Essentially there are two primary ways of viewing the world around us. C.S. Lewis called it the “Great Divide”. Do we live our lives with the recognition of the supreme being, or do we consider ourselves (man) to be the supreme being? There is even a perversion of the secular humanist thinking that sees man as the supreme underbeing and Mother Earth is the deity to be worshipped… in the way that these unusual people shall specify for us.

In any case, the culture war that currently engulfs our country is one that most who would claim the God centered world view are blissfully unaware of. So many, like their secular neighbors, are absorbed in their own lives and problems. They have been distracted by the small acts of goodness they can do, and totally miss the bigger picture that shows the Christian viewpoint being shuffled off to the side. Many of us have been majoring in minors, as the saying goes… fighting over hymnbook content or carpet colors.

Many also site II Timothy 2:4 that tells us “No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs – he wants to please his commanding officer.” We are told this as they, many with sincerity, attempt to go about the business of the Lord. The problem with this thinking is that it fails to recognize that a major part of the battle has moved into the public arena and the forces of secular humanism have been winning by default. The other problem with this thinking is that many of the Lord’s “soldiers” are AWOL from the fight entirely.

Many also take Paul’s admonition to heart that we need to endure hardships and the implementation of a secular based government with no concept of the creator endowed rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is just something we will have to live with.

This all well and good except they are missing the main point: IT’S NOT ABOUT US! Our convenience and ease of life are not the issue. The issue is the millions of children going through the public schools immersed in Darwinism. The issue is the millions of babies killed in the name of convenience with no concept of consequences. The issue is the gay and lesbian clubs in the same public schools that now call Christmas Vacation a Winter Break. No, it is not about us. It’s about permitting a culture that devalues the God of the Bible and promotes the idea that our puny logic can figure out what is right and wrong based on our circumstances… and it’s about the tragic consequences to those misdirected by our culture.

An example of how one’s world view determines their actions and impact on those around them is the slavish allegiance of academic biology departments at all levels to the evolutionary thinking of Charles Darwin. They understand there are gaps in the theory, but they have faith that eventually, their knowledge will be filled. Why is this, as the facts can’t substantiate their position? To understand this, let’s go back to the basic divide in world views. One says there is a creator God and the other denies this fact.

Most academicians in their ivy covered world with inbred social and work life circles publicly proclaim that they have never been able to see or measure God, therefore, he must not exist. With this background they HAVE TO embrace Darwinism since it meshes with their world view. There is no way they can even admit Creationism is a valid alternative. They deride Intelligent Design as simply an attempt to insert religion into science.

Ben Stein showed the foolishness of this position in his film Expelled when he interviewed a distinguished professor who could accept the possibility that a superior race from another solar system could have set life in motion on earth, but could not accept that we were created by a deity. These people are people are teaching our young and we are letting them!

Books could be, and have been, written about the effect of the secular humanist philosophy on our society as a whole and on us individually. Basically it has only led to increases in crime, suicide and poverty. The secularized society has proven it is not the paradise envisioned in John Lennon’s Imagine any more than the former Soviet Union produced the workers paradise it touted around the world.

Consider your world view. Compare it to the programs and pronouncements coming out our Washington and your state capitol. Don’t just think about the impact they will have on your life. Think about what they will do to the people around you and society as a whole. Many are trying to buy you off with trinkets as they steal and corrupt the soul of our country.

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.

by Thomas Brewton

The various Darwinian evolutionary hypotheses all rest upon unproved assertions. In the final analysis, the best they can offer is “probably.”

All supposed proofs of Darwinian evolution, whichever of its many theoretical variants is chosen, amount to the unsubstantiated assumption that any two life forms that resemble each other must have evolved from a common ancestor or that one must have evolved from the other.  Darwinian apologists have never, and probably can never, offered any example of a continuous evolution from one species to another, apart from controlled (i.e., the opposite of random Darwinian evolution) laboratory experiments with fast-breeding life forms, that doesn’t ultimately revert to the original.  They are millions of miles removed from demonstrating a continuous evolutionary chain from one genus to another genus.

The only thing Darwinian apologists can offer to bolster their religious faith in godless materialism is “might have been,” “we can assume,” or “it is reasonable to think that.”

