{"id":25182,"date":"2025-06-29T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25182\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T18:50:09","slug":"what-new-york-jackson-needs-is-a-man-on-horseback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25182\/","title":{"rendered":"What New York, Jackson needs is a man on horseback"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The world needs people of faith inviting every nook and cranny to the morality of their King.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Much\u00a0has been\u00a0written about New York City and the mayoral election there.\u00a0And, as far as that goes, Jackson, MS, and\u00a0its\u00a0mayoral race, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It reminded me of a George Will column\u00a0from\u00a01991. If memory serves, he was thinking about New York City when he said,\u00a0\u201cWhat America needs is a John Wesley, who rode Britain\u2019s rural roads and city streets, evangelized the underclass, exhorting pride and combating family disintegration by reforming behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u200bIf this were true over 30 years ago\u00a0for America,\u00a0all the more\u00a0so now\u00a0for New York City and beyond. What New York got in the \u201890s was\u00a0David Wilkerson, Tim Keller, and\u00a0Rudy Giuliani,\u00a0the latter\u00a0of\u00a0whom\u00a0famously attacked crime with gusto and made NYC investable\u00a0and visitable\u00a0again.\u00a0Wilkerson and Keller, for their parts, had ministries in the 90s and beyond\u00a0that targeted addicts, the poor,\u00a0and the marginalized (Wilkerson) and mentored future leaders for church planting, apologetics,\u00a0and a\u00a0robust orthodoxy\u00a0(Keller).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bConcerning John Wesley, he faced an England that was, in most ways, far worse than anything facing New York or Jackson today. Spiritual vitality among churches was low,\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0clergy were lethargic. Gin was sucking the life out of the people with many infant deaths occurring because it was used from bottles to put babies asleep at night. Sexual degeneracy was rampant,\u00a0and a historian commented\u00a0that\u00a0gambling was so out of control that England could be characterized as \u201cone big casino.\u201d\u00a0Public executions were\u00a0thought of as great forms of entertainment as were public punishment (floggings, stocks). Bear-baiting and cockfighting were great public opportunities for betting and amusement. Child labor was ubiquitous, urban slums the norm. The legal system was harsh and unfair with hundreds of offenses punishable by death. Parliament was run by bribes and patronage with the poor having no voice at all. Illiteracy was rampant and education extremely limited.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To this Wesley rode in on a horse and preached in the fields\u00a0to the poor, gathered the willing into societies, classes, and bands, taught them works of piety and mercy,\u00a0moved to the darkest parts of the nation,\u00a0and applied a strong mix of righteousness and love. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bIt is said that this basic program, utilized over\u00a0the majority of\u00a0the 18th\u00a0century, put \u201cthe toothpaste back in the tube\u201d of an England headed towards a French revolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bJohn Calvin was similarly\u00a0focused in the 16th\u00a0century\u00a0on the Bible and its impact on culture by preaching\u00a0multiple times per week\u00a0and insisting that faith touched all aspects of life, not just the inner life of religion. Geneva thus banned or regulated gambling, drinking in excess and prostitution. Literacy and schools were promoted as were just wages, fair lending and generosity towards the poor. The hospital system was expanded and,\u00a0as a\u00a0result of\u00a0these pushes and more, Geneva became a model city for prosperity, industry, care for exiles and a launching pad for the Reformation across Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bWhat Wesley, Calvin and many others throughout Christian history recognized is that a private religion that is concerned solely with what is going on in one\u2019s own heart and inside their local church is no religion at all. The salt of\u00a0the earth\u00a0and the light of\u00a0the world\u00a0was just that\u2026a people of faith\u00a0fully intending\u00a0to invite the whole world (and every nook and cranny therein) to the morality of their King.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u200bAnything less watches a world move towards the book of Judges where \u201ceveryone did what was right in their own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world needs people of faith inviting every nook and cranny to the morality of their King. Much\u00a0has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,11412,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-25182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-faith","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114768158893983792","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}