Pledge of allegiance ruled unconstitutional

Pledge of allegiance ruled unconstitutional

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/14/pledge.ruling.ap/index.html

Not this again.... (groans)..Leave the pledge as how it is...

Looks like it isn't over yet. Lets hope the Supreme Court comes to their senses and puts the pledge back how it was!

The arguments that people are being forced to say Under God...UGH...doesn't hold water.

Here's a test:

Say "under God"

I can't make you; its a conscious decision.



I don't see why we have to become a country that acknowledges atheism when we can't acknowledge other religions. Why does atheism have to become the official religion

 

Eigh, small correction SBW.

Let me clear up some of the biggest misconceptions. The concept of Seperation and Church and State is often interpreted incorrectly by modern America. The Idea was introduced by Jefferson when he was writing to a church when a concern was brought forth that an official religion was going to be declared. If you read the letter in its entirety, it clearly states that Religion will be part of Government. BUT often many people only take that single line Jefferson wrote, which is what we know now as Seperation of Church and State.

To sum the letter up, and what the framers put into the Constitution, essentially our founding fathers intended this to be a Christian Nation, backed with Christian Ideology. Hence why there is an article within the Constitution saying "Religious Freedom" which guarenteed the right to anyone practicing any religion they deemed fit. Religious Freedom does not equate Government being seperated from Religion.

If that's the case, then many of the Holidays we celebrate today are Christian Based. That includes Thanksgiving, Easter, and moreover, Christmas.

Consequently this is one of the biggest problems here. If we remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, this becomes a mockery of all the other religions. It essentially says we are a country which supports Atheism. Though the words are not there, the invisible meaning is there. Words are one of the most power things around, and if they are or are not there, it can tell two whole different stories. In this case, if removed, it will say clearly we are an Atheist state and we start violating the rights of Christian, Muslims, alike.

Yes we can always put Allah, God, Jesus, Yawah on one line, but they are essentially also recognized by various cultures as a "God". How it is used right now is broad enough to inclue 95% of all religions, excluding Atheists.

I'm troubled how this is going. It basically starts opening the door for Religious Freedom to go down the drain. How? Simply put: Let me give you this example. The other day I was listening to the radio and they were talking about ethics and religion in the workplace. An atheist called in saying how he was troubled/uncomfortable that there was religious artifacts of all kinds in his co-worker's cubicles.

The specialist basically essentially said he should go to his supervisor and force all his co-workers to remove them. When the host asked if he was the only atheist around, he said no. When asked if he was the only atheist bothered, he said yes.

What bothers me here is that he makes everyone else subject themselves to atheism. He forces everyone to comply with atheistic rules when these artifacts are simply in the cubicle of his co-workers. They aren't in common areas, just the cubicles.


What's truely tragic in my opinion is that we are condeming our own nation here. Europe use to be one of the largest super powers around and when they started to become secular and turned their backs away from Christianity, they lost the power. The same is happening ot the United States. If you do a side by side comparison of Christianity, and the Superpowers of the times, you'll find there is a direct correlation.

We can observe this happening today by looking at China. China's fastest growing religion at this point is Christianity, and when you look at their economy and status, they are recognized as the next super power on this planet.

 

The goal of First Amendment was to protect religious expression, not restrict it. In the last 50 years, though, “non-establishment” has been redefined as “separation,” effectively amending the Constitution and isolating Christians from the political process.

“Will You Be a Casualty in Their Religious War?” read the headline of an advertisement that almost covered an entire page of the L.A. Times. Underneath were pictures of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Lou Sheldon, along with condemning quotes substantiating their apparent jihad against irreligious secularists.

The text of the advertisement read:
“The radical religious right has declared war on America. It is a war of ideas. A war of conscience. It’s a religious war. This war strikes at the very heart of our Constitution and threatens the freedoms we hold most dear. Freedom to worship as we please and to believe what we want to believe. The freedom to determine for ourselves what religious and moral views our own children are exposed to. The freedom to conduct our lives as we see fit without having our privacy violated. For some time now, the radical religious right has claimed that there is no such thing as church/state separation in our Constitution. They are wrong. Find out why.”

