Eschatology

New Poll on eschatology shows that 65% of Evangelical leaders are premillenial, 14% are amillenial and 4% are postmillenial (with the rest confused about what eschatology means).

So, I guess that is not about me since I'm not an Evangelical leader (or self-described as Evangelical even) but it is interesting to think that I am a minority (since I am amillenial). I wonder if I am a protected minority group?

Hat Tip: Riddleblog

Evangelicals and Catholics Together...in Error.

I've been interested lately by the fact that many Modern Evangelicals and Catholics have a similar theology in some regards. I'm not talking about the catholic elements that all Christians share: doctrine of the Trinity, deity of Christ, etc. I have my own idea of it, but I thought I might ask here first:

What doctrine do many/most evangelicals (read: influenced by charismatics and anabaptists) and Catholics hold that Reformed/Lutherans do not hold?

or

What doctrine do both Evangelicals and Catholics deny that Reformed/Lutherans affirm?

Evangelical and Liberalism: What's the difference?

[Reason #132 why I reject the label evangelical]


According to a 2008 PEW study, 57% of self-identified Evangelicals don't believe Jesus is the only way to eternal life.

A 2010 survey of the Presbyterian Church USA (the "liberal" one) showed 43% disagree or strongly disagree that “all the world’s religions are equally good ways of helping a person find ultimate truth.” (that would make 57% left over) and majorities of members (60 percent), elders (68 percent), and pastors (66 percent) at least agree that “the only absolute truth for humankind is in Jesus Christ.”

Therefore, I will now no longer call the Presbyterian Church USA the "liberal" denomination, but the evangelical denomination, for there is no real difference in reality between the two words. Also, if someone in the PCA says they want to be more evangelical and less Reformed, I will rebuke them.

Carson (kind of) on the Manhattan Declaration

Carson recorded this before the Manhattan Declaration came out, but what he says tends to sum up all my reservations about the document:

Troubling Declaration

A new statement is making the rounds called "The Manhattan Declaration." It affirms, with Christians from diverse backgrounds (Orthodox, Catholic, Evangelical) 3 points of public policy:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

While some of the content certainly has validity in a certain context, I think the document itself is a sign of what's wrong with American Evangelicalism. Yes, I'm picking on Evangelicals since the statement has gained some Evangelicals supporters (James Dobson, Chuck Colson, Timothy George). But this is troubling for the following reasons:

1. These manifestos/declarations are becoming a flavor of the month. Remember "The Evangelical Manifesto"? Of course not. It was a flimsy "vision statment" rather than a confessional document. It speaks in perceptions and generalities. The London Baptist Confession, the Westminster Confession, the 39 Articles, and the Augsburg Confession have been in use for hundreds of years. The Evangelical Manifesto is a year old and no one remembers it (nor should).

2. This is a stand for the Law as exercised in civil society. The question is: why should anyone listen to this statement? The first use of the law is testified to also in Natural Law. Honestly, civil government does not need special revelation. This also explains how Christians should live their lives ethically...to the world. Why should the world listen? First the Law must drive the sinner to Christ and His Gospel before they are conformed to the will of God in the Law. This is the cart before the horse.

3. This is a broad testimony to the Law in practice. This is not a stand for the Gospel. It wants to affirm something with broad "Christian" support, so the gospel is ignored.
The absense of the gospel displays the concern of evangelicals as moral and ethical, not...well...evangelical. Do we believe the world is evil? If so, they will abort their babies, marry and divorce who they wish, and persecute religious minorities. That's what evil people do. Is our message: how to be a better reprobate? Or is our message: The Law reveals our deep and desperate need of redemption in Christ? If we want a declaration of the Law, then I'm happy to wait for a declaration of God's wrath against sin. That's a good place to begin. Let that be the delcaration of the year, followed the next year by a declaration of propitiation in Christ. I'll sign those documents.

