Archives for : Christianity

Something is still broken

Posted by :webmaster On : January 10, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism

Julie DelCour’s “Should we license some parents?” is an excellent although heart-breaking summary of the current status of child abuse in Oklahoma and the nation (maltreatment, physical abuse, neglect, and death). [Julie DelCour, Tulsa World, p. G1.] She cites a litany of factors that are associated with child abuse: “…maternal youth and low education, very low income, parental mental health issues, absence of established paternity and the presence of unrelated adults in the household, …[and] parental substance abuse.”

Child abuse and neglect are on the increase and government officials, law officers, sociologists, and concerned citizens want to know why. However, we have already identified the factors associated with child abuse. In spite of new and strengthened child abuse laws, rules, regulations, training, programs, etc., child abuse continues to grow. But, Mrs. DelCour cuts to the heart of the matter when she asks “How do we fix unfit parents and caregivers?” With no answers, she ends her editorial with the melancholy observation that “…something is still broken.”

Could it be that are we merely treating the symptoms and not the disease which causes child abuse? It appears there is a systemic problem much larger than child abuse whose causal factors are merely a microcosm of larger societal issues which, unless fixed, will continue to bedevil and ultimately destroy the American culture that we once knew. The question is not just how does society fix parents and caregivers but how does society fix the individual.

Christian principles were the center of the nation’s cultural vision at its founding and remained so for 150 years. With the abandonment of these biblical principles in favor of a humanistic principles, policies, and practices, we have substantially destroyed the family. The proof is incontrovertible. Even prominent humanists recognize the loss of our fundamental values in American society. One such was Benjamin Spock who championed the humanistic worldview throughout his life. In 1994, four years before the end of his life at age ninety, Spock wrote of his concern as he viewed the harmful effects of society on American children.

…I am near despair. My despair comes not only from the progressive loss of values in this century, but from the fact that present society is simply not working. Societies and people who live in them fall apart if they lose their fundamental beliefs, and the signs of this loss are everywhere. [Spock, p. 15.]

As a result America was losing its way because of “a progressive relaxation of many of our standards of behavior and the souring of many commonly held beliefs.” He listed a number of signs of this loss of fundamental values and beliefs and included the increasing instability of marriage, child neglect through excessive focus on careers, materialism, single parent households, failure of schools, progressive coarsening of the attitude towards sexuality due to mass media, and growth in family violence. [Spock pp. 15-16, 93.] Amazingly, Spock remained oblivious to humanism’s disintegrating effects and did not see that the ills of society are a direct result of nearly a century of humanism’s dominance in American life as it stripped away our fundamental beliefs instilled by a biblical worldview. [Spock, pp. 124-125; Johnson, pp. 404-405.]

In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis captured the essence of this cultural madness brought about by the unwitting soldiers in the army of the “knowledge class” having been indoctrinated with a humanistic worldview. [Johnson, pp. 301-302.]

It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals…Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. All the time…we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible…In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. [Lewis, p. 704.]

Ms. DelCour is right. Something is still broken, but this brokenness involves far more than just child abuse. America is losing its fundamental beliefs. America’s original central cultural vision is held together by the moral capital banked decades ago but is near depletion. Faced with a hostile popular culture and leadership in our American institutions that embrace the humanistic worldview, we are in critical danger of forever losing the central cultural vision established by the Founders—those men with chests.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Julie DelCour, “Should we license some parents?” Tulsa World, January 5, 2014, G1;
“Julie DelCour, A license for parents?” Tulsa World, January 5, 2014. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/juliedelcour/julie-delcour-a-license-for-parents/article_79378171-a113-5eb8-84b0-84866e50c673.html (accessed January 8, 2014).

Dr. Benjamin M. Spock, A better World for Our Children – Rebuilding American Family Values, (Bethesda, Maryland: National Press Books, 1994), pp. 15, 93, 99, 124-125.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 301-302, 404-405.

C. S. Lewis, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, The Abolition of Man, (New York: Harper One, 2002), p. 704.

Belief-free government? Let’s hope not.

Posted by :webmaster On : January 3, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government

Brady Henderson (legal director of the ACLU of Oklahoma) would have us “keep beliefs free from government” and defends the work of the American Civil Liberties Union by claiming it must protect “…the simple but critical right of each to make his/her own choices in matters of faith or creed.” Henderson tells us that,

…we should be more wary than ever when local leaders now tell us that more government is the solution to what ails our churches, faith communities, or souls. Yet that is exactly what they are doing. The Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol now literally and explicitly tells Oklahomans what is and is not to be worshiped and believed. The ‘Merry Christmas Bill’ seeks to enshrine government – not pastors, churches, or people of faith – as an exclusive protector of the spirit and meaning of Christmas. [Henderson, Tulsa World, p. A-19.]

Religious freedom was guaranteed by the First Amendment. When the machinery of government is used to protect those Constitutionally given freedoms, Henderson and the ACLU cry foul and claim that government shouldn’t interfere in issues of faith. In reality, it is government through legislation and the courts that is undermining the very religious freedoms they claim to protect. Put another way, Henderson’s assertion that we must keep our religious beliefs free from government interference is in direct conflict with his and the ACLU’s use of government to constrain expression of those religious beliefs in the public square. Driving beliefs from the public square does not enhance but destroys religious freedom in the name of some rapacious and undefined egalitarian ideal.

Choice in matters of faith or creed is an important component of our nation’s founding, but it is the incorrect interpretation of the meaning of religious freedom and the enforcement of this false understanding that does the real violence to religious freedom in 21st century America. This misinterpretation of the meaning of religious freedom occurs with regard to both our founding principles and to the requirements necessary for American culture to survive.

The United States was founded on Christian principles and was not created as a belief-free government or a government of over-reach in attempting to equalize expressions of religious faith in the public square. The overarching moral suasion of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles in government is not coercive to religious freedom as the ACLU would have us believe. Rather, it provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, p. 224.]

This was the attitude of the Founders as evidenced by the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, fourth President and Father of the American Constitution).

