Posted on 10/15/2001 5:56:44 AM PDT by Ron C.
Reversing Memory Loss
The language of faith doesn't have to become a foreign tongue.
By Charles Colson
June 1940: Hitler's armies are poised to destroy the cornered British Army, stranded on the beaches at Dunkirk. As the British people anxiously await word of their fate, a three-word message is transmitted from the besieged army: "And if not."
The British public instantly recognizes the message—a reference to the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego standing before King Nebuchadnezzer's fiery furnace. "Our God is able to save us.. and if not, we will remain faithful to him anyway." The message galvanizes the British people. Thousands cross the English Channel in boats to rescue their army.
January 2001: America's newly elected President delivers his inaugural address. Commenting on it, Dick Meyer of CBS News confesses, "There were a few phrases in the speech I just didn't get. One was, 'When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.'"
Meyer concludes, "I hope there's not a quiz."
What a difference six decades make. For centuries, biblical references were the common coinage of Western speech. As Dunkirk demonstrates, citizens were so steeped in the Scriptures that they immediately recognized a cryptic biblical allusion. But today that memory has been erased. Consider: Pollster George Barna says only a small percentage of Americans can name the Ten Commandments, and only 42 percent can identify who preached the Sermon on the Mount. As Oxford theologian Alister McGrath explains, "In an increasingly secular culture, fewer and fewer people outside the Christian community have any real understanding of what Christians believe."
This spiritual illiteracy represents a sobering predicament for the church: How can we evangelize neighbors who no longer recognize, let alone think, in Christian terms—people to whom the language and literature of our faith is, for all intents and purposes, a foreign tongue?
We can begin by reintroducing our nation's children to the Bible in the public school classroom. Yes, it's legal—if we go about it the right way.
Since the 1950s, many public-school kids have taken part in Released Time Bible Education, in which students leave campus during school hours to study Scripture devotionally. But the courts have also consistently upheld the academic study of the Bible within the classroom. Students can focus on the Bible as a literary text, learning the major narratives, symbols, and characters of the Bible. They can also learn how profoundly Biblical teachings have influenced Western drama, poetry, and fiction. After all, how can kids fully appreciate the works of Shakespeare, Milton, or classics like Uncle Tom's Cabin without some familiarity with the Scriptures? Students may also study the Bible in history class, learning about the many historical documents that contain biblical references and how Americans invoke Scripture in debates ranging from abolition and temperance to civil rights and abortion—how, for instance, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech alludes in part to Isaiah. Can people be good citizens if they don't know their own history?
Teaching about the Bible in this manner will not be easy: The ACLU and other naysayers will be lurking in school hallways, ready to sue any district that steps out of line. To help schools navigate the legal minefields, the Bible Literacy Project is developing a Bible curriculum for use in public schools that will pass constitutional muster. To ensure balance, a coalition ranging from the American Jewish Committee to the National Association of Evangelicals to the American Federation of Teachers reviewed it. And to encourage school boards, the crack lawyers of the Becket Fund have offered to defend, gratis, any school district that is sued.
The Bible Literacy Project tells parents how to introduce the curriculum into their schools, and answers concerns that parents of all faiths might have about it. Some critics fear that merely studying the Bible's role in history, or as literature, diminishes it. I disagree. Educating the culture in this way is what Francis Schaeffer called pre-evangelism. Christians can then take the next step, explaining why the Scriptures have had this effect; that indeed it is the Word of God that moves citizens to action. The stakes are high. Values are transmitted from one generation to the next by what sociologist Robert Bellah calls the "community of memory."
We must decide if we want our language seasoned with biblical references or with vulgar and often uncharitable idioms. It would be a spiritual dereliction not to grasp the opportunity to reinstate Christianity as our cultural currency.
Copyright 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc.- Christianity Today magazine.
As FReeper Stefan Stackhouse puts it, "The point of the article was that today, such a biblical allusion would fly over the heads of most people, as our society is now biblically illiterate." (though Stefan thought the article was originally in World Magazine.)
During WWII the British and American population drew their strength and courage from their dominant Christian belief. Today that strength is sapped by nihilism and atheistic moral relativism, both of which dominate the anti-war peace-at-any-price crowds. Though, at this time they make pious noises about a god that is not Christian - one that all religions (supposedly) serve.
A perversion of the Christian faith is rife across major media. The depiction of ‘religious revival' in vigils and prayer services, and a debate about the role of ‘evil' in the attack on the World Trade Center has become common broadcast-fare. This is no reason for Christians to celebrate, as we hear that Christians should stand beside Buddhism, Islam and Judaism while ‘worshiping one God under many names.'
This is heresy to the traditional Christian ear. Media attempt redefinition of the Christian faith and depict God as having no wrath and no judgement - only love - and any Christian that dares speak of sin, or that God would punish a nation for sin is heretical to the media redefinition. Media squirm at the thought of God flatly stating that He is not the same as the gods of nations that surrounded ancient Israel. Media pale at His claim of being the only true God, and teeth gnash at the very thought of penalties for sin, and violation of His law.
The new media religiosity denies truth, without which there is no worship of the God of Christianity. Seeking to hide the truth about sin and judgment for fear of offending the feelings of non-Christians makes the cross of Jesus Christ a mockery, the Christian gospel of no effect and the whole of the faith meaningless. Socialists and their media revisionists know the gospel is meaningless if there is no sin to be forgiven at Calvary. They push a false god that is little more than a puppet that jumps to our need in time of trouble, pandering to cries for help and catering only to our whims and pleas, never asking anything in return.
