ATHEISTS ATTEMPTING TO SQUELCH HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS BECAUSE THEY ARE CHRISTIAN

We might think that atheists would want to partner for a better world. Apparently, this is not the case:

·       “Humanists [atheists] in America are attempting to ban the practice of getting school children to fill shoeboxes with gifts to send to children in deprived parts of the world.

·       Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child collected more than 7 million gift-filled shoe boxes for hurting children around the world this holiday season.

·       The American Humanist Association wants to stop Operation Christmas Child, run by Franklin Graham's organisaton Samaritan's Purse, from promoting the shoebox scheme.” http://www.christiantoday.com/article/humanists.want.to.ban.christmas.shoebox.gifts.to.children.around.the.world/101100.htm

We are not requiring atheists to become Christians. We just insist that Christian be allowed to be Christian – the very right that the First Amendment has always protected.

Instead, atheists and others are telling us that there is no room in this nation for Christians. This would be understandable if we were killing and kidnapping, but we are merely trying to carry out our Christian mandate to love and to demonstrate that Christ is the source of this love.

How can this great nation be held together in the face of such intolerance? Can the US continue to be an umbrella for the peaceful minded? It cannot!

THANKSGIVING AND OUR MODERN TOWER OF BABEL

The once great USA is becoming a modern-day Tower of Babel. The common glue that had once held us together as a nation has been systematically attacked.  Instead of a common Babelian language – it had been removed and the people separated into their own ethnic groups - which had held together the people of Babel, now, it is the Constitution and the First Amendment that are in jeopardy.

My wife and I like to see the 5^th Avenue, NYC Christmas displays. However, these have been replaced by allegedly inoffensive Santas and snowflakes, leaving us offended.

Today, my wife wanted Thanksgiving to be a special day in observance of our shared history, which had once united Americans. However, as hard as she tried to find programming on TV which would retell the story, she could only find references to turkeys, stuffing, and cranberries. Likewise, Christmas has succumbed to superficialities of gifts and Christmas trees. (Subsequently, she did find on CBN an inspiring account of the Indian Squanto and his pivotal role in the first Thanksgiving.)

However, the effects of the eradication of our common glue can be seen in many areas of life. The hatred is bubbling to the surface like inflammable methane gas from septic tanks. Meanwhile, the culture wars are being pursued relentlessly. For example, the ACLU brought charges against Jones County, NC commissioners for praying to Jesus before each meeting.

• According to the [ACLU], the prayers “are explicitly sectarian and favor only one religion, Christianity”…The ACLU’s field office in Raleigh sent a letter to Jones County commissioners April 3, writing the commissioners’ invocation prayer “should not demonstrate a preference for one particular sect or creed.”

“Jesus” has become the one unutterable word in a country whose Declaration of Independence recognizes that the God of the Bible is the one and only source for our “unalienable rights.”

The ACLU charge is based on the erroneous assumption that by eliminating religion from the public sphere, it would now become neutral, assessable, and pleasing to all. This, of course, is highly disingenuous. By eliminating God, another religion quickly and automatically fills the void. If God and faith can no longer be invoked, then only the opposite beliefs – atheism, secular humanism, multi-culturalism, materialism, naturalism, moral relativism, and permissiveness – are allowed to dominate the public arena. Ironically, by appealing to a distorted understanding of the “separation between church and state” – the “establishment clause”- secularism and atheism have now become our state established, sanctioned and supported religion! However, this remains an unspoken secret among the elite – that they equally violate the “separation clause” by establishing the religion of secularism.

More recently, The American Family Association reported on November 10 that:

• The Office for Civil Rights in President Barack Obama's Department of Education (DOE) has determined that a Chicago area high school must leave the choice to openly use the girls' locker room up to a 15 year-old student who has male genitalia, but self-identifies as a girl.

Why should this one boy’s choice to be a girl undermine the rights of everyone else?

Here is a statement from a spokesperson at the DOE:

• "Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls' locker room."