The real object of the [First A]memdment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects (denominations) and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.” [Federer, p. 575.]

To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America. “Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…” [Tocqueville, p. 343.] Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. [Tocqueville. P. 345.] But unlike the modernists’ definition of the separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.

Henderson’s second misinterpretation of religious freedom in America regards the requirements of an enduring culture. Rather than a culture whose government is made barren of religious influence, a sustainable culture requires unity that may be attained only by a single central cultural vision. The very foundation of the cultural concept is unity that assumes a general commonality of thought and action, that is, to be informed by ethics and moral guidance. John Quincy Adams unequivocally identified America’s source for that moral guidance.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.” [Federer, p. 18.]

For a culture to survive, its government must not stand in opposition to its central cultural vision or to attempt to meld together or comingle multiple cultures into one culture with multiple centers of vision. To do so is to create a powerless culture with little influence and place it on the road to disintegration. [Johnson, p. 399.] The cultural vision of America at its founding was centered on the principles of Christianity. To believe otherwise is a matter of ignorance or denial of the massive weight of the history of the colonial and founding era.

Henderson and the ACLU’s perceived dangers of big government on religious freedom are correct but not in the way they describe. Their remedies effectively impose big government denial of religious freedom and stand in opposition to our nation’s history and the requirements for an enduring culture.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Brady Henderson, “Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013, p. A-19; Brady Henderson, “Henderson – Keep beliefs free from government,” Tulsa World, December 28, 2013. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/readersforum/henderson-keep-beliefs-free-from-government/article_60cf4f9f-2eee-517c-bbc6-9dc6051acb4e.html (accessed December 30, 2013).

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 224, 399.

William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), pp. 18, 575.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.

Saving the Republic – The Second Great Awakening – Part II

Posted by :webmaster On : December 27, 2013
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

In Part I, we noted the ebb tide of religious fervor and an increase in secularism and irreligion following the American Revolution, especially in the decade of 1790s. The Constitution creating the United States of America had just been ratified in 1787 and the Bill of Rights was added in 1791. Washington was President and there was an air of optimism regarding the nation’s future. But, at the same time morality at all levels of society was spiraling downward and threatened the survival of the young nation.

Following years of moral decline, the shameful debacle of the presidential campaign of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson illustrated the threat to the nation’s survival. Both candidates were vilified and slandered by their political opponents and operatives. Jefferson was accused of swindling clients as a young lawyer and charged with cowardice during his time as governor of Virginia. Pamphlets and newspapers called Jefferson a “…hopeless visionary, a weakling, an intriguer, intoxicated with French philosophy, more a Frenchman than an American…carried on with slave women…a howling atheist…” Adams was portrayed as being “…old, addled, and toothless…procuring mistresses… a vain Yankee scold, and, if truth be known, ‘quite mad’.” [McCullough, pp. 543-544.] Such was the political and immoral atmosphere that permeated the nation at the close of the century.

A society cannot avoid destruction if political ties are relaxed without a corresponding tightening of moral ties. [Tocqueville, p. 344.] The Political ties so painfully forged over a quarter century were in danger of permanently unraveling in the campaign wars of 1800 between the Federalist and anti-Federalist partisans. Destruction of the new nation was imminently possible without a corresponding tightening of moral ties. The republic had to be saved.

Thirty-one years following the end of the eighteenth century, a young Frenchman of the aristocracy traveled extensively in America and subsequently wrote of his impressions. Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America has been called one of the most influential political texts ever written about America.

Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

On my arrival in the United States, it was the religious atmosphere which first struck me. As I extended my stay, I could observe the political consequences which flowed from this novel situation.

In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America, I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land. [Tocqueville, pp. 343, 345.]

How do we reconcile these two disparate pictures of America? Here we have a nation sinking into immorality—a cesspool of secularism, irreligion, political expediency, and debauchery following the Revolutionary War through the end of the century. Thirty-one years later Tocqueville described America as having a highly religious atmosphere in which the spirit of religion and freedom are inextricably entwined. Something must have happened to dramatically alter the course of the nation. We call that happening the Second Great Awakening.

In 1791, through the Union of Prayer that was begun with the efforts of William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliffe, and other church leaders, the Second Great Awakening began sweeping Great Britain. It was a New England Baptist pastor named Isaac Backus that played a pivotal role in igniting the Second Great Awakening in America. Backus was both a product of and participant in the Great Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. Born in 1724, he began preaching in 1746, initially as a Congregationalist. Struggling with the issue of the incompatibility of infant baptism and salvation through grace, Backus and a number of his church members organized a Baptist church in 1756 at which he was the pastor for fifty years until his death in 1806. [McClymond, pp. 43-44; Johnson, p. 410.]

With spiritual conditions in America at their worst in 1794, Backus sent an urgent plea to pastors of all churches of every Christian denomination in America. His plea for prayer for revival was widely adopted, and a network of prayer meetings on the first Monday of each month soon led to revival. By 1800, revival had reached the western extremities of civilization in Logan County, Kentucky, if the wild and irreligious people of Rogue’s Harbour (as it was known) could be called civilized. Lawlessness was so rampant that local citizens formed themselves into regiments of vigilantes that fought outlaws, often unsuccessfully, to establish a measure of law and order for the settlements. It was here that Presbyterian minister James McCready settled and became pastor of three small churches. All through the winter of 1799, McCready and several of his congregants joined the national monthly Monday meetings to pray for revival as well as holding weekly Saturday evening to Sunday morning prayer meetings. Following months of prayer, revival came in the summer of 1800. The spiritual hunger was so great that eleven thousand came to a communion service. Overwhelmed, McCready called for help from all denominations. [Orr; Johnson, p. 410.]

Next came the famous Cane Ridge camp meeting in southern Kentucky during the summer of 1801. Six or seven ministers preached simultaneously from various points to reach crowds that were estimated to exceed 10,000. To give perspective to the significant size of the crowds, the largest city in Kentucky at the time was Lexington with a population of only 2,000. [Fishwick, p. 19; Johnson, p. 410.]

