Do we or do we not care what kind of moral character is possessed by the leaders of government? There are many strident voices that tell us the President's moral behavior is his private business.

The polls tell us the majority of people are quite satisfied with the President's job performance.

Because of the extensive employment of polls our republic is changing into mob rule. Why do I have the feeling that the polls either knowingly or unknowingly are invalid? Why do I think there is a vast body of American people who have been yanked away from their vacation trailers and barbecues and forced to think about the value of faithfulness and truth?

I hope this sleeping giant awakens, casts off its bedclothes, gets up and demands a return to integrity on the part of the leaders of government. If he does, we may have civil war in America. There are multitudes of our population that love things the way they are because they too are putting their pleasures ahead of faithfulness. They will fight viciously any effort to return to more disciplined behavior.

It is not unlikely that fundamentalist Christians will become the scapegoats. Fundamentalists already are being stereotyped as the "religious right," although, as in the case of most stereotypes, there is more error than truth in the description of Christian people as a vast herd of cattle who all stampede in the same direction when their dogmas are threatened. Like African Americans, Jews, and others who have been stereotyped, fundamentalist Christians, while they hold some values in common, are as diverse as other people.

Stereotypes are a device demagogues use to beat unthinking people into line.

There is an old America. There is a new America. Right now the new America is dominating the sitcoms and other abominable media, forever harping on the acceptability and desirability of unfaithfulness in marriage, of fornication, of sexual perversion. There is something moronic about their presentations, if the truth be known, but they have a very great audience of young and old.

But these are not the farmers, mechanics, construction workers, and other hard-working people who get up while it is still dark and keep the country going; who are too busy and tired to write "letters to the editors."

It is well that the Christian churches continue to strive to see how many people they can get to take "the four steps of salvation."

I am a Christian and I believe in salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But something else is needed in America if this nation is to survive another ten years. We have got to have, whether within or outside the Christian churches, a return to faithfulness and truth. Maybe if the churches pray hard enough, repent of their sins, and begin to keep God's commandments, we have a chance.

Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit of God, not of the individual. It is only as we live in the Spirit, keeping the commandments of Christ, putting to death the deeds of our flesh, that the fruit of faithfulness will be borne in us. Then we will possess down-home, old-fashioned integrity to a degree and power not possible to the most determined person striving for faithfulness in his or her own strength.

The faithfulness that is created in us by the Lord Jesus Christ is an integral part of His indestructible, incorruptible, resurrection life. It is part of the eternal, universal power of Divine Life.

To be continued.