Are we as passionate for the repentance of sinners to Christ as we are for marriage amendments, abortion legislation and secular people being nice to religious people?To quote my pastor: "The deepest most pressing need in the world today is the gospel." Not civil law. Not ethics. Not winning the culture for the church and making it safe for the whole family. The most pressing need is death and resurrection, and the world needs to be told it needs to die before it is told it needs to live a resurrected life. Evangelicalism needs to learn to confess and declare the right things:

"Heb 10:22-23 - Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful."

Semi-Marcionism

"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness"
-2 Timothy 3:16

Nearly daily, I find myself in a seminary context. I've been having a re-occuring reaction when discussing theological issues with Christians (especially strict old school dispensationalists). Many times an issue that will come up where most every other Evangelical friend I have will take a different stand. This may be the issue of the Sabbath, or how a covenant works, or the nature and method of worship. Every conversation is starting to end the same way. I quote or exegete Scripture and the other person says that Scripture is not authoritative or binding. They don't say it in that way, but the effect is the same. You see, when this happens, I tend to be quoting or exegeting the Old Testament.

I want to call it Marcionism, but that is too harsh. Marcion saw the Old Testament as containing a different God. This Semi-Marcionism of today sees the same God in the Old Testament, but with a different system of religion, so not authoritative today. The buzz words are "fulfillment" and "radical discontinuity." These words usually communicate that the Old Testament may have been fine in its day, but now is passe. Back then, God was concerned about those things, but He got over it.

If one argues that "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God," one is told either that is Old Testament and not repeated in the New Testament (even though my wording is a quote from Hebrews 4:9) or that Christ fulfilled the Law and we don't need to worry about it anymore.

If one argues that worship is covenant renewal based on Exodus 24, one is told that is Old Testament worship and New Testament worship is completely different. Different how? Now it is "in Spirit" (whatever that means). Why? Because it is. Fulfillment! Radical Discontinuity! New Covenant trumps old covenant!

Let's be honest. Most American Evangelicals treat the Old Testament as Apocryphal. It contains some interesting history and background, but it is not really Scripture and authoritative like the true canon: The New Testament. True, it is never stated that way. Instead, it is either couched in language of "fulfillment" or the new covenant trumping the old. But the effect is the same. The Old Testament's theology is seen as no longer binding or true unless stated in the New Testament. Radical discontinunity becomes a convenient way to disregard 2/3's of the Bible.

Fulfillment is certainly a Scriptural concept. I know Christ fulfilled the Law (Matthew 5:21). Some of that mean that there are some things in the Old Testament that no longer apply (such as national or ceremonial Law). But fulfillment does not mean abolish. (Matt 5:17) By thinking fulfillment means abolish, the concept has been applied too broadly and come to merely mean: the Old Testament has no authority. The Old Testament is pictured as a different religion of the Jews. Even if the Old Testament presents a doctrine in a certain way, our particular understanding of the New Testament is all that counts. Christianity is seen to contradict the old (read: outdated) ways and so "fulfillment" is just another word for abolishing a bad thing rather than development of a good thing. The Sabbath, how a covenant works and the method and nature of worship are then all bad things we don't like, that God finally got right in the New Testament. We quote Augustine: "The New is in the Old contained, and the Old is in the New explained." We don't mean it though. We really mean: " The New is in the Old in certain parts, and the Old is in the New explained away."

The real reasons we dismiss the Old Testament:

1) We don't read the Old Testament.

Our time answers to the demands of real life. This is legit, to a degree. Life requires work. But when we get a free moment, we'd rather not think, but unwind. So we watch television and surf the web. If we do devotions they are from the New Testament, and when we read the Old Testament, it is not as someone under authority, but as story.

2) We aren't taught the Old Testament

Measure your Old Testament sermons compared to New Testament sermons. Then, when the Old Testament is taught, how often is theology in view rather than marriage tips from Song of Solomon and Ruth, parenting tips from the Patriarchs, and trusting God generically in generic situations?