The Second Great Awakening provided spiritual and moral regeneration and initiated other civilizing influences on the young nation. These influences included popular education, Bible Societies, Sunday schools, the modern missionary movement, and ultimately sowed and nurtured the seeds that led to the abolition of slavery. [Orr; Johnson, pp. 410-411.] Just as the Great Awakening was the formative moment in American history, preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible, it is also fair to say that the Second Great Awakening was the stabilizing moment that saved the new nation from political and moral destruction.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

David McCullough, John Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 543-544.

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343-345.

Michael McClymond, ed., Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America, Vol. 1, A-Z, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), pp. 43-44

J. Edwin Orr, “Prayer brought Revival,” ochristian.com. http://articles.ochristian.com/ article8330.shtml (accessed November 26, 2010).

Marshall W. Fishwick, Great Awakenings, (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1995), p. 19.

Saving the Republic – The Second Great Awakening – Part I

Posted by :webmaster On : December 20, 2013
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity

“No country on earth was ever founded on deeper religious foundations,” wrote Sherwood Eddy in his 1941 The Kingdom of God and the American Dream. The persecuted refugees from Europe landed on the shores of a vast wilderness and established thirteen colonies, practically all on strong religious foundations, during the first decades of the seventeenth century to the first decades of the eighteenth century. The tremendous hardships, deprivations, and loss of life did not diminish their religious zeal and quest for religious freedom. They were the followers of Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Puritans and non-Puritans, Anglicans, separatists, Baptists, Quakers, and many others groups seeking religious freedom. The fruit of their efforts was a “priceless heritage” which they left for the Founders of America. In 1765, John Adams recognized this heritage when he wrote of the settlement of America, “I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.” [Eddy, pp. 76-77, 147.]

By the end of the 1600s and beginning of the 1700s, interest in the colonists’ hard-won religious legacy was eroding due to a decline of religious fervor and to a lesser extent because of the assault by the forces of deism and French rationalism. However, the decline of religious life in the colonies was dramatically reversed as new religious forces exploded on the scene in the 1730s. This formative event became known as the Great Awakening and was a major influence that crafted the worldview of the founding generation. [Larry Johnson, pp. 123-124.] Paul Johnson captures the importance of the Great Awakening in the founding of America.

…There was a spiritual event in the first half of the 18th century in America, and it proved to be of vast significance, both in religion and politics…The Great Awakening was the proto-revolutionary event, the formative moment in American history, preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible…The Revolution could not have taken place without this religious background. The essential difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution is that the American Revolution, in its origins, was a religious event, whereas the French Revolution was an anti-religious event.” [Paul Johnson, pp. 109-110, 116-117.]

However, many any if not almost all of the early historians of the American Revolution gave little credit to religion’s role preceding and during the Revolution. Expanding on that assumption, many present-day historians generally believe that religion was displaced by politics as lawyers replaced the clergy as leaders which effectively “…secularized the intellectual character of the culture.” However, it was the dislocations caused by the war that affected the colonists’ church attendance, and it was natural that publications devoted to religious matters would be reduced considerably during the Revolutionary years as the pressing discourse on the war and political matters would take precedence and therefore gave an appearance that religious interest and fervor had subsided. With the decline of religion in the public arena during the revolution, historians have leaped to the conclusion that the American people were significantly less religious. This is a blatant misreading of the mood and character of Americans in the Revolutionary period. Protestantism in whatever form it took remained the principle means by which Americans perceived and explained the world and ordered their lives. [Wood, pp. 174-175; Larry Johnson, p. 131.]

A brief look at the growth in the number of churches during 1760-1790 refutes historians’ assertions that religion declined during the Revolutionary period. It is true that state-oriented churches declined or failed to gain during this period as the total number of all congregations doubled between 1770 and 1790. The Church of England-Anglican in the South and Puritan churches in New England accounted for more than forty percent of all American congregations in 1760 but declined to less than twenty-five percent by 1790. New denominations spawned by the Great Awakening were alive and well and growing—popular people’s churches including Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. The Baptists grew from ninety-four congregations in 1760 to 858 by 1790. During the same time period the Methodists grew from no adherents to over seven hundred congregations. Gordon Wood wrote of this period, “The revolution released more religious energy and fragmented Christendom to a greater degree than had been seen since the upheavals of seventeenth century England or perhaps since the Reformation.” Others would call the period a “…Revolutionary Revival.” [Wood, pp. 185-188; Eddy, p. 147; Larry Johnson, p. 132.]

History has proven that the years following protracted wars are generally periods of significant moral decline. This was true of the remaining years of the eighteenth century following the Revolutionary War (1776-1781). All denominations began to feel the effects of the war years, especially during the last decade of the century. [Larry Johnson, p. 132.]

The Methodists were losing more members than they were gaining. The Baptists said that they had their most wintry season. The Presbyterians in general assembly deplored the nation’s ungodliness. In a typical Congregational church, the Rev. Samuel Shepherd of Lennos, Massachusetts, in sixteen years had not taken one young person in fellowship. The Lutherans were so languishing that they discussed uniting with Episcopalians who were even worse off. The Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York…quit functioning; he had confirmed no one for so long that he decided he was out of work, so he took up other employment. The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James Madison, that the Church “was too far gone ever to be redeemed.”…Tom Paine echoed, “Christianity will be forgotten in thirty years.” [Orr]

The churches had become almost totally irrelevant in curbing the nation’s downward spiral into immorality. During the last decade of the century, out of a population of five million Americans, six percent were confirmed drunkards. Crime had grown to such an extent that bank robberies were a daily occurrence and women did not go out at night for fear of assault. [Orr]

Christianity at the universities was just as destitute. Students at Harvard were polled, and not one Christian was found. Two admitted to being Christians at Princeton while only five members of the student body were not members of the filthy speech movement of the times. Few if any campuses escaped the denigration of Christianity and general mayhem. Anti-Christian plays were presented at Dartmouth, a Bible taken from a local church was burned in a public bonfire, students burned Nassau Hall at Princeton, and students forced the resignation of Harvard’s president. Christians on college campuses in the 1790s were so few “…that they met in secret, like a communist cell, and kept their minutes in code so that no one would know.” [Orr]

Yet, the last decade of the eighteenth century also saw the planting of seeds destined to flower as the Second Great Awakening.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), pp. 76-77, 147.