It goes on to promote a book by Robert Boston entitled Why the Religious Right Is Wrong About Separation of Church and State .
The ad is correct on a couple of points. There is a sense in which the “religious right” is at war, but the battle is not against America, it’s about America. And it is a war of ideas: Is there a legitimate separation of church and state, and what does that mean?

What Does “Separation of Church and State” Mean?
The current understanding of “separation of church and state”--the view that the state is thoroughly secular and not influenced by religious values, especially Christian--was completely foreign to the first 150 years of American political thought. Clearly the Fathers did not try to excise every vestige of Christian religion, Christian thought, and Christian values from all facets of public life. They were friendly to Christianity and encouraged its public practice and expression.

It wasn’t until 1947 that the United States Supreme Court first used the concept of “separation” to isolate government from religion.[ii] In Everson v. Board of Education, the court lifted a phrase from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist church in Danbury, Connecticut. The Court ruled, “Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another....In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’”

The Infamous Danbury Letter
In the Everson v. Board of Education decision, the Supreme Court quoted Jefferson’s separation language as a normative guideline for understanding the First Amendment. As David Barton points out, “There’s probably no other instance in America’s history where words spoken by an individual have become the law of the land. Jefferson’s remark now carries more weight in judicial circles than does the writing of any other Founder.”

Thomas Jefferson wasn’t a member of the Constitutional Convention, and the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Where did it come from?
On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, in which he used the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.” His note was meant to quell the fears of the Danbury congregation who were concerned that a national denomination would be established. Here is the text in question:

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 thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.
What did Jefferson have in mind here? Is there an impregnable barrier erected by the founders that excludes religious-minded people from the political process, an ideological enmity between church and state?

The First Amendment
In contrast to the present confusion about separation, the First Amendment is startling in its clarity, offering no limit to the impact of religious and moral conviction of individual citizens on public policy. It is worth reading often. Here it is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Please forgive me for stating the obvious: The First Amendment restricts the government, not the people. Jefferson’s wall is a one-way wall. Any religious person, any religious organization, any religious conviction has its place in the public debate. It’s called pluralism in the classic sense.
Notice there are not two distinct provisions here, but one. Non-establishment has no purpose by itself. Freedom of religion is the goal, and non-establishment is the means. The only way to have true freedom of religion is to keep government out of religion’s affairs. This provides for what Steven Monsma calls “positive neutrality.” This view “defines religious freedom in terms of a governmental neutrality toward religion in which no religion is favored over any other, and neither religion nor secularism is favored over each other.”

The First Amendment was rewritten twelve times to make clear its intent. The concept set forth in the Bill of Rights is “non-establishment,” not isolation. We should strike the “separation” language from our vocabulary.
Separation: Original Intent or Recent Invention?

A Fatal Flaw
The constant appeal to Jefferson’s Danbury letter by hard core separationists reveals a fatal flaw in their approach. Quoting Jefferson’s opinion only matters if Jefferson’s original intent still applies today. If it doesn’t, then the Danbury citation is irrelevant. If it does, then Jefferson’s full views on the issue have merit in this discussion.

It’s clear, though, that the Everson Court used Jefferson’s words, not his ideas. The separation language itself was not in common use at the time. It does not show up in any notes of the Constitutional Convention or of the Congress responsible for the Bill of Rights or the First Amendment.
What was Jefferson’s intent? To show that the Federal government couldn’t establish a national denomination. That’s all. In another letter, this one to Samuel Miller in 1808, Jefferson expanded on his view:

Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States, as far is it can be in any human authority.

