Posted on 07/15/2009 6:36:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
As our great country accelerates its slide into economic and moral Hell, be careful whom you blame. The present boldness of liberals and timidity of conservatives are only the secondary causes. Much of the blame can be placed at the foot of the church.
When I say the church, I don’t mean an institution like the Roman Catholic church, but the entire body of believers—those from all denominations who believe that the Bible is true, that people are sinners, that God sent the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from our sins, and that we are charged with spreading that message and reforming society.
Believers are God’s ambassadors here on earth, called to be salt and light in the world and to the world. When we follow our calling, individuals are transformed and societies with them. Our country is failing because too many believers have abandoned this calling.
They began abandoning it in earnest in the 1920’s. That’s when an anti-intellectual movement called fundamentalism led believers to separate from society rather than reform it, and to bifurcate life into two separate spheres—the sacred and secular. Reason was given up for emotionalism, and only activities that directly saved souls were deemed sacred. Everything else was considered secular. Careers in clergy and missions were glorified at the expense of everything else. That led too many believers to leave public education, the media, law, and politics in the hands of the unbelievers. Is it any wonder why those areas of our culture now seem so Godless? Take the influence of God out, and that’s what you get.
Secularizing public education has been the key to our nation’s moral demise. Once public education went secular, the rest of society eventually did, especially when the products of that system became our leaders. As Abraham Lincoln once observed, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”
The philosophy of the schoolroom is atheistic. The question of God’s existence—the most important question regarding how we should live—is not studied or debated in our public schools. Atheism is just assumed to be true and with it moral relativism. That’s a major reason why immorality dominates our schools and why our kids know more about political correctness than truth. It’s also why we have a new generation of voters more enamored with “hope and change” than defending our changeless rights from an overreaching government. G. K. Chesterton’s observation about Russia has come true here, "Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.”
How did this happen? In the early 1960’s, the Supreme Court, consisting of newly trained secularists, banned devotional Bible reading in our schools (apparently, for the 180 years before that, people just didn’t understand the Constitution!). That decision, and several others, has stifled virtually any mention of God or the Bible in our public schools. In effect, the most influential book in the history of the world is ignored in our educational system. What kind of a quality education is that? It’s certainly not what the folks who settled this land had in mind for public education. In fact, the first public school in the new world began as a result of the “Old Deluder Satan Law.” That 1647 Massachusetts law established the school to teach kids how to read the Bible so that old deluder Satan could not deceive them.
Likewise, most of our first universities were established to teach and propagate a complete Christian worldview. Harvard’s charter read, “Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.”
The founders of Harvard knew that all truth is God’s truth. There is no bifurcation between the sacred and the secular. According to the Bible, every vocation, every discipline, and every person is sacred. Nothing is secular. In sharp contrast, those running our country now say that everything is secular. That’s a long way from our founding.
“So what?” you say. “Who cares about morality and God?”
That’s exactly the problem: Who does care? When the church separates from society, it takes its moral influence with it. But respect for the moral principles upon which out nation was founded—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is essential to its survival. Our founders knew this.
Following the Constitutional convention, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government he and his fellow founding fathers created for the nation. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin knew that freedom must always be defended; that the unalienable rights for which our founding fathers pledged “their lives, fortunes and sacred honor,” were never secure unless an informed electorate held their representatives accountable to uphold those moral rights.
Recognizing that only a religious and moral people will maintain a good government, George Washington declared in his farewell address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.” His successor, John Adams, wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In other words, even the best Constitution cannot prevent immoral people or politicians from destroying a nation. That’s why the church cannot abandon its calling. But it has.
So if you’re a believer who is upset that life is not being protected; that marriage is being subverted; that judges routinely usurp your will; that our immigration laws are being ignored; that radical laws are passed but never read; that mentioning God in school (unless he’s Allah) results in lawsuits; that school curriculums promote political correctness and sexual deviance as students fail at basic academics; that unimaginable debt is being piled on your children while leftist organizations like Planned Parenthood and ACORN receive your tax dollars; and that your religion and free speech rights are about to be eroded by “hate” crimes legislation that can punish you for quoting the Bible; then go look in the mirror and take your share of the blame because we have not obeyed our calling.
Then start over. Reengage at every level of society. Treat every job and every person as sacred. Be a beacon for Christ and truth in whatever you do and wherever you are. There is hope if you act. After all, we believe in redemption.
IMHO, no true believer could have pulled the handle for Obama, unless they are just totally cluele,,,,,uh,,,,,,,never mind.