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), pp. 123-124, 131-132.

Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), pp. 109-110, 116-117.

Gordon S. Wood, “Religion and the American Revolution,” New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 174-175, 185-188.

J. Edwin Orr, “Prayer brought Revival, ochristian.com. “http://articles.ochristian.com/article 8330.shtml (accessed November 26, 2010).

Tis the Season for Secular Silliness

Posted by :webmaster On : December 13, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars, Humanism

Holiday letter to my secular humanist friends,

The first signs of the holiday shopping season peek from store shelves in September. October’s chill warns that Halloween nears. We must select a costume that tops last year’s. November heralds that most wonderful time of the year—Black Friday. But Oh My! What shall we do with December and that highly embarrassing “other” holiday? You know the one I mean. We once masked it by calling it Xmas. But the X could be misconstrued as a cross. And a cross can be associated with you know who, and that will never do. Now we call that “other” holiday by many names such as Winter Solstice celebration, Festival of Lights, and Winter Carnival. Those are so inclusive, so democratic…so…so generic. (I almost said ecumenical, but that sounds too religious.) With these new names, the holiday season can mean whatever one wants it to mean rather than have a religious meaning crammed down our throats each December. Why must we be subjected to those old-fashioned myths and fables that have lingered for two thousand years? We have Santa Claus!

But there are still millions out there who haven’t gotten the message. They are generally backward, unintelligent, and remain culturally insensitive unlike those of us who have progressed beyond those crude expressions of faith. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to join our shining, non-offensive, tolerant, all inclusive, sensitive secular society.

You hear those sentimental Christians whining every year at this time. They are always hiding behind the Constitution which they say guarantees their religious freedom. Well of course they have religious freedom as long as they don’t flaunt it in public!

We must be ever vigilant and ready to crush any efforts to return to those bad old days. Just a couple of years ago, a group of carolers singing at various businesses in a Silver Springs, Maryland, shopping center entered a U.S. Post Office also located in the shopping center. Dressed in period costumes reminiscent of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” they were only a few words into their first carol when the vigilant and brave Post Office manager rushed into the lobby to stop the indiscretion. “You can’t do this on government property,” the angry manager shouted. He ordered them to leave immediately because there was a Post Office policy prohibiting solicitation. They attempted to explain that they were going to all the businesses in the shopping center. But he would have none of it and insisted they leave in spite of boos from the patrons waiting in line. [Duffy] Even though there was no such policy, this Post Office manager should serve as a role model for that small minority of managers who aren’t so enlightened and have allowed caroling in their Post Offices. Fortunately, our government is filled with like-minded militant secularist bureaucrats rigorously defending society from such unauthorized merriment.

But we can never let down our guard. Just the other day the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives announced that its members would be allowed to use previously banned holiday greetings in official mailings to their constituents. Representative Candice Miller said, “I feel it is entirely appropriate for members of Congress to include a simple holiday salutation, whether it is Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and so on.” [Deaton] Shameful! How could these legislators abuse their franking privileges by including messages of Merry Christmas to thousands of their constituents? Such episodes tend to be contagious and must not be allowed to go unchallenged.

Such blatant relapses can cause others to become weak-kneed when banning Christmas from any public display or expression. One example is the Bordentown, New Jersey, Regional School District administration that had banned religious Christmas music at winter public school concerts effective as of October 18th. Less than two weeks later the superintendent backed down after national attention was focused on the school’s ban. The superintendent announced that the religious Christmas music would be allowed for now “…after reviewing additional legal considerations and advice on this matter and the expressed sentiments of the community at large…” However, she promised that, “…the school board will continue to examine the issue to determine how the policy will be handled in the future.” Of course it is always wise to impose these unpopular restrictions on a low-key basis. The school administration should have imposed the restrictions banning religious Christmas music in, let’s say, March. Once policies are established and in effect for a period of time, opposition to those policies can usually be attributed to a fringe element of religious fanatics bent on imposing their religion on others and which violates our constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. It doesn’t matter that the words “separation of church and state” aren’t in the Constitution; we know the Founders really meant freedom from religion instead of freedom of religion. You see, that Constitution thing can work both ways.

Wait a minute. I must go to the door. No, it can’t be! There are carolers out there singing religious Christmas songs and indiscriminately shouting Merry Christmas right there on the public sidewalk for everyone to hear. Where’s my cell phone? Hello! 911? Send the police. No, better yet send a SWAT team. We are having a major public insurrection right here in River City in direct violation of the Constitution. Hurry! There are children in the neighborhood being exposed to this brazen criminal activity!

I must go. I think I see one of my neighbors putting a nativity scene on his front lawn. Hmmm. Would that violation fall under the city’s building code or advertising ordinance? Where’s my cell phone?

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

J. P. Duffy, “Post Office Manager Throws Christmas Carolers Out into the Cold,” Family Research Council, December 12, 2011. http://www.frcblog.com/2011/12/post-office-manager-throws-christmas-carolers-out-into-the-cold/ (accessed December 10, 2013).

Chris Deaton, “Victory: House members no longer prohibited from saying “Merry Christmas” in official mail,” Red Alert Politics, December 4, 2013. http://redalertpolitics.com/2013/12/04/victory-house-members-no-longer-prohibited-from-saying-merry-christmas-in-official-mail/ (accessed December 10, 2013).

Billy Hallowell, “N.J. School District That Banned Christmas Music With ‘Religious Origins’ Backs Down,” The Blaze, November 6, 2013. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/06/n-j-school-district-that-banned-christmas-music-with-religious-origins-backs-down/ (accessed December 10, 2013).

