It is a brilliantly conceived plan that puts the Catholic Church in the awkward position of defending a position that most Americans, including some its own members, do not support. Yet, it is their conviction, and if we really believe in religious liberty, it must be respected and supported. To many, this is a silly position to take in today’s world. Holding this position makes the Catholic Church appear to be out of step with current realities. It is designed to marginalize and the church and cause it to fall into disrepute with the less religious.

Aside from the obvious benefit of crucifying an opponent of his policies… there is something even more sinister afoot. If the church can be moved into the irrational curmudgeon category on the contraceptive issue, it damages its stand on the critical issues of abortion and homosexual marriage. It is the Alinsky tactic subjecting a opponent to ridicule and isolation to diminish its influence and serve as an example to others who would oppose the “anointed one’s” dictates.

The Catholic Church has been publicly pushed into a position of standing against the government or going against strongly held beliefs. Corporately this is a problem… individually it has eternal consequences. Matthew 10:33 tells us “But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” I don’t think the President understands the strength of personal faith and how, even with the strictest interpretation of Romans 13, there is a duty to follow the godly promptings of conscience.

Bill Donahue of the Catholic League promised the the ruling would be fought with law suits and other legal means… and left the door open to take the battle “to the streets”. Furthermore the church leadership wrote a letter that was read in almost all Catholic Churches this past weekend that read, in part:

We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same. Our children and grandchildren deserve nothing less.

This is a powerful and courageous stand the church is taking. I would hope and pray my protestant brothers and sisters… Baptists, Pentecostals and everyone in between would join them in this stand, not just for liberty, but because, contrary to some teachings, the Catholics are our brothers in the Lord we need to support each other in our faith… lest we be divided into scattered and ineffective non-entities.

Our country is run by an administration that is continuously poking and prodding the religious community… those of us who bitterly cling to our God and our guns. If we allow them to dictate the terms of our faith, we are tacitly admitting there is someone, or something, more powerful and more worthy of our allegiance than God Himself. For the sake of those who may fall into the trap of radical secularism, we cannot let this take place.

This political blunder that could well turn a reliable Democrat voting bloc away from the party many supported in the past because of some of the economic programs seems to have come from one of two possible mindsets. The first is that, being radical secularists, members of the Obama regime simply do not understand the power and influence of faith. As bad as this sounds, it is the more benign reason. Otherwise, it could be a conscious effort to stamp out the religion that gives people hope and confidence apart from the government.

The question for us, Catholic and protestant alike, as well as our Jewish friends, is that if the stand does mean taking to the streets, will we be there standing side by side? Before we answer, it would be good to consider that Obama is a disciple of Saul Alinsky who would be only to happy to use civil unrest to clamp down on the opposition. What does this mean for those of us who take a stand? It could well mean that the stand would be more than a bus ride to gather at the mall in Washington. It is a decision that must be made with purpose… with Matthew 10:33 in mind. The time may be coming when the choice is more than just theoretical. Will we see it as an blessing or a curse? Will we, like our forefathers, pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor?

[We live in a secularized world of nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is unwelcome. Rooted in the “Enlightenment,” this view supports a secularized and authoritarian public square enforced by government and that progress requires forcing religion ever backward into remote corners of society. In short, America has become a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God.]

Continued from Part 1:

During the Enlightenment, nationalism became the new civic religion, in which the nation state was not merely a substitute for the church, but a substitute for God, and political religion benefited from being more tangible than supernatural religion in having the physical means of violence necessary to enforce mandatory worship and funding. Nation states provided a new kind of salvation and immortality; one’s death is not in vain if it is “for the nation,” which will live on.

This “myth of religious violence” lived on with legal theorist John Rawls who claimed that the modern problem is a theological one and the solution is political. For Rawls, since people believe in unresolvable theological doctrines over which they will kill each other, a secular state must rule. Similarly, Stanford law professor Kathleen Sullivan, a secularist, has claimed that as a necessary condition for peace to avoid a “war of all sects against all,” religion must be banished from the public square.

As William Canavaugh notes, “[O]nce the state had laid claim to the holy, the state voluntarily relinquished it by banning religion from direct access to the public square . . . then what we have is not a separation of religion from politics but rather the substitution of the religion of the state for the religion of the church.”

