Pulling up in traffic, I sat behind a mini-van waiting to turn into a school parking lot. Three bumper stickers stared at me. They read, “Rome Needed More Lions,” “God was my co-pilot but I crashed in the mountains and had to eat him,” and the third stated “Don’t pray in my schools and I won’t think in your church.” Fairly antagonistic toward Christians.
God provided His Holy Word so that we’d have an “Owners Manual” on how we should live if we wanted things to go well. Jesus came down to earth to do what we can’t do for ourselves – save our souls. The Apostle Paul traveled to Rome to face prosecution, in order to reach the unsaved in the “ends of the earth.” Gutenberg invented the mechanical printing press in order to put the Bible in the hands of ordinary people, so they might have a direct link to God’s Word instead of having it interpreted for them. The Separatists we refer to as “the Pilgrims” fled Europe because the Bible was being abandoned as King Henry and his successors began watering it down or ignoring it with their self-proclaimed position of intercessor. Public schooling was mandated in the New England colonies with the primary focus being of teaching children reading – so they could know what God says. Harvard began as an institution to prepare men for ministry. Our Declaration of Independence reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”
How have we come so far and left it so quickly? Why are people SO angry at Christians and why do they feel so justified in publicly expressing their hatred? While I didn’t talk with the lady-of-the-van, I am going to assume that she is anti-hate. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’d just as soon have bumper stickers which read “Hitler Needed More Extermination Camps,” “Buddha was my visionary but we needed more lard for the candles,” and “Don’t meditate in my yoga class and I won’t stretch at your shrine.” Perhaps her hatred covers all groups which differ from hers. But I didn’t see any additional stickers stating such.
As a Christian, I know I am supposed to forgive her. I get that. What concerns me is public policy which becomes comfortable in defining what we are allowed to think and say lest it be incendiary, hate mongering speech (at least towards certain groups). Ethnic slurs? Banished (unless aimed at whites). Sexist comments? Grounds for termination of employment. Alternative lifestyle concerns? Clear symptom of hate mongering. Questions about Islamic fundamentalism? My guess is, pretty soon you won’t be allowed to ask any.
While I don’t believe that Christians should get any “special” rights, I do feel we have an obligation to protect the cultural respect of Christianity for our posterity. Sure, I can continue to remain silent and meek. But what is happening in our country is a pushing of my cultural beliefs, based on Christianity, into a silence which offers no resistance. The lack of resistance acts as license to agnostics and atheists to take control of the moral fabric of this country, dismantling the tapestry of our fundamental beliefs thread by thread. We cannot pray in public schools, despite diligently paying our taxes. We cannot have the Ten Commandments posted in courthouses. We cannot assemble in prayer on the steps of Congress. Benedictions are no longer allowed on public property.
The Cornerstone document of our country’s history is the Declaration of Independence. That document declares that our rights came as a gift from God (endowed by their Creator). That document continues by saying that government is established for this reason: ...that to secure these rights. I ask you again: How did we get to this point? Our government is supposed to be protecting the rights given to us by God, and now we can barely mention His name.
The other famous document – the Constitution? Within the Preamble, we read ...and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity... Our freedoms are not just for ourselves, they are for our posterity (future generations). What I’m saying is this: Accepting the assault on Christianity as some sort of pious tolerance is really selfish in the long run. If this trend continues, our posterity will be reading about the once dangerous presence of religious bigotry in our country which was eventually stamped eradicated due to its dangerous teachings. “History is written by the victors.” (Winston Churchill).
If Jesus came to serve as an example, apparently there is a time and place to turn over some tables.