In Defense of Labels

Posted by :webmaster On : November 15, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity

Max Lucado is a wonderful and inspiring writer. Few writers can match his ability to bring fresh insights, infuse substance, and bring clarity to both the commonplace and complex things of life. One of his recent website posts was titled Simply ‘Church’.” He posed two questions, “…what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names simply to ‘church’?…if there are no denominations in heaven, why do we have denominations on earth?” His point was that we should not attend a church based on the sign outside, but we should join our hearts to the like-minded hearts of the people on the inside. [Max Lucado]

This is a noble sentiment and reflects the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Romans, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Romans 15: 5-6. KJV] In other words, the church should be in unity in thought and message. Matthew Henry stated, “The foundation of Christian love and peace is laid in like-mindedness. This like-mindedness must be according to Christ Jesus…” In other words, Christ should be our pattern because the unity of Christians glorifies God. However, Henry warns that our prayers for like-mindedness “…must be first for truth, and then for peace…it is first pure, then peaceable.”

Max Lucado’s “Simply Church” may have worked in first century Israel for there were few churches and just one Christian church. But we live in twenty-first century America with many communities that have churches on almost every corner. There are many religions, thousands of denominations, and hundreds of thousands of churches. In America most are Christian churches, each professing to be a follower of Jesus Christ. So, using the Simply Church model, how does one know which church to join oneself with? How does one know whether the people inside are like-minded? Attend one Sunday? No, first impressions are often not reliable proofs of like-mindedness. Then attend a year? No, for one can spend much of life searching for instead of fellowshipping with like-minded Christians. Thus, discovering like-minded believers without using labels can be a difficult and time-consuming task.

Labels are useful and compatible with divine order. God used labels during the Creation. He labeled trees in the Garden…the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He labeled the rivers going out of Eden. God brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them, “…and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” And from Adam’s side He made him a wife who “shall be called Woman.” [Genesis 2:9-23. KJV]

In our search for like-mindedness with other Christians, we must return to Matthew Henry’s admonition that our quest must first be for truth and then for peace. In that quest for truth, labels are invaluable and become a type of shorthand for what we know to be true or not true (the written word as well as symbols, e.g., fish symbol, the cross, the dove).

Throughout the ages language has been the means of achieving order in culture. Knowledge of truth comes through the word which provides solidity in the “shifting world of appearances.” Richard Weaver called words the storehouse of our memory. In our modern age humanists have effectively used semantics to neuter words of their meaning in historical and symbolic contexts, that is, words now mean what men want them to mean. By removing the fixities of language (which undermines an understanding of truth), language loses its ability to define and compel. As the meaning of words is divorced from truth, relativism gains supremacy, and a culture tends to disintegration without an understanding of eternal truths upon which to orient its self. [Richard Weaver]

Therefore, the problem with simply “Church” is that we live in a fallen world, and there are competing voices each professing truth. Removing the labels and being simply “Church” won’t work when we must give priority to truth. Without truth, simply “Church” won’t achieve like-mindedness in a world immersed in a relativistic sea of shifting appearances. In such a world labels become our anchors to truth.

I am thankful for my denomination, and I’m thankful that it is not labeled simply “Church.” Without its label, many like-minded Christians would drive on by not knowing they have a fellow believer on the inside. Although I believe my denomination has the best understanding of God’s truth, I have no animosity towards other Christians who genuinely seek God and believe their understanding of biblical truth is more accurate than mine. I wish them well for we are all followers of Jesus Christ on this earth and like-minded on the truths of the major tenets of our faith. And we’ll all be members of simply Church when we get to heaven.

Labels also help us identify those with whom we should not be in fellowship. The Bible says that there are many churches with misleading labels who have false prophets and false teachers that have abandoned biblical truth and will not be a part of that gathering in heaven. Also, other religions have labels that may accurately depict what’s on the inside, but what’s on the inside is a false religion whose god is not the great I AM and does not lead to truth or a heavenly home.

When traveling I have occasionally driven along the streets of a city unfamiliar to me in search of a church to attend. First, I spot a cross on top of a steeple in the distance. I then look for the label on that local branch of Christianity. In a few seconds I have some understanding of the truth held by those inside and whether they are like-minded or not. I like labels here on earth, but I’m glad we won’t need them in heaven and that we’ll be simply ‘Church.’

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Max Lucado, “Simply ‘Church’,” Max Lucado, November 4, 2013. http://808bo.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/max-lucado-simply-church/ (accessed November 6, 2013).

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p.1794.

Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 148-149, 152, 158, 163.

Christianity in the Public Square – Part II – The Founders’ Establishment Clause v. the Modern Secularists’ Separation Clause

Posted by :webmaster On : September 27, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Constitution

In Part I we examined statements made in a newspaper article by a Baptist minister and a retired school teacher who support a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking removal of a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments located on the State Capitol grounds. [Hoberock, 9-9-13] In opposition to the monument, the minister and teacher made a series of comments which serve as a basis for examining the larger issue of Christianity in the public square. Part I dealt with the legitimacy or right to express one’s faith in the public square. In Part II we shall move to the larger issue of what the Founders meant by inclusion of the Establishment clause in the First Amendment.

To help us do so, we look to comments by the minister and teacher which express popular but misguided understandings of the Constitution with regard to religion in general and Christianity in particular:

He is trying to express his faith in the public square. He shouldn’t be doing that with monuments trying to make it look like the government is endorsing his particular faith. [Minister referring to the person who paid for the Ten Commandments monument with private funds.]

I am a religious person and to me separation of church and state isn’t the concern about the government trying to control my religion. It is concern about religion trying to control my government. [Teacher]

Again, the validity of these comments must be examined by answering a number of questions.

• Was the Establishment clause meant to protect religion or the government?
• What were the Founders’ attitudes toward Christianity in the public square?
• Is there a difference between our government adhering to biblical principles upon which the nation was founded and the promotion of Christianity or a particular denomination thereof?

To answer the first question, we must examine the meaning of the Establishment clause and the modern misinterpretation of it as a “separation” clause. To impute the First Amendment’s Establishment clause as a separation clause is the typical misreading of the First Amendment in an attempt to drive Christianity from the public square by secular humanists. Specifically, the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof…” The phrase “separation of church and state” is not found in the Constitution of the United States.

