66 Sermon Illustrations on Freedom Of Religion

Rev. Wiley Drake, the pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, California, had a heart for ministry to the homeless. His church started an outreach program to the homeless that included a program to help drug addicts get clean and help them develop skills to get reacclimated with the work force. In addition, they were encouraged to attend a weekly Bible study, though this was not required to be part of the program. The church ran an active soup kitchen out of the fellowship hall and soon they were working with dozens of homeless folks in a very successful program that was turning lives around.

Success was a problem when the Mayor, the City Manager, and the Chief of Police requested a meeting with the pastor and the leaders of the church. They were informed that there were too many shabby people who were visible from the main thoroughfare that tourists frequented on their way to Disneyland. The town elders were concerned about the image projected to tourists by the large number of homeless people congregating in front of the church daily. They asked the church to shut down their mission.

The problem was that the pastor and the leaders of the church saw the mission as the ministry of the church, that is what they were all about spiritually speaking. It may well be the case that the town elders thought this outreach was merely an extension of the church. It may well have been the case that the town elders thought church was simply preaching and singing between the hours of 11 and 12 on Sunday morning. But the church didn't see it that way and refused to change.

As a result the authorities investigated the church use and cited them for I I criminal charges for various zoning violations, The pastor was cited, the deacons of the church, and the church treasurer as well. The violations appeared to the church as amounting to subtle harassment. They were cited for using a hallway, originally permitted as a thoroughfare, for storage, because cartons of juice were stacked there for daily distribution to the poor. The fellowship hall, originally zoned as a church, was deemed as operating as commercial property because regular transfers of-food -and drink were taking place there.

The case actually came to trial. Of the original I I counts, 7 were dropped. But four remained bringing with them a possibility of 2 years imprisonment and $2000 in fines against the pastor. The trial proceeded and the pastor was convicted.

There is divine humor at the end of this story. The judge, apparently annoyed that the trial was being held in the first place, sentenced the' pastor to 1500 hours of community service. He then remanded the sentence citing time already served in feeding the homeless. As one lawyer noted, "This may be the only case in American jurisprudence where the sentence was the crime."

These kinds of disputes with our towns are inevitable and likely to grow, particularly in urban areas like New Jersey. The town managers have a primary interest in promoting quiet, non-offensive piety in well-defined districts. But the free exercise of religion is not so easily contained. Furthermore, the free exercise of religion is not simply a privilege among other privileges. In our Constitution, it is a fundamental right.

Rev. Dr. Charles T. Rush, Jr.

Christ Church, Summit, NJ

Christmas is a season of celebration and hope, and there's nothing better at this time of year than the chance to celebrate a true Christmas miracle. Today I have a story that comes close to miraculous status. It's a story of how faith, combined with persistence, can change America's cultural landscape.

The story actually began with a woman named Rita Warren, whom I have mentioned in previous broadcasts. Rita grew up in Mussolini's Italy where she was painfully acquainted with the extremes of anti-religious bigotry. She well recalls the day when fascist soldiers marched into her classroom and ripped a crucifix from the wall, replacing it with portraits of Il Duce and Adolf Hitler. The Lord's Prayer was forbidden, replaced with songs glorifying those two monsters and their vision of world domination.

After Rita emigrated to America, some years later, she thought she had escaped the forces of tyranny, but she was in for a surprise. For many Christmas seasons she set up a nativity scene in front of the nation's Capitol, but each evening she was ordered to take it down. The attitudes she encountered made no sense. This is Christmas, she thought. We're not celebrating the birth of "Frosty The Snowman," but Jesus Christ. So, knowing only too well what happens when anti-religious views prevail in society, Rita decided to take a stand.

When she attempted to erect a crèche in Fairfax, Virginia, the city fathers made her stop. But shortly after the Supreme Court ruled that the Ku Klux Klan had the right to erect a cross in a public park, Rita was back again, arguing that Christians should have at least an equal right to free expression. This time the lawyers told her that, while she had a right to erect a display, she could not do so in Fairfax because she didn't live within the city limits. And that's when the miracle happened.

Unable to get assistance from conservative lawyers, Rita turned to an unlikely advocate: the ACLU. Yes, the organization that devoutly opposes any hint of religion on public property admitted that Rita's rights were being trampled. After a fight lasting four years, the forces of darkness finally blinked, and this year Rita's display will go up -- complete with a Menorah, honoring the faith of her ACLU-appointed lawyer, Victor Glasberg.

Rita Warren's miracle should teach us an important lesson. Through her war-time experiences, Rita knew that whenever God is hidden from public view, substitute religions spring up in His place. And whether the substitute is a political ideology or some type of New Age concoction, these man-made religions are far less benevolent than the real thing.

As Christians, we need to remember that we can never take our religious freedom for granted. But Rita Warren's story reminds us that, with prayer and persistence, all things are possible. So in the spirit of the season, I say "God Bless Rita Warren" and "God bless us every one."

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Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Well, the FBI has been at it again. Examining documents with cutting-edge computer technology, they've deciphered blacked-out text and lost messages. And what their investigation reveals is scandalous.

Another sex scandal? Blessedly, no. They were scrutinizing a draft of Thomas Jefferson's "Letter to the Danbury Baptists." And what they uncovered is much more important than any alleged shenanigans -- they discovered the almost forgotten doctrine of constitutional federalism.

In that letter, President Jefferson referred to the now-infamous "Wall of Separation" between Church and State. For years, this so-called "Wall" has provided the pretext for restricting religious expression. But the FBI's examination of an early draft of the letter shows that what Jefferson really meant by that "Wall" bears little resemblance to the way it is being used today.

In 1802, Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut objected to the established state Church -- Congregationalism. They wanted President Jefferson -- famous for promoting religious disestablishment in Virginia -- to intervene in Connecticut. But Jefferson refused.

Although he favored the Baptists' position, Jefferson explained that the Constitution forbade the Federal government to intrude in state matters. That was the "Wall of Separation" he referred to in his letter. FBI investigation of early drafts of that letter reinforces this interpretation.

You see, the First Amendment forbids the establishment of a national church, but that restriction does not apply to individual states. In fact, there were established state churches in America until 1833 -- almost 50 years after the Constitution was ratified.

Today's predominant view of the First Amendment -- that silences public religious expression -- could not be more different. But today's position is rooted not in the Constitution or Jefferson's writings, but in the 1947 Supreme Court decision, Everson V. Board of Education.

In Everson, Justice Hugo Black proclaimed that the First Amendment forbids any interaction between Church and Government -- that Jefferson's "wall [of separation]... must be kept high and impregnable."

Well, American University professor Daniel Dreisbach argues that this interpretation is entirely contrary to what Jefferson intended.

In the Journal of Church and State, Dreisbach points out that the so-called "Wall" had "less to do with the separation of church and civil government than with the separation between state and federal governments."

You see, Governor Jefferson declared religious days of prayer and thanksgiving, but President Jefferson wouldn't. As governor, he even promoted a law punishing preachers who would not preach on state holidays. But Jefferson was no hypocrite -- he simply understood that the First Amendment restricts the President, but not state governors.

Now, Dreisbach's research is not just historical trivia. The Court's strict separationist mantra lacks constitutional foundation. And this has important implications for policy-making today, especially as support for faith-based ministries becomes a campaign issue.

So when your neighbor cites some ACLU representative invoking the "wall of separation" to silence religious expression, tell him what Jefferson really said. And keep this view in mind when you consider candidates for office. For how well they understand Jefferson's federalism -- that is, state vs. federal power -- affects our most basic liberties.

The Founders' respect for religion is stamped all over our founding documents. And it shouldn't take FBI investigators to find it.

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Related Reading:

The Washington Times, "Very Political Jefferson Built 'Wall of Separation,'" (June 1, 1998). The New York Times, "Fresh Debate on 1802 Jefferson Letter" (September 10, 1998).

Daniel Dreisbach, Religion and Politics in the Early Republic (Univ.

Kentucky Press, 1996).

----, "'Sowing Useful Truths and Principles': The Danbury Baptists, Thomas Jefferson, and the 'Wall of Separation,'" Journal of Church and State (Summer 1997).

----, Real Threat and Mere Shadow: Religious Liberty and the First Amendment (Crossway Books, 1987).