This is a stunning revelation for advocates of a Jeffersonian model of separation. According to Jefferson, the Federal Government couldn’t prescribe religious exercise or discipline, but the states could. It wasn’t until 1947 that the Everson Court made the federal provision binding on the states, expressly contrary to Jefferson, though they quoted him for support.

For nearly two centuries state and federal governments have had such a benevolent attitude towards religion in general and Christianity in particular--including the almost universal practice of school prayer--that it would make a 1990s fundamentalist blush.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by the very same Congress which enacted the First Amendment, stated the following in Article III: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” Notice that religion and morality were equal with knowledge as proper subjects of public education.

All but three states invoke the name of the almighty God in the preambles to their constitutions. Note these examples:

We the people of the State of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure and perpetuate its blessings, do establish this Constitution.

We the people of Alabama...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish...

The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God, in having permitted them to enjoy a free government...

If Jefferson’s view of non-establishment mattered today, then dozens of court decisions restricting religious freedom would be annulled. The present notion of separation is not conservative, seeking to return to earlier principles, but activist, seeking to redefine--and liberalize--the past.

Separationists’ Achilles Heel
Separationists attempt to take the Constitutional high ground by quoting Jefferson and others like him. They claim that the founders envisioned a high wall of separation. Recent court decisions simply enforce those original intentions.

Is the “religious right” imposing a new standard favoring religion that undermines our basic Constitutional freedoms, as the L.A. Times ad claimed? You can get to the heart of the matter by asking another question: Do these recent legal actions stop something from being added, or do they remove things already there? They remove them.

Courts have removed prayer from school, crèches from the lawns of city halls, and crosses from public parks. Separationists have managed to get personal Bibles off of teachers’ desks, the Ten Commandments out of school rooms, and references to God eliminated from students’ graduation speeches.

This is their Achilles’ heel: Things can only be removed that were already there to begin with. How did they get there? They were allowed by citizens, legislatures, and courts who saw no harm in them, no intolerance, no danger, and no breech of any Constitutional principle for almost 175 years.

This observation tells us two things. First, from the beginning, religious symbols and religious thought were woven into the fabric of government and society with no sense of Constitutional impropriety. This proves that the new court actions are revisionist, an attempt to change the traditional practice, not a return to our historical and Constitutional roots.

Second, conservatives are in a defensive posture, not an offensive one. The “religious right” has not declared war. The war has been declared on an American way of life held dear to many, and they won’t surrender it without a fight.

Separating the Church Right Out of the State
In 1976, I and three others ventured behind the iron curtain in a clandestine operation bringing aid to persecuted Christians in Soviet Bloc countries. On Friday, July 23, we were detained at the border station of Leushen, Moldavia, USSR, because we had Russian Bibles in our possession.

After ransacking our car and personal belongings and strip-searching one of our group, border officials took us inside for questioning by a female interpreter. Where did we get the Bibles? Who were they for? Didn’t we know that such trafficking was illegal? The questions went on for hours.
When we explained the Bibles were for believers in the Soviet Union, she wanted to know their names.

“We planned to look the churches up in the phone directory.”
“We don’t have churches listed in our phone directories.”
We pointed out that in the United States, where there is freedom of religion, all of the churches are listed. Didn’t they have freedom of religion in the Soviet Union?

“Yes,” she assured us, “of course we have freedom of religion, but we have separation of church and state.” This was not the first time we were to hear this cryptic phrase.

The interpreter explained that the government printed all the Bibles needed for Soviet Christians. “We have our department of atheism and spend a large amount of money each year teaching them these things. We don’t allow any other propaganda.”

“But you print Bibles in the USSR?”

“Yes, our believers get all the Bibles they need, but they are given out only through the church and we must have all their names.”

“But you do have religious freedom?”

“Yes, we have religious freedom.”

“And we can’t bring in Bibles?”

“No, we don’t allow that propaganda in our country.”

“The Bible is propaganda?”

“Yes.”

“But you print Bibles in your own country.”

“Yes.”