Hence, in Abington Township School District v. Schempp, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan stated that the function of public schools is:

the training of American citizens in an atmosphere in which children may assimilate a heritage common to all American groups and religions. . . . This is a heritage neither theistic nor atheistic, but simply civic and patriotic. A patriotic and united allegiance to the United States is the cure for the divisiveness of religion in public.

In his dissent, Justice Potter Stewart correctly warned that the Abington ruling would be seen “not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.”

The reality of today’s secular theocracy is its hypocritical authoritarianism that circumvents the natural-law tradition of Christian teachings. Cavanaugh well sums up the incoherence of the secular theocrat who claims that, “Their violence—being tainted by religion—is uncontrolled, absolutist, fanatical, irrational, and divisive. Our violence—being secular—is controlled, modest, rational, beneficial, peace making, and sometimes regrettably necessary to contain their violence.” The appalling problem with the “myth of religious violence” is not that it opposes certain forms of violence, but that it not only denies moral condemnation of secular violence but that it considers it highly praiseworthy.

In Politics as Religion, Emilio Gentile notes that the “religion of politics” is “a system of beliefs, myths, rituals, and symbols that interpret and define the meaning and end of human existence by subordinating the destiny of individuals and the collectivity to a supreme entity.” A religion of politics is a secular religion because it creates “an aura of sacredness around an entity belonging to this world.” And according to Cavanaugh, “People are not allowed to kill for ‘sectarian religion’. . . . Only the nation-state may kill. . . . it is this power to organize killing that makes American civil religion the true religion of the U.S. social order.”

Among most Christians in the U.S. for example, very few would agree to kill in Christ’s name, while killing and dying for the nation state in war and supporting “our troops” is taken for granted. The religious-secular split enables public loyalty by Christians to the nation state’s secular violence, including invasive wars, torture, and “collateral damage,” while avoiding direct confrontation with Christian beliefs about the supremacy of God and natural law teachings.

Hence, the secular theocracy exalts a sovereign and powerful state that pervades all of life and compels obedience not just to its mandates but to the secular nationalism of the Zeitgeist itself, for which the populace is forced to conform to and fund. This worldview dominates public schools, colleges and universities, elite media, entertainment, and an ever-expanding array of government domains in law, health care, welfare, retirement, transportation, commerce, parks and recreation, etc. Not coincidentally in the modern era when nation states have displaced God, Cavanaugh notes, “it does not matter that the U.S. flag does not explicitly refer to a god. It is nevertheless a sacred—perhaps the most sacred—object in U.S. society and is thus an object of religious veneration.” And worship in the secular theocracy in schools and at public events consists of singing the “National Anthem” and saluting the flag in “The Pledge of Allegiance,” which as described by its socialist author Francis Bellamy, “is the same with the catechism, or the Lord’s Prayer.”

In contrast, C.S. Lewis understood that natural law applies to all human behavior including government officials, and he clearly saw that government power was a dangerous force that needs to be strictly limited.  Contrary to secular interpretations of the Establishment Clause, the issue is not “the separation of church and state” into distinct and conflicting realms but the reduction of state power to micro-minute levels in order to eliminate the establishment of a state-backed church of any kind. Individuals have property rights that are sacred and need to be protected under a uniform rule of law, Christianity instructs us in the civic virtues upon which such law depends, and good ends can only be pursued using good means. The result is the recognition that compelling people into some collectivist regimentation is evil and produces immense human suffering. Lewis noted that:

I do not like the pretensions of Government—the grounds on which it demands my obedience—to be pitched too high. I don’t like the medicine-man’s magical pretensions nor the Bourbon’s Divine Right. This is not solely because I disbelieve in magic and in Bossuet’s Politique. I believe in God, but I detest theocracy. For every Government consists of mere men and is, strictly viewed, a makeshift; if it adds to its commands ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ it lies, and lies dangerously.

The point is that the natural law is rooted in the religio of Christianity and sets the epistemic and moral foundation and context for the existence of all people as individuals and that such laws make the cooperation, norms, and relationships of community possible. To break the natural law in the name of a secular theocracy is to simultaneously break the relational bonds of community that are the basis for the natural rights of all individuals to be free and responsible.