Hello Mr. B,
ReplyDeleteWow! Reading this reminded me of English class. I still remember the Declaration of Independence. I agree with you totally about the woman in the mini-van. My dad and myself have discussed this before, when people put bumper stickers out like that, they do it for the attention. Yes, they have their rights to do so, but when you go out saying things like that, you can't expect people to not react to what their sign says. Freedom of speech has its limits too. You well know you can't yell "FIRE" at a movie theater, when really their isn't. It's just as bad as when I see these guys put on naked woman on their "MAN TRUCKS." I don't see a point in displaying those picture. Is that trying to prove that you like girls? Or when rappers talk about raping women. What kind of person, would want to rap a song about how you can hurt a woman and make her life miserable. Not to mention, let the whole world hear about it.
Now, in the last paragraph you talk about not being able to pray, and those things, and how you pay taxes for it. I agree to that, but a kid in my class is atheist, and he told me that when he was in baseball, the coach wanted to pray, and he left, because he doesn't do those things. Or when it comes time to say, "One nation under God" he doesn't say it because of his beliefs. That is why praying in school can't be done, and he feels really uncomfortable about it and I understand him, but yet I understand you too. In public school you have so many different kinds of kids that believe so many different things. I believe that what kids think, is really what their parents think, and I can admit to it, because I do the same thing. Its like taking mini-me's of the parents and sending them off to a place to go out and spread their believes. In a way its like church. You go to church, get taught what your suppose to be taught, and then go out and spread the word.
Well, I hope I made any sense at all. This is the first time I have been on a blog. I enjoyed it and will be back.
The myth of a "Christian" United States is total fiction.
ReplyDeletePuritan heritage is nothing anyone should be proud of or wish to restore. The Puritans came to the colonies to establish a religious tyranny. As a state church, Puritans oppressed other religions like they had been oppressed in England. They wanted religious freedom only in the sense that they wanted the freedom to practice their Puritanism and to punish or banish all other religious beliefs. Only Puritan Congregationalist churches were allowed. Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Catholics and others were banished, often with a death sentence if they returned. Puritans punished even minor "impious" behavior, and they killed 25+ people as witches. America's colonial Christians were an undemocratic minority that opposed freedom of conscience and denied political rights based on religious beliefs.
The actions of the Constitution's authors at the 1787 Convention best reveal their thoughts and intent regarding religion. They avoided attempts to insert worship into their deliberations, keeping religious activities separate from the process of creating our government. If no religion at the Constitutional Convention was good enough for our founders, it should be good enough for all public officials in the execution of their duties.
Our founders created a secular government based on freethinking political philosophies. Our founders' Constitution is a stunning rejection of government under god. Only the Constitution establishes our government, not any other document with pious words, such as the Declaration of Independence, Mayflower Act etc. The Constitution ignores god, except for the date, "in the year of our Lord." "We the People," not god, is the authority for our government. The Constitution prohibits any religious test for national office. The Constitution's first amendment prohibits Congress from passing any laws even "respecting an establishment of religion." During many Constitution ratification sessions in the states, Christians tried to add references to God and Jesus into the Preamble and to remove the "no religious test for office" provision. Their failure demonstrates that even though the Constitution was a heated public issue, it was ratified as written. Our founders and the public knowingly chose a godless Constitution.
Conservative Christians argue that the First Amendment language, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," means our founders only meant to prohibit one denomination from becoming the official national religion. The evidence refutes this narrowest of interpretations, aside from the fact that the Constitution must give government such a power, and there is no power to do anything religious in the Constitution. In his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (1/01/1802), Thomas Jefferson cited "a wall of separation between Church and State" as his reason for denying their request for a national day of fasting. Jefferson's metaphor came from London schoolmaster James Burgh, one of England's leading enlightenment political writers. Burgh's Crito (1767) had the phrase, "build an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil." Along with numerous other documents, Jefferson's message clarifies the intention of the amendment.
The Constitution and amendments only mention religion three times, and only as prohibitions against government doing things religious. One cannot pervert express prohibitions against government doing religious things into powers for government to do religious things. Many public officials have a long history of violating their oath of office by mixing religion into government or by supporting religious groups. A tradition of violating the Constitution does not, however, change the Constitution. This traditional disrespect for the Constitution by religious believers should end.