I was surprised she couldn’t see what was coming. “Then that means you are printing anti-communist propaganda right in your own country.”
Her immediate reply was the cryptic, “But we have separation of church and state.”

This mantra was her blanket reply justifying all government interference with our activities. How were we interfering with separation? What did it actually mean? My partner’s definition was probably the most accurate. “They’re separating the church right out of the state,” he quipped.
As I look back on that incident 20 years ago, I’m struck by the contrast. Today there is more de facto religious liberty in former communist countries than we experience here in the United States. Now it is American courts that chant the mantra of separation to prohibit religious conduct in the public square.

The ACLU, in a letter to California State Senator Newton Russell, objected that “teaching that monogamous, heterosexual intercourse within marriage is a traditional American value is unconstitutional establishment of a religious doctrine in public schools.”

The Supreme Court opens each session with the words, “God save this honorable court.” Yet in June, 1994, the same Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling removing the Ten Commandments from a courtroom. This is rather ironic, considering a bas-relief of Moses holding the tablets of the Old Testament Law broods over the Chief Justice’s seat. Engraved upon the lower half of each entrance door is the same Ten Commandments banished by the court.

Twisted logic like this is “separating the church right out of the state.”
How Five People Can Amend the Constitution

Amending the Constitution is an arduous process. Changes require an appeal by two-thirds of both Houses or by the Legislatures of two-thirds of the states to even get started. Ratification requires a three-fourths majority of either the states’ legislatures or special Constitutional conventions.

That’s what the founders intended. The Constitution’s provisions--including the Bill of Rights--were considered so weighty that only the most united and energetic efforts of the nation could alter it.

Shell Game
Today, de facto Constitutional amendments only require five non-elected citizens--a simple majority of the nine-member Supreme Court.
The High Court wouldn’t dream of simply deleting the Bill of Rights. That would be despotism. Yet they don’t balk at so redefining its meaning that the original disappears, though the words remain the same. Like dupes in a magician’s shell game, the citizens miss the sleight of hand and don’t even know they’ve been robbed.

If the responsibility of all branches of government is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, ought not those branches preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution that was actually delivered, rather than some fanciful remake? If our Republic is guarded by the Constitution, then we are left defenseless when the words of the Constitution are redefined at will.

The authors of the First Amendment did not seek to expunge every shred of religious sentiment from the public arena. They did just the opposite, decorating their buildings with biblical imagery, punctuating their public discourses with biblical quotes, and grounding their laws on biblical morality.

Christian religion was the cement holding the very foundation stones of the Republic together. That cement is being chipped out, piece by piece, leaving a building without mortar, a stack of bricks ready to topple at the slightest quake.

An “Unconstitutional” President Lincoln
To show how far we’ve declined, I close with the words of President Lincoln in his Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer, March 30, 1863:

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

A hundred years and sixteen Presidents had passed, yet our country’s chief executive could still call his nation to humble repentance without the slightest hint of embarrassment, impropriety, or apology.

By today’s standards, though, the words of one of our greatest Presidents could not be spoken at certain government functions. The very same advice could not be given by a teacher to his junior high class. This alone is enough to show that the popular understanding of separation of church and state is foreign to the Constitution and to the world view that gave it birth.

-Greg Kokul

 

But what is your argument based on though? Is it based on personal belief, opinion, or evidence gathered through various readings in your lifetime?

 

What do you deem it as Lynet? A mere coincidence? Empires do indeed come and go, but who has ever taken the time to evaluate the correlation between the effects of a religion are on an empire? I don't know many who's ever taken the time to do so. I've read several studies myself and its pretty convincing I can tell you that.

With the rise of Christianity in many of the developing nations (particularly China), it only supports thesis that with the rise of Christianity, so do the economics and super power status of the country.

Look at our nation let's say 60 years ago. 60 years ago I don't recall a single instance where people dragged forth the Pledge of Allegiance or Ten Commandments to the courts crying they were harmed by saying "under God". Plus back then we were recognized as the last super power.

