a marvelous Designer made these things after their own kind. There is no other plausible explanation.
Macro-evolution says that time plus matter plus chance equals life as we know it. After seeing the glorious varieties of plants and animals at the Fair, that idea seems preposteous. Time plus matter plus chance equals dust–nothing more. It takes a very skilled Creator to shape elements and chemicals into the array of animal and plant life that our eyes feasted on.
And then there is the matter of man’s creation. Evolution also says that time plus matter plus chance equals you. A friend of mine summarizes this amazing process as “from goo to you by way of the zoo.”
No way. Human culture is amazing–from writing, to painting, to sculturing (even with chainsaws), to inventing products and tools (on sale everywhere at the Fair), to music, language, and invention–the creativness of man has no equal. No animals create tools or culture. Only man–made in God’s image–carries that unique spark.
No–if you look at the Fair with clear eyes, you must breathtakingly admire God’s glorious creation in the animal and plant worlds and also marvel at man’s unique creative abilities due to being made in the image of God.
My generation–the Baby Boom Generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) was raised on the lie of evolution. We were the first generation that accepted its erroneous conclusions in our textbooks and later, acted like animals in our individual lives.
Yet, every aspect of the Fair refuted that lie at every turn. God made the world and he made each one of us. We are responsible and accountible to him. We should worship him for what he’s made and do our part to create culture that benefits others and glorifies his name.
Then there is the lie about love.
One of the shows that Shirley and I watched at the Fair was a tribute to the Beatles by a group called Imagine. (I consented to listen to them to humor Shirley.) The “Fab Four” impersonators wore sixties suits, spoke with British accents (sounded fake to me) and really did look a lot like John, Paul, George, and Ringo. They were excellent musicians. During their ninety minute performance, they rattled off about twenty past Beatles hits.
It was very instructive to watch the crowd. Most of them were Boomers like us who were raised on this stuff. (I actually saw the Beatles in person in Seattle in 1964 when I was eleven years old. All I remember was their bright green suits.) There were also younger people in the crowd. Throughout the cascade of familiar songs, you could see the mouths of our generation singing along and enjoying the nostalgia of years gone by.
At the end of the performance, I was reflecting on the power of music. Even though I hadn’t heard most of these Beatles tunes for over forty years, I realized that I and an entire generation could remember every word to every song. Wow! Talk about power to affect the mind.
Then I started thinking about the actual words we had heard in the 60s. Most of the Beatles songs were about two themes–love ( i.e. I Wanna Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Please Please Me etc.) and a smaller group about relationship break ups (i.e. Ticket to Ride, Yesterday etc.).
The closer I listened to the lyrics, the more I realized that the words were not really about “love” as the Bible defines it–pure, self-sacrificing devotion to another person. Rather, the words described sexual attraction or lust for another person.
Love and lust are very different things. Love leads to lifetime commitment. Lust leads to break-ups.
I remembered reading a sad biography of John Lennon some years ago. It chronicled his well-known sexual promiscuity, deep involvement in drug addiction, broken marriage with Cynthia (she came home one day to find John in a drug stupor and in bed with Yoko Ono) and his generally debauched life. The book also described the quartet’s first foray to Hamburg, Germany in 1960 where they frequented prostitutes, and John, Paul, and Ringo gleefully watched as George lost his virginity with a stripper.
The Beatles sang about lust, not godly love. Our generation bought the message and dove into the “free love” scene hook, line, and sinker. Our carnal, selfish pursuit of “love” brought the same consequences of broken marriages and numerous relational break-ups.
As I looked around the aging crowd, I wondered how many had been poisoned by these lyrics that led to the ruin of their marriages or the break-up of numerous relationships. The Beatles taught us a lie and we fell for it. Its results have been staggering in the life of the American nation.
But the song that spoke most deeply to me may have been the Beatles “autobiography tune.” It was called Nowhere Man. Here are some of the words to jog your memory:
He’s a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Doesn’t have a point of view,
Knows not where he’s going to,
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?
Nowhere Man please listen,
You don’t know what you’re missing,
Nowhere Man,the world is at your command!
He’s as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?
The words above point to the world the Beatles and many others gave us in our youth. They took us “nowhere” where we couldn’t see our own “blindness” and empty pursuit of lustful pleasure.
“Isn’t he a bit like you and me?”
The Beatles were Nowhere Men that influenced a Nowhere Generation. How sad.
The lie of evolution and the lie of human lust are very similar. One says you can have creation and culture without God–and the other says you can have love and relationships without God. The Baby Boom found out the hard way that these ideas are painfully false.
Fortunately, many of the Baby Boom generation are finding their way home. At the conclusion to our evening, Shirley and I visited a booth that displayed hundreds of hats. All were emblazened with messages like “I Love Jesus,” “God is My Co-Pilot,” and the one that I purchased, “Jesus is My Rock.” The owner told us he had sold eighteen hundred of them.
A Nowhere Generation can be transformed into a generation that loves and serves Jesus Christ.
That’s what I learned at the Fair.
