Church v. State: the final installment!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the eye-opnening conclusion. Our “enlightened” Supreme Court rolls on…...
The United States Congress begins every session with prayer. Those prayers automatically become a part of the Congressional Record. However, in 1970 the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling declaring it unconstitutional for students to read the prayers in the Congressional Record to a group of fellow students who voluntarily assembled before school to listen to the reading of those prayers!
A year later the Supreme Court outlawed the voluntary reading of a chapter of the Bible by students at the beginning of each school day. In a highly unusual move, the Court, which usually cites legal precedents for its rulings, instead chose to cite “expert” testimony from a psychologist who claimed that reading the Bible without any comment could be dangerous to the students’ mental health.
Compare such an attitude about the Bible with that of Thomas Jefferson, the architect of the wall of separation: “I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume, the Bible, will make us better citizens.”
I wonder how George Washington, the acknowledged father of our nation, would’ve reacted to such a ruling. On October 3, 1789, he issued a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday to express our gratitude, not to some nameless deity, but to Almighty God:
“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 favour…that we then may unite unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country.”
Yet two hundred years later, the Supreme Court prohibited pre-school children from reciting a poem that might cause them to even think about expressing gratitude to God!
Perhaps one of the most outlandish applications of the doctrine of separation of church and state occurred in 1980. Schools in the state of Kentucky had copies of the Ten Commandments posted in the hallways. Now please understand that no student was required to read the commandments, and no teacher was allowed to expound upon the meaning of the commandments. They were simply displayed on the wall. In the case of Stone v. Graham (1980), the Supreme Court ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional. Why? If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me-so read the Court’s reasoning for yourself:
“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments… This.. is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause (First Amendment).”
The Supreme Court was afraid that simply displaying a copy of the Ten Commandments might motivate students to obey the commandments. Heaven forbid that should happen!
When I read this ruling, I thought about another event that occurred in the hallway of a Kentucky school seventeen years after the Supreme Court ruling. On the morning of December 1, 1997. a dozen students at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, gathered to pray before classes, just as they did every day. As they closed their prayer time, a 14-year old freshman approached the prayer group and, without any provocation, began shooting. Three students died and five others were seriously wounded in a hallway where, according to the Supreme Court, it was illegal to post the words “Thou shalt not kill.”
The devastating consequences of purposefully removing any acknowledgement of God and His word from public life are not limited to one high school in Kentucky. During the same period of time (1960-1990) during which the judiciary worked overtime to separate our country from its strong Christian heritage, there was a 560 percent increase in violent crime, a 419 percent increase in illegitimate births, a tripling in divorce rates…and a drop of almost 80 points in SAT scores. Today, an estimated 3 million teenagers are problem drinkers, 4,000 children die each year as a result of gun violence, and approximately 250,000 teenage girls have “legal” abortions each year.
Just a coincidence? Not when you consider God’s warning to the nation of Israel that is just as applicable to us today:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)
God is no respecter of people or nations. The nation that reverences God and His Word will be blessed of God, and the nation that rejects God and His Word will be rejected by God. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
Of course, such an idea is deemed politically incorrect in today’s culture of diversity. Many have fooled themselves into thinking that religious pluralism (the worship of many gods) is the great strength of our nation. They applaud the courts’ determined efforts to reverse 160 years of American history in which Christianity was elevated above every other “imposter religion,” to use the terminology of the Supreme Court in 1892.
But “diversity” and “pluralism” are just euphemisms for what God calls “idolatry.” God doesn’t celebrate religious diversity, He condemns it. The first and greatest commandment of all was “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3.
I’d like to close this chapter not with a Bible verse or an observation from an evangelical Christian, but with a quote from a man who could hardly be labeled a rabid fundamentalist. Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was widely regarded as a liberal at best and frequently labeled a “Communist pinko” by those who were opposed to civil rights for all Americans. But in 1954 Justice Warren gave this assessment of our nation’s Christian heritage:
“I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing the Good Book and the Spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses…whether we look to the First Charter of Virginia, or to the Charter of New England, or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The same object is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principals. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible, and their belief in it…. I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.”
The nation that reverences God and His Word will be blessed of God; the nation that rejects God and His Word will be rejected by God. The choice is ours.
