The “Tea Party” Movement

A spiritual as well as political awakening in the U. S. A.

The United States is in big trouble!

Millions of citizens are without jobs; real unemployment percentages are in the 15 – 25% range; hundreds of thousands have lost their homes; millions of dollars were lost in the collapse of the stock market wiping out funds meant to finance retirement; and the present conditions are certain to last for another year or more.

The financial condition of the government is in the worst shape of the last 70 years; the U. S. Congress keeps raising the debt limit and spending more and more borrowed money; the Social Security system is near bankruptcy and the U. S. Government has nationalized major banks, at least one insurance company and two of the big three automobile manufacturers; and the Obama administration and the Democrat Congress continue to spend as if there were unlimited funds available.

HOWEVER, I am not at all depressed by this situation though I have great sympathy for those who lost their jobs and homes.

Why, you might ask, am I not depressed by all these problems?

The short answer is that I believe in God. As my Aussie buddy and co-author of some of the articles on this website would say, “The future of America and Australia and the rest of the world has always been in God’s hands and that situation remains today.” There’s not much that any individual can do to change these massive social and economic situations except to ask God to watch over His people.

As we demonstrated clearly in The Hand of God it was God who brought Great Britain, the United States and the other English-speaking countries into existence and if His word is true, they will not go the way of other countries who have dominated large portions of the world. Further evidence of that oversight by our immortal Creator is supplied by His prophets and Glen Davies has delved into what he calls “timely prophecies” from Isaiah and other prophets and found much support for our thesis in The Hand of God. Glen’s Isaiah Essays are worth reading for this one concept but he adds a lot more worthwhile reading for any student of Bible prophecy.

With that in mind, it seems logical to assess the situation from that viewpoint – that the U.S.A. and the rest of Western Civilization may go through some hard times but they will come out of those times even stronger than before.

Almost all other existing nations would have collapsed completely if they experienced the upheaval of the past two years in the U. S. A. So why is life still pretty much normal in America and what signs are there that a recovery will come if not in the next year, certainly within the next five years?

There are several material and political things that come into play:

1. The government of the USA is still ultimately a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Very little faith and trust is placed in national “leaders” and there is no one man or woman and no group of individuals who have the power to change this country overnight or even in one or two years.

2. The economy of the USA is so vast and so diversified that nothing affects all of it to any large degree. When the housing market collapses there are thousands of people with the stored wealth to take advantage of the low prices; when companies lay off workers, they get rid of the “dead wood” and their remaining workers production steps up to keep the companies profitable albeit at perhaps a lower level. When companies go out of business, if they were producing products or services that are in demand, other companies expand to cover those markets. Marginal businesses fail; sound companies survive.

3. The people of the USA normally pretty much ignore the workings of government (this is not good, but it is a fact in “normal” times) until they become aware that the government is working against them. There are dozens of billionaires and tens of thousands of millionaires in the USA; there are even more thousands of people who work hard, save their money, avoid risky investments and have various kinds of wealth stored for just such circumstances as now prevail. These people get very upset when the government begins to steal their wealth. They will not allow politicians in Washington to ruin their lives. It’s a drastically different economy than the one that collapsed in 1929.

4. Common, ordinary working people in the USA are resilient and intelligent. Ronald Reagan’s greatest asset was that he trusted the American people. If you want to know why he was beloved by so many, there’s your answer. These people are the ones behind the “Tea Party” movement. They saw only a few months into 2009 that the newly elected President Obama was not at all what he claimed – a “centrist” politician who would work with all elements in our society in an open, “transparent” way. See my article “America’s King”. He was and is a big government lover who began to spend money like no other president in our history and to nationalize industries and companies and to reward the unions and social activist groups and the companies that supported him with tax money. They began to organize and to show up at “town hall” meetings and to demand that their voices be heard. By the end of summer, the “health care” bill that was supposed to pass easily was in trouble and its passage delayed. By the time the off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey came around, it was obvious that a large majority of Americans were in direct opposition to Obama’s agenda and even more against the Democrat controlled Congress. The Obama agenda is dead in the water today. It will only get worse for this President.

5. America has its “prophets”: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, Neal Boortz, Michael Medved, Mark Levin and dozens of other “talk show” hosts warned that Obama was a fraud. As God’s people so often have done in their history, they ignored the “prophets” until they became oppressed. But once awakened by the loss of jobs, money and homes they moved in the direction of righting that balance.

6. One other example of a mass media influence came into play in this economic disaster: the “wealth management” people like Dave Ramsey have been teaching hundreds of thousands of people over the past ten years to get out of debt, to stop abusing their credit cards, to avoid the “sub-prime” mortgage deals and to exhibit personal responsibility for their economic station in life. Those thousands of people who have become “debt free” as a result of Ramsey’s teaching (his “ministry” if you will) are the ones who have the wherewithal to purchase those repossessed homes whose market value have been reduced by up to 50% in some areas. The often pay cash for these purchases. There are many others besides Ramsey who’ve preached this kind of personal responsibility including many of the “prophets” listed above and it will be up to historians in the future to assess how much their work lessened the effect of the economic collapse of 2008 – 2009.

7. Finally, it is apparent to this voracious reader that there are a great many people in the USA who’ve also gone through a “spiritual” awakening brought on by these economic times. They’re realizing the importance of family, friends and community like never before. Not only are they now awake politically and taking action to elect new Representatives and Senators to the Federal Congress but they’re starting at the city council, county school board and state wide elections to take a closer look at the people they’ve placed or allowed to be in power by their not voting or discerning the type of people running for public office.

God punishes His people when they go astray. That’s one of main reasons He saw fit to preserve the Bible for us today: we can see how He works with His people. We can see that if they “repent” (meaning stop doing the bad things they’ve been doing) and start doing what’s right, He forgives them and assists them in overcoming the oppressors and if they maintain that attitude, He blesses them even more than before.

It appears to this American citizen that our brothers and sisters in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. have not yet understood the debilitating effects of socialism and centralized governments. They did not arrive at their present systems of government in a few years; socialism has crept into every facet of their governments in small increments beginning in the 1930’s. Certainly the USA has experienced this creeping menace also but with the economic collapse and the attempt by the Democrat Congress and the Obama administration to force the USA into European style socialism in a space of one year, many eyes have been opened to the dangers and the Tea Party movement and all the related political upheaval should begin to reverse that trend.

I believe it will happen.

Clay Willis

February 12, 2010