Casey Luskin, in Critically Analyzing the Argument from Human/Chimpanzee Genetic Similarity, looks at that sort of unsupported, facile Darwinian assertion that amounts to falsehood, such as Darwinian religionist Dennis Venema’s casual assertion, “By whatever measure used, we are but a hand-breadth away from our evolutionary cousins at the DNA level.”

Spanning that hands-breadth, it turns out, would probably require more than 100 million years of random genetic mutations.

Quote:

In 2008, [intelligent design advocate] Michael Behe’s critics Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt tried to refute him in the journal Genetics with a paper titled “Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution.” But Durrett and Schmidt found that to obtain only two specific mutations via Darwinian evolution “for humans with a much smaller effective population size, this type of change would take > 100 million years.” The critics admitted this was “very unlikely to occur on a reasonable timescale.”

From Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry with Evidence for Random Mutatuion and Natural Selection:

The following is the incredibly low level of detail they provide for the alleged Darwinian evolution of vertebrate genetic structure: “We imagine that rapid and extensive evolutionary change could possibly be an emergent property of having all genes duplicated at the same time, allowing this expanded gene repertoire to evolve together.” Such vague assertions of evolutionary processes in no way demonstrate the efficacy of random mutation and natural selection. Instead, without providing any evidence that natural selection and random mutation could produce observed vertebrate diversification, they simply assert that it happened.

You can find more by Thomas Brewton in The View From 1776 blog.

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.

Refugees from the sixties protests have taken shelter in the academic world where they have done their best to complete the job they began fifty some years ago. In that time our real heroes have been rendered irrelevant and leaders of the their attempted revolution have been revered. The morality of the day is, in reality, no morality at all as their actions are guided not so much by doing that which feels good, as they tell us, but to show that they are free from old fashioned restraints that have been honored for centuries.

In their efforts to demonstrate their rejection of Christianity, many modern day “free thinkers” have embraced most everything else. They have even gone so far as to praise the introduction of Islam and it’s sharia law as being a welcome addition to our society. If they really looked into what they were supporting, the homosexuals among them would be unhappy with their fate in Muslim societies. Being thrown from high building tends to shorten one’s life expectancy. Those addicted to alcohol, drugs or sex, would likewise find themselves in a sad situation with these newcomers in control.

British writer and apologist G.K. Chesterton, witnessed this trend when he wrote, “There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.” The acceptance of all religions except the one that actually works is an ironic hypocrisy that somehow escapes the intelligentsia as they look down from it’s ivory tower perch on us poor uneducated masses.

Chesterton has also told us that “Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” While we might find it hard to believe, but there is a lot of truth to this statement. Many of the greatest pro-abortion politicians will tell us that they agree there are too many abortions, but they say to restrict them would be an injustice to these same poor uneducated masses that cannot control themselves. Many homosexuals don’t want to live their lifestyles but they tell us they are born with their sexual preferences – preferences they can’t change and preferences they are not responsible for. Therefore, they cannot be wrong!

We are living in a time similar to that described in the book of Judges, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (21:25 KJV) These are the values of today, everyone believes they can be their own judge of right and wrong. They criticize the church for not changing with the times. Actually some churches have changed with the time and those that have are looked on with favor by those who reject the gospel, but are willing to accept a social organization.

Churches such as this, that are to the salt of the earth are described as “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.” (Luke 14:34-35 NIV) They are accepted, but they are useless.

The unchanging God that tells us how to, not only obtain salvation, but to live in this world. We can change, forgetting the points of Christianity that others find troublesome. The secular progressives of the world would love that… they would have won and short circuited the message of the gospel. Or we could just sit down quietly and stay behind the church doors. This would also make the ruling elites happy as we would not be bothering them with godly morality and wisdom. Or… the church can, once again, become the beacon of light and hope that is was designed to be from the beginning. Our God did not change. If the church is not pursuing this path… which one has changed? Again Chesterton understood, “We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.” We have the answers to all of life’s problems and our country’s ills, yet for too many do nothing to share these answers.

Looking at the world around us, how many of our problems would simply vanish, or at least be greatly diminished if the fallacies of liberal humanist were to be addressed and the truth be known? Poverty, broken families, crime – they are all related to a rejection of the Creator and His Word. To those who wish to excuse their unbelief because of imperfections in the Christians they have known, Chesterton had an answer for that as well, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

It was long understood that boys growing up without a strong male presence, particularly those with a dominating female presence, would be more inclined toward homosexual behavior Much of the behavior was attributed to environmental factors, which led to the belief that it could be corrected.

