A Divided Thought Process

A friend of my said he perceived there are two Americas. I believe that is right, but I think it goes deeper than America. There are two distinct ways of thinking among human beings. Humanity is not divided along the lines of rich and poor, black and white, Republican or Democrat, religious or not religious. The division is between followers of Jesus Christ and those who do not follow Him. Jesus even said this would happen when He said, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 10:34-39 NASB) There are two distinct Americas. There are those who follow Jesus Christ, and there are those who don’t. The thinking is different. It is so different that those on the extremes of both sides refer to the thinking of the other as insanity.
Of course there is a whole range of manifestations of the thinking of those who are not disciples of Jesus Christ. I believe that most if not all liberal thinking comes from those who have rejected, ignored, or avoided becoming followers of Jesus Christ. There are those who deny that God even exists and who are belligerent to the very thought of a person being devoted to their God to the point that they would like to restrict anyone’s expression of his or her belief. There are those who profess even to be Christian, but they pick and choose what part of God’s revelation they want to believe based on personal criteria. There are those who believe there is a God and even believe in Jesus Christ but have been lulled into nominalism and have fallen into the same way of thinking as those who don’t even believe there is a God. Some even believe in God and Jesus Christ and profess to be His disciples, but have been so influenced by this way of thinking that every action they take reflects it.
Likewise there is a range of degrees of thinking among those who are true disciples of Jesus Christ. I believe that most truly conservative thinking has its roots in Christianity. The truest conservative is Jesus Christ Himself. His whole mission was to restore creation to God’s original ideal through His payment for the sins of individuals who turn from going their own way to going His way. One basic tenant of godly thinking is to realize that man cannot govern himself without God’s help because man was never meant to govern himself but to be governed by God. In contrast to humanist who believe that it is in their prevue to fix every ill, disciples of Jesus Christ realize that only God can truly fix an ill. Conservatives who rely on their own wits to fix ills in society, though they have a philosophy that works because it is a philosophy based on godly principles, may not personally be disciples of Jesus Christ.