Moreover, the solution is to end secular theocracy by de-socializing the public square, not seek to “take over” this theocracy. This means privatizing government schools, transportation, welfare, retirement, parks and recreation, commerce, civic areas of all types, etc., and allowing covenants and other private institutions and communities to flourish. Those who believe that such government domains are workable and should be exempt from natural law tenets are hubristically fooling themselves and end up embracing the moral relativism of utilitarianism. As Lewis further noted:

[S]ince we have sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The only remedy has been to take away the powers…. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us.

An evolutionary psychologist asserts that evolution in the ways humans use their brains, influenced exclusively by external, materialistic conditions, has made our era the least violent period in history.

Professor Steven Pinker’s latest book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, raises two important questions: has the world in fact become less violent, and has there been an evolutionary change in ways humans use their brains?

Read The Precious Steven Pinker, a critique by David Bentley Hart posted on the First Things website. For a larger picture of Professor Pinker’s views, see this video of an interview with Stephen Colbert, this New York Times opinion article, this New York Times profile, and Professor Pinker’s letter to the editor in Commentary Magazine.

Has the world in fact become less violent?

Professor Pinker’s argument is largely based upon statistical analysis that shows a declining ratio of violent deaths, excluding accidents, to the world’s population. In effect he agrees with the position attributed to Joseph Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is just a statistic.”

He admits that millions of deaths occurred in the First and Second World Wars, the latter a product of Hitler’s National Socialism. He also acknowledges that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot liquidated hundreds of millions of their subjects.

Despite the horrific nature of these mass slaughters, professor Pinker sticks to his statistical analysis as proof that the world has become less violent. While he doesn’t so state, the callousness of his position supports the prejudice of many people that more than six million Jews killed in Hitler’s Holocaust wasn’t a big deal.

Pinker’s optimistic assessment is a throwback to the 19th century idea of Progress, the burgeoning faith that liberal-progressive-socialism, guided by an academic elite, was inevitably propelling humanity toward social and political perfection.

Millions of deaths on the battlefields of Europe between 1914 and 1918 rudely shattered intellectuals’ naivete. More recently Islamic jihad has been a call to look reality full in the face.

Has there been an evolutionary change in ways humans use their brains, a change that leads to reduced violence?

Harvard experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, i.e., there is no such thing as the human soul. Humans certainly were not created in the image of God.

Eliminating humans’ spiritual dimension eliminates the possibility of God’s existence. If Professor Pinker and his atheistic colleagues can reduce the human soul to a large mass of physical nerves and synapses, they will have made humans little more than phenomenally complex computers contrived entirely by chance.

The probability of that evolutionary chance, as a critic famously observed, is on the order of a tornado passing through a junk yard and producing a completely finished, fully functioning Boeing 747.

Professor Pinker implicitly espouses the liberal-progressive-socialistic faith that the world is evolving toward a single world government guided by an intellectual elite representing the best of brain-use evolution. He explicitly credits evolving diplomatic policies among nations and creation of international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations as the agents making our world less violent.

He characterizes evolving brain-use as a process of learning to see issues from other people’s viewpoint. This, of course, is an attribute of amoral multiculturalism, which preaches “tolerance,” meaning the absence of standards of conduct. One can’t condemn Hitler, for example; one must see Nazi barbarity from his viewpoint. One can’t condemn the 9/11 terrorists; we must see their actions from their viewpoint.

Evolutionary psychology, a materialistic philosophy, is the field of study in which Professor Pinker conceives his thesis.

Evolutionary psychology’s basic elements are, one, that human psychology first evolved in the late Paleolithic era, dubbed the era of evolutionary adaptation. Evolutionary psychologists offer no explanation for how or why human psychology is supposed to have made its evolutionary appearance at that time. As with all things evolutionary, things just happen by chance.

Two, in that Paleolithic period all human basic strategies for coping with getting food, clothing, shelter, and sexual relations for procreation appeared as the foundation of human behavior.