Then came the politically correctness revolution. Springing to life in academia, this political correctness sought to minimize social and institutional offense in gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts by declaring certain ideas, language, ideas and behavior to be inappropriate and off limits in the supposedly open and tolerant world then envisioned.

With the leftist, anti-Christian inclination – outright hostility even – of these self appointed opinion makers who considered followers of Christ to be the primary offenders and obstacles to their desired secular society, we see how they reflexively support most anything Bible believing citizens stand against. It can be the killing of innocent babies, the expectation that those who can, must work for what they get… or it can be the homosexuality.

It is in this context that so many supposedly free thinkers embrace the normalcy of behavior that the Creator calls an abomination. The King James Version of Leviticus 18:12 puts it this way, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” The NIV uses these words, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” What better way to express one’s independence and rejection of the prevailing religious orthodoxy than to stand up and defend such behavior.

The sad thing is that the defenders of this perversion do so with much more enthusiasm and confidence than most followers of Christ display with the gospel itself. Most stand quietly by, afraid of making waves or being called intolerant. It’s as if most of have accepted the message of our time that tolerance is the primary virtue required to get along in this life. While being unnecessarily argumentative is no virtue either, permitting godlessness to go unchallenged is a far worse thing for those of us charged with representing the Creator on earth… and that is everyone who claims the name of Christ, not just the professional clergy.

So it is this decision to take the side of the secular society that has caused contemporary psychology to abandon the honest search for the relative impacts of nature and nurture in setting the course of the individual’s life. They had to come down on the side of nature, because, if the learned academic practitioners would have even considered the impact of family and environment, it would indicate that there was some sort choice or reactive behavior involved in the creation of a homosexual. This would never do as they attempted to desinify the behavior by calling it natural and the way people were created, if indeed there was a creator. Following their logic, if someone was created that way, and the creator is always right, so is the behavior.

To keep in step with the secular humanist elites, the APA had to change it’s long standing evaluation of this condition. If it was natural, it did not need to be cured, in fact it would be wrong to even attempt such a thing. Yet, even to the casual, but honest observer, it is obvious not all choices made in this area are rational and produce good results. At a recent anti-Semitic demonstration, a young woman was observed holding a sign that read, “Queers for Palestine”. Sure it was an attempted poke in the eye of our Judeo-Christian heritage, but more than that, it showed a complete lack of understanding of what the people she was supporting did to those of her persuasion. She apparently did not know why the Iranian president told the world that they do not have homosexuals in his country. It seems that throwing them off high buildings or lopping off their heads has the effect of diminishing their numbers – and here is the key – it discourages others from joining in the practice. Apparently some choice is involved, at least in the Muslim world.

We see then, that the broad support this very small minority of our population is enjoying is more than an admiration for the things two people of the same gender do to each other. It is, in reality, one more front in an attempt to purge the values that made our country great from the public consciousness.

No one takes on a public policy stance without some firmly held belief, some foundational principle or worldview which they embrace, and from which they reason.

What has been happening in our society for decades is a titanic battle between two powerful, competing worldviews.

Unfortunately, one of those worldviews has had the advantage of pretending to be a ‘reasonable’ belief that is ‘free from religion,’ and which has gained access to your tax dollars. We have been financing a takeover by a Christianity-replacing faith. The new PC faith, the belief system of true-believing liberals, is actually a thoroughly developed, reasonable-sounding worldview. It is self-identified as a “Bold new faith” which must be “Established” in “All mankind’s institutions and associations,” in Humanist Manifesto I.

And in Manifesto II we find the ultimate goal: “World Community TWELFTH: We deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and diversity.”

Many citizens see the symptoms and the effects, but most people do not realize that there is a battle of major cultural significance, an all-out tug-of-war of ethics and ideology, happening in America.

This is how the new secular/progressive ‘faithful’ are organized and how they behave:

The ACLU are the legal enforcers of the new faith (Obedience), brandishing their flaming secular legal sword at any slightest whiff of Christianity that dares to pop up anywhere in public life.