----, "Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists Revisited," William and Mary Quarterly (October 1999).

----, "In Search of a Christian Commonwealth: An Examination of Selected Nineteenth-Century Commentaries on References to God and the Christian Religion in the United States Constitution," Baylor Law Review (Fall 1996).

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Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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For some time now, I’ve been warning you about the various threats to religious freedom. We’ve talked about the gay-rights movement, which insidiously insists that religious believers and organizations bow before the altar of sexual freedom. We’ve talked about the so-called health care reform bill, which does not protect the freedom of conscience of medical practitioners.

But now I’m seeing the threat to religious freedom in its most pernicious and dangerous form ever. In a nutshell, here’s what happened. In a speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on human rights. Not only did she talk about the right “to love in the way you choose,” (an obvious attempt at making protecting gay rights a top priority for the U.S. government), she also talked about “freedom of worship.”

But she never mentioned freedom of religion. Only freedom of worship. This is a big change.

In the First Amendment, the founders (whose work we celebrate this weekend) wisely ensured that government could not prohibit the “free exercise” of religion. And that means so much more than freedom of worship. It guarantees that we are not restricted to living out our faith in the privacy of our homes or church sanctuaries. It means we are free to exercise our religion — and contend for faith — in every area of life.

Just this clever dissembling of words is an apparent attempt to restrict freedom of religion to freedom of worship only. Do you see the implications? Sure, I am free to attend church, sing hymns, pray over meals, offer thanks to God for my children and grandchildren. That’s my own private affair.

But should the government succeed in redefining freedom of religion, how much longer can I practice my faith in public?

If you read history, you will see that that the first act of a tyrant is to suppress religion, which means of course, religious practice. Our Founders knew this. They knew the first English settlers came to these shores precisely so they could practice their faith.

And if you read history, you’ll know that the one true threat to a tyrant’s rule is always the believer’s loyalty to a God Who is above the god of the state.

This is why Christians were thrown to the lions in ancient Rome. The earliest baptismal confession of the young Christian Church was “Jesus is Lord.” And that meant Caesar was not. This is why Hitler and Stalin first went after the church. The star of David and the cross were symbols of an authority higher than their own.

We all know about the battles over the Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase “under God,” the battles over manger scenes on public property. These are important, but they are skirmishes, mere skirmishes. The real battle is about whether God is Lord, or whether government is Lord. And make no mistake, if government can redefine or restrict our freedom of religion, our first freedom will be gone.

And, as our Founders understood, when that freedom is gone, we will, in short order, lose the other freedoms as well.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Several years ago, Rev. Stephen Fournier, and his wife, Darlene, decided to start a "Good News" club in Milford, New York. The club would meet at the elementary school right after classes let out.

The Fourniers expected school officials to grant them permission to use school facilities since other groups already held meetings there. And a series of Supreme Court cases guaranteed the rights of groups like the "Good News" clubs to use these facilities.

But Milford officials forced them out, citing a policy that prohibits use of school facilities for "commercial activities, partisan political gatherings, or 'religious purposes.'"

The Fourniers sued. They lost in circuit court, but this week the Supreme Court overturned the circuit court decision.

Writing for the six-three majority, Justice Clarence Thomas gave a judicial back of the hand to nearly every argument made by the School Board. He chided the Board for ignoring the clear precedent set in the Court's decision in the Lamb's Chapel case. He questioned how anyone could think that allowing a private group to hold meetings in a school was an establishment of religion.

Justice Thomas also rejected the School Board's claim that a perceived endorsement of religion by the state poses a "danger" to our children. This assertion is laughable, especially since few ten-year-olds of my acquaintance ponder constitutional law.

But laughable or not, this idea has carried weight in the courts. Cases like the abominable Lee V. Weisman decision, denying a generic prayer at a school commencement, regard uninvited exposure to religion as the equivalent of exposure to pornography or radioactive waste.

Well, Justice Thomas thankfully cut through the nonsense. He wrote out that any such "danger" posed by religion is no greater than the danger posed by a perceived hostility to religion.

Just as gratifying as Thomas's opinion was the fact that he was joined by Justice Stephen Breyer -- one of the liberal judges on the Court. Could this be a signal of a break in the Court's hostility toward religion?

Well, hostility has clearly dominated the Court's decisions about church-state relations since the early sixties. Cases like Engel V. Vitale and Abington V. Schemp, the infamous school prayer case, turned the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees on their head.

Two dissenting justices in the school prayer case, Abington, warned that the "unilateral devotion to the concept of neutrality" wouldn't stop at "noninterference and noninvolvement" with religion. They would lead to "a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious."

And that's exactly what happened. Since then, secularists have used the establishment clause to squelch religious liberty. And the free exercise clause has become a mere footnote. That's why I called the dissenters "prophets" in my book, Kingdoms in Conflict.

The good news out of the Supreme Court is that this devotion to the secular seems to be waning. In recent years, Court decisions like this one suggest that the Court is reconsidering the issue. The Court has said that the free expression of religious ideas is at least as important as the non-establishment of religion. And that's real progress.

Which is why this case is so important. For the first time in nearly forty years, we've refused to allow the establishment clause to trump religious freedom. The "Good News" case is good news indeed.

For further reference:

Good News Club et. al V. Milford Central School. No. 992036 (2001).

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Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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This term [2002], the Supreme Court will hear and decide a case that will shape the relationship between church and state for years to come. The case involves Cleveland's school voucher program. Two courts have declared the program unconstitutional because, in their estimation, the program amounts to a "diversion of government aid to religious institutions," and an "endorsement of religious education." [June 2002 - by a 5-to-4 vote they declare it constitutional.]

The contemporary assumption in the courts and among legal scholars is that the Constitution requires what has been called a "high wall of separation" between church and state. If a program can, in any way, be characterized as constituting an entanglement between religion and government, it is said to be a violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause.

Well, there are two problems with this reigning orthodoxy. First, the phrase "wall of separation" doesn't appear in the Constitution or even in the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention.

Second, it's a total inversion of nearly all of the Founders' beliefs about the relationship between church and state. While they did not want the federal government to establish a national church, they viewed religion as indispensable to the American experiment.

In his marvelous new book, ON TWO WINGS, author, theologian, and former U.S. ambassador Michael Novak reminds readers that a religion-free public square was the last thing the Founders wanted. They believed that religion, by which they meant biblical religion, is "necessary for the maintenance of republican institutions." Or as Jefferson put it, "no nation has ever yet existed or even been governed without religion. Nor can be."

Why? Because, in the Founders' estimation, virtue was the precondition for liberty. And as James Madison put it, belief in an all-powerful, wise, and good God was the source of virtue.

Thus, unlike many of our present-day elites, the Founders didn't see religion as a threat to liberty. On the contrary, it was irreligion or atheism that was the threat. These would cause "everyday morals" to "slide into decadence" and pave the way for tyranny.

Accordingly, the Founders saw religious belief and practices as something to be encouraged. In my home state of Massachusetts, John Adams argued that religious education is essential to survival of a free republic. His case was so persuasive that the state's constitution included a provision that required the state to pay for religious education if there weren't any private groups able to do it.

Against this historical backdrop, the concerns of contemporary courts seem like a radical departure from the Founders' intentions which, in fact, they are. But it's not because modern judges have discovered something the Founders didn't know about maintaining a free society. It's because their worldview causes them to see personal autonomy and freedom as synonymous -- an idea the Founders explicitly rejected.

In this worldview, biblical religion is the enemy of personal autonomy and, thus, the enemy of freedom. Hence, the relentless drive to rid our public life of religious content. Christians can help their neighbors to understand the true role that biblical faith plays in American life. That starts with understanding that the Founders, far from fearing religious education, saw it as something indispensable to American life.

For more information:

Michael Novak, ON TWO WINGS: HUMBLE FAITH AND COMMON SENSE AT THE AMERICAN FOUNDING (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002).

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Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Christian beliefs about sin and especially homosexuality have been declared by a California court “public safety issues” that the government has a “duty to condemn.” As such the court ruled that condemning sin was “hateful rhetoric” and the government must “exercise its duty as a public body.”