Three, those strategies, overlaid by materialistically evolved modifications, persist today as the underlying foundation for all human behavior. That’s another way of stating that humans are just receptors of pleasure-pain stimuli from external conditions, that morality and individual responsibility are illusions imposed by those external conditions.

Professor Pinker does not recognize the pervasive and powerful pressure of Judeo-Christian morality in softening the barbarisms of European life after the 6th century fall of the Western Roman Empire. He charges that Judeo-Christianity historically was responsible for genocide, toleration of slavery and rape, and prescription of the death penalty for idolatry, homosexuality, blasphemy, and working on the Sabbath.

Christianity, as a matter of historical record, was the greatest source of steady improvements in Western life for more than a thousand years. Among Judeo-Christian accomplishments were hospitals, education, food and shelter for the poor, as well as transformation of Roman latifundia across Europe from slavery into the feudal system that gave peasants hereditary rights to occupy and cultivate their family land. 19th century abolition of slavery in the British Empire and in the United States was the product of decades of Christian agitation.

David Berlinski, in The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, notes that there is absolutely no evidence whatever for the assumption that basic human psychology emerged via an evolutionary process in the Paleolithic period.

It is an assumption plucked out of thin air. It is a variant of the standard justification for all of evolutionary doctrine: “it might have been,” or “we can speculate that this must have been,” or that “it must have been this way,” the rationalizations offered by evolutionists like God-hating Richard Dawkins.

Yet so-called scientists, who savagely condemn the faith of religious Jews and Christians, have no trouble taking the assertion of evolutionary psychology on blind faith. Why? Because it conforms to their preconceptions that God does not exist and that humans are the product of blind, material forces combining with random genetic variation to evolve new species.

Another aspect of evolutionary psychology is scientists’ never ending struggle to demonstrate that they are so intelligent that they don’t need God as the Creator of the universe. They can handle everything in their own minds, thank you; it suffices to gaze upon themselves worshipfully in the mirror every morning, congratulating themselves as lords of the universe.

[This article was originally published in The View From 1776 blog.]

This is a tantrum by a member of the homosexual community that generally looks to a big brother government that gets it’s resources by confiscating the possessions the taxpayers. We need to compare this to the organization they are attacking, the Salvation Army. It helps kids in the cities. It helps victims of natural disasters. It helps prisoners. In many ways, the Salvation Army performs the task of being God’s hands and feet in our society and works off of the voluntary donations of many Americans.

There is the rub. The same God that tells us that true religion is looking out for the least and hurting in our society, also tells us that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as a man lies with a woman. (Leviticus 20:13) This is the thing that Thayer and his friends like blogger Bil (with one “l”) Browning cannot tolerate. It is the light of truth that shows the lie of the secular humanist assertion that same sex relationships are natural and should be accepted by everyone… even if it is against their will and religious convictions.

Browning wrote “As the holidays approach, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in front of stores dunning shoppers for donations. If you care about gay rights, you’ll skip their bucket in favor of a charity that doesn’t actively discriminate against the LGBT community.”

Christmas is a time of charity and love as we commemorate the birth of our Savior. We give gifts to the ones we love and have the opportunity to help those less fortunate. We see the ubiquitous bell ringers with their red kettles at the malls and along city streets and we feel generous when we drop a dollar in… on the occasions when we don’t avoid them entirely. Even with our lack of enthusiasm and commitment, the Salvation Army raised $142 million during last year’s Christmas campaign… a five percent increase over the past season.

Obviously the American people were not concerned about the gay agenda last year, and it is doubtful they will be this year. In fact, it’s doubtful many even know about the homosexual hostility to these humble servants of God. The whole episode is a tempest in a teapot – a non-event in history of the world.

In spite of their vocal shenanigans, their numbers are small. They like to hear themselves rant, and, for some reason, many politicians tremble before them. But they will not make much of a difference in the income of the Salvation Army. On the other hand, we can make a difference. Hiding behind other shoppers isn’t really fair. Dropping a dollar in the kettle is barely an acknowledgment. A little more generosity will help a lot of people. By the way, you can contribute through their website.