The ACLU has been very visible and vocal in public policy struggles, though most citizens are mystified by the motives and strange positions taken by this so-called defender of ‘rights.’ The ACLU goes to court to enforce ’separation of church and state’ found, NOT in America’s Constitution, but found in the Humanist Manifestos and the old, failed Soviet Constitution, Article 52:

“The church shall be separate from the state, and the schools from the church.”

It is ironic, insulting and tragic that we finance a school system that enforces this Soviet version of our ‘rights.’

The ACLU and Humanism are philosophically and historically tied together.

Roger Baldwin, ACLU founder, stated categorically: “Communism is the goal!” He refused for the rest of his life to modify or retract this statement.

“In later years Baldwin occasionally wrote for The Humanist. On one occasion he reviewed a book for The Humanist by Corliss Lamont whose credentials as a Humanist include being named “Humanist of the Year” for 1977, being signatory to Humanist Manifesto II, and serving as honorary president of the AHA. Baldwin gave this evaluation of Lamont’s book: “It reads like an expanded annual report of the Civil Liberties Bureau.”(6) In addition to Lamont’s Humanist affiliations, he also sat on the ACLU board for many years, thus further demonstrating the compatibility of Humanism and the ACLU. (Eventually, Lamont did reject the ACLU because of its stand against communism.) Baldwin served as Director of the ACLU until 1949, but thereafter continued to influence the Union as a member of the National Advisory Council.” Read about it here.

‘Gay rights’ activists are the shock troops (Onward, true-believing soldiers), the politically astute, PC Inquisitors, the aggressive vanguard of the Humanists. Dare to question their ‘Diversity!’ mantra and you will face rage and possible lawsuits.

Environmental extremists are the preening, ‘righteousness’ arm of the Humanists, ’saving the planet’ (Salvation) whether you want their messianic ministry and their Big Brother garbage-monitoring e-chips forced on you or not.  Insisting that we leave our own vast natural gas, coal and oil resources in the ground, so we can become third-world beggars like the rest of the ‘world community.’ And killing our economy as we enrich our enemies.

The ‘Choice’ crowd makes certain that the blood of innocent unborn children (Rituals) is offered up to their cause. Their noble efforts are not to be questioned, and regarding their ghoulish practices…just do not think about the 50 Million babies butchered so far.

Liberal politicians enforce charitable ‘tithing’ (Sacrificial giving) through confiscatory taxation, scolding about ‘fairness’ and equitable ‘redistribution’ of wealth and resources, then use the money to advance Humanist principles and grow their influence through tyrannical public policies.

Taxpayer-financed education – K-12 and university – provide training in the correct manner of thinking and behaving (Sunday School 5 days per week, and Missionary outreach), constantly demonstrating or subtly hinting that Christianity is primitive, dangerous, irrelevant or ‘harmful,’ and sanitizing any last vestige of a Christian heritage from our society, and teaching students to earnestly – erroneously – chant that “America was founded on freedom from religion!”

Teachers Unions – from the N.E.A. and down through outspoken activists in their state and local unions – and ‘International Unions’ are the fraternal organizations (Faith-based organizations) associated with the Religious Left, they give votes, money and activist shoe leather to the Humanist movement. They are also the most powerful, influential lobbyists in D.C. and your state Legislature, making all kinds of legislation, not just education, their business. Politicians are ordinarily afraid to defy them. That is one of the reasons for their vitriol and outrage against Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new — the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of ‘love thy neighbor’ will finally be achieved.” — “A Religion For A New Age,” The Humanist magazine, January-February 1983 [Volume 43, Number 1]

For any who remain skeptical about the influence of Humanism on education, just plug in the terms Life Long Learning, a comma, and Humanism into Google. You will get a tremendous amount of documentation that will demonstrate just how fully saturated with this new belief system all branches of education – and the training of educators – really are.

The dominant media culture – and entertainment media – are the high priests of the faith (Evangelism), always attacking the ‘Religious Right,’ but never once doing an expose’ on the ‘Religious Left.’ Have you ever seen a ‘news’ program about the Religious Left?

Gatherings of Humanist-indoctrinated faithful (Worship services), usually involve someone quoting disjointed poetry about someone’s village and someone elses’ children, or chanting protests and Humanist mantras. They can include inspiring music by special guests, and ghastly spectacles such as those screaming, chanting crowds, wearing theme T-shirts at the memorial services of innocent people gunned down in Arizona.

