I Am Not Ashamed

By:  Dale Weckbacher   

Romans 1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

NKJV

Like Paul, I too am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for I believe that it is the answer to all that is wrong with our world.  As we begin this new year, I will continue to write as one unashamed of the gospel and as one dedicated to spreading the good news that Jesus Christ came into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:16-17).  If you have not already done so, take a moment before reading any further to ask Jesus to come into your heart by acknowledging that he came and died, was buried, and rose again to save you from your sins.  If you have accepted Jesus as your savior, take a moment right now at the beginning of this new year to rededicate your life to serve Him in this new year. 

I likewise am not ashamed to be an American and citizen of the United States of America.  Like all nations on earth, governed by flawed individuals, the United States is not perfect.  However, the premise of the founding of the United States as expressed in its founding documents is a more perfect nation where individuals have the liberty to pursue their dreams.  The founders of the United States envisioned a small government with the role of defending the God given rights of citizens and not a nation wanting to control its citizens. 

Unfortunately, the current leadership of the United States does not see the nation as a liberating force in the world but sees it as a colonial conquering nation.  (1)  This could not be further from the truth for it was such a conquering nation that the United States fought with for its freedom.  Here are just a few examples of why I do not see the United States is not a conquering but liberating force on the world. 

1)      World War I and II – In World War I and II the United States went to war against Germany, not because Germany attacked the United States, but to assist their European allies against the threat of occupation by a tyrannical German regime.  However, instead of occupying Germany along with our allies after the war, we helped the nation rebuild its infrastructure and government only leaving bases behind not to occupy the nation but to insure the tyrannical government we defeated did not return.  Even though Japan did attack the United States at Pearl Harbor, we to did not occupy Japan after the war but helped them rebuild as well leaving a few bases to also insure they did not reestablish a tyrannical regime. 

2)      Cuba – The United States once had free and open trade with Cuba but after the takeover by the Castro regime chose to implement sanctions limiting trade with the nation.  The goal of these sanctions was to cripple the regime in the hope the people would over throw their tyrannical government in favor of a more free government.  This did not occur but this does not mean we should abandon this strategy for in doing so the United States is in essence condoning tyranny in Cuba. 

3)      Iraq and Afghanistan – The Taliban occupiers of Afghanistan did brutally attack innocent people in the United States on September 11, 2001.  In response to these brutal attacks, the United States went to war against Afghanistan with the goal of deposing the oppressive Taliban regime.  Intelligence also told the United States that the Hussein regime in Iraq both supported and trained the Taliban and stopping them was in the best interest of stopping terrorism.  After deposing the Hussein regime in Iraq, the United States could have moved in and taken possession of the precious oil fields in Iraq as payment for liberating the people of Iraq.  However, in line with the nation’s history of being a liberating and not colonial conquering force, we once again helped the nation rebuild and establish a democratic government.  Unfortunately, unlike Japan and Germany, we failed to leave behind sufficient forces to maintain the peace and now ISIS has been able to depose the Democratic government the United States helped establish.  The current government of the United States, incorrectly viewing themselves as a conquering colonial force prematurely withdrew leaving the citizens of Iraq defenseless against the real conquering force, ISIS.

In each of these instances, the United States could have taken over the governments of these nations either by annexing them as states or territories as we could have done with Germany and Japan in World Wars I and II and Afghanistan after deposing their tyrannical governments.  If we were a conquering colonial regime as our current leadership believes we would have taken over in Iraq and confiscated their oil fields so we would have an abundance of cheap crude oil. 

No instead the United States takes on the role of a liberating force by rebuilding the infrastructure our military destroys during hostilities and assists the nation in establishing a more perfect government patterned after our own.  In the case of Cuba, we did not go to war with the nation but instead chose to limit our interaction with their tyrannical regime in the hope that would spur the people to depose their tyrannical regime in the interest of a government supporting the freedoms of the individual.  Even though this Cuba strategy did not accomplish its goal, abandoning this strategy is in essence expressing our support of Cuba’s tyrannical regime.  In other words, Obama’s new Cuba strategy is not condoning the liberation of the Cuban citizens but condoning continued tyranny over them by their oppressive regime. 

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the solid foundation upon which we should build our lives.  I am also not ashamed to be a citizen of the United States and even though it is not a perfect nation, I believe the constitutional government established by its founders is the most perfect and liberating form of government established by man.  My prayer is that this year we can begin reestablishing the constitutional government envisioned by the founders of the United States and reverse the path to tyranny we are currently going down. 

1. DeYoung, Karen. Obama moves to normalize relations with Cuba as American is released by Havana. www.washingtonpost.com. [Online] The Washington Post, December 17, 2014. [Cited: January 3, 2015.] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/report-cuba-frees-american-alan-gross-after-5-years-detention-on-spy-charges/2014/12/17/a2840518-85f5-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html.