Peter Kreeft Culture War Part 4

But America has the most just and more moral and most wise and most Biblical historical and constitutional foundation in the world. Yes. Just like ancient Israel. And America is one of the most religious countries in the world. Yes, just like ancient Israel. And the Church is big and rich and free in America. Yes, just like ancient Israel.

And if God still loves His church in America, he will soon make it small and poor and persecuted just as He did to ancient Israel—so that He can keep it alive by pruning it. If He loves us, He will cut the dead wood away. And we will bleed. And the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church again and a second spring will come and new buds—but not without blood. It never happens without blood, without sacrifice, without suffering. Christ’s work, if it is really Christ’s work and not a comfortable counterfeit, never happens without the cross. Whatever happens without the cross may be good work, but it is not Christ’s work. For Christ’s work is bloody. Christ’s work is a blood transfusion. That is how salvation happens.

And if we put gloves on our hands to avoid the splinters from His cross, if we practice safe spiritual sex, spiritual contraception, then His kingdom will not come and His work will not be done. And our world will die.

I don’t mean merely that Western civilization will die; that’s a piece of trivia. I mean eternal souls will die—billions of Ramones and Vladimirs and Tiffanys and Bridgets will go to hell. That’s what’s at stake in this war. Not just whether America will become a banana republic or whether we’ll forget Shakespeare or even whether some nuclear terrorist will incinerate half of humanity, but rather whether our children and our children’s children will see God forever. That’s what’s at stake in Hollywood vs. America. That’s why we must wake up and smell the corpses, the rotting souls, the dying children.

Knowing we are at war at all times, but especially in such times as these, is the first prerequisite for winning it.