What was this hateful and unacceptable rhetoric? It was an ad campaign that said, “former homosexuals can celebrate a new life because someone cared enough to share with them the truth of God's healing love ... the truth that God abhors any form of sexual sin.”

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Source: American Family Association Journal, Sept 2000. Submitted by Rev. Craig Watters, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Louisville, Colorado

Most American school kids have read Shirley Jackson's short story, “The Lottery.” It pictures a village where, once a year, the residents gather to randomly choose one of their own for stoning. This time around, it's poor Mrs. Hutchinson. Why do they do it? It's just tradition, though they can't remember why it started.

Of course, the teachers assigned us this reading so we would search our own culture for absurd, toxic practices and then address them. Well, I think I've found one.

Under U.S. law originally proposed by Sen. Lyndon Johnson, the Internal Revenue Service will “stone” a church if it explicitly endorses or opposes a political candidate. No, the church isn't destroyed, but it takes a hit, losing its tax exemption. But why?

A growing number of congressmen are asking that very question and are rallying around legislation to correct this absurdity, HR 235. Called the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, the bill pries the state's paws off the pulpit. (Actually, it pries these paws off the conservative pulpit; the liberal pulpit has enjoyed a de facto exemption from the beginning.)

So what is wrong with this tax policy? First, it presumes to say what makes for a proper sermon. How the state thinks it knows this better than the church is a puzzle. Seminaries rather than political science departments and law schools provide sermon training, and good seminaries teach her men to use pointed illustration and application, not generalization and obfuscation. Sermons are about more than shepherds and centurions, oil lamps and tunics.

Second, the IRS is reinforcing the woeful impression that church is only a devotional center and not also a base for cultural reformation. Many in government cherish whatever insulation they can gain from the church's meek submission to a pious, sacred/secular distinction, one which Martin Luther debunked four centuries ago.

Third, it ignores a great tradition of naming names. Of course, most preachers in biblical times and world history were not situated in democracies, where they could support one candidate over another. Still, we can note that, in dicey times, they addressed governmental particulars, including personalities. Surely, the burden of proof lies upon bureaucrats and accommodating clergy who insist that the church mumble generalities at election time.

By current IRS standards, the Bible's prophetic voice can be politically illicit. I suppose it's always been that way. Herod didn't appreciate John the Baptist calling him an adulterer (Luke 3:19) and Jesus calling him a fox (Luke 13:32). But do American politicians really want to play the role of Herod? I'm not saying that they are killing preachers, but they are trying to kill some edgy preaching, the sort that would call a Pharaoh, a Jezebel and even a David to task personally.

In 1800, John Mitchell Mason anonymously published a sermon titled, “The Voice of Warning to Christians: The Ensuing Election of a President of the United States.” In it, Mason said, “I dread the election of Mr. Jefferson, because I believe him to be a confirmed infidel” -- and he then went on to prove it. What sort of raw embarrassment of a preacher was this John Mitchell Mason? Merely the founder of what would become Union Theological Seminary, first provost of Columbia College (now University) and later president of Dickinson College.

Stinging from this sort of rhetoric, Jefferson wrote his (in)famous “wall of separation” letter in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist pastors. The new president wanted to wall off the opinions of his ecclesiastical detractors, but he knew how to couch his pettiness in grand, though unconstitutional, language. (Union University professor Greg Thornbury has written a fine account of Jefferson's retaliatory maneuver; see link below).

Jefferson's ministerial defenders were just as adamant. Connecticut pastor Stanley Griswold preached a celebratory sermon, “Overcoming Evil with Good,” on the occasion of Jefferson's election. His take on the matter was rosy: “Give me leave on this occasion particularly to point you to Thomas Jefferson as a laudable example of that magnanimous and peaceable conduct which I have recommended to you in this discourse, and which is so peculiarly necessary to be put in practice at the present juncture.”

That's the way they talked back then. And, at times, that's the way some of them got into hot water -- and the way some of them hurt their churches. But that was the congregation's business, not the government's.

Speaking of congregational business, some would say that politics is not the business of the proper church. To those, John Mitchell Mason had this to say:

“No, I am not deceived: they are Christian lips which plead that 'Religion has nothing to do with politics'.... Where did you learn this maxim? The [B]ible is full of directions for your behaviour as citizens. It is plain, pointed, awful in its injunctions on rulers and ruled as such.... You are commanded 'in all your ways to acknowledge him' (Prov. 3:3). In every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let your requests be made known unto God' (Phil. 4:6), 'And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus' (Col. 3:17). Yet religion has nothing to do with politics! Most astonishing!”

Oh, the government will let churches circle the political arena, addressing issues rather than personalities, distributing voting records and such. What it cannot stand is a Nathan marching right up to the adulterous king and accusing, “You are the man!” What the church, in turn, should not stand is the government conceit that it can penalize such speech while proclaiming itself defender of the biblical sermon.

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Coppenger is pastor of Evanston (Illinois) Baptist Church. To access the article by Union University professor Greg Thornbury, go to http://www.uu.edu/centers/christld/academicforum/faculty/article.cfm?ID =39.

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Romans 13:1-7 teaches that a Christian has a prima facie duty to obey the government, that the burden of proof rests upon the believer who would defy the magistrate's directives. This applies even to Christians who find themselves in states who view and treat them as nuisances. (Paul wrote his Romans counsel to those under Roman rule.) And when Christians are fortunate to live where grievances may be redressed through political action, the duty to play by the rules is manifest, especially when obedience does not force one to violate a clear biblical command. Still, it is not an absolute command; there is a time too for a citizen to say “No!” or “Enough!”

Good Christians can and do disagree over when that time has come. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has presented us all with a fresh opportunity to differ with one another on this issue. By placing a stone Ten Commandments monument prominently in his courthouse, he provoked the ACLU to the point of hyperventilation (a prima facie laudatory outcome). He lost the ensuing court battle, a battle some evangelicals wished he hadn't fought.

For the following reasons, I'm more sanguine about his effort:

1. SYSTEM BREAKDOWN. Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks had recourse to political action when she broke the rules by sitting at the front of a city bus. She could have mailed her complaint to the citizens of Montgomery or lobbied for her cause down at city hall. But leaders -- who had lost sight of the primacy of righteousness in a critical sector -- had corrupted the system. We praise her for her civil disobedience. Judge Moore is a candidate for similar praise.

2. POSITION OF POWER. Civil servants have a greater, not a lesser, duty than private citizens to be civilly disobedient when things are wrong. The average citizen who righteously defies the state is likely to be marginalized and forgotten. If, however, one in power is appropriately defiant, things are more likely to get changed.

3. ILLEGAL ORDER. Our system even teaches disobedience in certain circumstances. Those of us who went through Army officer training were told that some orders were unlawful (e.g., herding POW's in front of you to clear mines), that they should be disregarded, and that the one issuing them should be reported. Officers and officials are not puppets in our system.

4. OBVIOUS INCONGRUITY. The Supreme Court displays the Decalogue on its own walls yet a lower court denies its display in the Alabama court lobby. Moreover, God “talk” is ubiquitous in our state documents, from the Declaration of Independence to the Star Spangled Banner to presidential inaugural addresses. Suddenly to wince at God “talk” in the Alabama halls of state is absurd.

5. WEDGE BUSTING. Sports Illustrated once ran an article on “wedge busters” in football. When the opposing team returns a punt or kickoff, several of their blockers form a wedge in front of the ball carrier. The first defender on the scene is unlikely to make the tackle. Rather, his job is to throw himself into the wedge, to break it up so that the follow-up defenders can bring the runner down. It's not pretty, but it's necessary to change the balance of power. By analogy, a powerful and mobile wedge has formed in defense of those who would strip our public square of Judeo-Christian influence. Judge Moore has sacrificed himself by hurling his body into the wedge. Now more discriminating defenders can pick their way through what remains and make the stop.

6. INSTRUCTIVE SPECTACLE. The judge has made a spectacle of the left. They love to hide in the shadows of academia, the spin of media, the minutiae of appellate wranglings, and the smug counsels of power. Now they are forced to sweat in the noonday sun as they seek to wrestle a holy document to the broom closet. Everyone could see that the Ten Commandments monument harmed no one. Yes, the display offended a few, but there is no right of freedom from offense.

