D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries has closed down its Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. With Dr. Kennedy still recovering from suffering cardiac arrest last December and our nation undeterred from ”Slouching Towards Gomorrah,” as the title of Robert Bork’s book so aptly puts it, closing down the center seems to be a fitting thing to do.

Many Christians are still under the illusion that ours is a Christian nation restorable to its Christian roots. Although our nation was undoubtedly founded on a belief in God and the Judeo-Christian ethic, it has long since left its foundational principles and become a secularist society, a society in which belief in God is relegated to the subjective and private sphere. Therefore, belief in God is no longer taken seriously in our national debate, due to the fact that it is viewed as a purely personal matter, without consequence to our country at large.

How, we should ask ourselves, is America to ever be reclaimed for Christ if belief in Christ is prohibited from public discourse and dismissed as mere subjective opinion. Try as we may, the country at large, will continue to pat us Christians on the head and patronize us, no matter how seriously we desire our faith to be taken. While others will be seen as objective and given a voice in public debate, we will merely be tolerated as cripples leaning on an imaginary crutch that we’ve created in our own minds.

When will the church wake up to the fact that the Gospel Christ commissioned us to preach is intended for the saving of souls, not of nations? All countries, America included, will pass away. They are all temporal; none are eternal. Souls, on the other hand, are immortal. The church, yes, even the church in America, is in this world to tend to God’s eternal business; namely, the saving of souls from death (James 5:20).

The only souls who will turn receptive ears to our message are those few that the Holy Spirit convicts, convinces and calls. All others will stumble over our Gospel or dismiss it outright as sheer foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). Why, then, should we be surprised at our nation’s disregard for our Christian faith?

While the Center to Reclaim America for Christ may be fittingly closed down this Fourth of July, centers to reclaim souls for Christ should be open throughout our land and world. These centers, more commonly known as churches, should be feverishly working to reconcile men to God before it is everlastingly too late (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).