3) We don't like the Old Testament world

The Old Testament deals with people as a group. As nations and families. We function as individuals. There is a distinction between clergy and laypeople. We hate hierarchy and authority. There are kings. We are democrats. People go to war in the Old Testament. We like peaceful and happy Jesus, not wrathful and angry Yahweh. The Old Testament contains these people called prophets, and we think prophecy is just prediction. If we ever read the prophets, we find more judgment and commands than we desired, and when we come to the prophets we find they don't "prophecy" like Nostradamus and the prophecies do not become "fulfilled" in the way we think they should be. So, we ignore and neglect the prophets and merely assume it is for scholars to confirm and give us the two sentence version.

4) The Old Testament is long

We have the New Testament at about half the length of the Old Testament. We prefer to read the New Testament instead...though we really merely repeat what we've heard other people say about it because,

5) We prefer a tradition of supposed biblicism (we'd rather claim to be Biblical than read the Bible)

We hear others talk about the Bible and give us a few conclusions. We trust them and think by doing so, we are Biblical. So if something else is argued, even if the Bible is referenced, we think it is not "Biblical." Nevermind "searching the Scriptures to see if it is so."

We ought to be honest. Either Evangelicals should relabel their Old Testaments as Apocrypha or start taking them seriously. I don't know what is meant by fulfillment and radical discontinuity anymore other than that person does not think the Old Testament functions as Scripture. We must have a theology of the Old Testament that recognizes what Paul said about the Old Testament: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Ad Fontes.

Evangelical Liberalism

The broader I read, the more the idea crystalizes that much of American evangelicalism today is closer to liberalism than orthodoxy. I don't mean that about everyone who uses the term. To some evangelicalism means an adherence to the gospel. But more and more evangelicalism now means an emotional experience. But then evangelicalism in this instance really has no differenciation from what, in the 1920's, they called Liberalism. I'm slowly making my way through Machen's "Christianity and Liberalism," wherein Machen contrasts Christianity and Liberalism as two different religions.

There are times, however, where I wonder if Machen is talking about some forms of American evangelicalism. Today, one might just as well distinguish this "Americanity" and Christianity. Americanity is a personal emotive experience with God that is true for the person because its their personal experience, no other basis is necessary. But, as Machen tells us:

"Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened...Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event.

...

Christian experience, we have just said, is useful as confirming the gospel message. But because it is necessary, many men have jumped to the conclusion that it is all that is necessary. Having a present experience of Christ in the heart, may we not, it is said, hold that experience not matter what history may tell us as to the events of the first Easter morning?...Religious experience [that] may be, but Christian experience it certainly is not.

...

Christian experience is rightly used when it helps to convince us that the event narrated in the New Testament actually did occur; but it can never enable us to be Christians whether the events occured or not."

-Machen. Christianity and Liberalism. pg 70-71

Christless Christianity

Michael Horton's new book "Christless Christianity" is definitely on my Christmas list. This is a great interview on Lutheran radio program Issues Etc. with Michael Horton taking on the problem of watered down modern American evangelicalism that may have a high place for the Bible, but doesn't always know what Christ or doctrine has to do with Christianity. Take a listen.

The Gospel: Witness or Sale?

[a post I wrote awhile ago elsewhere, reposting here]

What if the way we communicate the gospel is wrong?

Within Evangelical circles, I think it is safe to assume that most people think of sharing the gospel with an Arminian view. The models for sharing the gospel tend to be sales, persuasion, and manipulation. It is so ironic that a person can tell you one minute that conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, not methods, and then the next minute talk about evangelism primarily as knowing certain methods..

THE METHODS

Two methods tend to be popular with Evangelicals currently. The first is cold-turkey evangelism. This is handing a tract to someone on the street and trying to get a decision (sinners prayer, ask Jesus into your heart, etc.) The two people (the evangelist and the potential convertee) know little or nothing about each other before the encounter.

The next popular method of evangelism is "friendship evangelism." This method consists in getting to know a neighbor or friend a little before trying to get a decision (sinner's prayer, ask Jesus into your heart, etc.). The two people know a little about each other before the person is asked to become a Christian.

After selling mobile phones for two years, I can tell you these methods seem to have more in common with two books I read in preparation for outside sales (Closing Techniques, and Cold Calling Techniques) than they do with Biblical or historic evangelism. Selling a product has a limited time where you educate the customer about the product (all the good parts, none of the bad parts) and get them to hand over the cash, or sign the contract. Yet, the marketplace tends not to be the main Biblical model for the Christian experience.