Why coerce the entire school district (and subsequently the nation) to conform to federal guidelines? It seems apparent that they are guided by a new religion that requires the elimination of any sexual distinctions and sexual taboos and the promotion of any and every sexual choice, no matter how self-destructive. And they are determined to impose their religious values on the rest of the nation. Meanwhile, they justify these intrusions on the basis of “equality” and “fairness.”

However, there is nothing fair about:

1. The Fed militantly and unnecessarily imposing their values/religion on everyone else.

2. Placing the choice of one above the valid desires of everyone and calling it “equality.”

3. Making the entire school conform to the choice of one and arguing that this is fair and just.

Democracy should respect diversity instead of needlessly imposing one religion and practice upon all. Consistent with this, it should respect the decisions of local governments. However, the thrust of modern secularism is to impose a single secular religion at the expense of traditional values.

Those who were building the Tower of Babel had a similar quest – to undertake a common goal of a common religion to forge unity:

• They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:3-4)

They didn’t want to be scattered, and therefore wanted to build “a tower that reaches to the heavens.” This would give them unity and solidarity, a common faith “that reaches to the heavens.” This would give them “a name [significance and worthiness] for ourselves.”

Ironically, it was this very endeavor, the imposition of uniformity, which brought about the very thing that they had feared – dispersion.

I ask secularists if there is anything that we can learn from the past – principles that had once made this nation into a great civilization. They uniformly answer, “No!” Instead, they have placed their faith in their ideals and values. However, these have been tried by almost every revolutionary movement and have been found wanting and at the cost of millions of lives.

Jailing a Woman of Conscience, Kim Davis

On September 3, 2015, a federal judge ordered county clerk Kim Davis to jail for contempt, since she, citing her religious beliefs and "God's authority," refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. She stated:

• "You can't be separated from something that's in your heart and in your soul," Davis told the judge as she explained how the Supreme Court's ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide conflicts with the vows she made when she became a born-again Christian. I promised to love Him with all my heart, mind and soul because I wanted to make heaven my home.” 

• "I have no animosity toward anyone and harbor no ill will. To me this has never been a gay or lesbian issue. It is about marriage and God's word," her statement said.

Judge Bunning’s ruling seems to be more than extreme. Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, charged that it was lawless:

• “Today, judicial lawlessness crossed into judicial tyranny. Today, for the first time ever, the government arrested a Christian woman for living according to her faith. This is wrong. This is not America.

• “I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to chose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court decision.

• “In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage decision has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s [5 against 4] decision was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it. 

And several have bravely chosen to defy it. And how is the Court’s ruling illegal? The American Family Association writes:

• So the Court had precisely zero authority to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was passed by overwhelming and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, and signed into law by a Democrat president, Bill Clinton. DOMA makes it expressly clear that the business of defining marriage is an issue that belongs exclusively to the states. That is the LAW, passed by the elected representatives of the people in the constitutionally prescribed manner. If DOMA is to be amended or overturned, there is only one body on earth which has the legitimate power to do so, and that is Congress. The Supreme Court has absolutely no moral or constitutional authority to tamper with it at all. So if Congress by law has reserved to the states the right to define marriage, what has the state of Kentucky done about it? The people of Kentucky, according to the prescribed method outlined in its state constitution, have defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, period. Kentuckians enacted their marriage amendment in 2004 with an overwhelming 75% of the vote. 

By overriding DOMA and the vote of 75% of Kentuckians, the five Supreme Court progressives have elevated ideology over the Constitution and a concern for the overall well-being of our nation. Their decisions can only serve to alienate, embitter, and breed greater distrust.

