I have watched with interest the occupy movement over the past
few months. Cities have tolerated these individuals as they protested
the wealth of banks and the 1% to the detriment of the 99%. I’ve also
watched the deterioration of the morality of our society and the
denigration of organized religion.
Two articles recently caught my attention. The first, an article by Bill Murchison entitled “The Atheists and the Savior” posted in Townhall.com. http://townhall.com/columnists/billmurchison/2011/12/20/the_atheists_and_the_savior.
In it Murchison writes about the death of Christopher Hitchens, the world famous British atheist, in December of last year. Hitchens died of oesophageal cancer.
According to Murchison, Hitchens was against all religions, or at least said he was. The title of a best-selling book he published several years ago was, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Everything. Well, that’s a little stiff, perhaps. One problem, according to Murchison, with such a stance was its dogmatism. If you think, say, that Christians are dogmatic — inflexible in views that are open to question or, anyway, examination — what about dogmatic atheists?
It is fair, Murchison continues, to suggest that Christianity has maybe actually facilitated the atheist movement.
Murchison:
How? you say. By downplaying, I would say, its own truth claims while up-playing its social conscience and good works. This leaves the impression on minds inside and outside the church that faith in Christ, while possibly a good idea, is just a good, modern-style choice — take it or leave it. The drama of the faith thereby loses its drama, its pull and its intensity. Is it just a choice? OK. Which is where the atheist fraternity rushes in, expostulating about the stupid things Christians have done — e.g., kill and persecute each other — and saying, what person of sensitivity could believe in such stuff? Q.E.D., end of debate — assuming there ever was one.
The over-arching, all-consuming factuality of the faith is the point Christians tend to leave alone, out of fear they might hurt the feelings of non-believers or out of — I hate to say this — their own waning conviction that it’s really, deep-down true, hence inescapable.
I think Murchison is onto something here. We Christians in the United States have tolerated the nonsense of not being allowed to put up Christmas nativity scenes in public squares for fear of offending atheists and other religions.
This past Christmas season, a town in Texas pushed back against a Wisconsin based group which threatened action against the town’s nativity scene. Several thousand Christians turned out in support of keeping the display on public property. Don’t mess with Texas.
The second article that caught my attention was one by Chuck Norris entitled “The Feds’ war on religion”. http://townhall.com/columnists/chucknorris/2011/12/20/feds_war_on_religion_part_1_of_2/page/full/.
According to Norris:
It’s one thing to watch “merry Christmas” be omitted from signs in your favorite department store but quite another to see Bibles withheld from wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It’s true! On Dec. 2, the Family Research Council reported that it had discovered a memo released in September at the esteemed military hospital, in which Navy officials announced that “no religious items (including Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
Norris is not a theologian…rather an iconic figure whose public persona is one of a macho man. However, his instincts are in the right place, in my opinion. Highly respectful of the military, Norris wonders in his article about the future of our military under the present commander in chief. Excerpts below:
But imagine if the FRC had not found this memo. Imagine how many others like it aren’t found and are circulated around the federal government.
If you think this is an isolated incident, consider the following dozen-plus examples reported in the past six months alone by the FRC and Rep. Forbes’ office and a few of my own I found, which document how religious freedom and Christian liberty in particular have been limited, quarantined, omitted or outright obliterated.
–The Air Force Academy apologized for merely announcing Operation Christmas Child –a Christian-based charity and relief program designed to send holiday gifts to impoverished children around the world.
–Yet the Air Force is building an $80,000 Stonehenge-like worship site for “earth-based” religions, including “pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths.”
–The Marine Corps considered tearing down a Camp Pendleton cross meant to honor fallen heroes.
–Air Force officials stripped religious curriculum from a 20-year-old course on “just war theory.”
–The Department of Veterans Affairs censored references to God and Jesus during prayers at Houston National Cemetery.
–The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed the $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which included a repeal of Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which states: “Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”
–The Department of Health and Human Services unveiled new health care rules that ignore basic conscience protections for medical workers with faith-based objections to abortion and contraception.
–Officials at HHS denied funding for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ successful program for sex trafficking victims because of the church’s teaching on human life.
–Administration officials refused to intervene in the closing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
–President Barack Obama has lobbied for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would trample on the faith of employers in hiring, firing and promotion decisions.
–The Pentagon released new regulations that force chaplains to perform same-sex “weddings” despite their religious objections.
–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonized other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
–Just this past week, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a letter to officials at Travis Air Force Base, demanding the removal or transfer of a Nativity scene and a menorah that are part of a larger holiday display on the base.
What is going on in the U.S. military? Why is it so difficult for the feds to understand the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which says they “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?
