Posted on 04/29/2002 10:09:02 PM PDT by drstevej
Chilling Christian expression
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Posted: April 30, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Christian conservatives rightly lament the extent to which the courts have restricted religious freedom in the name of protecting it under the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. But in focusing on the courts, we may be overlooking a more damaging menace to religious (Christian) expression.
I have no doubt that many who urge the strict "separation of church and state" sincerely (though mistakenly) believe that they are acting as foot soldiers for the framers of the Constitution. Others are purely hostile to religion – particularly Christianity – and use perverted constitutional interpretation as just one of many tools in undermining the Christian worldview and policies flowing from it.
These secular forces are not satisfied with the slow progress of the courts in eradicating all vestiges of religion from the public arena. They also employ their pens and microphones – which is clearly their right – to chill Christian expression by public officials.
Take, for instance, a recent New York Times story about a speech by President Bush on his faith-based initiative. The Times didn't criticize or quote others criticizing the president's program, about which I have my own reservations, but questioned certain statements in his speech involving "religious ideas."
Bush said, "We feel our reliance on the Creator Who made us. We place our sorrows and cares before Him, seeking God's mercy ... justice and cruelty have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them." The Times seemed particularly troubled that these utterances sprang from the president spontaneously and not as part of some pre-written speech.
"Bush set aside his talking points and for 20 minutes spoke the language of faith," according to the story. You see, it's one thing if the president occasionally throws a slab of raw meat to his canine conservative base for political purposes. But it's downright spooky if he really means it.
The Times must have felt compelled to interview people about the propriety of Bush's over-the-top remarks. Rev. Arthur Caliandro, co-chairman of the Partnership of Faith, "a coalition of leading clergy members in New York," warned, "I think it's very dangerous."
The always-reliably-hysterical Rev. Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, added, "He went from a kind of post-Sept. 11 pluralism to presidential evangelism today. This man [Bush] now seems to have an enormous difficulty separating his personal religious commitment from his public policy positions."
Let's not miss the message here: It is not only wrong and dangerous for a president to refer to God in his speeches. But he must not even allow his religious worldview to inform his public policy decisions. You can't get much more radical (and ridiculous) than that.
Another high-profile example affirms the point. The left's sometimes-favorite whipping boy, Congressman Tom Delay, was roundly denounced for comments he made in response to a question following his speech for Worldview Weekend in Houston, Texas. He was asked what could be done about colleges in Texas precluding the teaching of creationism.
Delay said they could call their state politicians and complain. "They can change things. They can throw the PC out and bring God in." That would take some time, Delay acknowledged, "but the immediate is don't send your kids to Baylor – don't send your kids to A&M."
The Houston Chronicle editorial board was outraged and said, "Delay's distaste for Baylor and Texas A&M is part and parcel of his rejection of distinguished scholarship and scientific inquiry and his fanatical desire to transform American government into a theocracy. House Republicans who value reason should reconsider their bizarre commitment to have Delay replace retiring Rep. Dick Armey as Republican leader in the House."
It's one thing to question Delay's comments about these colleges or his views on teaching creationism, but it's quite a leap to conclude that he rejects distinguished scholarship and scientific inquiry (as if creationism is inherently incompatible with science and as if adding creation means omitting science). And it's fanatical itself to impute to Delay a "fanatical desire to transform American government into a theocracy." Where in left field did that come from?
Whether intended to or not, these kinds of constitutionally protected – but irresponsible – editorial comments chill religious expression by public officials even in private settings.
Christian public officials should be permitted to proclaim their faith without fear of being accused of advocating a theocracy. Secularists have succeeded in banishing God from public schools; we must ensure they do not prevail in excising Him from the minds and mouths of public officials.
Got any idea of how much God you find in physics in each period?
Is the curve subject to extrapolation?
When God=0 on the curve, what would you suggest He do? Apologize? Hide?
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“In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” – Isaac Newton
What did the Tooth Fairy do when you found out the truth?
It's bedtime for this bonzo. Goodnite, folx.
Don't forget to say your prayers. :))
Amen! By the way Delay is my congressman!
The fool hath said in his heart there is not God'(Ps.14:1)
The NY Slimes doesn't want to close the door on the possibility of having Jihad-based camps funded with taxpayer money. Hence, their reticence in denouncing gov't funded "faith-based" Programs. Very simply, the New York Times will promote any avenue to tyrrany.
In California now there is a fight between literalists or providentialists, and biological theorists. And you get in the textbooks both Genesis and Darwinian evolutionism as two "theories" of evolution. You see what that really means? The fundamentalist theologians in California (fundamentalism was well established there at the beginning of the century) don't know what a myth is. They believe it is a theory. They're in ignorance.And the biological theorists don't know that Kant has analysed why one cannot have an immanentist theory of evolution. One can have empirical observation but no general theory of evolution because the sequence of forms is a mystery; it just is there and you cannot explain it by any theory. The world cannot be explained. It is a mythical problem, so you have a strong element of myth in the theory of evolution.
So both the theoretical evolutionists and the fundamentalist theologians are illiterate. That level of illiteracy is taught in the text books as "two theories", neither one of which is a theory.
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"evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically." -- Dr Michael Ruse
Ideologies, whether Positivist, or Marxist, or National Socialist, indulge in constructions that are intellectually not tenable. That raises the question of why people who otherwise are not quite stupid, and who have the secondary virtues of being quite honest in their daily affairs, indulge in intellectual dishonesty as soon as they touch science.
That ideology is a phenomenon of intellectual dishonesty is beyond a doubt, because the various ideologies after all have been submitted to criticism, and anybody who is willing to read the literature knows that they are not tenable, and why. If one adheres to them nevertheless, the prima facie assumption must be that he is intellectually dishonest.
The overt phenomenon of intellectual dishonesty then raises the question of why a man will indulge in it. That is a general problem that in my later years required complicated research to ascertain the nature, causes, and persistence of states of alienation.
---- Whatta buncha bull.
Or, put another way, to not believe that God created Creation, you have to believe that something came from nothing.
Beats trying to figure out how big-L libertarians could possibly really believe in such things as "women's rights" --or-- each person's "right" to believe what they will about when a human life really begins --or-- how everyone's got a "right" to require that Religion, if not Pornography, be practiced strictly in private. That's the stuff that'll give you a headache.
How's tricks in Somalia's libertopia these days?
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