Our nation was not always so intolerant of religious belief. The secularism of our Founding Fathers bears little resemblance to the militant, coercive “secularism” of today. The historian, Edwin Scott Gaustad, quotes perhaps our most un-Christian Father to this effect:

• “Almighty God hath made the mind free.” It follows therefrom that mankind should do all that it can to keep minds unshackled and un-coerced. Let us consider, Jefferson noted, that if an all wise and powerful God restrained himself from coercing either the bodies or the minds of men and women, how utterly absurd it must be for “fallible and uninspired men” to arrogate to themselves the right to exercise “dominion over the faith of others…Be it enacted,” therefore, “that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” One will suffer in no way for his or her religious opinions; on the contrary, all persons “shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” And whatever their opinions, this will in no way affect their citizenship or their rights. (A Religious History of America, 119).

Jefferson might not have been a Christian, but he respected Christian conscience and regarded State coercion of religious conscience as needlessly repressive, as did the other Fathers.

There were many other options the Kentucky municipality could have adopted in regards to Davis. They could have allowed Davis room to not have to violate her faith. They could have directed gay clients to other clerks.

This is something that has been routinely done in mental health clinics. A new rape-case client is not assigned to a counselor who had just been raped. A Christian therapist is not assigned a same-sex (SS) couple. There had been respect for people’s feelings and faiths. What would it cost to make such allowances!

However, this is rapidly changing. Two Christian students were dismissed from graduate counseling programs in two different state schools because they refused to acknowledge that same-sex marriage is morally acceptable. This is a far cry from the Fathers who proclaimed that government should in no way exercise “dominion over the faith of others.” Jefferson had insisted that all people “shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.”

In contrast to this, the Obama administration eliminated certain rights of health care professions to not have to participate in activities that violated their conscience. Must today’s secularism compel a dogmatic secularly religious conformity in these matters? (And isn’t this an establishment of a State sponsored secular religion!) Must it force the pharmacist to prescribe the morning-after pill against his conscience? Must uniformity be imposed on all? On the same page of this World Magazine edition,

• A chaplain at a briefing asked a senior Pentagon official if a biblical worldview on homosexuality would be protected in the post-DADT [Don’t Ask, Don’t’ Tell] military. The reply he received was chilling: If you cannot come in line with the policy, then resign your commission.

We still don’t know how the repeal of DADT will play out for the chaplaincy and religion. However, this Pentagon official, reflecting the opinion of many others, is essentially saying, “The only religion will be our secular religion! We no longer allow religious diversity.” But why not? We’ve made provisions for the conscientious objector (CO) who refused to bear arms because of religious convictions. Why not also for the integrity of the religion which has provided the very foundation for this nation? In God of Liberty, historian Thomas S. Kidd writes:

• Whether evangelical or rationalist, most Patriots assumed that Christianity would, in some sense, be the cornerstone for the preservation of the new American Republic. (112)

According to Kidd, these sentiments were broadly held for quite a while:

• Through the era of the Civil War most Americans would continue to believe that the Christian religion should assist government in lifting people’s moral dispositions, so that they might contribute positively to the freedom of the Republic. Even the skeptical Thomas Jefferson believed that Christianity… “is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty.” (114)

The religion of the Founding Fathers allowed for religious diversity, as Jefferson proclaimed: “Almighty God hath made the mind free.” Therefore, this should guarantee the free expression of religious conscience. However, today’s secularism wants to place us in shackles: “You must believe in SS marriage, or else! No alternative speech will be tolerated!”

Our Founding Fathers were wise. They realized that by compelling religious conformity, they would not only be promoting a State religion, but also would jeopardize any possibility of unity. Meanwhile, today’s aggressively militant secularistic religion is placing this unity in jeopardy.

After Judge Bunning’s decision:

• Hundreds of people chanted and screamed, "Love won! Love won!" as word of these decisions reached the crowds outside the federal courthouse. (OneNewsNow)

Love didn’t win! Had love won, diversity of faith and freedom would have been upheld. Perhaps Davis might have been relieved of the responsibility of issuing marriage licenses or perhaps SS marriage requests might have been re-routed elsewhere.

