In their rather controversial book The Seduction of Christianity, authors Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon contended that Christianity is facing its greatest challenge: the challenge of acceptability, of striving to please the masses at the cost of integrity of the faith. They believe that never in all history have more people come to name the name of Jesus Christ, yet never have so few really understood what it really means. “Of course I’m a Christian; I’m not a Jew or a Muslim,” exclaimed one gentleman in response to my question about his faith.

For nearly half a century most people considered Communism as an atheistic, godless philosophy to be the great enemy of the faith, but then after only 73 years of Communism in the former USSR, this is no longer the great threat. True, Islam aggressively penetrates countries once considered Christians, building mosques and schools and taking converts by the scores. Yet Islam is not Christianity’s greatest threat.

In more recent days, New Age philosophies have enticed the discontented with their emphasis on self-improvement and success. While this appeals to some people, New Age teaching is little but old heresy dressed in new garments.

Simply put, Christianity’s greatest challenge is itself, with the threat coming from within, not without. In simple terms, we Christians are our greatest enemies. When an enemy is without, the lines of battles are clearly drawn. In the vernacular, it’s “us” or “them”; but when the enemy is within, it is difficult to tell who has infiltrated the camp and who really has counted the cost and is willing to pay the price of denial and commitment which Jesus Christ demands of His followers.

Chuck Colson, whose journey in faith has covered some very painful terrain for him personally, has written, “The enemy is in our midst. He has so infiltrated our camp that many simply no longer can tell an enemy from a friend, truth from heresy.” (Chuck Colson, The Struggle For Men’s Hearts and Minds, p.16).

It would be quite easy at this point for me to talk about some of the divisive issues which are widely discussed today: the ordination of women in the church, the acceptance of homosexuals in the community of God, the number of broken homes along with the acceptance of less demanding standards for leadership; but, even so, these are not the real issue.

These are but symptoms of a deeper problem. Writing to believers who were yet contemporaries of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, James, the leader of the early church, wrote, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

For lack of a better word, our greatest enemy is worldliness, but even in using that term, there is a danger of being misunderstood. For too many of us, the term worldliness conveys a mentality of doing certain things or not doing other things. In recent years, that term has conveyed a mind-set which obscures the lines of demarcation between the people of God and the people of the world, the faith of the Gospel and the philosophies of our age, the old and quite clearly defined principles of right and wrong versus an “anything goes as long as you are sincere” mind-set of our generation.

It was Dwight L. Moody who pointed out that the place of the ship is in the sea, not in the dry rock where the storms can do no damage to her hull; but, reminded Moody, when the sea gets into the ship, it’s in real trouble.

Resource reading: John 1:1-12

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Last evening, being quite tired and extremely depressed, I went to bed early. As is my usual practice I turned on the Radio and tuned to the Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN) for the comfort and solace. It is most relaxing and if one does not fall off to sleep easily a radio station that has a wonderful mix of beautiful Christian music and short devotional spots that leads one's thoughts to ponder things relaxing to the soul and mind.

Last night the first of these was Guidelines and the above. I got out of bed and went to their internet address and downloaded what he had just said.

My depression and weariness came more from the state of our country and where it seems headed than anything else. My greatest fear is that we are soon coming to the close of an era in America. So many things have changed in the past 10 years – and not for the better. We are especially at risk – not especially from foreign enemies but more from within. It looks to me that we will soon no longer be able to openly be a true Christian. That subject would take more time and space than I am able to completely expand at this time. Think about it though. One of these fears that the elite press will demand and get a tightening on the privilege of the current Radio Talk Shows and a free and open internet that permits open and unabridged self expression and access to the other side of any story.

We had prior to the two examples I have offered a source of news and thought that was exacted and passed on to us by a few networks that fed us only what they thought and believed on everything we knew. Now, the elite news media now longer have that stranglehold on what it is that we know, think and how we respond. It is my beliefs that it won't be long before there will be a overpowering push by the media to limit what we can use to inform ourselves. As the Guidelines article above speaks of enemies within the Christian life, there is also an enemy within America and it is a greater threat than anyone knows at this time.

The best example of the threat is the case of Dan Rather and his trying to con America with his counterfeit document concerning our President's service records. What Rather did was worse than if he had tried to pass off a $20.00 counterfeit dollar at the General Store. We know what would have happened if it were reversed. Had President George W Bush tried to show some sort of document that was forged concerning our news elite media he would have been lynched. However, concerning Dan Rather (blather), we get ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and I am afraid, even the FOX News elite standing with him and blame Talk Radio and the Internet sources as a threat to America. I resent that. Indeed, it is Talk Radio and the Internet that allows us the access to truth. Without them, Dan Rather would have got away with his intentional forged counterfeit document. We would have never known that it was false if it were up to the Main Stream Media.

Another example of Media Bias!