Lest this part be missed for the other statements - this all began - according to this article because fundamentalists would not let science be taught.
The reactionaries on the left, in turn, banned the teaching of religion.
There is blame on both sides, and a failure of Christians to engage the wider population is certainly part of the problem. But in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the left and the atheists became quite emboldened. The Scopes trial was a set-up by the anti-Christian ACLU. The tax laws were changed and had a detrimental effect on charitable giving. Separation of Church and State were emphasized again and again. Christianity was pushed and pushed out of public sight.
Should Christians have pushed back, stayed engaged, and worked to influence society? Absolutely. But this article seems to blame fundamentalists as the principal problem and doesn't point out that atheism was a powerful negative force in its own right.
You could actually build a pretty good argument for laying this at the feet of the Roman Catholic Church. Obama won the majority of the Catholic vote despite being the most ardently anti-Life candidate to run in decades. Instead of driving that point home to the flock by speaking out forcefully (and denying Communion to the Kathleen Sebeliuses of the world) the Bishops dithered and fought amongst themselves, with many clergy and religious actually feeling free to go out and stump for Obama over “social justice” issues. If the bishops had hung tough we very well may not be in this mess right now.
The Churches have led the “slouching toward Gomorrah” by accepting leftists into their leadership ranks so they could be” inclusive”.
“Our country is failing because too many believers have abandoned this calling.”
Not true, history is repeating itself.
The government has done it’s best to outlaw the church - and the church was too busy molesting boys to defend itself and lost creditability.
... and so does the nation.
Only the Church of the Alter of the One.....
Indeed
You said it
Ping for later.
Oh, please. The Catholic vote is not what won the election for Obama. Even if the majority of Catholics voted against him, he still won with enough numbers to take the election.
They were Catholic in name only. They are not “true” Catholics.
So?...Is this author advocating government subsidized Christian government schools and forcing taxpayers to pay for it? Is the author advocating that our nation's children be under the threat of police and court action to attend such schools? Unbelievable!
If it is an OUTRAGE to force taxpayer to pay for secular humanist government schools and to force children to attend, it is MORE of an OUTRAGE to force Christianity on our nation's children and taxpayers by threat of police action.
Yes, the church as failed! The Protestant church far more than the Catholic! At least Catholics for more than 100 years **seriously** assumed the responsibility of educating its youth in TUITION-FREE Catholic schools.
If Protestants had taken on its responsibility of educating its youth in their own tuition-free Protestant Christian schools then possibly we wouldn't be in the godless Marxist fix we are in now! SHAME ON THEM!
At the very heart of the problem is that we have any government schools at all! They should all be abolished. Every one of them!
Government schools were a socialistic scheme from the beginning to turn our nation's children into fascist zombies of the state. It is impossible to reform socialism. Socialism and its handmaiden our government schools must be abolished!
Every conservative should study the life and work of St. John Neumann. We could save our nation if we followed his example.
Marxism is our nation's most serious threat. Government K-12 schools are the Marxist's most important and powerful weapon. By abolishing government schools we can stamp out Marxism.
It was the fundamentalist atheists that banned God in the science classroom and fundamentalist Christians that allowed them, by their retreat form the battle. Good science will inspire the man of God to fall on his knees and worship the creator of such marvelous things as galaxies, cell structures, zoological diversity and orderliness of laws of physics. These are displays of the awesome character of God as expressed in His creative work - the secular fundamentalist seeks to disavow the creator and worship the creation apart from Him. The real problem IMHO is that Christians stopped worshiping God in the classrooms and they themselves became futile in the thinking and ceased to be the preserving salt in American culture.
Not sure what you are trying to say here really. But, your promoting of the direct teaching of creationism by adding biblical imagery to scientific thought is actually the problem. The author wants to see a science guided by the morality of the bible, not by its literal interpretation. It was the insistence that the earth was 6000 years old and that evolution couldn't be true because the bible said differently that was the problem to begin with and that got us in this mess.
” then go look in the mirror and take your share of the blame because we have not obeyed our calling.”
Absolutely true. We are just as guilty than the people that voted for this tyrannical monster. We didn’t walk the walk. Sure we vote for what we know is right, true and moral; giving our financial support to causes which we hope will fight the fight for us, but in my own heart, I know I have failed to keep my own priorities straight and haven’t kept Him first on my list.
We got what we allowed. But I do know that He promises to heal our land if we humble ourselves and pray and turn from our wicked ways. Personally, I’m clinging to that promise.
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