SACRIFICE AND RELATIONSHIP

The relationship between Christ and the Church is frequently described as analogous to a Groom and his Bride. If we thought about this as our model rather than sales, our approach to non-believers would be entirely different. Instead of thinking of Evangelism as selling a product, we would look at it as courting towards the goal of betrothal.

We can immediately see a difference between giving enough information (all the good stuff) looking towards a sale; and giving (or the person learning) all the information (the comforting and the hard stuff) during a courtship. Also, as a salesman, I normally only had to use my words to convince someone to buy a product. I may tell the person I am concerned that they get the right phone and the right plan, and in fact I may even care that the customer does get the best deal. But the customer has no assurance that I am not just selling them a phone to get a better commission (which was more often the case).

Yet as a boyfriend and then husband, I had to demonstrate my love (more than concern) for my wife by my actions. The actions may range from symbolic (flowers), to being present, to listening, to helping her move, to doing other things that take away from my comfort or time to add to her well-being.

TAKING JUSTIFICATION BY WORKS SERIOUSLY

James writes in his second chapter that you show your faith by your works and therefore are "not justified by faith alone." I truly believe Calvin was right when he distinguished between James' justification before men and Paul's justification before God. James is here talking about how our faith is shown to be right before men, not how we are declared right with God. Yet, many evangelicals will stop there without truly exploring what justification by works is, and what is demanded by it.

If our faith is justified before men by works, then an evangelism by only words is not only ineffective, but Biblically lacking. Both Peter and Jesus tell us that people should "see our good deeds and praise God." ( Matt 5:16, 1 Peter 2:12) In fact, I have made the case elsewhere that this is how the Early Church understood James and evangelism.

SACRAMENTAL WORKS

The natural objection so far is that the gospel is a matter of the word. Paul makes this very clear in Romans 10, does he not? I do concede this willingly. Yet, if the gospel is a matter of words, why perform baptism or the Lord's Supper? Because the gospel is closely associated with the sacraments.

According to Augustine, sacraments are outward signs of an inward reality. I submit that good works themselves have a sacramental quality. Though the word is primary and the sacrament is void without the word, still the sacrament proclaims the gospel with the word. Consider how Paul describes the Lord's Supper: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes." (1 Cor 11:26) The Lord's Supper is a physical reminder that Christianity is not a mere mystical religion, but is concerned with the physical and the reality of the present world as well.

Looking at works sacramentally does not mean we "go into the world and preach the gospel and if we must, use words." All works need the word to infuse them with meaning. With the proper sacraments, we do this and proclaim Christ's death. In our works, we carry the proclamation of the Kingdom. In feeding the hungry, we proclaim "in the kingdom there will be no hunger." In housing the homeless, we proclaim "in the kingdom, there is shelter for the weak." In visiting the imprisoned, we proclaim "in the kingdom, there is freedom." Christ's reign is the proclamation of our works. Our works become a means of grace for others, and perhaps even for ourselves. In our works, what if we demonstrated grace, rather than merely talked about it? Is it not telling that the pagan Emperor Julian once complained of Christians in the fourth century:

"These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes...Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity, and by a display of false compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love-feasts, and their tables spread for the indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods."

What if we were accused of the same today, that Christians not only fed their own poor, but the pagan poor as well, stealing converts? What if we showed the gospel to be carrying a cross, in all its difficulty of putting others' needs above our own, rather than showing the gospel to be a sales offer?

If our gospel has been reduced to "accept this offer, its a good deal," then have we missed the fullness of the gospel?

