9-28-20<\/p>\n
I am old enough to remember when every morning, in public school, we would have Bible readings. They were rotated among students who were willing to read and lead; and most of the readings were Old Testament Psalms, in deference I suppose to the Jewish kids in class.<\/p>\n
I am old enough to remember being confused and resentful about the prohibitions, when such things became illegal.<\/p>\n
And I am not too old to still feel sad about the \u201cenlightened progress\u201d achieved by that \u201creform.\u201d I was not too young to realize \u2013 because I asked them, actually \u2013 if the Jewish kids minded the readings, or the once-a-week recitation of the Lord\u2019s Prayer. No, none of them did. I even had a classmate whose family was \u201cartsy\u201d and forthrightly atheist. Kyra never minded, nor appeared warped by hearing Psalms read; certainly she never spray-painted graffiti on the school, or set fires in the library.<\/p>\n
But the war against prayers and the Bible were only the early signs of America\u2019s suicidal tendencies. I knew, despite my youth, that some adults predicted that these impulses would lead to, some day, attempts to eliminate any form of religious expression; a generation of young people rejecting traditional values; the denigration, not only of religion, but of patriotism, \u201cfamily values,\u201d mutual respect, and civility.<\/p>\n
Will those times ever come; will those prophets ever be able to say, \u201cI told you so\u201d?<\/p>\n
Oh, wait\u2026<\/p>\n
From people \u201coffended\u201d by Christmas displays in front of town halls, to objections to saying \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d to strangers (by the way: So what?) to arrests of Christians, and firings from jobs, many dots are being connected in many ways along the slippery slope.<\/p>\n
This summer, committees at the Democrat National Convention made a show of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and pausing\u2026 silent\u2026 where \u201cunder God\u201d would have been spoken. Almost every evening, for months, we have seen people on the streets of American cities and towns burning and stomping on the flag.<\/p>\n
I call the current situation the \u201cPurge of Allegiance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disloyalty to the American flag and our larger nation and Constitution might technically be legal \u2013 sometimes I too am sick of what this society has become \u2013 but I would be willing to suffer the approbation and consequences. The street scum today might be aware of Patrick Henry: \u201cGive me liberty or give me death.\u201d Their version is, \u201cGive me a sandbox to soil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renouncing allegiance to one\u2019s country is a step away from having no allegiance to a religious faith or cultural traditions at all. While you are thinking about that, anarchists are leaping to agree. Next on the downward spiral: Having no standards means just that \u2013 no standards of right and wrong. Going back to Aristotle and heretics and Relativists of recent centuries, \u201cWhat\u2019s right for me is right,\u201d period. Anarchy.<\/p>\n
American churches, with some exceptions, have bought into this new way of thinking. It is not new, of course \u2013 lies as old as the Garden of Eden. We are smarter than God, you see.<\/p>\n
The American political system is surrendering to these forces in a hundred large and small ways. Patrick Henry never said, \u201cGive me licentiousness…\u201d<\/p>\n
The American culture not only welcomes these awful events, but encourages them and profits from them. An actual curse of capitalism.<\/p>\n
Let us think about what the Obama Administration ridiculed only a dozen years ago, those of us who \u201ccling\u201d to our guns and Bibles. While we still can. And thinking, further, about that ragged old flag and the time-honored Pledge…<\/p>\n
How close is America becoming, at its (new) core, something that we, too, regret and despise? God forbid.<\/p>\n
+ + +<\/p>\n