There is a clear and present danger. It is not Trump, though he said truth in part about Islam — that the fanatics of that demon kill each other more frequently than they kill those of Christ. He neglected to say that the fanatics have pretty much genocided those of Christ in the Middle East already.

The danger is that those of the left will flood our seminaries in the hope of taking the church back into convergence. They have killed the mainline denominations, and they are trying to kill the Catholic and Orthodox off. The believers are wanting to keep preaching the gospel and doing good for the glory of God. We would prefer if politics is boring. But the left do not worship God, they worship their narrative, and all must align with it.

In Nashville, Sophia Agtarap, a 37-year-old daughter of a retired United Methodist minister, found herself rereading her denomination’s principles on a host of social issues. They reinforced her belief that she needed to act.

While she is a long-time activist against homelessness and for equality, Trump administration policies — especially increased enforcement of immigration laws — increased her activism. Agtarap, an immigrant herself, recently joined the Moral Movement Tennessee’s Holy Week sit-in, where activists occupied the governor’s office to push for Medicaid expansion.

She’s applied to become a deaconess in the United Methodist Church, too.

Sophia Agtarap, 37, of Nashville is seeking as of March 13, 2017, to become a deaconess in the United Methodist Church, part of increased activism she considers necessary because of President Trump’s policies. (Photo: George Walker IV, The Tennessean)
“I’ve just felt more strongly called to be physically present,” Agtarap said. “That means showing up to gatherings big and small. That means signing petitions. That means having conversations with folks that might see the situation a little bit differently than me.”

Post election, Rabbi Jack Moline, president of the Interfaith Alliance in the nation’s capital, didn’t see religious people filling pews to seek comfort. But he did see them responding to the tense political climate and acts of defacement and hate against Jewish institutions across the USA.

“They took some of that anger and frustration they had after the election and looked to turn it to making the world a better place,” said Moline, who noticed that response in himself, too.

After the election, Moline appeared with a diverse religious group in front of a Washington mosque to declare his support.

“That was for me not a political act because, after all, I’m a rabbi,” Moline said. “For me, that was a religious mandate. That’s what we needed when we faced this in Germany.”

Traditional faiths aren’t all that people have turned to for support. In St. Louis, more people have flocked to a humanist congregation.

The Ethical Society of St. Louis typically draws 150 to 200 people to its Sunday services. But the first meeting after the Nov. 8 election drew about 300, said James Croft, the ethical society’s outreach director.

The interfaith people are in grievous error. For God demands and requires our worship, and no other. We are not fo fall into the superstitions that beset our nation or the nations that neighbour us. We are not to allow multiculturalism to drive out the truth, or let in the worship of fallen angels or Satan himself. We are to worship God and him alone

And this worship will come at a cost.

Deuteronomy 18:9-14

⁹When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. ¹⁰No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, ¹¹or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. ¹²For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the LORD; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the LORD your God is driving them out before you. ¹³You must remain completely loyal to the LORD your God. ¹⁴Although these nations that you are about to dispossess do give heed to soothsayers and diviners, as for you, the LORD your God does not permit you to do so.

Luke 9:18-27

¹⁸Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” ¹⁹They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” ²⁰He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah of God.”

²¹He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, ²²saying, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

²³Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. ²⁴For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. ²⁵What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? ²⁶Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

The cost is hatred. We will be opposed. We will be despised. We will have to teach in the homes, for the teaching of the Bible is considered by many to be islamophobic, misognyist, transphobic and basically hate speech. The government wants its narrative rammed into our brains, good and hard.

Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

“Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet,” it states. “We disagree.”

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

The plans will allow Britain to become “the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet”, the manifesto claims.

It comes just soon after the Investigatory Powers Act came into law. That legislation allowed the government to force internet companies to keep records on their customers’ browsing histories, as well as giving ministers the power to break apps like WhatsApp so that messages can be read.

The manifesto makes reference to those increased powers, saying that the government will work even harder to ensure there is no “safe space for terrorists to be able to communicate online”. That is apparently a reference in part to its work to encourage technology companies to build backdoors into their encrypted messaging services – which gives the government the ability to read terrorists’ messages, but also weakens the security of everyone else’s messages, technology companies have warned.

The government now appears to be launching a similarly radical change in the way that social networks and internet companies work. While much of the internet is currently controlled by private businesses like Google and Facebook, Theresa May intends to allow government to decide what is and isn’t published, the manifesto suggests.

The new rules would include laws that make it harder than ever to access pornographic and other websites. The government will be able to place restrictions on seeing adult content and any exceptions would have to be justified to ministers, the manifesto suggests.

The manifesto even suggests that the government might stop search engines like Google from directing people to pornographic websites. “We will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm,” the Conservatives write.

We are under attack from within. We will be opposed from without, for every regulation that the UK government puts on the Islamist they can but on the church, and they consider the Church of England is their creature.

We can expect opposition. We can expect attacks. Do what you can to prepare.

And while there is a window to preach, preach. When the window is closed and the regulators are trying to reduce us to the form of religion only, preach the gospel anyway. It is far wiser to fear God than man.