These Pilgrims were mostly “Separatists,” who had left Europe to seek a land of liberty, where men could be free to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience–not according to the demands of a State church or an oppressive government. They made their intentions and motivations clear when they signed America’s first covenant, a document called The Mayflower Compact:

“We whose names are under-written . . . Having undertaken, for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith . . .”

This undertaking had prompted them to leave their homes, livelihoods, families, friends, and way of life, and make a dangerous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Many became ill and some did not survive to see the New World. But they all believed that they were doing God’s will and that He would honor their faith. And He certainly did.

Although the original Pilgrims had a few confrontations with the American Indians–some were even violent–for the most part, the Indians were friendly and accommodating. They taught the Pilgrims what crops to grow and how best to grow them. They helped them understand American agriculture and the ways of the wild game endemic to that part of North America. And by the time they held their first Thanksgiving banquet, the relationship between those original Pilgrims and Massasoit and his small tribe of Indians was one of genuine trust and friendship.

God had, indeed, smiled upon the small band of Pilgrims. They had survived a long, treacherous journey across the ocean, had written the immortal Mayflower Compact, had built their homes and communities, had established a civil body-politic, had successfully planted and harvested enough food to keep them through the winter, and had established peaceful relations with the native Indians.

The Pilgrim Thanksgiving may have been the first such celebration, but it was far from the last.

Not long after becoming America’s first (and greatest) President, George Washington issued our country’s first Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3, 1789. In the proclamation, Washington wrote:

“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor . . .

“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be–That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions–to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

Presidents ever since have likewise issued proclamations of thanksgiving exhorting the American people to humbly acknowledge the protection and blessing of Heaven upon our land. It is particularly appropriate that they would do this. After all, we Americans–of all people–have sufficient reason to give corporate thanks to Almighty God, as our Christian forebears founded this land for the express purpose of seeking religious liberty.

The history of the world’s nations is largely the story of one despot being replaced with another. Throughout the annals of human history, the story of human government is that of the rise and fall of one empire after another; one king or potentate after another; one dictatorship being replaced with another dictatorship; one form of monarchy being replaced with another form of monarchy. Some were kinder than others. Some were benevolent. Some were harsh. And some were downright cruel. But until July 4, 1776, there was no such thing as a nation founded on self-government, federalism, and religious liberty.

For the first time in world history, Christian people were granted a land of blessing and hope. In the human sense, America became to Christians what Canaan was to Old Testament Israel. In America, believers could live at peace with both their society and their government. They no longer had to choose between obeying their God and obeying their king. In America, there was no king but King Jesus. In America, men could truly render unto God that which was God’s, as Caesar did not demand for himself that which was God’s alone. (In fact, in America, we have no Caesar.) Men no longer had to violate their conscience in order to stay out of jail. Believers were no longer required to worship at the altar of the State or the State Church. In America, men could live free.

I repeat: if anyone has a reason to give corporate thanksgiving unto God, it is the people of the United States.

The common attitudes being displayed by many Christians–along with their spiritual leaders and pastors–today, however, would seem largely out of place by America’s founders. Apathy, indifference, and lethargy seem to rule the day. I constantly hear things like: “God hasn’t called me to get involved in politics,” or “I am only called to preach the Gospel,” or “Maybe we need to go into persecution,” or “It’s not my responsibility to fight for liberty.” All of which expose their personal cowardice and utter contempt for the sacrifices rendered by their brave ancestors–sacrifices that procured the very blessings of liberty that they now hoggishly wallow in without appreciation or afterthought. And now, when faced with the imminent threat of the loss of the very liberties that they have taken for granted, they glibly reject any personal responsibility to maintain said liberties for their posterity–and pharisaically excuse their miserable conduct with pious-sounding clichés. They even have the wicked audacity to attempt to use the Scripture as an unholy closet in which they might hide–the same Scripture that their forefathers claimed as an illuminating beacon that was used to conquer the darkness of oppression.

I pray that this Thanksgiving season may be a time of both rejoicing and reflection, as well as a time of feasting and fellowship. But may it also be a time of rededication and renewal and a time of determination and decision. And I pray that we will each give our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength to the restoration of the principles of liberty upon which our republic was built. Let us renew the Spirit of ’76 in America once more. In the face of whatever danger and challenge that may oppose us, I pray that we will be the ones that will rise up to reclaim the blessings of liberty for our children and our children’s children. So help us, Almighty God!