And how many of these restrictions of our religious liberties are direct results of President Obama’s being in office? And if these occurred in just the past six months, imagine what would happen in another four years if Obama were to be re-elected. Our service members, as well as our devoted military Christian chaplains, deserve better.
Gone are the days when the commander in chief rallied the troops and nation with a religious presidential call as Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt did. FDR declared in his Christmas address to the nation Dec. 24, 1944 (the first Christmas after D-Day): “Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and Good Will. … We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth, in which all the nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day. May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come.”
The United States was founded on Judeo-Christian values. Just a cursory study of the writings of our founding fathers makes that very clear. Are we turning into a nation whose government wants to obliterate all things religious?
Speaking of the Constitution’s structural division of powers, members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been told they can’t send constituents Christmas greetings and have it paid for with tax dollars according to the Congressional Franking Commission – which reviews all congressional mail to determine if it can be paid with tax dollars – and was told that Christmas greetings can’t be sent in official mail.
According to the commission, cards can’t say: “Merry Christmas or Happy New Year” and be paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but they can say “Have a happy new year,” referring to the time of year, but not the holiday. A manual explaining what the Franking Commission is, is available at http://cha.house.gov/sites/republicans.cha.house.gov/files/documents/franking_docs/franking_manual.pdf.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is also on to something when he suggests that Congress should review the existence of appeals courts and activist judges which continue to take this country down the road to pure secularism. The Constitution of the United States in the limited space it gives to the judicial branch specifically states in Article Three, Section One that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts that Congress from time to time shall establish.” http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html.
It was never the intention of the founding fathers that the three branches of government be co-equal. Checks and balances, yes, but the legislative branch was to have dominant say. What has happened over our history is that the judicial branch has assumed power it simply did not have in its founding. Judicial review of laws passed by the legislative branch came later in Marbury vs. Madison.
Over the past twenty years, no court in the land has made more anti-American and anti-Christian rulings than the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Located in California, the heart of the most liberal part of the country, the land of nuts, fruits and flakes, the 9th Circuit certainly holds true to its surroundings. According to Gingrich, “The courts have become grotesquely dictatorial and far too powerful.” I agree.
I guess I am tired of all three branches of our federal government, to a greater or lesser degree, establishing the religion of secularism. I have read the First Amendment, am familiar with many of the nutsy-cuckoo decisions of the 9th Circuit (such as declaring the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional), and am well-acquainted with the original intent of the founding fathers not to establish a state religion for the U.S…but, come on people, we are losing our common sense, and many of our elected officials are first on the list of theophobes.
Two articles recently caught my attention. The first, an article by Bill Murchison entitled “The Atheists and the Savior” posted in Townhall.com. http://townhall.com/columnists/billmurchison/2011/12/20/the_atheists_and_the_savior.
In it Murchison writes about the death of Christopher Hitchens, the world famous British atheist, in December of last year. Hitchens died of oesophageal cancer.
According to Murchison, Hitchens was against all religions, or at least said he was. The title of a best-selling book he published several years ago was, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Everything. Well, that’s a little stiff, perhaps. One problem, according to Murchison, with such a stance was its dogmatism. If you think, say, that Christians are dogmatic — inflexible in views that are open to question or, anyway, examination — what about dogmatic atheists?
It is fair, Murchison continues, to suggest that Christianity has maybe actually facilitated the atheist movement.
Murchison:
How? you say. By downplaying, I would say, its own truth claims while up-playing its social conscience and good works. This leaves the impression on minds inside and outside the church that faith in Christ, while possibly a good idea, is just a good, modern-style choice — take it or leave it. The drama of the faith thereby loses its drama, its pull and its intensity. Is it just a choice? OK. Which is where the atheist fraternity rushes in, expostulating about the stupid things Christians have done — e.g., kill and persecute each other — and saying, what person of sensitivity could believe in such stuff? Q.E.D., end of debate — assuming there ever was one.
The over-arching, all-consuming factuality of the faith is the point Christians tend to leave alone, out of fear they might hurt the feelings of non-believers or out of — I hate to say this — their own waning conviction that it’s really, deep-down true, hence inescapable.
I think Murchison is onto something here. We Christians in the United States have tolerated the nonsense of not being allowed to put up Christmas nativity scenes in public squares for fear of offending atheists and other religions.
This past Christmas season, a town in Texas pushed back against a Wisconsin based group which threatened action against the town’s nativity scene. Several thousand Christians turned out in support of keeping the display on public property. Don’t mess with Texas.
The second article that caught my attention was one by Chuck Norris entitled “The Feds’ war on religion”. http://townhall.com/columnists/chucknorris/2011/12/20/feds_war_on_religion_part_1_of_2/page/full/.