No! Love didn’t win! Intolerance and the pressures for uniformity of belief and social conformity won! The very consensus that had once made this country great has been shattered and, with it, its vitality.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Discrimination, and the First Amendment

The US Supreme Court recently upheld Hobby Lobby’s First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty. The crafts store chain had charged that the Affordable Care Act required them to violate their faith by requiring them to provide insurance to their employees covering birth control and anti-abortive pills.

However, many complained that this decision provided Hobby Lobby and others with a license to discriminate. In an interview with Katie Couric, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lamented:

• "I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women."

Ginsburg didn’t explicitly claim that the decision granted employers the right to discriminate. However, she claimed something more extreme - that the decision granted Hobby Lobby the “right to foist that belief on… women.” Does it?

The Hobby Lobby (HL) owners have a constitutional right to live according to their religious faith. While some have claimed that such guarantees do not apply to businesses, others have pointed out that if these guarantees apply only to our private lives, they are useless, meaningless, and the First Amendment is just a waste of ink.

It is unclear how Hobby Lobby’s rights “foist [their] belief… on women” any more than the Affordable Care Act does so. Rather, isn’t Ginsburg foisting her beliefs on the entire nation! By simply not providing insurance that would cover birth control, it is hard to see how HL is coercing anyone to believe in a certain way.

All laws discriminate. They either prescribe or proscribe certain behaviors. If this is so, then the more appropriate question is this – “Which laws discriminate in a needful way and which don’t.”  Is coercing employers to provide birth control insurance absolutely needful?”

We respect business owners’ rights to discriminate all the time. Many stores have signs reading, “No shoes or shirt; no service!” We respect that and don’t haul the shop-owner into court for discriminating. Why the double-standard when it comes to Christians refusing to partake in what they regard as sinful!

Hobby Lobby has not been given the right to discriminate. Women never had the right to require these drugs from their employers. HL had withdrawn no privilege. Following Ginsburg’s logic, all employers had formerly exercised discrimination – the foisting of their beliefs by not providing for birth control. This is ludicrous. Besides, HL has not been given the right to forbid their employees from purchasing such drugs. If this had been the case, Ginsburg would have had a basis for her argument. Ironically, it is Ginsburg who discriminates against HL!

A government that wants to win the allegiance of the governed must provide guarantees against unreasonable encroachments. The USA had thrived by virtue of the belief that government should respect freedom as long as it did not seriously impinge upon the public good. The historian, Edwin Scott Gaustad, quotes perhaps our most un-Christian Father to this effect:

• “Almighty God hath made the mind free.” It follows therefrom that mankind should do all that it can to keep minds unshackled and un-coerced. Let us consider, Jefferson noted, that if an all wise and powerful God restrained himself from coercing either the bodies or the minds of men and women, how utterly absurd it must be for “fallible and uninspired men” to arrogate to themselves the right to exercise “dominion over the faith of others…Be it enacted,” therefore, “that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” One will suffer in no way for his or her religious opinions; on the contrary, all persons “shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” And whatever their opinions, this will in no way affect their citizenship or their rights. (A Religious History of America, 119).

Ginsburg’s disdain for the free exercise of religion is at variance with the sentiments expressed by Jefferson. For almost two centuries, our nation honored these very sentiments. For this reason, the Supreme Court was reluctant to enforce conformity, even when it would come at a great cost to the nation. It deemed that a dissenter of religious conscience could opt from fighting for his nation. The Court and the nation rightly understood that compelling conformity in non-essential areas would breed alienation, contempt, and disdain for authority. In contrast to this, the Affordable Care Act would have compelled people of conscience to violate their conscience.

Must our freedom of religion be safeguarded? Is it essential to the well-being of this nation? Clearly, Justice Ginsburg doesn’t think so. However, in his 1796 Farewell Address, the beloved George Washington reiterated this broadly accepted sentiment:

• Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars…The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” (Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty, 112)

According to Washington and the vast majority of the Founding Fathers, morality could not prevail without the belief in God. If this is so, should not our freedom of religion be safeguarded?