For more by Chuck Baldwin, go to http://chuckbaldwinlive.com .

Jacksonville, FL – Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the Clay County School District, demanding it stop interfering with constitutionally protected prayer prior to the start of the school day. For some time, students, some teachers, and community members have voluntarily gathered at the Flagpole at Clay Elementary School to pray prior to the start of the school day. But the district buckled under pressure from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which alleged that the district must stop the prayer. The FFRF demanded that all prayer at the flagpole cease immediately, stating that “it is grossly inappropriate.” In response, Liberty Counsel sent a letter to the district setting forth the law.

The district cannot prohibit constitutionally protected religious speech or prayer during individuals’ free time. The United States Department of Education has issued guidelines addressing constitutionally protected prayer, entitled “Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools.” These guidelines state in part:

“Students may organize prayer groups, religious clubs, and ‘see you at the pole’ gatherings before school to the same extent that students are permitted to organize other non-curricular student activities groups. Such groups must be given the same access to school facilities for assembling as is given to other non-curricular groups, without discrimination because of the religious content of their expression.”

Regarding teachers, the guidelines state: “Teachers may, however, take part in religious activities where the overall context makes clear that they are not participating in their official capacities. Before school or during lunch, for example, teachers may meet with other teachers for prayer or Bible study to the same extent that they may engage in other conversation or nonreligious activities.”

Mathew Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “Public schools may not interfere with constitutionally protected prayer. Before or after school hours or at other noninstructional times, students may pray. Teachers may also participate in prayer on their own time to the same extent they can participate in other secular activity.”

If one listens to their rhetoric, one never hears the words freedom or happiness. They are revealing their kinship with French revolutionaries whose motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” led them to take bloody revenge on anyone they saw as their oppressor. This is in distinct contrast to the American founders desire for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. These two approaches revealed volumes about the mind sets and motivations of the two uprisings that took place at the end of the eighteenth century. The French wanted to make their masters pay. The Americans just wanted them to go away.

Because of this desire for revenge, public beheadings were a popular pastime for a while. It was as if the pitiful peasants lot was made more bearable by seeing a perceived enemy come to a swift and violent end from a falling blade. While it may have made some of the poor feel better for a short while, it did nothing to improve his basic way of life. It was in this anger that a certain righteousness was felt that gave license to perform all sorts of atrocities.

It should also be noted that the French Revolution was also a secular result of the Age of Reason, while the driving force behind the American Revolution was the firm belief that all rights came from our Creator and they should not be infringed upon by a human government. As we have seen in the intervening years, the American experiment produced a more stable and prosperous country than the one based upon man alone. It has been living proof of Blaise Pascal’s observation that “The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.”

Unfortunately, our opponents in our struggle to retain our freedom have not achieved this understanding of reason and the limitation of human intellect. Not only do they not understand their own limitations, but they do not understand the limitations of human decency or even honesty. The liberal progressives tend to be so focused on the world they wish to impose on the rest of us that whatever they think will get the job done, is justified. Just recently Donnie Deutsch declared of the occupy movement, “The other thing it needs, and I don’t want this to come out the wrong way — not needs, but what will happen — if we think back to the late 60s, what is the most stirring image of all the rebellion that happened? What do we remember? Kent State.”

For those who feel the sight of young people bleeding on the ground is a desirable image, the idea of destroying an honest American is not only of little cause for concern, but it might even be fun. Hence… it is now time for Clarence Thomas, volume two. For those who remember the dog and pony show the left brought out in a failed attempt to derail another successful black conservative, we saw Anita Hill go into detail after conflicting detail about how the soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice made inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances to her. Arlen Specter, before he ventured over to the dark side, did admirable work exposing the fallacies in the attack on this fine gentleman’s character.

This time, they they are less specific, wanting the leading candidate to give an answer to nebulous charges they refuse to reveal to protect the “privacy of the victim”. Again, since they cannot show proof of their charges, they insist that it is simply the “seriousness of the charges” that disqualify Herman Cain from consideration.