The gathering at the Capitol Mall in Wisconsin, complete with the Communist Party marching in solidarity with teachers unions and ‘international unions,’ along with Barack Hussein Obama’s own campaign organization (Organizing For America), are also participating in a noisy worship service. Their self-righteousness is on full display. Not much decorum or solemn assembly at such services? Well, it is after all, a different kind of faith.

In Washington, at the National Cathedral even, there will be representatives of all sorts of fringe belief systems, but none from the largest groups of Christians in the land. It seems that religion is welcome in this venue only if it will be subservient to the secular wishes of the state. What can we expect from these gatherings? Nothing our founders would tolerate! Yet, like sheep, we follow blindly as we tolerate all the lies and misinformation that comes from the people in charge of our country.

Should we try to change these events? What would be the point? Islamic crazies have contended that they will make as much noise as possible during the moment of silence in New York. I have to wonder what the purpose of the moment of silence is at such a gathering. Certainly it is not to seek comfort from a Creator they fail to acknowledge.

Then there is the Washington ceremony. This brings us to the question of what makes a cathedral or church a church. Is it the fine building? Or is it the presence of God? Whether it is a great building like the National Cathedral, or a cement block building with a tin roof in a third world country or even an open meadow, it is the presence of the Almighty in the midst of sincere worshippers that makes it a church. Unfortunately, He has not been invited to this gathering in the fancy building or the one in the big apple.

If those who died and those who tried to save them are to be remembered, it is, once again, up to We the People. There are groups gathering at various spots around the nation to remember and to pray. They are not sanctioned by the government, but they are getting together for retrospection and introspection. Sure some may be there for self-serving purposes, but that’s not point of the meetings.

The government extravaganzas are designed to distract us from the hurt and anger we associate with the attack and encourage us to agree to everything and stand for nothing. They would have us believe that planting a tree or reading to blind kids is the way to heal the pain. Don’t get me wrong, planting trees and helping the handicapped are both worthy activities. They hardly measure up to the gravity of that day.

Remembering the day when when three thousand people went to work in the city, or boarded a plane on a business trip, or maybe a dream vacation and ended up dying in a war we didn’t even know we were involved in should cause us to consider the meaning of life, or at least its’ potential brevity.

If allowed to consider how these lives ended so suddenly, we may end up considering how we live each day and how we treat those around us. The media, in the way they refuse to show planes crashing into building, and our government does its’ best to keep that memory from our consciousness. Yet remember we must. The other thing we must remember is that it is a tragedy that so many people perished in such a violent manner, yet the ultimate fate of these 3000 people is no different than what we all will face at sometime. No one gets out of life alive.

There were eternal implications to the events of 9/11, just as there are for people who breath their last every day of the year. Sadly for those who crashed the planes and killed so many thinking they would be rewarded with 72 virgins, their perverted dreams didn’t materialized. They ultimately suffered the same fate as many of their victims who failed to recognize their creator. To remember the event and not consider the families and safety people and the ultimate destination of so many is, perhaps, a more heinous deed than the one we are commemorating.

Sunday morning, remember and pray with the folks at your church. If you want to get together with others, there may well be some in your area. One of them may be a simulcast featuring Anne Graham Lotz and Joel Rosenberg Sunday evening. http://www.annegrahamlotz.com/ Another option for an ongoing arrangement would be Awakening America.

Once again, the people are called upon to do the job the government refuses to do. Just remember II Chronicles 7:14: “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (NIV)

For those with children in school, now is as good a time as ever, to become involved in the PTA. We cannot leave this public facing organization to be a “yes, sir, how high shall I jump sir” lap dog of the teachers union. There are many good, dedicated teachers and they need and deserve our help and support. Then, there are others who also need help and support in guiding them toward the values of the people of this land.

For those not forced by the economy to live in a two wage earner household, or who have individual careers by choice, you may want to look into becoming a class room volunteer. Now, if you are like me, there is a problem with me donating my time to help ease the burden on someone who is being paid to do their job. However, it is a golden opportunity to observe classroom activity first hand. You will be privy to much information, many school districts studiously hide from parents and the public in general.