The Founders were very explicit in their words and deeds in demonstrating that religion was to play an important and central role in the public affairs of the nation. The First Amendment prohibition dealt with the establishment of a preferred religion, a state sponsored religion if you will. It also prohibited the meddling of the federal government in the free exercise thereof.

At the time of the Constitution, although the states encouraged Christianity, no state allowed an exclusive state-sponsored denomination. There was a time when one denomination ruled over and oppressed others. This was fresh in the minds of the people, so much so, that the Danbury Baptist Association wrote to President Jefferson regarding a rumor that a particular denomination would become the official denomination. It was in this context that Jefferson wrote to a gathering of Danbury Baptists at Danbury, Connecticut, on January 1, 1802 to assure them that the rumor had no basis in fact. In an attempt to assuage their fears, he said,

I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. [Barton, p. 41.]

Here we have a politician, visiting his constituents, to assure them that their concerns were baseless, that is, no one Christian denomination would become the official national denomination. That is the context and in no way threatens the Danbury Baptist or other denominations with expulsion from the public square by means of a wall of separation. In effect, Jefferson’s wall was a one-way wall—protecting the church from the government. That is the complete opposite of the meaning as it is used today to drive Christianity out of the public square.

Simply put, government cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion. In the context of the times and the purpose of his letter to the Danbury Baptists, this meant “preferred religion” and not an absence of religion in government or public life.

This attitude was subsequently demonstrated a few years later by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (appointed by James Madison, considered to be the father of the Constitution) who wrote,

…We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general and especially to Christianity which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution…an attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. [Barton, p. 32.]

Contrast Justice Story’s comments to what has occurred in this country beginning with the last half of the 20th century. Voluntary school prayer establishes a national religion, allowing students to pray allowed over their lunches establishes a national religion, displaying the Ten Commandments on public buildings is establishment of a national religion, etc. [Barton, p. 32.]

It is ironic that this belief that any hint of Christianity in the public life of the country becomes the establishment of religion. Effectively, the free exercise of religion (guaranteed in the same sentence) now triggers the prohibited establishment of religion.

In answer to our last question, there is a difference between our government’s adherence to biblical principles upon which the nation was founded and the promotion of Christianity or particular denomination of within Christianity. It is important to understand that the United States is not a nation that attempts to impose Christianity on all of its citizens but rather it is a nation founded upon on Judeo-Christian principles that form the nation’s central cultural vision. The worldview of the Founders dictated the principles or values under which the United States was founded. And with even the most cursory examination of the Founders and the history of the nation, we can unequivocally say we were founded upon Christian principles. And this is the essence of this Christian worldview as it relates to forming a nation: All of society’s laws must be subject to the authority of a higher law. This was the belief of our Founders and this belief is evident in their words and actions.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Barbara Hoberock, “Minister: Display breaches barrier,” Tulsa World, September 9, 2013, A-9.

David Barton, The Myth of Separation, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 1878), pp. 32, 41.

Christianity in the Public Square – Part I- The Constitution and the Ten Commandments Monument

Posted by :webmaster On : September 20, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Constitution

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the Capital Preservation Commission of the State of Oklahoma, seeking removal of a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments located on the State Capitol grounds. The suit states that, “This piece of public property, placed upon public property, conveys an explicit religious message that supports and endorses the faiths and creeds of some churches and sects.” Brady Henderson, Legal Director with the Oklahoma ACLU, stated “Our constitution makes it clear you cannot use state property and state resources to support a particular religion and this monument does just that.” [foxnews.com]

A recent newspaper article featured the opinions of a Baptist minister and a retired school teacher, both of whom support the lawsuit. [Tulsa World, 9-9-2013] The article offered a number of quotes by the two opponents of the monument which parrot much of the common but misguided understanding of the Constitution with regard to religion in general and Christianity in particular. Here are some excerpts from their statements:

Most of my concern is that this is another in-your-face attempt by misguided Christians to assert their faith in the public square. [Minister]

If Christians want to share their faith, they should do it face-to-face. They do not need to try to find ways to dominate the public square and impose their will on everyone else. [Minister]

I believe wholeheartedly religion is a personal, private issue and I do not want the government telling me how to worship. [Teacher]

The validity of these comments must be examined by answering a number of questions:

• What rights do Christians have to express their faith in the public square?
• Why must Christians only express their faith face-to-face?
• Are the First Amendment rights of Christians to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech being violated by attempts to quell expressions of faith in the public square?

Questions raised by other statements of the two opponents to the monument are addressed in Part II.

The issue of expressing one’s faith raised by the minister is archetypal in that it clearly defines the conflicts surrounding the assault on Christianity in the public arena. The minister appears to be saying that any attempt to share one’s faith in the public arena, other than face-to-face, is misguided and an attempt to dominate the public square and impose their will on everyone else. The rebuttal to the minister’s and the teacher’s assertions must be made on two levels.

Our first response is to Christians. Christians that are faithful to Christ and his direction for living in this world must recognize the importance of sharing the Christian faith. According to Scripture (Matthew 28:19-20), one must teach all nations to observe His commandments. But this response, addressed to Christians, will not satisfy non-Christians.

The minister’s requirement that such displays of faith be made only in a face-to-face manner are hypocritical given the fact that Christians are being punished for merely exercising their right of free speech about their faith. TSgt. Layne Wilson, a 27-year veteran of the Utah Air National Guard, was reprimanded after he emailed a letter to someone he believed to be a chaplain at West Point. In the email he objected to a gay wedding that was to be held in the West Point chapel which at the time was a violation of the law. As a result of his email, he was officially reprimanded and denied a six-year reenlistment contract and allowed only a one-year extension. He was told that he his views were “…no longer compatible with further military service,” [foxnewsinsider.com] University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs fired Crystal Dixon, then interim associate vice president for human resources, in 2008 for publicly expressing an opinion contrary to school policy. Dixon claimed the school’s action violated her First Amendment right to free speech but lost her appeal when a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the University’s firing of Dixon after she wrote an editorial for the Toledo Free Press expressing her opinion that the homosexual lifestyle was not a civil right but a choice. The court ruled that the school’s interest in promoting its values and policies outweighed Dixon’s free-speech interests. [worldmag.com] These are just two examples of the rampant and pernicious hostility in all spheres of American life to Christians’ expressions of their faith.