For those who have been through the Leadership Institute course on handling negative information, we are expecting to see the falsified information trickling out over the next few days. They will not let us forget the “seriousness of the charges” but most likely, we will never hear exactly what the charges are.

Whether the reader is on the Cain Train or not, this attempt at a present day lynching shows that the people we are up against absolutely have to be defeated. Just like there can be no compromise with those who want to kill us, there can be no compromise with those who want to destroy our freedom. A third party may be attractive, especially if we cannot put the Republican establishment in their place, but it just will just keep this deranged Marxist in office. We just have to work together to get the best non-Romney candidate to represent the interests of freedom loving Americans… then send Barry Soetoro and gang back to Chicago… or wherever.

However, we need to consider what these actions really mean… and what they do not mean. These actions are simply a reflection of the predominant thinking of a small segment of our society seeking to impose their values on the rest of us. It is not any indication of the right or wrong of the such a position. It does, however, expose the citizens to the consequences of this corporate tolerance of behavior that our Creator rejects in no uncertain terms.

As early as the third book of the Bible, Leviticus, chapter 18, we see, “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” Some say that is an Old Testament concept, that the New Testament preaches a concept of freedom. Yet Romans 1 says, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Those who tell us something other than that are preaching another gospel. They may have the ability to force their view upon our country for a time, but be assured, it is only their wishful opinion and it does not come from above. It is at this time that we need to look at something the founders of this great country knew. Our Declaration of Independence contains these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

What we see here is that the founders were setting up a government that recognized the rights we, as human beings, not just Americans, have and where they come from. It says we have them as an endowment from our creator. He created us to be free. This founding document is only recognizing them, not granting them.

It is when governments put themselves in the business of creating and granting new, discovered, rights, like the right to kill your offspring, or the right to things that others have worked for, or the right to practices that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, that trouble arises.

What is our response to such an over stepping of the authority by those who have been entrusted with our leadership and safety? We may have to regard some of the legalities, but we do not have to accept their definition of right and wrong. We do not have to live our lives according to their distorted world view.

Among other things, we need to understand the difference between legal vs. illegal and right vs. wrong. We would love to live in a world where there was there was a correspondence between right and legal. Unfortunately, such is not the case. Our betters would want us to adjust our values to align with what they have determined to be the standards of the days.

For the Christian, this is not an option. We can only hold true to the things we know to be right. We must stand for these things, even if it brings us into conflict with our government. We have to consider the long term consequences of such a decision, even if it brings about short term hardship. We know in our hearts that there is a power greater than Washington DC, and it is not China. We need to know that there is someone who cares about us more than the President, and it isn’t one of the writers at the New York Times.

The issue of marriage is only one of the many points of conflict. Ultimately there is only right and wrong. Our future depends on which side we are on.

Now, as they tell us, at the supposed request of a few employees, the entire organization is standing behind the emblem of the homosexual community, with the blessing of the local president. Those moving beyond acceptance of their lifestyle choices are insisting on approval and looking for backing by the bullies as if they don’t have the confidence in themselves and their life decisions.

As most readers know by now, the name, Federal Reserve, does not mean it is any part of the national government… any more than the Second Bank of the United States – which Andrew Jackson killed. Or for that matter the previous incarnation, the First Bank of the United States. Every one of these central banks was privately owned by wealthy investors – some Americans, some not – for the benefit of the moneyed classes and the banking industry.

Now, because of corporate guilt so common in today’s environment, or, more likely, as members of the ruling class, they have embraced political correctness as have many other corporate entities looking to curry favor with the government and “intellectual elites”. They have carried this pursuit to then point where there is an Office of Diversity and Inclusion headed by a Senior Vice President.

It is clear that diversity has replaced excellence as the primary staffing criteria at the Fed, just like it has in many of today’s corporations. With such a focus – that according to their web site, is now a core competency – it is easy to see how a decision was made to fly this symbol in the face of many good Americans for whom it represents an abomination. I Corinthians 6:9 tells us “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men,” (NIV)

Much earlier, Leviticus 18:22 carried the same message, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” (NIV) Those who take the Bible seriously have to raise objections to this organization that has such an impact on our lives supporting such behavior as the Richmond Federal Reserve has chosen to support. One such person is Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall who has written in an open letter to Richmond Federal Reserve President, Jeff Lacker:

The Richmond Fed’s endorsement of costly, anti-social, immoral behavior is rejected by 6,000 years of Western Religious and moral teaching. You want the American people to trust your judgement in economic matters when your spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals?