The United States Congress begins every session with prayer. Those prayers automatically become a part of the Congressional Record. However, in 1970 the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling declaring it unconstitutional for students to read the prayers in the Congressional Record to a group of fellow students who voluntarily assembled before school to listen to the reading of those prayers!
A year later the Supreme Court outlawed the voluntary reading of a chapter of the Bible by students at the beginning of each school day. In a highly unusual move, the Court, which usually cites legal precedents for its rulings, instead chose to cite “expert” testimony from a psychologist who claimed that reading the Bible without any comment could be dangerous to the students’ mental health.
Compare such an attitude about the Bible with that of Thomas Jefferson, the architect of the wall of separation: “I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume, the Bible, will make us better citizens.”
I wonder how George Washington, the acknowledged father of our nation, would’ve reacted to such a ruling. On October 3, 1789, he issued a proclamation establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday to express our gratitude, not to some nameless deity, but to Almighty God:
“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 favour…that we then may unite unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country.”
Yet two hundred years later, the Supreme Court prohibited pre-school children from reciting a poem that might cause them to even think about expressing gratitude to God!
Perhaps one of the most outlandish applications of the doctrine of separation of church and state occurred in 1980. Schools in the state of Kentucky had copies of the Ten Commandments posted in the hallways. Now please understand that no student was required to read the commandments, and no teacher was allowed to expound upon the meaning of the commandments. They were simply displayed on the wall. In the case of Stone v. Graham (1980), the Supreme Court ruled that the posting of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional. Why? If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me-so read the Court’s reasoning for yourself:
“If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect at all, it will be to induce the schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey, the Commandments… This.. is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause (First Amendment).”
The Supreme Court was afraid that simply displaying a copy of the Ten Commandments might motivate students to obey the commandments. Heaven forbid that should happen!
When I read this ruling, I thought about another event that occurred in the hallway of a Kentucky school seventeen years after the Supreme Court ruling. On the morning of December 1, 1997. a dozen students at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, gathered to pray before classes, just as they did every day. As they closed their prayer time, a 14-year old freshman approached the prayer group and, without any provocation, began shooting. Three students died and five others were seriously wounded in a hallway where, according to the Supreme Court, it was illegal to post the words “Thou shalt not kill.”
The devastating consequences of purposefully removing any acknowledgement of God and His word from public life are not limited to one high school in Kentucky. During the same period of time (1960-1990) during which the judiciary worked overtime to separate our country from its strong Christian heritage, there was a 560 percent increase in violent crime, a 419 percent increase in illegitimate births, a tripling in divorce rates…and a drop of almost 80 points in SAT scores. Today, an estimated 3 million teenagers are problem drinkers, 4,000 children die each year as a result of gun violence, and approximately 250,000 teenage girls have “legal” abortions each year.
Just a coincidence? Not when you consider God’s warning to the nation of Israel that is just as applicable to us today:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)
God is no respecter of people or nations. The nation that reverences God and His Word will be blessed of God, and the nation that rejects God and His Word will be rejected by God. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
Of course, such an idea is deemed politically incorrect in today’s culture of diversity. Many have fooled themselves into thinking that religious pluralism (the worship of many gods) is the great strength of our nation. They applaud the courts’ determined efforts to reverse 160 years of American history in which Christianity was elevated above every other “imposter religion,” to use the terminology of the Supreme Court in 1892.
But “diversity” and “pluralism” are just euphemisms for what God calls “idolatry.” God doesn’t celebrate religious diversity, He condemns it. The first and greatest commandment of all was “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3.
I’d like to close this chapter not with a Bible verse or an observation from an evangelical Christian, but with a quote from a man who could hardly be labeled a rabid fundamentalist. Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was widely regarded as a liberal at best and frequently labeled a “Communist pinko” by those who were opposed to civil rights for all Americans. But in 1954 Justice Warren gave this assessment of our nation’s Christian heritage:
“I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing the Good Book and the Spirit of the Savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses…whether we look to the First Charter of Virginia, or to the Charter of New England, or to the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The same object is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principals. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible, and their belief in it…. I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.”
The nation that reverences God and His Word will be blessed of God; the nation that rejects God and His Word will be rejected by God. The choice is ours.