Our second rebuttal to the minister’s and teacher’s assertions is made to the humanists and non-Christians. For the secularist, humanist, or others not holding the Christian faith, we counter with a question, “Why not discuss with someone what they should believe, either publicly or privately?” Who made the rule that we shouldn’t? The airwaves are filled with thousands of people discussing their most intimate and private lives before millions of people. Some will counter that discussions of religion and faith is just not done in polite society. However, is it a matter of etiquette to not offer a solution and solace to those in pain or despair? If one were in a dire, life-threatening situation and the secularist or humanist held the means of escape, would he or she hesitate to offer assistance? Of course they wouldn’t. Likewise, Christians are not imposing their views on anyone but sharing the difference Jesus has made in their lives and they care enough about others to want to share His (Christ) message in the hope that other lives will be similarly transformed. [Johnson, p. 183.]

As one can see, the comments of the minister and teacher do not deal with the Ten Commandments but larger issues of the supposed separation of church and state which will be dealt with in Part II. But let’s return to the issue at hand by looking at the words of John Quincy Adams, one of America’s Founders and the sixth president of the United States, with regard to the Ten Commandments and their place in civil and municipal government.

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code…laws essential to the existence of men in society and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws. Vain indeed would be the search among the writings of profane antiquity [secular history]…to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality as this decalogue [Ten Commandments] lays down. [Barton, p. 178.]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

“ACLU sues to remove Oklahoma 10 Commandments Monument” foxnews.com, August 22, 2013. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/22/aclu-sues-to-remove-oklahoma-10-commandments-monument/#ixzz2dHrcZwgM (accessed August 28, 2013).

Barbara Hoberock, “Minister: Display breaches barrier,” Tulsa World, September 9, 2013, A-9.

Todd Starnes, “Nat’l Guardsman Punished for Objecting to Gay Marriage in Military Chapel,” foxnewsinsider.com, July 11, 2013. http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/07/11/national-guard-veteran-layne-wilson-punished-objecting-gay-marriage-west-point-chapel#ixzz2eb2PMRzw (accessed September 11, 2013).

Leigh Jones, “Court says college administrator has no right to oppose gay rights,” worldmag.com, December 21, 2012. http://www.worldmag.com/2012/12/court_says_ college_administrator_has_no_right_to_oppose_gay_rights (accessed 9-11-13).

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 183.

David Barton, Original Intent – The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, (Aledo, Texas: Wallbuilder Press, 2008), p. 178.

The Christian’s role in politics and government

Posted by :webmaster On : June 7, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Government

In the last article (Government is not the problem…however) we discussed the Founders’ beliefs with regard to politics and government which are radically different from what most people believe today. Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined politics as:

The science of government; that part of ethics which consists in the regulation and government of a nation or state, for the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity; comprehending the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest … and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

Politics in the founding era included a belief that regulation and government of a nation had a moral component and that its responsibilities included the preservation and improvement of the morals of the citizenry. Contrast the Founders’ beliefs with modern antiseptic attitudes and the resultant cleansing of any hint of religion or moral absolutes not only from politics and government but from all institutions of American life.

This attitude is prevalent throughout America including a large segment of Christianity. The attitude has grown from decades of misapplication of the First Amendment and an erroneous understanding of Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state. The First Amendment is an “establishment” clause, not a “separation” clause. It was meant to prohibit the government from establishing one specific sect as the official church of the nation. The Establishment clause was not meant to banish religion and its influence from the public arena, politics, government, and the institutions of American life.

Jefferson’s words with regard to a wall of separation between church and state were merely to assure the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut that no one church would be established as the official church of the United States. Effectively, it was meant to protect the church from the state, not the state’s protection of the people from religion. Who better to explain the Founders’ intent than a Supreme Court Justice of the era? Joseph Story was appointed to the Supreme Court by James Madison, regarded as the father of the Constitution. Story wrote of the Establishment clause:

The real object of the [First A]mendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy (a denominational council) the exclusive patronage of the national government.

This meaning was clearly understood by the vast majority of Americans and the courts until Jefferson’s words were taken out of context by the Supreme Court in 1947. In the Everson case the Supreme Court extracted eight words (“a wall of separation between church and state”) from Jefferson’s speech with total disregard for its original meaning and context. This was the beginning of the systematic removal of religion from the public square and the nation’s various institutions.

From this misunderstanding of religion’s rightful place in government, many Christians have generally shied away from any significant involvement in politics and government over the last three decades. To dispel this notion, Wayne Gruden published a pamphlet titled, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Gruden presents a strong biblical basis for Christian involvement to significantly influence law, politics, and government …according to God’s moral standards and God’s purposes for government as revealed in the Bible.” At the same time Gruden cautions that Christians “…must simultaneously insist on maintaining freedom of religion for all citizens.” How is this balance achieved?

…the overarching moral suasion (influence or persuasion) of Christian principles under which our nation was founded made possible religious freedom for all faiths. Such moral suasion of Christian principles is not coercive as humanists would have us believe. The moral suasion of Christian principles provided the nation with a central vision and resulted in stability and unity by working through the individual as he voluntarily chooses the manner in which he orders his soul. [Johnson, Ye shall be as gods, p. 224.]

As a result of the over-arching Christian worldview, the nation exhibited an exceptionally strong religious sanction at its founding. This religious sanction was the power of Christian teaching over private conscience that made possible American democratic society. The religious sanction resulted because colonial and founding-era Americans held the biblical worldview and were significantly involved in government and politics. To confirm the existence of this strong religious sanction that still held sway over the nation forty years after the Constitutional Convention, we look to the words of Alexis De Tocqueville’s 1831 Democracy in America, one of the most influential political texts ever written about America.

