“Of all the days for it to rain,” an elementary school friend would say.
That sounds sad until you knew she would say it whenever it rained.
Every drop of rain that ever fell was a disaster. Now one does not have to believe that every drop of rain makes a flower grow (a nightmare in its own right if you think of rain drops that keep falling on your head) to think that my little friend was a bit pessimistic.
While every drop of rain that falls isn’t a violet, it is also isn’t destroying a picnic either.
Sometimes rain is just rain.
The curmudgeon always looks wise at the moment. Bet things are going to get worse and you will look like a sage and speaking fees will go up.
The bad news for the curmudgeon is that for all our problems it is still a great time to be an American, a conservative, and a traditional Christian. For some reason this obvious fact makes us uncomfortable.
Times are pretty good. Too simple an analysis? Of course.
Every blog post this short must be over simplified, but I think guarded optimism is closer to the truth than knee jerk total gloom and doom which seems to be growing in some of my friends.
Here are two reasons for Americans to be cheerful, two reasons for conservatives to feel hopeful, and three reasons for Christians to be optimistic.
Good news for Americans:
The American economy keeps stunning the world. Unemployment is low. We keep inventing amazing things. People are living much longer and with better health.
Consume? If you want, but our free market also allows for a booming Amish population.
Second, the Constitution of 1789 still works. I know the left and right often ignore it, but the fact is that we still function under this amazing document and people still respect it. No party runs (openly at least) promising to gut it. Given the “constitutions-of-the-week” in many countries, this is great news.
Thanks to this fact, you can bet:
We will not have a military coup this decade.
We will not have a civil war this decade.
We will not have a radical change of government.
Stability is boring until you lack it.
Bonus: Aren’t you glad the US is next to Mexico and not Algeria?
Good news for conservatives:
The sexual “revolution” could be running out of steam. The Internet allows college students to get bored with the whole thing fast enough to consider alternatives.
Religion guarantees traditional ideas will not die and the same Internet allows this old wisdom to be there. Bluntly, long term old wisdom will be more appealing than credit-card hedonism.
I bet romance (that old Christian staple) has more appeal than hooking up.
The left hasn’t found a way to make enough happy, healthy babies without old fashioned values. We have Jane Austen. They have Hugh Hefner. Anybody want to bet that our grandchildren are likely to read Austen still and shudder at Hefner (if they hear of him)?
Second, while hardly anybody sane believes in state control for personal behavior, many people are becoming convinced that self-control is vital. Now that “legal” is not the issue, folks are wondering if “can” equals “should.” Often the answer is “no.”
I can eat ice cream every day. (Keep the government out of my fridge!) Should I? No, but I better learn self-discipline early or I will.
In a culture where “boredom” is the greatest sin, some are discovering that boredom may be caused by self-indulgence.
This rise in the desire for self-discipline is good for traditional conservatives.
Good news for Christians:
Christianity is exploding numerically world wide. What kind? The Christianity growing is traditional, not leftist. Ask the Anglicans.
China has a booming church. There is a massive revival, unreported by the mainstream media, in Africa.
Secular Europe is out of cultural juice. There are signs of Christian revival there (!) that promise a Christian Easter in old Christendom. From Benedict to Evangelicals in England, robust Christianity is moving forward. Secularism is yesterdays story of a now geriatric sixties generation. Christendom will be tomorrow’s story . . .
Finally, a new breed of passionate and thoughtful Christian is coming. Read J.P. Moreland’s great new book Kingdom Triangle for all the details.
The other side (secularists) aren’t ready. Don’t believe me. Troll for comments on Internet sites from secularists. While Evangelicals have been working through Al Plantinga and Moreland, too many of these folks have been reading Chris Hitchens.
They aren’t ready for sophisticated religious attacks. (Of course, this post is not an argument . . . just reporting what I see!)
In short, this decade has seen its share of rain . . . but a good bit of it has been fruitful and not party-ruining.
Our armed forces are making progress in Iraq. Terrorists have, so far, failed in their attempts to attack the American homeland.
Secularists are petrified enough to write insane books where they attack everyone who isn’t a secularist (meaning almost everyone)!
Left-of-center folk lack the confidence to even produce a next generation.
Jesus Christ, after all, is reigning today . . . the perfect day for Him to reign.