Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, NC, a widely traveled evangelist, and the author of several books. His books are available on Amazon and at www.wordofhismouth.com

You could start with the fact that he still believes in slavery, I suppose, if you wanted to get a sense of what Chuck is really like. That all by itself would seem to be enough for everyone to steer clear of him. But there is so much more to this guy than that…

His view of “the little woman” is, to put it mildly, a bit backwards by today’s standards. His wife is literally not allowed to leave the house without his express permission, and only then if she is accompanied by him or another male relative. As to sex, she has exactly two choices in the matter: give it to him when she wants to, and give it to him even if she does not want to. Saying “no” is not an option to him; he will literally beat her if she does. In fact, he beats her for a lot of things, including her being, in his words, “rebellious.”

It isn’t that Chuck is not religious. In fact, he is very religious. So much so that he believes that everyone ought to pray and even engage in regular fasting. And when I say everyone, I mean even the children. If the kids push back against any of this, they too are beaten. And his pastor is no help; he actually encourages Chuck and all of the other men in his church to do things this way.

A few months ago, Sarah, his wife, lost her mother to cancer. Sarah was devastated. But, true to form, Chuck decided to make matters even worse for her. He forbid his wife from going to the grave of her mother. His excuse was that she was not strong enough to handle seeing a grave like that since she is “just a woman.”

The kids naturally chafe under all of this. But they know better than to say anything about it. They also know that, even when they grow up, they cannot leave the church; their father has threatened to kill them if they do, and he means it.

There are so many other things to all of Chuck’s beliefs and behavior. His wife wants to dye her hair black, and he won’t let her. She wants to get insurance on the family, he refuses. She wants to hang a lovely picture on the wall in the living room, but he forbids it. And whenever she leaves the house, she has to wear a full face mask, not to avoid covid, but because he does not want anyone seeing her face.

Some of you reading this are furious and want to head into the heart of the Bible-belt and find this “Chuck” and drag him out behind his own woodshed and teach him some manners. Others, though, have figured out that the woodshed is somewhere in Afghanistan and that Chuck is actually Fundamentalist Islam and Sharia law, under which all of Afghanistan has now been plunged, likely for countless generations to come.

Not one thing I have said about “Chuck” was opinion, and I did not have to Google any of it. I simply bought and read the Koran, the Hadiths, and The Reliance Of The Traveller: A Classic Manual Of Islamic Sacred Law.

Right now, everyone is focusing on the debacle of our withdrawal from Afghanistan. And I am not minimizing that in the least. The fact that our military was pulled out before our citizens were evacuated, leaving them to the wolves round about them, is unquestionably the most bone-headed, unforgivable act in Presidential history. Add to that the near immediate deaths of thirteen of our servicemen at the hands of a suicide bomber at Kabul airport due to a complete failure of planning and logistics, and the fact that a terrorist organization now owns not just an entire country but an entire military full of high-tech United States gear, and it is clear that our government right now is the laughingstock of the entire world.

But while that is where everyone is focused, the fact of the matter is that, long after those memories have been swept under the rug for us to forget, there will still be a nation of women and children who had been shielded for twenty years and yet are now suffering unspeakable conditions every single day and being brainwashed into believing that is the way it should be.

There are three things all of us in the freedom of America should be doing right now. The first is praying every day for the people of Afghanistan. I know we all have a thousand things on our plate right now, but those people need someone to touch heaven for them. The second is sending and supporting missionaries who will go there and everywhere else with the gospel of Christ. The third is being grateful for the culture of freedom and liberty that Christianity has produced for us here. When the local believers come to your door here, they will be carrying tracts and Bibles, not machine guns and swords, and they will be inviting you to come, not threatening to kill you if you don’t.

2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Rejoice that you have it, and pray that the people of Afghanistan one day will.

Pastor Wagner can be contacted by email at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org, and his books and audio downloads are available by clicking the “Store” link above.

Feature photo by Pastor Bo Wagner