7. REASON. The judge is defending the court against stupidity. By his opponent's reasoning, the state should act as though it saw no more merit in the Ten Commandments than in the canons of the Rastafarian “bible,” Kebra Negast (which prescribes dreadlocks, which calls marijuana a “sacred herb,” and which worships the Ethiopian King Silassie I as “Lord of Lords.”). For liberals, it's six of one, a half-dozen of another. For Judge Moore, there is all the difference in the world. (And, of course, the historical record about our Founding Fathers' -- including the Deists' -- intent regarding religion favors Moore's actions over Myron Thompson's judicial findings.)

8. THE REFEREE'S ATTENTION. Many a coach has profitably disputed a bad call by the referee, not supposing that the official will reverse his decision. Rather, he is working toward a favorable outcome on the next close call. If we're serene when bad calls go against us, the referee may take our interests for granted in the future.

9. THE BARNEY FACTOR. Back in the midst of the SBC conservative resurgence, a popular inerrantist was playing it coy when it came to public commitments to the cause. He told a visiting evangelist that he was saving his bullet until just the right time. The evangelist retorted that he resembled Deputy Barney Fife who carried his one bullet around in his shirt pocket. In Alabama, “Sheriff Taylor” was in a firefight. Where was Barney?

10. “PUBLIC RELATIONS.” Some worry that this is a “public relations disaster.” Folks, the Church, when healthy, is a public relations disaster. Those outside Jesus' circle hated Him because He so often went cross-grain to the culture; can we expect less when we honor Him and His Scripture?

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We are witnessing the constriction of Christian speech and the criminalizing of Christian ministry. The Bible clearly condemns homosexual behaviors, and the Christian church has been clear about this teaching for twenty centuries. But now, the statement that homosexuality is a sin can land a preacher in jail.

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We have seen this coming for some time now. The public space has been closing, especially when it comes to Christian speech — and especially when that speech is about homosexuality.

Now, a Christian preacher has been arrested in Britain for the crime of saying in public that homosexuality is a sin. This arrest is more than a news event — it is a signal of things to come and an announcement of a new public reality. Even if all charges are dropped against this preacher, the signal is sent and the message is clear. The act of Christian preaching is now a potential criminal offense.

Street preaching has a long and well-recognized history in Great Britain. Indeed, preachers of every sort are hardly alone in continuing Britain’s tradition of public rhetoric, seen quintessentially at “Speakers’ Corner” in London’s famed Hyde Park. Dale McAlpine of Wokington in Cumbria has been preaching on the streets for years. The 42-year-old preacher, a Baptist, was arrested after telling a passerby that homosexuality is a sin.

According to THE TELEGRAPH [London], McAlpine had been preaching from atop a stepladder. He also passed out tracts explaining the Ten Commandments. Later, he was involved in a discussion with a woman who wanted to “engage him in a debate about his faith.”

From THE TELEGRAPH:

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality

among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including

blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness. After the

woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO [Police Community

Support Officer] who spoke with her briefly and then walked over

to Mr. McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that

he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic

but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a

crime against the Creator”.

The police officer, identified in the news report as a homosexual and as the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender liaison officer” for the local police department, then identified himself to Dale McAlpine. The preacher responded, “It’s still a sin.”

He then preached a sermon on a range of issues that did not include homosexuality. The paper reports, “Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr. McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.”

He was arrested under Britain’s “Public Order Act,” which, the paper reports, “has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar cases.” The law allows the arrest and prosecution of anyone who, with intent to harass or cause harm, uses “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.”

In this case, the simple act of stating in public that homosexuality is a sin was enough to get this preacher arrested. He is not the first. THE TELEGRAPH also reported that Harry Hammond, a lay preacher, was convicted in 2002 for holding a sign that read “Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord” as he preached in Bournemouth, near Southampton.

The arrest of Dale McAlpine is attracting some degree of international media attention, but the case represents far more than a media spectacle. This arrest is a clear sign that the logic of “hate speech” laws and similar rules and campus codes runs into direct collision with religious liberty and the freedom of religious speech.

THE TELEGRAPH’s report includes the ironic and chilling explanation that Dale McAlpine was arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin and for doing so “in a voice loud enough to be heard by others.” Is not the purpose of any speaker to be heard by others? Are we to assume that the British police would suggest that Dale McAlpine hold fast to his beliefs, but mutter them only under his breath?

He is being defended in court by the Christian Institute, a group that monitors such cases and offers legal counsel. Sam Webster, a solicitor-advocate with the Institute, said, “Yes, the police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens. It’s not for police to decide whether Mr. McAlpine’s views are right or wrong.” He continued: “Case law has ruled that the orthodox Christian belief that homosexual conduct is sinful is a belief worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

That may not be true for long, and it may not help Dale McAlpine now. Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party have pushed for repeal of language offering some protection for religious speech. The Conservative Party has generally opposed such measures. Will British Christians have this in mind when they vote Thursday in the nation’s general election?

We are witnessing the constriction of Christian speech and the criminalizing of Christian ministry. The Bible clearly condemns homosexual behaviors, and the Christian church has been clear about this teaching for twenty centuries. But now, the statement that homosexuality is a sin can land a preacher in jail.

We will soon learn which nations truly believe in religious liberty and freedom of speech. Cases like this are inevitable when the logic of hate speech and special rights for “sexual minorities” prevails.

Do not think for a moment that this troubling development is of consequence only for street preachers in Britain. The signal sent by this kind of arrest reaches right into every church in every nation where a similar logic takes hold.

Yes, we will soon learn which nations honor religious liberty — but we will also soon learn which preachers are determined to honor God’s truth, whatever the cost. Paul’s command to preachers to preach the Word, “in season and out of season” is about more than when preaching is more and less popular. It may well mean preaching the Word, in jail or out of jail.

Just ask Dale McAlpine.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #11810]

In Pennsylvania, a priest faithfully ministered to death-row inmates year after year — until a new warden ordered him to leave. In other prisons around the country, authorities restrict inmates' access to Bibles and Bible commentaries. Inmates are forbidden to wear yarmulkes, or limited to one religious program a week, forcing them to choose between Bible study and worship services.

Does this sound like religious freedom to you? Or more like government actively INTERFERING with religious rights, in violation of the Constitution?

Sadly, attempts to scour public life of anything remotely resembling religious activity are increasing — both inside and outside prison walls. When religious believers fight back against such violations of religious freedoms, we're immediately accused of trying to impose theocracy on America.

Nonsense. A theocrat wants to force everyone to believe in his own god and follow that god's rules. Christians are doing the opposite: trying to protect the right of citizens of ALL faiths to worship as they see fit.

Why do militant secularists attempt to snuff out religious practice, even in prisons, where it is so desperately needed? Partly, it's a fanatical hostility toward religion. But these efforts also reflect a serious misunderstanding both of the role religion should play in public life and of religion's social benefits.

First, we don't enjoy religious freedom because the courts allow it. The founders secured this basic human right in the Constitution because, as the Declaration of Independence recognizes, the right to worship is given by God, not government.

Second, religion provides demonstrable social benefits. For example, Dr. Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania studied graduates of Prison Fellowship's InnerChange Freedom Initiative program for two years following their release. He found that they had a recidivism rate of only 8 percent compared to more than 20 percent for similar inmates and 67 percent nationally. This is great news to anyone but a secularist ideologue. Even while this study was underway, Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the state of Iowa, claiming the program violates church-state separation. What's galling is that they not only would destroy the religious rights of prisoners, but they would also deny society the advantage of changed lives: that is, fewer crimes.

The abuse of prisoners' religious liberties is why Prison Fellowship supports the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), signed into law in 2000. The law promptly came under attack, and the Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case that will determine whether prisoners' access to religious materials and programs can be protected by congressional action.

On this Sunday, Religious Freedom Day, get your church and your friends to join in praying that the Court will uphold this statute. The religious liberty of prisoners must be protected; nowhere do the lost need the Gospel more.

America's founders wisely made religious freedom the first right; they knew that without it, all other rights are meaningless. Two centuries later, the prisoner sitting in his lonely cell, stripped of his Bible, his minister, and his right to worship, knows exactly what they meant.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Adelle M. Banks, “Appeals Court Upholds Law Protecting Prisoners' Religious Rights,” Beliefnet, 16 December 2004.