The last instance of such a problem was in 1962 when they removed prayer from School. In my opinion, that marked the turn of America's downfall. First with the Vietnam War, and it's going downhill ever since. Economy has gone sour, people are becoming increasing more and more secular, and we can't say things are related?

Today, let's look around us. Every other month we see some issue about God being dragged to the courts, whether it be the pledge or something else. Economy is significantly weaker, gas prices are rising, and the situation keeps going sprawling out of control more and more that we let it.

As far as I can see, two subjects, Christianity and economics, though they may appear on the surface to be totally unrelated, as you dig deeper, a correlation is uncovered.

 

Was the faith of the Founding Fathers deism or Christianity? What does the answer mean for us today? Both the secularists and the Christians have missed the mark.

​

There's been a lot of rustle in the press lately--and in many Christian publications--about the faith of the Founding Fathers and the status of the United States as a "Christian nation." Home schooling texts abound with references to our religious heritage, and entire organizations are dedicated to returning America to its spiritual roots. On the other side, secularists cry "foul" and parade their own list of notables among our country's patriarchs. They rally around the cry of "separation of church and state." Which side is right? Oddly both, after a fashion.

Who Were the Founding Fathers?​

Historical proof-texts can be raised on both sides. Certainly there were godless men among the early leadership of our nation, though some of those cited as examples of Founding Fathers turn out to be insignificant players. For example, Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen may have been hostile to evangelical Christianity, but they were firebrands of the Revolution, not intellectual architects of the Constitution. Paine didn't arrive in this country until 1774 and only stayed a short time.

As for others--George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, John Witherspoon, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick Henry, and even Thomas Jefferson--their personal correspondence, biographies, and public statements are replete with quotations showing that these thinkers had political philosophies deeply influenced by Christianity.


The Constitutional Convention
It's not necessary to dig through the diaries, however, to determine which faith was the Founder's guiding light. There's an easier way to settle the issue.
The phrase "Founding Fathers" is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group of men, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, like Jefferson, whose thinking deeply influenced the shaping of our nation. These 55 Founding Fathers, though, made up the core.

The denominational affiliations of these men were a matter of public record. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and only 3 deists--Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin--this at a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith.

This is a revealing tally. It shows that the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were almost all Christians, 51 of 55--a full 93%. Indeed, 70% were Calvinists (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and the Dutch Reformed), considered by some to be the most extreme and dogmatic form of Christianity.


Benjamin Franklin

Even Franklin the deist is equivocal. He was raised in a Puritan family and later adopted then abandoned deism. Though not an orthodox Christian, it was 81-year-old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on June 28, 1787, that was the turning point for a hopelessly stalled Convention. James Madison recorded the event in his collection of notes and debates from the Federal Convention. Franklin's appeal contained no less than four direct references to Scripture.

And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.​

Three of the four cornerstones of the Constitution--Franklin, Washington, and Madison--were firmly rooted in Christianity. But what about Thomas Jefferson? His signature cannot be found at the end of the Constitution, but his voice permeates the entire document.


Thomas Jefferson
Though deeply committed to a belief in natural rights, including the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, Jefferson was individualistic when it came to religion; he sifted through the New Testament to find the facts that pleased him.

Sometimes he sounded like a staunch churchman. The Declaration of Independence contains at least four references to God. In his Second Inaugural Address he asked for prayers to Israel's God on his behalf. Other times Jefferson seemed to go out of his way to be irreverent and disrespectful of organized Christianity, especially Calvinism.

It's clear that Thomas Jefferson was no evangelical, but neither was he an Enlightenment deist. He was more Unitarian than either deist or Christian.