Delegate Marshall wrote to the Richmond Fed President asking that offensive the flag be flag be removed. We are asking that the offensive flag be removed. You can help. You can write to Mr Lacker at:

Mr. Jeffrey M. Lacker
President
Richmond Federal Reserve
701 East Byrd Street
Richmond, Virginia 2321

or you can email him or call him through information on his personal page on the Federal Reserve site.

This is just one more way the Federal Reserve is failing our country and helping to bring about its destruction. Please join me in one more effort to warn the Fed to consider its ways…. and mend them.

However, when we look at the primary targets of these studies, we find a pattern that reflects the worldview of the denizens of the ivy covered halls. The founders who stood and fought for individual liberty and responsibility need to be taken off their pedestals and reduced to the level of the political agitators of our day. Better yet, if they can be shown as scoundrels, their inspiration and ideals can be further discredited.

Looked at from this angle, is it any wonder that men like Washington, Jefferson, Henry and Madison have been reduced to a band of rich white slave owners by those who fancy themselves to be intellectuals. The fact that many in their number were looking for peaceful ways to end the institution is ignored. The “intelligentsia” have a real problem with one man owning another, as do most readers of this, yet they have no problem at all with a few unquestioned and unaccountable leaders virtually controlling the people of an entire nation.

The more blatantly socialistic of their number have gone so far as to write the history of the American Revolution as a tale of a small group of wealthy land owners conspiring to oppress the masses – such is their jaundiced view of these men who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor. They tend to gloss over the fact that many who signed the document in Philadelphia lost everything, wealth, position and family members in pursuit of freedoms dream.

This is why all we get from those who profess knowledge is stories about Thomas Jefferson’s alleged affair with slave Sally Hemmings, as if this were the central factor in his existence. Efforts to show hypocrisy in his life, particularly injecting today’s harassment in the work place standards are a clear attempt to deflect our attention from such wisdom as:

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution taking from the Federal Government their power of borrowing.

Or

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Andrew Jackson is a later president whose misdeeds are fondly reported, but his accomplishments are not. We have been repeatedly regaled with stories of the “Trail of Tears” where Native Americans were forcibly moved from their homelands to other, less hospitable surroundings in the name of Manifest Destiny.

What they fail to tell us, is that upon taking office Jackson dramatically cut the size of the national government and then killed the Second National Bank – the Federal Reserve of his day. He knew the dangers posed by a central bank and put an end to it… surviving an assassination attempt only days later.

One by one, American heroes are being attacked and their accomplishments belittled. Is it a coincidence that only those standing for liberty experience this treatment? Brought up to date, is it a coincidence that Sarah Palin gets “the treatment” while Hilary skates on all the Arkansas shenanigans and Vince Foster.

Saying there is a commonality to actions by the academic community and the press does not necessarily mean it’s all one big conspiracy. It does mean, though, that there is a common set of values and agenda. Are all the guilty parties confirmed one worlders, or Soros flunkies? Could some be merely fellow travelers? It doesn’t really matter.

At best, those wanting to tear down our country have only a partial truth. At worst they have lies. We have the truth, but the truth that is untold is useless. We have heard time and time again about the need to speak up. They have the power of numbers and the force of repetition. They are, knowlingly or not, the diswciples of Joseph Goebbels who said:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

We are rapidly approaching the time when the consequences of the lies and half truths of the last century will come crashing down on the American people. We can allow the academics, the press and the politicians to spin more and more fanciful tales to explain their failures or we can get out of our shells and let the truth set us free.

And what is the truth? The truth is the the founders and later American heroes were imperfect people like the rest of us. They had their faults and flaws like we all do. These faults and flaws did not rule their lives. In spite of them, they worked to build the greatest country in the world. We can’t let them or our grandchildren down by allowing it to self destruct.