• Pat Nolan, When Prisoners Return (Prison Fellowship, 2004).

• For more information on criminal justice reform and religious freedom for prisoners, visit Justice Fellowship's website.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 050107, “The First Freedom: Religious Freedom Day.”

• Learn more about InnerChange Freedom Initiative.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030618, “Shutting the Revolving Door: IFI and Texas.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030701, “Anatomy of a Conversion: Prison Programs and the Public Good.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030214, “The Risk of Doing Good: Lawsuits and Faith-Based Solutions.”

________

Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

On a stormy day in March, 1776, a sloop sailed out of New York harbor on the first part of a long trip to Canada. Tom, a 15-year-old cabin boy, had watched four passengers come aboard - Dr. Benjamin Franklin; Samuel Chase; Charles Carroll, a wealthy Roman Catholic, and John Carroll, a priest.

The revolt of the colonies against King George of England wasn't going well, and the Americans wanted the help of Canada in the fight. The problem was that most Canadians were French Catholics with the right to 'worship openly, something the people couldn't do in the thirteen colonies. In fact, the colonies had openly criticized Canada for allowing this freedom. This criticism had upset Canadian Catholics.

During the long, hard trip it bothered Tom that his idol. Dr. Franklin, was in the company of the Carroll brothers. And to top it all, the Canadian Government officials wouldn't even meet with the Americans, so the trip came to nothing. Dr. Franklin had been sick with boils on his legs and back when he started to Canada, and now he had a high fever.

As Tom helped him into bed one night he asked, “Doctor Franklin, why are you spending so much time and energy with Catholics?”

The man looked surprised. “Tom, our country needs help from everyone- Catholics included- if it is going to maintain its freedom.”

Exasperated, Tom cried, “But you have always been a freethinker. Dr. Franklin. You don't share their beliefs!”

“Well, Tom,” Franklin said, “let me tell you what I believe. I believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. I believe that the most acceptable service we can give Him is doing good to His other children. I take these to be the fundamental points in all religion, and I respect them wherever I meet them.”

________

Source: Climbing Jacob's Ladder, by Jeanne Larson & Ruth McLin, Copyright 1979 by Review and Herald Publishing Association

*

THE EXTREMISTS AMONG US

It is perhaps America’s most enduring myth: The Pilgrims came here looking for religious freedom, found it, and we all lived happily ever after.

They weren’t. They didn’t. We haven’t.

As we’ll see, the Pilgrims actually came here looking mostly for real estate. They were a quirky, if courageous little band of religious separatists. And like religious separatists before them and since — from the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the monks of the Egyptian desert to the Amish of today — they wanted nothing so much as to be left alone to live in their own world according to their own vision of the truth. They came to America not because it offered freedom for all but simply because it offered a refuge for them.

The problem was, other people kept showing up. Even aboard the MAYFLOWER there were the “strangers,” whom the Pilgrims’ English investors had insisted accompany them. Then, after they’d established Plymouth Colony, more ships brought more strangers. As we’ll also see, the Pilgrims did not respond well to this unplanned pluralism. In fact, they attempted to outlaw it. They set up tax-supported churches and banned competing religious services or cultural displays. They kept dissidents from proselytizing. They had religious tests for public office. And they refused to exempt conscientious objectors, like Quakers, from obeying their laws.

We haven’t lived happily ever after, either. We have, of course, come a long way since the Pilgrims first measured out their stingy servings of tolerance. Nevertheless, the fundamental problem that the Pilgrims and the strangers faced when confronted with each other is still with us: How do you reconcile claims of absolute truth with human freedom in a pluralistic society?

In fact, that problem is not only still with us, it is growing ever more serious as our society grows ever more pluralistic — and as the extremists on both sides grow ever more polarized. It has reached the point where we aptly call the whole imbroglio one of the culture wars.

How to resolve it? We must begin by understanding it. So let’s meet the combatants.

IN THIS CORNER, WEARING THE FUNNY HATS ... THE PILGRIMS

On the one hand there are still many Pilgrims among us, people who want to use the state to coerce the religious consciences of those with whom they disagree. For these latter-day Pilgrims the relationship of truth and freedom seems every bit as straightforward as it did to their namesakes in Plymouth Colony: The truth is, well, true. So how, they demand to know, can they NOT seek to establish it legally? If they don’t, won’t they be conceding that they harbor some doubts after all? And even if they did succeed in legally establishing the true religion, would that be such a bad thing? Wouldn’t they really just be doing a favor to the not-yet-enlightened by hastening the day when their eyes are opened?

Most Americans instinctively recoil from such logic. We know it can’t be right. We may or may not know how to parse the philosophical mistake involved, but we're sure there must be one in there somewhere. We know that religious truth cannot be embraced authentically unless it is embraced freely. To American ears, the idea that truth is somehow opposed to freedom rings false. Pilgrims are obviously extremists.

AND IN THIS CORNER, WEARING THE HAPLESS EXPRESSIONS ... THE PARK RANGERS

But Pilgrims aren’t the only extremists. On the other hand there are the Park Rangers, who insist — even after the tragedies of the last century — that only a society that owns no truth at all can be safe for freedom. For them, the price of freedom for everyone is that no one can be allowed to publicly claim that anything transcendent is absolutely true. Why call them “Park Rangers”? In honor of a particularly memorable example of their zeal. Perry Mason might have called it “The Case of the Sacred Parking Barrier.”

It all began in the Japanese Tea Garden of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in 1989. The tea garden had long been a particularly well-groomed part of the park, a haven from the stresses of urban life. That year, however, there was a problem. A crane operator had abandoned a traffic or parking barrier at the back of the tea garden. It was a small, bullet-shaped lump of granite that clashed with the ordered nature of the place, an irritant that park-goers periodically tried to have removed. Bureaucrats being what they are, however, the stray parking barrier remained.

It remained, that is, until 1993, when the bureaucrats learned of a New Age group’s interest in it. The New Agers, it seemed, had recognized something significant about the shape of the parking barrier: It resembled a Shiva Lingam, a manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva. What was more, they had come upon it unexpectedly and in a wooded setting, just the way you’re supposed to discover a Shiva Lingam. The little band of believers had rejoiced and begun to worship. In fact, they now came regularly to pray and make offerings of incense and flowers to the stone bullet. All of which greatly alarmed the very same authorities (with a little poetic license, the “Park Rangers”) who had resolutely neglected to remove the traffic barrier as an eyesore. The bureaucrats roused themselves and announced that it was their duty to prevent worship on (not to mention of) public property; the parking barrier had to go.

Whereupon, the New Agers promptly got a lawyer and sued for an order blocking removal of the little granite lump. The case settled two months later, in January 1994. Rather than spend time and money in court, the authorities agreed to give the spare barrier to its devotees, who agreed to pray to it in private, someplace else.

Now, as lawsuits go this was hardly a legal landmark. After all, the parking barrier really was public property and the authorities always were free to do with it as they pleased. As an account of religion in public life, however, the case is something of a parable. If ever there was a religion that was not threatening, either politically or culturally, this had to be it. Nobody could ever have mistaken parking-barrier worship for an officially established religion, even in San Francisco. No one could really have wondered whether it would be politically correct to be seen leaving flowers in front of the thing. Nobody could honestly worry that tax money might be spent on incense for it. In short, this particular piece of religious expression did not remotely threaten to coerce anyone to do anything. What’s more, the tea garden was a public park. If people could come to admire the shrubbery, why couldn't they come to worship the parking barriers?

Because, said the authorities, parking-barrier worship was religion and religion didn’t belong on public property. Religion belonged in private. It was just that simple.

There are many Park Rangers among us, from zoning commissioners to school administrators to ... actual park rangers. And they all seem to think it’s just that simple. They come out in force at the holidays. Controversies over Christmas Nativity scenes and Hanukkah menorahs have, of course, become a yearly ritual. But the battle lines have moved far beyond them. There are now annual debates over a variety of cultural offerings. Some Park Rangers, stung by criticism that the Easter Bunny isn’t already a secular enough symbol, have made over the little creature as best they can. For example, the public school system in Lansing, Michigan, now offers, in lieu of Easter, a “Breakfast with the Special Bunny.” And, until nearly everyone laughed at it, the public library in Arlington, Virginia, had replaced its annual Easter Egg Hunt with a “Spring Egg Roll.” Other places have banned in-school celebrations of Halloween, on one of two conflicting theories: either because it’s an inappropriately Catholic celebration of All Hallows’ Eve, or else because it's an inappropriately pagan celebration of something else. At least one school system has banned Valentine’s Day because it's named after Saint Valentine. The kids can still send each other notes, though they can't call them valentines. They have to call them “special person cards.”

