I get it. All this talk of the “blue wave” makes you want to kick the nearest Smurf.
Many midterm victors seem to believe that killers are better than cops, men in women’s sports are better than women in women’s sports, toilet paper is better than the U.S. Constitution, and the Lord is not the Great I AM, but singing “I Am What I Am” in a West Hollywood production of “La Cage aux Folles.”
As easy as it is to sink into despair and defriend anybody who has a D in their name, let alone next to their name, I’m here to let you in on a little secret. If you think God has forsaken this nation, you haven’t been paying attention. We’ve been here before, and not too far in the past.
Nov. 6, 2012. President Barack Obama wins reelection. Four more years of his ignoble work to “fundamentally change” America away from being a prosperous, united nation.
“Well, boys,” you could imagine the Founders saying, “It was fun while it lasted.”
“You didn’t build that anyway,” Obama would respond.
Two days after the election, I was attending a pastors’ leadership conference in L.A. (Why a Hollywood comedy writer was at a pastors’ leadership conference is a story for another day.)
All around the sanctuary that first day, at lunch, and even at times from the pulpit, the vibe was downcast over the election. The party that had pretty much cackled and hissed God out of its convention had won. “We’ve lost the culture,” the pastors were saying over and over. Another Obama term guaranteed more suffering for the unborn and a further turn away from our Christian founding.
Yeah, the worship team played songs of praise, but those fellas were singing the blues.
That night, the keynote speaker, Bishop Kenneth Ulmer, took the pulpit. Bishop Ulmer had lost his voice earlier in the day, and by night, he could barely manage a rasp. But as he got into his message, his voice grew stronger. By the time he got to the heart of his sermon, that voice was booming through the Valley.
And that message? “The King Has One More Move.”
However down you may be, however bad the situation, however hopeless and lost the board looks, you are never, ever, ever going to checkmate God. The King always has one more move. Always.
Was the message meant to be political? While Bishop Ulmer had bigger spiritual fish to fry, he was far too sharp not to know what time it was. (In fact, in a seminar the next day, he tied the pastors in the room in knots, demonstrating how the Bible would be twisted and turned against traditional marriage by church progressives. Prophetic was he.)
He knew those at the conference needed to hear “The King has one more move.”
Was he right? Did the King have one more move?
Does the pope ride the popemobile?
We actually saw several moves. Let me give you two examples. Around the same time Obama was sticking his nose in the air in his election triumph, a young kid was starting to put his nose to the grindstone. He’d left college to go straight into political activism. He brought his faith into the fight.
His wisdom, his message, his heart, his dogged determination would not only help bring about the political revolution of 2024, but also raise a new army of young, fearless conservative men and women who embrace traditional values like marriage and family. I’m talking, of course, about Charlie Kirk.
We cannot begin to calculate the long-term power and impact of that army.
God also had another move that still defies imagination. He tapped a coarse, boastful, twice-divorced billionaire reality-show star, who had been a darling of the liberal elite, and turned him into their worst enemy. He spared the man several times from their bullets to continue the task, even though if you had asked him about Sodom and Gomorrah, he’d be likely to say “Who are they? A Jersey law firm?”
Twice now, that most unlikely of moves has helped stop the disintegration of our nation.
Today, it is tempting to look into the Promised Land and see the territory in the hands of giants, or at least socialist-Islamist locusts magnified into giants.
But hold fast. The King still has one more move. What will that move be? Beats me. I’m still flummoxed by Trump in 2016.
But I may have a clue. Remember that conference I was at? And the dejection over how we had lost the culture? Questions about how we get it back?
The second day, a speaker asked that very question. In the long silence, I heard that still, small voice say, “Look around.” Okay. I scanned the sanctuary brimming with pastors. A long pause. Then, “You’re the only one here who actually works in the culture.”
Oh. Busted. The Hollywood humor writer had a role and responsibility in the fight.
The King still has one more move. And the move starts within each of us.
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