Peter, Paul and Street Preachers

I’ve had street preachers on the mind since Sunday. We talked a little about them in Sunday School. I am reminded about a little journal entry I wrote about witnessing a street preacher about a year ago. I thought I would share what I wrote then, now:

I experienced a new event in my Christian life the other day. I witnessed a street preacher. I have heard in the past of these preachers being effective in New York in lower class neighborhoods in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. But this I witnessed in Dallas Texas in a tourist neighborhood. A man stood on a chair and offered a dollar for the answer to a question of the most dangerous profession. We went into the restaurant and did not hear the answer, when we exited the man had a different message, still in the role of the man with the answers and authority. He was preaching hell. He described the torment and pronounced this as the end for those who sin in various ways. A group of 15-20 people were gathered around, same when we came out as when we went in. All his age, social group, and conservative dress. Later the group left and the same group came back as we walked around the shops, this time with a different speaker but the same (artificial) audience and message. One person walked through the middle of the group and received scorn at his sin, the man then flipped them off. Another woman stopped a few feet in front of the speaker and asked if he could just come down and talk to her. The man pleaded that “Jesus is calling you into relationship!” The woman just kept repeating “can you just come down and talk to me normal?” Then when the woman did not relent the preacher continued his condemnation of all those in earshot.

I’ve often wondered if a focus on avoiding hell is as orthodox as a focus on gaining Christ. At that moment if someone asked me, while standing there watching the street preacher if I was a Christian, I may have defined the term. As a man who’s never preached a sermon, I might offer quick condemnation. In fact, I wondered if the preacher would be able to recite the end or just the first part of 1 Peter 3:15 “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” but then that troubling ending: “yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

Questions entered my head: Is this street preacher what evangelicalism is supposed to be? Is fear of hell the only thing driving a person towards a “decision”? Is being a Christian even a matter of a decision?

I’ve been instructed to write a “sales pitch” for my class on Evangelism. Well, not a sales pitch as much as a 100-word description of my conversion to communicate to someone else. But when was I converted? Many take Paul as an example, with a road to Damascus experience. Light shines down and Jesus goes from hated to Lord.

But then I think of my “sinner’s prayer” at seven and subsequent baptism. The rediscovery of faith in high school through the writings of C.S. Lewis. The discovery of grace in college in Ephesians and Romans. Which one was my road to Damascus?

Here’s a harder question, when was Peter converted? What if I look back and see a calling out of my boat, a general disbelief at the words of Christ, a total misunderstanding of what it means to be a disciple, denial, restoration, further failure, disassociation with fellow Christians, disobedience and verbal orthodoxy? Which part of the story is the conversion part? What if I’m more like Peter than Paul?

What if God didn’t use a formula in my drawing out, do I need to put my experience into a formula? Well, if I want to get a good grade I do, even though I know there are more Peters than Pauls in Christendom. I know there are many sinners (yet saints) in Christ’s army. All this to say: sometimes I just want to go up to some evangelicals, standing on their chair, and ask them to come down and just talk to me.

Christian Sheet Music?

"People are not having enough sex." -Relevant Church

You know, if you asked me what the Church's message to a fallen and broken world should be, I honestly would not have put the above quote near the top of the list. Anyone else just getting generally disgusted with "seeker churches" reducing Christianity to advice on your love life? I would love to go to the parking lot of Willow Creek, Relevant Church and Lakewood and give a short quiz on the Trinity, Christ and salvation. I have no doubt that these churches are filled with Modalistic Arian Pelagians and even if the pastors are orthodox they are doing nothing to make sure their congregation knows as much about God as they do about 9 principles to a better sex life.

The Entertainment-Driven Church?

Patton of Parchment and Pen wrote this reflection after visiting an evangelical Anglican service and then a non-denominational evangelical service. It just put into words what my reaction was when seeing big city evangelicalism in Dallas. Just made me want to ask if there was a place to return my "Evangelical Card." A friend of mine gave up the label a while back and was looking for something new to call himself. He settled on "Classical Christian." I'm fine with "Reformed" or even "Reformed Catholic" just to confuse people.

But as for "Modern Evangelicalism," will the last one out, please turn off the lights?

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Lately I've been wondering: what does “evangelical” mean?