According to Norris:
It’s one thing to watch “merry Christmas” be omitted from signs in your favorite department store but quite another to see Bibles withheld from wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. It’s true! On Dec. 2, the Family Research Council reported that it had discovered a memo released in September at the esteemed military hospital, in which Navy officials announced that “no religious items (including Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.”
Norris is not a theologian…rather an iconic figure whose public persona is one of a macho man. However, his instincts are in the right place, in my opinion. Highly respectful of the military, Norris wonders in his article about the future of our military under the present commander in chief. Excerpts below:
But imagine if the FRC had not found this memo. Imagine how many others like it aren’t found and are circulated around the federal government.
If you think this is an isolated incident, consider the following dozen-plus examples reported in the past six months alone by the FRC and Rep. Forbes’ office and a few of my own I found, which document how religious freedom and Christian liberty in particular have been limited, quarantined, omitted or outright obliterated.
–The Air Force Academy apologized for merely announcing Operation Christmas Child –a Christian-based charity and relief program designed to send holiday gifts to impoverished children around the world.
–Yet the Air Force is building an $80,000 Stonehenge-like worship site for “earth-based” religions, including “pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths.”
–The Marine Corps considered tearing down a Camp Pendleton cross meant to honor fallen heroes.
–Air Force officials stripped religious curriculum from a 20-year-old course on “just war theory.”
–The Department of Veterans Affairs censored references to God and Jesus during prayers at Houston National Cemetery.
–The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed the $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which included a repeal of Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which states: “Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”
–The Department of Health and Human Services unveiled new health care rules that ignore basic conscience protections for medical workers with faith-based objections to abortion and contraception.
–Officials at HHS denied funding for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ successful program for sex trafficking victims because of the church’s teaching on human life.
–Administration officials refused to intervene in the closing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
–President Barack Obama has lobbied for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would trample on the faith of employers in hiring, firing and promotion decisions.
–The Pentagon released new regulations that force chaplains to perform same-sex “weddings” despite their religious objections.
–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demonized other countries’ religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
–Just this past week, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a letter to officials at Travis Air Force Base, demanding the removal or transfer of a Nativity scene and a menorah that are part of a larger holiday display on the base.
What is going on in the U.S. military? Why is it so difficult for the feds to understand the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which says they “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?
And how many of these restrictions of our religious liberties are direct results of President Obama’s being in office? And if these occurred in just the past six months, imagine what would happen in another four years if Obama were to be re-elected. Our service members, as well as our devoted military Christian chaplains, deserve better.
Gone are the days when the commander in chief rallied the troops and nation with a religious presidential call as Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt did. FDR declared in his Christmas address to the nation Dec. 24, 1944 (the first Christmas after D-Day): “Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and Good Will. … We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth, in which all the nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day. May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come.”
The United States was founded on Judeo-Christian values. Just a cursory study of the writings of our founding fathers makes that very clear. Are we turning into a nation whose government wants to obliterate all things religious?
Speaking of the Constitution’s structural division of powers, members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been told they can’t send constituents Christmas greetings and have it paid for with tax dollars according to the Congressional Franking Commission – which reviews all congressional mail to determine if it can be paid with tax dollars – and was told that Christmas greetings can’t be sent in official mail.
According to the commission, cards can’t say: “Merry Christmas or Happy New Year” and be paid for by U.S. tax dollars, but they can say “Have a happy new year,” referring to the time of year, but not the holiday. A manual explaining what the Franking Commission is, is available at http://cha.house.gov/sites/republicans.cha.house.gov/files/documents/franking_docs/franking_manual.pdf.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is also on to something when he suggests that Congress should review the existence of appeals courts and activist judges which continue to take this country down the road to pure secularism. The Constitution of the United States in the limited space it gives to the judicial branch specifically states in Article Three, Section One that “the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts that Congress from time to time shall establish.” http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html.
It was never the intention of the founding fathers that the three branches of government be co-equal. Checks and balances, yes, but the legislative branch was to have dominant say. What has happened over our history is that the judicial branch has assumed power it simply did not have in its founding. Judicial review of laws passed by the legislative branch came later in Marbury vs. Madison.
Over the past twenty years, no court in the land has made more anti-American and anti-Christian rulings than the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Located in California, the heart of the most liberal part of the country, the land of nuts, fruits and flakes, the 9th Circuit certainly holds true to its surroundings. According to Gingrich, “The courts have become grotesquely dictatorial and far too powerful.” I agree.
I guess I am tired of all three branches of our federal government, to a greater or lesser degree, establishing the religion of secularism. I have read the First Amendment, am familiar with many of the nutsy-cuckoo decisions of the 9th Circuit (such as declaring the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional), and am well-acquainted with the original intent of the founding fathers not to establish a state religion for the U.S…but, come on people, we are losing our common sense, and many of our elected officials are first on the list of theophobes.
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