What drives these people? Some are devout deconstructionists. That is, they are convinced that there really is no such thing as objective truth at all. Most Park Rangers, though, are not. Most, ever so privately, believe in something or other. But they’re Park Rangers still. Why? Because they think that freedom is incompatible with public claims of any religious truth — even their own. All religion, they insist, must be purely private. And just why is that? It’s largely because they’re afraid of the Pilgrims.

To hear the Park Rangers tell it, the West is free because Westerners are mostly easygoing folk, untainted by fanatical devotion to absolute truths. Columnist Andrew Sullivan memorably made this case in his fierce post-9/11 NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE cover article, “This Is a Religious War.” Sullivan framed the war against al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorist groups as a conflict between two kinds of religion: It is “a war of fundamentalism against faiths of all kinds that are at peace with freedom and modernity.” He charged that belief in absolute truth, which he seemed to equate with “fundamentalism,” inevitably produces coercion. “If you believe that there is an eternal afterlife and that endless indescribable torture awaits those who disobey God's law, then it requires no huge stretch of imagination to make sure that you not only conform to each diktat but that you also encourage and, if necessary, coerce others to do the same.... In a world of absolute truth, in matters graver than life and death, there is no room for dissent and no room for theological doubt.” In other words, only uncertainty can save us from the killing fields. The only good religion is a relativist one.

What to do, then, with all those recalcitrant religions that insist they really do possess the truth? The Park Rangers’ answer is simple: Push them out of public life and keep them as culturally marginal as possible. Replace all that messy competition with a wrinkle-free, synthetic, one-size-fits-all culture.

As we’ll see, that’s literally inhuman.

It’s also self-defeating. It doesn’t resolve the culture war; it enflames it. It alarms the Pilgrims every bit as much as their sermons frighten the Park Rangers. So both sides take to their direct-mail houses to quote each other and amass bigger war chests by sowing further anxiety. Each ends up being the other’s best fundraiser and worst bogeyman.

(The Park Rangers’ position is counterproductive in a subtler way as well. Barring public truth claims about who God is often morphs into barring public truth claims about who we are. Yet truth claims about ourselves are what human rights are based on. Barring such truth claims in the name of freedom is like sawing off the limb you’re sitting on.)

In short, the Park Rangers’ solution to pluralism is as defective as the Pilgrims’ is. In their drive to prevent theocracy, the Park Rangers end up promoting a society that is insufficiently human — and is at least as divided as the one they’re trying to forestall.

THIS WAY OUT

It sometimes seems we are condemned to an endless tug-of-war between Pilgrims and Park Rangers and we dare not let either side win. If the Pilgrims prevail, both freedom of conscience and civil society diminish. We will have once again the gray hypocrisy of government-imposed orthodoxy. If the Park Rangers win, we risk having only the sort of temporary, politically based religious liberty that has proven so inadequate throughout much of the world. And we will certainly have a vapid public culture. We will be nervous for our rights in the midst of one vast, unending Breakfast with the Special Bunny.

Either way, religious freedom suffers. But it, and we, suffer from the ongoing struggle as well. Must this be? Not if we can rise above the impasse. To do this, we must be able to guarantee a robust religious freedom for all — and not just for some — and base it on something that’s undeniable to both Pilgrims and Park Rangers. That is, we must ground religious freedom for all in something more universally convincing than the parochial truth claims of the Pilgrims, but do it without contradicting those truth claims. We must guarantee the Park Rangers (and everyone else) their freedom of conscience, grounding it in something far firmer than just their own anxieties, while not unduly aggravating those anxieties. That is our challenge.

[see also HolwickID #30582]

*

"I do not believe there is any other influence so much needed in a tumultuous world as a reconsecration to God Almighty. I rejoice that America is free in religion."

-- President Warren G. Harding, "Our Common Country"

What is the role of religion in the public square? Some would call for a Christian theocracy. Others would suggest a completely religion-free public square.

But are these the only options? Either a public square dominated by religion? Or, a public square devoid of spiritual import? These questions are important, especially when it appears that Christianity is on the defensive in favor of a secularized public square. To answer this question we must revisit some American history.

In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut dated Jan. 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson opined on the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, arguing for “building a wall of separation between Church and State.” Jefferson, a deist at best, was responding to an inquiry concerning his view of state-sanctioned churches. Non-conformists were concerned that those who favored a state church would win the day and exclude all other expressions of religious conviction. He was also responding to his critics as to why he did not follow the pattern of his predecessors, Washington and Adams, in declaring national days of prayer, fasting and worship.

Jefferson’s “wall of separation” was used to assure the Baptists that he opposed a state-sanctioned church, arguing that “religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.” The phrase was used by Chief Justice Morrison Waite in 1879 and again by Justice Hugo Black in 1947. Thus, the phrase “wall of separation” settled into the American conscience.

What are we to make of this phrase?

First, though helpful, the phrase is not in the Constitution. The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” At minimum, this means two things. The state will not establish a state church and the state will not interfere with religious practices.

Second, some argue that this phrase excludes all religious expressions from the public square. But does it? Jefferson argued that the First Amendment guaranteed freedom for religion as a moral dimension of a democratically governed people. He also argued for the freedom of religion in that each person was free to worship or not worship according to the dictates of his own conscience. Further, Jefferson, I believe, argued that the “wall of separation” was more for the protection of the church than the state. This is why Jefferson was not arguing for freedom from religion in the public square.

America is a constitutional, representative republic. A Christian theocracy is not an option any more than would be a state run by Mormons, Muslims or Buddhists. While there is freedom for and of religion, it must be acknowledged that though America’s founding documents are not explicitly Christian, the founding spirit of this nation was consistently Judeo-Christian. It has been the favored religion of this nation, which is no small admission. This does not exclude expressions of religious convictions by non-Christians. It simply acknowledges that the Judeo-Christian worldview has been firmly ensconced in American public life, which has served us well since our inception.

Therefore, to answer the question, “What is the role of religion in the public square?” is to ask the question, “Can I separate my private convictions from my public opinions?” Since my answer to the latter is no, my answer to the former is that I come to the community table as a convictional Christian. It is there in community meetings and in public gatherings that I express my religiously informed convictions with clarity, conciseness and humility, as would any citizen of any religious stripe. To do otherwise would violate my conscience. I cannot check who I am at the door of public involvement.

To quarantine the public square from religious conviction is to leave her bare, devoid of any moral and spiritual influence. Such a move would supplant America’s spiritual and moral roots, a development that would in the end neutralize moral conviction and rob us of our grand, constitutional and declared affirmations: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

________

Kevin Shrum is pastor of Inglewood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tenn. A version of this column first appeared in The Tennessean newspaper.

Kids are singing about Baby Jesus sleeping in the hay. They look like children performing for their congregation, but to the Chinese authorities, they are criminals because they’re at an underground “house” church.

It’s called that because they meet without state approval, CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen reports.

The church let CBS News in to take pictures that show both faith and defiance, while the congregation was brave enough to share their stories of what happens when the government finds the faithful.

“The police called us evil and arrested us for illegal assembly,” one woman explains.

Chinese-born American Dr. Sam Chao works in China for religious freedom and researched the dangers faced by underground church worshipers.

“I interviewed about 40, 50 people; every one of them (was) beaten and jailed and harassed and beaten on the body,” says Chao, Director of China Ministries International.

When Mao Tse-tung took power, he banned religion. Communism was the new faith. These days, the state allows churches, but worshippers must register with police. And yet, there are many young people worshipping.

“They’ve grown up in a society where the moral imperative is to make money and get ahead, and that doesn’t take you very far,” says Ken Lieberthal, a China expert at the University of Michigan.

People in Beijing are discovering perhaps a simple truth: Money alone is not bringing happiness. Hundreds of millions — and more each day — are seeking something more.