Americans so completely identify the spirit of Christianity with freedom in their minds that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive the one without the other…

On my arrival in the United States, it was the religious atmosphere which first struck me. As I extended my stay, I could observe the political consequences which flowed from this novel situation.

In France I had seen the spirit of religion moving in the opposite direction to that of the spirit of freedom. In America, I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land.

Tocqueville went on to say that the peaceful influence exercised by religion over the nation was due to separation of church and state. Unlike the modernists’ separation of church and state, Tocqueville’s separation was a separation of the spheres of power and not a separation of government from ethics and moral guidance supplied by the moral suasion of Christianity.

In twenty-first century America, the Christians’ role in politics and government should be the same as the role played by Christians in the founding of America. They were significantly involved in government, politics, and law such that the power of Christian teaching over private conscience made possible American democratic society. To restore the biblical worldview as the basis for governing the nation, Christians must become significantly more involved in government and politics, and it must happen now before it is too late.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:
Noah Webster, “Politics,” American Dictionary of the English Language 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, & Co., 1833). Vol. III, p. 728, paragraph 1871.

Wayne Gruden, “Why Christians should seek to influence the government for good.” Booklet adapted from Wayne Gruden, Politics – According to the Bible – A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2010).

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 224.

Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Gerald E. Bevan, Trans., (London, England: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 343, 345.

I’m so ashamed! I was a member of a hate group and didn’t know it.

Posted by :webmaster On : April 30, 2013
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Culture Wars

They say confession is good for the soul, and after the shocking news I received a few days ago, I must somehow make amends for my life of crime. It’s a sordid story that began in my childhood. I can’t take all of the blame. Maybe it was peer pressure or parent pressure. Who knows? But I was molded, shaped, and destined for a life of hate. What’s worse, I am responsible for corrupting my own children with that hateful lifestyle. They say ignorance is not an excuse, but I really didn’t know that what I was doing was wrong. Actually I looked at my beliefs and activities as a badge of honor and felt that I was doing good works for the country.

The news came a few days ago as I was browsing through my emails, and there it was: the Family Research Council email warning us that our cover had been blown (it was only then that I realize that FRC is an avowed enemy of the state, a hate group organization with whom I’m associated-unofficially of course).

It seems that a certain military officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Rich, discovered that a number of groups in America “did not share our Army values.” This shocking discovery prompted him to send an email to thirty-eight of his fellow officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) to educate them that “when we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army values—don’t just walk by—do the right thing and address the concern before it becomes a problem.”

Well, I can tell you his warning sent chills down my spine! I lay awake several nights knowing that LTC Rich and the Army were not ignoring my behavior while wondering how they would address my problem. And I just can’t take it any longer so I’m confessing. I’m an evangelical Christian. And worse yet and to my undying shame I have been a member or fellow traveler of several subversive, hate-filled organizations including the American Family Association and the Family Research Council.

I know I can do nothing to atone for my sin other than to throw myself on the mercy of LTC Rich and the U.S. Army. Yet, I think there are some circumstances that might mitigate whatever punishment I receive. First, I blame the Army for not doing more to re-educate me before I became too deeply immersed in my life of hate. I was young and impressionable when I received the letter from President Johnson informing me of his invitation to join the military in 1967. If they had done the proper background checks, they would have known of my hateful tendencies and radical Christian associates and could have dealt with them then. I hadn’t intended to violate Army values. Heavens, I didn’t know there were any Army values other than to do what I was told by anyone with more than one stripe on their sleeves or they would kick my you-know-what to @#%! and back. (Sorry for the language but “Heavens” has been a part of my vocabulary for many years, and old habits are hard to break.)

But I’ve thought a lot about those days long ago since my discovery last week that I was deeply involved with domestic hate groups. Perhaps the Army realized back in 1967 that I didn’t share their values and that they did the right thing by sending me to Vietnam as a way of dealing with my issues before they became a problem. Certainly, a lot of people with those issues didn’t return from Vietnam to cause problems. Oh well, who knows?

I’m so glad to get this off my chest. I’m feeling much better already. I wonder if they will give me probation and allow me to join HA (Haters Anonymous). Perhaps I could be a group leader and go to some of those organizations identified by LTC Rich and show them the error of their ways:

• The Christian Right
• Various Racist Skinhead groups
• American Family Association (my alma mater of many years ago)
• Ku Klux Klan
• Family Research Council
• Various Neo-Nazi groups

These are just a few of the organizations identified by LTC Rich with the aid of the Southern Poverty Law Center. As the old saying goes, “The fields are white unto harvest!” I could be sort of a missionary spreading Army values across the land. Oops, sorry for the biblical language again.

It’s good to know there are other true patriots in the U.S. Army besides LTC Rich who have implemented a number of initiatives to expose or root out hate group activities in the military:

• A War Games scenario at Fort Leavenworth that identified Christian groups and Evangelical groups as being potential threats;
• A 2009 Dept. of Homeland Security memorandum that identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups;
• A West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center that linked pro-lifers to terrorism;
• Evangelical leader Franklin Graham was uninvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service because of his comments about Islam;
• Christian prayers were banned at the funeral services for veterans at Houston’s National Cemetery;
• Bibles were banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – a decision that was later rescinded;
• Christian crosses and a steeple were removed from a chapel in Afghanistan because the military said the icons disrespected other religions;
• Catholic chaplains were told not to read a letter to parishioners from their archbishop related to Obamacare mandates. The Secretary of the Army feared the letter could be viewed as a call for civil disobedience.

Well, this just goes to show those who think the country’s going to the dogs are wrong. There is hope for America with patriots such as LTC Rich spreading Army values!

With deep and sincere remorse,

An older but wiser—Larry G. Johnson.

Sources:

Todd Starnes, “The Army’s List of ‘Domestic Hate Groups’,” Fox News Radio, April 10, 2013. http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/the-armys-list-of-domestic-hate-groups.html (accessed April 24, 2013).

“Are you an enemy of the state?” Family Research Council, April 11, 2013. http://www.frc.org/alert/are-you-an-enemy-of-the-state (accessed April 24, 2013).