This analysis, though, misses the point. The most important factor regarding the faith of Thomas Jefferson--or any of our Founding Fathers--isn't whether or not he had a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The debate over the religious heritage of this country is not about who is ultimately going to heaven, but rather about what the dominant convictions were that dictated the structure of this nation.
Even today there are legions of born-again Christians who have absolutely no skill at integrating their beliefs about Christ with the details of their daily life, especially their views of government. They may be "saved," but they are completely ineffectual as salt and light.

By contrast, some of the Fathers may not have been believers in the narrowest sense of the term, yet in the broader sense--the sense that influences culture--their thinking was thoroughly Christian. Unlike many evangelicals who live lives of practical atheism, these men had political ideals that were deeply informed by a robust Christian world view. They didn't always believe biblically, having a faith leading to salvation, but almost all thought biblically, resulting in a particular type of government.

Thomas Jefferson was this kind of man. In Defending the Declaration, legal historian Gary Amos observes, "Jefferson is a notable example of how a man can be influenced by biblical ideas and Christian principles even though he never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense."

What Did the Founding Fathers Believe and Value?​

When you study the documents of the Revolutionary period, a precise picture comes into focus. Here it is:

• Virtually all those involved in the founding enterprise were God-fearing men in the Christian sense; most were Calvinistic Protestants.
• The Founders were deeply influenced by a biblical view of man and government. With a sober understanding of the fallenness of man, they devised a system of limited authority and checks and balances.
• The Founders understood that fear of God, moral leadership, and a righteous citizenry were necessary for their great experiment to succeed.
• Therefore, they structured a political climate that was encouraging to Christianity and accommodating to religion, rather than hostile to it.
• Protestant Christianity was the prevailing religious view for the first 150 years of our history.

However...

• The Fathers sought to set up a just society, not a Christian theocracy.
• They specifically prohibited the establishment of Christianity--or any other faith--as the religion of our nation.

A Two-Sided Coin
We can safely draw two conclusions from these facts, which serve to inform our understanding of the relationship between religion and government in the United States.

First, Christianity was the prevailing moral and intellectual influence shaping the nation from its outset. The Christian influence pervaded all aspects of life, from education to politics. Therefore, the present concept of a rigid wall of separation hardly seems historically justified.


Virtually every one of the Founders saw a vital link between civil religion and civil government. George Washington's admonitions in his Farewell Speech, September 19, 1796, were characteristic of the general sentiment:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.​

Second, the Founders stopped short of giving their Christian religion a position of legal privilege. In the tradition of the early church, believers were to be salt and light. The First Amendment insured the liberty needed for Christianity to be a preserving influence and a moral beacon, but it also insured Christianity would never be the law of the land.

This ought to call into serious question a common tactic of the so-called Religious Right. "We were here first," their apologists proclaim. "Our country was stolen from us, and we demand it back." Author John Seel calls this "priority as entitlement."
The sad fact of the matter is that cultural authority was not stolen from us; we surrendered it through neglect. Os Guinness pointed out that Christians have not been out-thought. Rather, they have not been around when the thinking was being done.

Choosing cultural monasticism rather than hard-thinking advocacy, Christians abandoned the public square to the secularists. When the disciples of Jesus Christ retreated, the disciples of Dewey, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, Skinner, and a host of others replaced them.

Seel warns of the liability of an "appeal to history as a basis of Christian grounds to authority." Playing the victim will not restore our influence, nor will political strong-arm tactics. Shouldn't our appeal rather be on the basis of truth rather than on the patterns of the past?


The faith of our Founding Fathers was Christianity, not deism. In this regard, many secularists--and even some Christians--have been wrong in their assessment of our history. On the other hand, many Christians have also been mistaken in their application of the past to the present.

Christians have no special privileges simply because Christianity was America's first faith. "If America ever was or ever will be a 'Christian nation,'" Seel observes, "it is not by conscious design or written law, but by free conviction."

Success for the Christian cannot be measured in numbers or political muscle, but only in faithfulness. Our most important weapon is not our voting power, but the power of the truth freely spoken and freely heard.