So even traditional eastern religions like Buddhism are flourishing again. But none like the underground Christians.

In one village, they were even building their own church ... until the authorities knocked it down.

In China, it was once easy to know what to believe in — the Communist Party. Those days may be gone for good as a new generation learns how to find and keep its own faith.

________

Copyright 2007, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Most Americans believe it should be legal to have voluntary student-led prayers at public school events, display the Ten Commandments inside a court building and allow religious displays on city-owned property, according to research released by Ellison Research of Phoenix.

As part of the survey, Ellison presented a number of scenarios to a representative sample of 1,007 American adults and asked whether various modes of religious expression generally should or should not be legal in the United States.

Results indicated that 90 percent said the law should support religious groups renting public property, such as a public school gym or a library room; 89 percent said it should be legal for a public school teacher to permit a moment of silence for prayer or contemplation for all students during class time; and 88 percent believe it should be legal for public school teachers to wear religious symbols, such as a Star of David or a cross, during class time.

Ellison also found that 87 percent believe voluntary student-led prayers at public school events, such as football games or graduation ceremonies, should be legal; 83 percent believe the display of a nativity scene on city property, such as city hall, should be legal; and 79 percent said it should be legal to display a copy of the Ten Commandments inside a court building.

Those who responded were less unified in their answers to three specific scenarios. Sixty percent believe the display of a scene honoring Islam on city property, such as a city hall, during the Muslim holiday Ramadan should be legal even though 83 percent thought a nativity display should be legal.

Also, 52 percent believe it should be legal for a religious club in a high school or university to determine for itself who can be in their membership, even if certain types of people are excluded, and 33 percent said it should be legal for a landlord to refuse to rent an apartment to a homosexual couple.

While highly religious Americans as well as those who have a conservative political viewpoint strongly support individual religious and moral rights, Ellison found that a high proportion of non-religious Americans and those who have a more liberal political viewpoint share a similar perspective.

For instance, 92 percent of people who regularly attend religious worship services believe voluntary student-led prayers at public school events should be legal, while 83 percent of those who do not regularly attend worship services also believe this.

Solid majorities of people who do not attend religious services agree it should be legal to have a moment of silence in public school classes, for teachers to wear religious symbols during class, for religious displays to be allowed on city property, for religious groups to have equal access to public facilities and for the Ten Commandments to be displayed inside a court building.

Some of the scenarios are positioned in the mainstream media as issues championed by evangelical Christians, but Ellison said that is only part of the truth.

Evangelicals are significantly more likely than other Americans to believe most of the scenarios should be legal in the United States today, but non-evangelicals usually have the same perspective as evangelicals -- just with majorities that are not as strong.

For instance, while 97 percent of evangelicals believe it should be legal for the Ten Commandments to be displayed inside court buildings, 77 percent of non-evangelicals also believe it should be legal.

What may be most surprising is when the scenarios are viewed according to political affiliations and beliefs. Ninety-five percent of those who describe themselves as politically conservative believe voluntary student-led prayers at public school events should be legal. The same perspective is held by 90 percent of self-described moderates and even 73 percent of those who call themselves liberal.

Eighty-eight percent of conservatives believe nativity scenes on city property should be legal, meanwhile, as do 88 percent of moderates and 70 percent of liberals.

The picture doesn’t change when party affiliation is substituted for political viewpoint. Ninety-five percent of Republicans believe voluntary student-led prayers at public schools should be legal, along with 87 percent of independents and 82 percent of Democrats. Ninety-two percent of Republicans believe teachers should legally be allowed to wear symbols of their religious faith during class time, along with 88 percent of independents and 85 percent of Democrats.

The majority of Democrats and self-described political liberals believe the law should allow nativity scenes on city property, displays honoring Islam on city property, displays of the Ten Commandments in court buildings, teachers wearing religious symbols, moments of silence for prayer or reflection during class times, equal access to public facilities for religious groups and voluntary student-led prayers at public school events.

In addition to the finding that 83 percent of Americans say a nativity scene on city property should be legal while only 60 percent say a display honoring Islam during Ramadan should be legal, 58 percent of the overall sample said both should be legal, while 15 percent said both should be illegal. One percent believe honoring Islam should be legal while a nativity scene should be outlawed. At the same time, 25 percent of all Americans surveyed said a nativity scene should be legal but not a display honoring Islam.

Americans who believe a nativity display should be legal but not a display honoring Islam tend to be women age 35 or older who are either conservative or moderate politically. This perspective does not hinge on religious belief or practice. Evangelicals, born-again Christians and people who attend worship services are not significantly more or less likely than others to say a nativity scene on city property should be legal but not a display honoring Islam.

Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research, said this research shows that the labels placed on people often don’t accurately define who they are and what they believe.

“There’s too often a stereotype in today’s world that one side -- be they defined as churchgoers, conservatives, the religious right, Republicans, evangelicals or whatever -- want to turn the U.S. into a theocracy or shove religion down everyone’s throats, while the other side -- again, be they called Democrats, the non-religious, liberals or the unchurched -- are anti-religion and fighting to make this a purely secular society,” Sellers said.

“On most of these issues, these different groups have a lot more in common than the stereotypes would suggest,” he added. “Most people simply support the right to individual religious expression, even if another person may not like that expression.”

Sellers also noted that the study can be seen as being about individual freedoms rather than just religion.

“By definition, giving rights to one person means taking rights away from another,” he said. “If I have the right to paint my house any color I want, my neighbor loses the right not to have to look at a purple house. Americans clearly come down on the side of freedoms and rights for individuals and groups, and against restrictions.

“They believe in the right of a student to express herself at graduation, or the right of a church to rent a public school gym for its services or the right of a public school teacher to wear a Star of David on his lapel,” Sellers said. “The majority feels those who don’t wish to listen to a prayer at graduation or see the Ten Commandments in a court building have the right to ignore these things but not the right to stop others from expressing themselves.”

He also cautioned that the findings from the study do not say Americans support individual rights and freedoms at all costs.

“This research is not a legal document with exact definitions of individual cases, but a generalized idea of what Americans believe,” Sellers said. “Because people believe in a teacher’s right to wear a religious symbol does not necessarily mean that would apply no matter what the symbol, how it’s displayed, etc.

“It means in general, they believe teachers should have that right of personal expression. But Americans also take into consideration how their own freedoms impact others,” he said. “For instance, one-third feel a landlord should have the right to do with his property what he wishes, while two-thirds disagree if that means a homosexual couple loses the right of equal access to housing.”

________

Based on information provided by Ellison Research.

As you may know, in Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, converting from Islam to Christianity is a crime punishable by death. While they don’t go that far, certain Indian states and Nepal erect formidable hurdles for would-be converts to Christianity.

And then there’s the United Kingdom.

In 2007, a 16-year-old girl was placed into foster care after being assaulted by a family member. Her foster mother had taken care of 80 foster kids over 10 years. She rented a farmhouse and was, by all accounts, completely committed to the well-being of the children placed under her care.

She is also a practicing Anglican Christian. This hadn’t been a problem. No one had ever accused her of taking advantage of her relationship to the girls for proselytizing.

The same is true of the 16-year-old in question. Still, the girl became interested in Christianity on her own; said that she wanted to attend church; and expressed a desire to be baptized. For the girl, baptism was a “washing away of the horrible things she had been through and a symbol of a new start.”

Well, that’s when the fur flew. You see, the girl was born a Muslim, and her baptism is regarded by Muslims as apostasy. If you’re thinking “so what? It’s not Afghanistan,” think again. But this is Britain, where a Christian nurse was recently suspended for offering to pray for her patients.

Thus, when the girl’s case manager learned about her baptism, she “flew into a rage.” Even though the foster mother hadn’t encouraged the girl’s interest in Christianity, she was removed from the list of foster care providers. A child who was in her custody was removed and she “lost the farmhouse she rented to look after vulnerable teenagers, due to the loss of income.”

Even more outrageously, government officials told the girl to stay way from church for six months!

To their credit, neither the foster mother nor the girl passively accepted the rulings. The foster mother has, with the assistance of Britain’s Christian Institute, challenged her removal, and the girl is supporting her efforts.