Traditional American Christians of yore understood what was right and what was wrong. They expected and experienced the blessings and protection of God when they followed his laws and lived righteously, and they rightly feared Him when they deviated from those laws. They understood that God was good and promised freedom over tyranny and justice over the unjust. Our forefathers understood the principles that made America good, that our country was the first in world history to be founded on the laws of nature and of nature's God, and they knew that their patriotic duty to their country was inextricably linked to their duty to God.
During the founding era, ministers presented a Christian religion steeped in a clear distinction between right and wrong and rooted in divine revelation - a religion that brooked no tolerance for injustice and sought no peace in the face of tyrants though urged by pacificists. Patriotism born of a faith in the Christian God drove the birth of this nation in bravery against overwhelming odds against it. That faith can be seen in sermons preached during the era, as this exemplified in the following excerpt from one delivered by Samuel Davies in 1758 to the militia of Hanover County, Virginia as new recruits were sought to fight in the French and indian wars.
Nothing can be more agreeable to the God of Peace than to see universal harmony and benevolence prevail among His creatures; and He has laid them under the strongest obligations to cultivate a pacific temper toward one another, both as individuals and as nations. "Follow peace with all men," is one of the principal precepts of our holy religion. And the great Prince of Peace has solemnly pronounced, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
But when, in this corrupt, disordered state of things, where the lusts of men are perpetually embroiling the world with wars and fighting and throwing all into confusion; when ambition and avarice would rob us of our property, for which we have toiled and on which we subsist; when they would enslave the freeborn mind and compel us meanly to cringe to usurpation and arbitrary power; when they would tear from our eager grasp the most valuable blessing of Heaven, I mean our religion; when they invade our country, formerly the region of tranquility, ravage our frontiers, butcher our fellow subjects, or confine them in a barbarous captivity in the dens of savages; when our earthly all is ready to be seized by rapacious hands, and even our eternal all is in danger by the loss of our religion; when this is the case, what then is the will of God?
Must peace then be maintained? Maintained with our perfidious and cruel invaders? Maintained at the expense of property, liberty, life, and everything dear and valuable? Maintained, when it is in our power to vindicate our right and do ourselves justice? Is the work of peace then our only business? No. In such a time even the God of Peace proclaims by His providence, "To arms!"
Then the sword is, as it were, consecrated to God; and the art of war becomes a part of our religion. Then happy is he that shall reward our enemies, as they have served us. Blessed is the brave soldier; blessed is the defender of his country and the destroyer of its enemies. Blessed are they who offer themselves willingly in this service, and who faithfully discharge it....
...Some [Americans] lie dead, mangled with savage wounds, consumed to ashes with outrageous flames, or torn and devoured by the beasts of the wilderness, while their bones lie whitening in the sun and serve as tragic memorials of the fatal spot where they fell. Others have been dragged away captives and made the slaves of imperious and cruel savages. Others have made their escape and live to lament their butchered or captivated friends and relations. In short, our frontiers have been drenched with the blood of our fellow subjects, through the length of a thousand miles; and new wounds are still opening...
Will this violence cease without a vigorous and timely resistance from us? No. We have no method left but to repel force with force, and to give them blood to drink in their turn who have drunk ours...
I seriously make the proposal to you, not only as a subject of the best of kings and a friend to your country but as a servant of the most high God; for I am fully persuaded what I am recommending is His will; and disobedience to it may expose you to His curse...
...The cause in which these brave men, and our army in general, are engaged is not so much their own as ours. Divine Providence considers them not so much in their private, personal character as in their public character as the representatives and guardians of their country; and, therefore, they will stand or fall, not so much according to their own personal character as according to the public character of the people whose cause they have undertaken. Be it known to you, then, their success depends upon us even more than upon themselves.
...Ye that love ease and shrink from the dangers of war; ye that wish to see peace restored once more; ye that would be happy beyond the grave and live forever -- attend to my proposal. It is this: A THOROUGH NATIONAL REFORMATION. This will do what millions of money and thousands of men, with guns and swords and all the dreadful artillery of death, could not do -- it will procure us peace again, a lasting, well-established peace."
This is heresy to the traditional Christian ear........
As a Christian I agree with you. Last night on 60 Minutes, in an interview with Condaleeza Rice Leslie stahl tried repeatedly to cast President Bush as following a Christian calling in his pursuit of the Islamic terrorists. Ms Rice persistently and adroitly kept restating the position as Good against Evil rather than Christian against Muslim. Although this is counter to your argument, it is important that the President of the United States represent all the people and that our constitutional protection of the free practice of religion be honored.
Your argument is appropriate for the churches and the people to follow in their private lives, and certainly trying to peacefully convert others is in order, but it is not a position that can be taken by our government, even a government founded on Christianity.
Thanks for the flag.
- Tokyo residents were not shown in hospital after the Dolittle raid.
- Tojo's and Goebbels' addresses were not aired by all major media.
- Americans were not subjected to discussions about Shintoism and the Code of Bushido.
- "Experts" were not publicly asked questions about how the "Battle of Midway" would be fought.
- We were not asked to "understand" Japan's and Germany's reasons for perfidy.
We are weak. Many years of "feel good" liberalism have sapped out ability to wage "Total War" and to wage war in totality is the only way to win.
What I do.; however , agree with , in the article, is that it is shocking how little most people do know of what is in the Bible. That does make most of litterature incomprehensible to so many. OTOH, those, here, who cherrypick scriptures, to use as debate points, are just as vile ; if not blasphemous !
Robot....I watched the exchange between Rice & Stahl. Condi was splendid in handling all of Stahl's questions and particularly the one about Bush's attitude a 'religious man'!
Ron C..... Bumping what Robot posted in #5....exactly how I view this issue. It is GOOD vs. EVIL!
I have forwarded it to my list.
Regards,
TS
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