In his latest Washington Times editorial, “A Brave New World of Intolerance,”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/14/robert-knight-a-brave-new-world-of-intolerance/
the ever-erudite Robert Knight laments the recent decision of the Montgomery County School Board to eliminate all religiously-themed holidays to avoid having to add Moslem holidays to the schedule. This incident might seem to be just another chip in the erosion of our Christian foundations but I suggest it is the legal equivalent of “checkmate” by the secularists in their battle to eliminate Christianity from public life.
For about a year now I’ve been arguing against the use of “religious liberty” as a theme of Christian public advocacy. We retreated to that theme after SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black’s abandonment of the Bible’s authority in favor of a new “religious pluralism” standard in the 1940s-60s, starting with Everson v Board of Education (1947). That was the case that adopted Jefferson’s “separation of church and state” metaphor as a justification for declaring all religions to be equal with Christianity in America, and equally subservient to Secular Humanist authority (alarmingly reminiscent of the Antichrist government in II Thessalonians 2:4 which “opposes and exalts [it]self above every so-called god or object of worship”). It intentionally and officially de-throned the God of the Bible after more than 300 years of His being acknowledged as Lord over this nation.
Notwithstanding Everson, the religious liberty theme remained largely effective for several decades as the means to preserve Christian culture as the dominant force in America. Then the same Marxist elites trumped us by importing millions of Moslems into the United States, turning all Christian “religious liberty“ arguments into tools of Jihadists. It changed “religious liberty” into a hidden trap, awaiting only the inevitable transformation of the Moslem invaders into political activists to be sprung.
The Maryland school board in question undoubtedly welcomed the opportunity to eliminate observances of religious holidays, which rightly earned a rebuke from Mr. Knight. However, speaking as a constitutional law attorney, there was no legal way for this school district to preserve Christian and Jewish holidays while rejecting Islamist ones, and that is the much, much bigger problem.
This move by the Islamists (whether or not they are partners with or merely the “useful idiots” of the secular humanists) has now sprung the religious liberty trap and locked the Christians in an apparent no-win scenario. What we thought was solid ground has turned out to be quicksand. This Maryland incident is certainly not of itself the final “checkmate,” but merely “checkmate in three” — the inevitable outcome awaits only the formality of the moves.
But God always provides a way of escape. (We’re only trapped if we accept the limitation of staying on their chessboard.) That narrow and difficult but God-honoring way is to stop arguing for “religious liberty” and resume our proclamation of the superiority of Christ and His Word over all opposing faiths (along with tolerance for people of other faiths — that‘s how it worked before Black). It’s goal must be nothing less than an official reaffirmation of the Bible as our legal and cultural foundation, which would require overturning Everson and its juridical progeny.
This is an enormously challenging proposition for the timid and secularized majority of Christians who populate America’s churches today. Three generations of brainwashing in a secular-humanist public school system has inculcated in them the view of religious pluralism is as a veritable sacred doctrine. So foreign has the authentic Biblical worldview and their rich Christian heritage become to them that they don’t even recognize how offensive to God this system of “religious equality” truly is. The first of the “Ten Commandments,” once posted on every school-house wall, declares it best: “You shall have no other gods before me.” But of course, that law-above-all-other-laws was the first thing to be torn down after Black’s coup.
The genius of the Founding Fathers was to avoid the problems of the theocratic governments of Europe by establishing a Christian-stewarded secular society on a non-sectarian but solidly Biblical foundation. The constitutional republic they created expressly honored God and even protected Christian prayer in public schools from its inception until the Hugo Black SCOTUS majority re-defined the constitution to suit their own nefarious purposes.
But laws passed can be repealed, and rulings made can be reversed. Most importantly, if it is His will to allow it, God will Himself accomplish these changes for those who repent and put their trust in Him. In any case, the first step for us is to get out of quicksand of “religious liberty” and stand solidly again on the Rock of Jesus Christ.
