Letter to the American Church

Dear Editor:
Sixty years ago, it was hard to imagine we would be willing to replace our sovereignty as a nation with socialist and communist ideology. In my opinion, we are one wrong presidential choice away from making that reality.  
My father-in-law was a visionary. He could see it coming. His name was Charles Huenefeld. He served in WWII and 60 years ago he could see that we were setting the groundwork to make communism (the loss of individual freedom) reality in America. He tried his best to warn fellow Christians. He founded the American Freedom Forum to educate and wake people up, but unfortunately his best efforts went unheeded.  
Quite frankly, I didn’t care too much for politics. I grew up in an era where America was winning the space race, Ronald Reagan would come on the scene and tell Gorbachev to tear down the wall.  We were the envy of the world. 
My father-in-law’s greatest discouragement came from the apathy he saw in the church. Few wanted to be involved.  
Now I see that every place the church abdicated its responsibility to be salt and light, Satan stepped in and took over. Those areas include education, arts, entertainment, media, government, family, and business. Satan saw the void and occupied the territory.
My wife has an analogy for this. We live in a house, but no matter how busy we are, we have to keep it up. We have to sweep the floors, clean the toilets, fix leaks in the plumbing, keep the gutters clean, maintain good siding, maintain the roof, and have a watchful eye for pests. If we don’t do these basic things, our house will fall down. 
Our country is our bigger house. We forgot to maintain the structure and now face major repairs, if we can even save the house.   
I think the most common response we have heard from churches today is, “We just preach the Gospel.” Forgetting to be salt and light in all areas of society, the bigger house fell into disrepair. It’s really more than that, we let Satan occupy the house.   
It’s time we take care of our house. Our forefathers laid a Biblically based foundation making us the greatest nation on earth. We need to return to that foundation. That is why we are showing the documentary, “Letter to the American Church” at the 12th Street Cinema on Sunday, June 2nd at 7 p.m. in Aurora. It’s the wake-up call we can no longer ignore.
Greg Epp,
Giltner