Embattled Christian

For a minute I lost my patience with the whole nasty mess. For one fleeting moment I threw up my hands and thought, “Oh, bother, give them what they want and shut them up, already. Does it really matter?” It was just a moment. A moment where I thought perhaps it’s better to have children pledging allegiance to our country and showing at least one simple shred of patriotism and gratitude to a truly great nation every once in awhile even if we have to remove the offending clause.

But I came to my senses, quickly. There is something deeper at stake here and most of us on both sides of the issue are missing a very large and important point. Many very religious people are standing in line to “give away the farmâ€? so to speak. “No big deal, clean the “God talkâ€? out of our public life, it really won’t make any difference. After all isn’t that mixing government and religion?”

The answer is a resounding, NO! All we are doing is substituting one American cultural underpinning for a much more sinister one. Atheism is a religion. Atheists have just about everything it takes to be a religion and they would gladly mix their religion into our nation’s government and politics. We think we can have some neutral paradise but that is a lie. We will always hold something dear above all else, and if we remove God, what will that be?

“Man as god and the state as the giver of all good things.� What horrors does that present?

Our country is founded on the great and inspiring ideal that there is something above and beyond human intellect and judgment from which all truth, virtue, rights, and love abound. Our American heritage and culture is based on principles that transcend human frailty, foolishness, cruelty and prejudice. We believe in equality and rights which are gifts from some One greater than ourselves. We don’t look to the king, or the state, or some college of intellectual giants for the values upon which our nation is based (thank God!) We look to that perfect being who embodies all that is good and right. To the extent that we fail to live up to those high ideals we are diminished and to the extent that we practice and work towards those high ideals, we are happier and are a light to the world.

That is something that any reasonable person can believe in. We use the word God. So be it. God is an essential concept to our form of government. Remove God and beware, be afraid, something else far less benevolent will rush into the vacuum. Yes, it matters.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 4:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.