Parents also need to take the time to read through the books your children bring home. Don’t just look at the titles and headings. Much of what is presented sounds good on the surface, but when you look at the details, there may much you would be unhappy with.

This is where parental involvement comes in. You may not be able to change what the public schools are teaching your children, but you can certainly sit down with them and help their critical thinking by showing the errors in the information they are receiving. It doesn’t matter if it is the pseudo science of global warming, the fantasy theory of evolution, or any of the attempts at developing a secular humanist situation ethical system.

This will do a few things for you as parents. It will force you to become a little more knowledgeable in some areas. For many readers, though, this will not be a problem. The other thing, and most important, is that it will give you something to talk about with your kids. Studies show that most parents have only a few minutes conversation each day. Talk about what’s going on in their school life and studies.

They may not always agree with your arguments, but you will get them to consider the alternate views, and you will at least open some doors to conversation. If you are concerned enough about your children to take them to church, it is your duty to work with them to show them the errors in public education that will drive them away from the truth and destroy them for eternity.

What happens when you do find material that is inappropriate? Don’t go alone to the principal, superintendent or school board. You will be patronized, marginalized and ignored. Find other parents. Get people from your church or neighborhood to go with you.

By yourself, you will be frustrated and your time will be wasted. You will be looked at as an amateur trying to instruct “education professionals”. Showing up with a group of polite, but firm citizens who understand that each of these school employees work for the citizens. It puts the intimidation shoe on the other foot. The parents are not subjects of this government agency any more than they are subjects of their state or federal governments.

It’s another school year and the kids are ready for exciting new knowledge and seeing old friends. Let’s work to keep the promise they see in the school experience. These children are our blessing and our responsibility. We can’t push it off on the state… it’s short changing our children and the state is not doing a very good job.

They see a problem, and whether anyone else does or not, they seek to impose a “solution” that expands the depth of their intrusion into our lives, whether anyone wants that solution or not. It is when we tell them to check to see if their “solution” is permissible under the rules (constitution) our government is supposed function under, we get a paraphrased replay of the banditos in the Treasure of Sierra Madre, “Rules, we don’t need no stinkin’ rules.”

These “rules” were the result of weeks of intense effort by some of the best minds our country had to offer in the 1780s. They discussed. They argued. They prayed. Then they came up with the best plan for governing a country that has ever been devised by man… with the help of divine providence.

It was a good plan that served us well for two hundred years. It worked well when we had a common set of values. Our country recognized it’s Christian heritage. We did not have organized attempts to turn our nation on it’s head from within. George Washington warned, “Let us with caution indulge 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 principle.”

While this turning away from religion and morality is the root of our problem, the desire to restore the virtues that led us to success as a nation is hardly extreme. Is it extreme to want to steer our country away from the tried and proven path that made the United States the gold standard of the world? To my thinking, it is extreme to want to throw away the legacy our forefathers fought and died to leave us.

There are those in positions of power who would spit on their graves, who would dishonor their memories and tell us the benefits of being an American are nothing more than the results of international thievery and domestic abuse of the “less fortunate”. They tell us we are extreme when we try to stop them from driving us all off the cliff.

While it is understandable that the secular progressives who have a different vision for our country have an inborn hostility to the godly traditions that made our country great, we are only being true to our calling by standing firm on the principles that made our country great. Second Corinthians 2:15 and 16 warns us, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.”

We are called extreme when we don’t want to follow the current administration, and some remnants of the one before, when we attempt to stop them from following ideas that have never worked in the past and never will. We are called intolerant when we refuse to reject the basis of our nation’s prosperity. We are called bigots when we refuse to throw off the restraints that kept us safe throughout the centuries. We are deemed to be old fashioned when we believe in personal responsibility and self-control.

They do not understand (or perhaps they do) that if we do not control ourselves, we will have some kind of control imposed upon us from outside. Of course those who would be our masters are just the ones to determine and inflict that control. Such control is never pleasant. We would do well to remember the words of Lord Acton who told us, “Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.”

So, we believe in doing what has proven to work in the past. We believe in recognizing our Creator and the rights He has given us. We believe in pursuing that which is good and shunning that which is evil. None of this is extreme. We are the ones who give guidance and stability to this great nation. Do not accept the charge of extremism, racism or any other ism the radicals running our government throw at you. Hang in there and keep up the good fight.