In reading up on the subject, people have been called evangelical in 3 different historical time periods with 3 different meanings:

1. 1500s - “Evangelical” was almost universally synonymous with Lutherans. As the split appeared between the followers of Calvin and the followers of Luther, most of the former took the label of “Reformed” and most of the latter took the appellation of “Evangelical.” Yet, some Reformed would also refer to themselves as evangelical, as this merely identified themselves with Luther’s recovery of the gospel. [Hence, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America claim the label of evangelical, meaning little of what is meant today]

2. 1700s - “Evangelical” refered to the new religious furvor associated with the Wesleys and Whitefield in the Methodist revival movement in England. The emphasis of the “evangelicals” was on personal conversion and an experiential response to the gospel (John Wesley described it as a “strange warming”). Evangelicals often insulted the Anglican establishment by preaching the need of conversion (the gospel) to baptized church members.

3. 1900s - After the 20s and 30s revealed the inadequacies of mere “Fundamentalism” in its blunt, militant, separatist reaction to theological liberalism, the neo-evangelicals adapted some of the revival techniques of the Second Great Awakening attempting to be “nice fundamentalists.” In America, this movement was most commonly associated with Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga, a Baptist and Presbyterian respectively and in England with Martin-Lloyd Jones and John Stott, a separatist Methodist Calvinist and an Anglican minister respectively. Yet after these leaders, evangelicalism began to focus on the same fundamentals that all Christians share, and ignore distinctives.

D.G. Hart recently wrote an entertainingly controversial book where he contends that “evangelical” means little more than “someone who likes Billy Graham.” Some may have an affinity for J.I. Packer, but his Reformed Anglican views offend many separatists, and some like Christianity Today, though it is derided by many a purist. Even the doctrine of "faith alone" is questioned as a necessity by the keepers of the gate. In an increasingly post-Graham world, the loose alliance of people may shatter between those who often like to "take their ball and go home" in regards to denominations. Hart voices the opinion of some Reformed and most Lutheran theologians who like their distinctives and rather not abandon them. Hart claims the term is no longer meaningful or useful in historiography as those called evangelicals will have no common identity after Graham and now that evangelistic revivals have fallen out of favor.

While I agree with much of Hart‘s criticisms of “generic evangelicalism,” and bad theology coming from revival evangelism, I think he might be a little too harsh on “the e-word.” I am not quite ready to abandon the term “evangelical” as long as it can be an adjective describing a general alliance, rather than noun conveying a lowest common denominator. In other words, the depths of Christian spirituality are found in its traditions, be they Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican or pietist/puritan. These traditions can come together in common cause, for the gospel. But in doing so, they should not lose the depths of the spiritual insights gained by the Reformed focus on the doctrines of grace, or the Lutheran/Anglican sacramental spirituality, or the puritan communion with God through the word. If they lose these distinctions, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant while chasing relevancy and dull while “sharpening” our gospel message.

So check out Hart's book if you want your assumptions challenged, though most will not agree with his solutions, his diagnosis is important to contend with...

The Coming End of an Era: Will Evangelicalism Survive?

The passing of Billy Graham's wife left me thinking: will "Evangelicalism" survive post-Graham? One definition of Evangelicalism I've heard is "anyone that likes Billy Graham." Billy Graham represented a new chapter when Fundamentalism moved from huddled shivering to partial engagement. But what institutions has evangelicalism built to proliferate itself? The National Association of Evangelicals seems doomed. It's failure would be on the same basis that many evangelical churches fold: it was based on one man, Ted Haggard.

In my analysis, I believe just as the last 50 years witnessed the split between Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, the next 50 will see a splinter into evangelicals, emerging church, and denominational realignment.

If the last 50 years witnessed a trending away from denominations, could the next 50 be the opposite? The previous generation of evangelicals were ecumentical (J.I. Packer, Billy Graham, John Stott, Chuck Colson, Bill Bright etc.) while the next seems polarizing (John Piper, Michael Horton, Albert Mohler, Mark Driscoll, etc.). As this older generation passes off the scene, don't be suprised if older denominations (such as the growing Southern Baptists and PCA) and newer networks (such as the Emergent Villiage and the Act 29 network) fill the void for a new sectarianism in conservative Protestantism in America.