“Well Done Faithful Friends of Marriage & Family”
REFERENDUM 71 COUNTY VOTES
APPROVE COUNTIES ARE GREEN (52.95%) REJECT COUNTIES ARE YELLOW (47.05%)
I want to thank and encourage all those who worked for the rejection of Referendum 71 in Washington State during the recent election. We lost that battle by a small margin, but what you accomplished is lasting and will bear great fruit.
There is Someone far greater than I who says to your heart “Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful in a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the rest of your Master” (Matthew 25:21).
The things we do for a Higher Purpose are never in vain. They create faith and character in our own lives, they positively impact the lives of others, and they lay the foundations for future victories and accomplishments that will glorify God and benefit people.
We lost this particular battle, but the war is not over. There will be many other victories and defeats along the way of our short lives here on earth. In the end, good will triumph and every tear will be wiped away. Until then, we need to be steadfast and continue to seek his kingdom and his righteousness.
Some thought we shouldn’t have entered this particular battle. I humbly disagree. There were many battles, I’m sure that General George Washington would have preferred to sit out during the American Revolutionary War such as the battles for New York and Germantown. They ended in defeat. But God used those skirmishes to prove and refine the army to persevere toward the ultimate goal of winning the war. Some battles you don’t choose–it’s just right to stand up for liberty in all situations and places.
There will always be battles we win and some we lose. We must always keep our eyes on the bigger picture–in this case, the war for our society and culture. In a fallen world, we may even lose the larger war for periods of time (think of Israel’s Old Testament roller coaster of renewal and decline), but the final triumph of good over evil is as certain as the dawn.
We must always persevere knowing that right–in Christ–is the Ultimate Victor.
We accomplished a minor miracle in the Referendum 71 battle–collecting over 125,000 signatures in a matter of weeks. Well done!
We mobilized up to 200,000 people to get involved in the great cause of preserving marriage and protecting children. A small grassroots awakening has begun, and if we continue to keep our fires lit and expanding, then a bon-fire of blessing can burst onto the scene. Well done!
Many of you practiced your civic and ethical duty by putting up signs, handing out leaflets, contributing to media adds, and waving signs at sidewalk rallies and small parades. The Slavic churches reminded us that freedom is a precious thing to retain and nurture in any society. They led the way in a number of our communities and by their actions taught the truth that “freedom is not the ability to do want you want, but the wisdom to do you ought.” Well done!
Some of our compatriots sat out this particular issue because they’ve bought the popular idea that any kind of sex is okay if there is “commitment and love.” I’m proud of you that you see the fallacy of that argument–that consenting adults doesn’t make it okay. From a five thousand year moral consensus standpoint, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia, and bestiality are all wrong. They are destructive to adults, hurtful to kids, and separate us from God. On the contrary, you understand the real definition of love which is: “Doing what’s best for another person from God’s point of view.” That doesn’t include any of the above actions under any circumstances. For your clarity of vision, well done!
Thank you for your attitude that you showed in this debate. I know that the media and others try to paint the picture that you are bigoted, narrow, and unloving in trying to preserve one-man-one woman marriage. They say you are homo phobic. Now I’m sure that somewhere on the American fringe some homo phobic people exist. But I’ve personally never met one–and I know that description doesn’t fit you. You simply care deeply for people, believe in the institution of marriage, and especially don’t want to see children wrongly influenced or suffer in any way due to the break-up of the traditional home. As our flyer explained “every person needs a mom and a dad.” You believe that passionately and want everyone to experience its reality and blessing.
Thank you also for loving those who are engaged in homosexual acts and may never understand your heart for them. Many of them are your friends, just as you have friends that fornicate or commit adultery, or lie or steal. You don’t wish any of them ill, you simply want them to turn from their destructive behavior and experience the grace and power of God to live a changed life–just like you have done. Some of you even persevered under some harassment and death threats made by hardened members of the homosexual community. You responded with kindness and prayed for your persecutors. Well done!
You kept the debate civil and focused. This issue was not ultimately about domestic partnerships, but at chipping away at the sacredness and uniqueness of marriage. You saw through the deception and propaganda and took a stand for what’s right–in meekness and gentleness. Because of my own public profile in the campaign, I had homosexual activists dialing me up on my cell phone. One such trans gender leader named “Susan” who once was “Phil” was amazed that I didn’t hate homosexuals nor was trying to take away anybody’s rights. I simply believed in marriage between men and women and loved people enough to point them in the right direction. She/he and I had a productive hour’s conversation and agreed to meet for coffee to talk further. You also reached out in caring ways. Well done!
As you know, we won the battle for public opinion in 29 of Washington’s 39 counties. If it weren’t for the Goliath of King County, we would have scored a solid victory for marriage and children. But we have allowed a large Greater-Seattle population move the state of Washington in a socially radical and secular direction. It is now up to us build a wall of prayer throughout the Emerald City stronghold, pour the love of Christ into its streets and neighborhoods, and bring people to faith and moral sanity within this large blue island in a red sea. That will take time, great effort, and supernatural power.
But I believe you can do it. Nothing is too great for the Author of marriage and family.
Be encouraged for the stand you’ve taken.
Well done!
Now on to the next battle with faith, hope, and love.