A spokesman for the Institute called the right to “to change or modify [one’s] religious beliefs” a “core human right in any free society.” He added that he couldn’t imagine an atheist foster parent being removed if “a Christian child in her care stopped believing in God.”

Beyond the double standard, there’s a tragic irony at work here. As journalist Peter Glover wrote in First Things, Britain’s “growing crime rate and out-of-control teenage pregnancies” has created “national anxiety” among Brits.

At the same time, as these cases illustrate, government and media elites have instituted a “determined program to abolish the influence of Christianity.” Brits shouldn’t be “astonished that a culture that set out to devalue its values should find itself awash in crime, sex, and social discord.”

And a country where government officials forbid a girl from going to church has clearly forgotten what makes social accord possible in the first place.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

It seems one man’s religious freedom is another man’s “ridiculous prejudice.”

One government official fumed that Catholic doctors were refusing to perform abortions — abortions that were perfectly legal. He wrote in a memo: “After all, these scruples are in most cases nothing but ridiculous prejudices ... One is tempted to ask: where does state authority come in these cases, or else, is the state, perhaps, not anxious to assert its authority in this particular instance?”

Well, Nazi Germany was seldom hesitant to assert its authority, even over religion and individual conscience. As described in the June/July issue of First Things, the government official I just quoted was a Nazi bureaucrat who was none-too-happy that doctors in Italy’s Lake District — a heavily Catholic region — wouldn’t perform abortions. The Nazis, you see, had legalized abortions “in countries occupied by the Germany army.” Refusal to participate in government-sanctioned procedures drew his ire.

Fast forward to today, where there is heavy debate over whether medical professionals can be exempted from performing services that violate their religious beliefs.

The comparison is fair. And disturbing. But the problem isn’t restricted to medical practice.

Just last week, the New Hampshire legislature voted down a gay “marriage” bill because the governor had the audacity to insert language that would protect clergy and religious organizations from being forced to participate in gay “marriage” ceremonies or from providing marriage-related services.

As reported in the Concord Monitor, one New Hampshire legislator opposed what he called the “totally unnecessary and harmful amendment” because it “entrenches homophobia in statute.”

So, one man’s religious freedom, it seems, is another man’s homophobia — or silly prejudice, as the Nazi official called it.

Another legislator was quoted as saying, “It is puzzling to me, why we would allow some to discriminate and others not.”

Maybe he is wondering, as the Nazi official did, “where state authority comes in this case.”

As I write in the upcoming June issue of Christianity Today — which I urge you to read — totalitarianism thrives when the state succeeds in what Hannah Arendt called the “atomization of society.” Arendt, a political theorist who fled Nazi Germany, described how totalitarian states seek to create a mass of individuals isolated from the very structures that have held civilized societies together for eons. Once individuals are alienated from families or from their faith communities or civic groups, they stand alone before the power of the state.

Is the United States teetering on the edge of totalitarianism? No.

But, should we Christians be concerned when the government seeks to strip health care workers of their right of conscience? Should we sniff out danger when a state fails to protect the religious rights of clergy, or wedding planners, or photographers who choose not to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies? Or when a new administration considers whether or not to force faith-based groups to cease what it considers “discriminatory” hiring practices?

Should we be concerned? Yes, we should.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Baptist minister John Leland played a key role in the struggle for religious liberty in both Virginia and Connecticut.

Raised in New England, Leland traveled to Virginia in 1775 to spread the Baptist message just as tensions between the established Anglican Church and the Baptists were mounting. Leland’s experience witnessing the persecution and imprisonment of his fellow Baptist preachers -- in addition to being threatened with a gun himself -- hardened his view that church and state must be separate for individuals to be free to follow their conscience in matters of religion. “Every man must give an account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that he can best reconcile to his conscience. If government can answer for individuals at the day of judgment, let men be controlled by it in religious matters; otherwise, let men be free,” he wrote.

Demanding freedom of religion, Leland became a key player in the so-called Virginia experience, where he found strong allies in James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. It was an unlikely alliance. Jefferson was skeptical of traditional Christianity; Leland was a fervent evangelical intent on spreading the “Good News” of the Gospel. Yet Leland, Madison and Jefferson shared a passionate belief in religious liberty.

They found common ground for different reasons. Like the Puritan dissident Roger Williams, Leland was convinced that the church must be protected from interference and incursions of the state; he opposed any form of state support of religion. Jefferson believed that it was the state that needed protection from overzealous clergymen and organized religious groups.

Leland became a pivotal supporter of James Madison and helped win Baptist support for Madison’s election to the First Congress, where Madison drafted what would become the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

In 1791, Leland moved back to New England, where the Congregational Church still maintained its place as the established, preferred church in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Leland fought to end religious establishment in both states and saw Connecticut end establishment in 1818 and Massachusetts in 1833.

An ardent supporter of Thomas Jefferson, Leland became famous for his media-savvy strategy to signal the Baptists’ support of the newly elected president in 1801: the gift of a giant wheel of cheese. Reportedly made from the milk of 900 Republican cows, the cheese measured 4 feet in diameter, 13 feet in circumference, and weighed 1,235 pounds. Emblazoned on its red crust was Jefferson’s favorite motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” As the giant cheese made the monthlong journey from western Massachusetts to Washington, D. C., pundits lampooned, ridiculed and celebrated the “mammoth cheese.” On Jan. 1, 1802, Jefferson welcomed Leland and his flamboyant gift into White House. Two days later, Leland delivered the Sunday sermon in the House of Representatives, with the president in attendance.

Leland’s belief in full separation of church and state would lead him to denounce the notion of the United States as a Christian nation. In A Chronicle of His Time in Virginia, Leland wrote:

“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. ... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

Religious liberty, as a bedrock freedom, should be embraced and celebrated by every American. But in our contentious and secularizing culture, it in increasingly viewed as suspect, even harmful, especially as it relates to anything dealing with the intersection of evangelical Christianity and the public arena. While there have been important religious liberty victories at the Supreme Court, the court of public opinion often seeks ways to automatically belittle the issue at hand as destructive to the common good.

What happened in Tennessee?

Recently, religious liberty was haphazardly equated with Christian Nationalism in what can only be called a very superficial, cynical misinterpretation of a bedrock provision tied to the Constitution’s First Amendment. In a column for CNN, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons and Maggie Siddiqi engage in generalizations and grand pronouncements that are common in our culture wars rhetoric, especially against principles such as religious liberty which are viewed suspiciously as a means of harming others.

What’s the crux of their argument? According to Fitzsimmons and Siddiqi, and reported also in The Washington Post, a Jewish couple from Tennessee was denied participation in a foster care certification program that receives state funding because the organization — the Holston United Methodist Home for Children — overseeing the training only fosters and adopts to parents who agree with their statement of faith. To complicate matters, to facilitate the out-of-state adoption the couple sought, Holston was the only agency near their home in the county where they reside that offered the necessary foster-to-adopt training for out-of-state placements.

A statement from Brad Williams, the president of Holston, is quoted in The Washington Post noting how the organization is fully in compliance with Tennessee law, which protects religiously-affiliated adoption and foster care agencies, and the U.S. Constitution: “Holston Home places children with families that agree with our statement of faith, and forcing Holston Home to violate our beliefs and place children in homes that do not share our faith is wrong and contrary to a free society.”

However, that did not stop the couple from fostering to adopt. The article reveals that the couple in question were still able to foster-to-adopt through other agencies and are doing just that.

The problem with the article’s framing

Rather than let a Christian organization be true to its convictions, progressive culture warring now acts to make Christians an example of what happens when you stand true to your convictions: Face litigation and cultural harassment. The couple in question, and others who joined them, have filed a lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services accusing the government of discriminating against them.

The authors of the column go on to tie religious freedom of the sort protected by Tennessee as “Christian Nationalism.” “Make no mistake: Christian nationalism is the opposite of religious freedom,” the authors write. “What these right-wing actors advocate for is not religious freedom, but rather the ability of some Christians to be exempted from laws that don’t conform to their theology.” And then comes the litany of civic vices all traceable to Christian Nationalism: anti-LGBT views, white supremacy, and anti-Semitism.

There are several problems related to the authors’ framing of their argument. But first, let’s acknowledge a point of potential agreement. To the extent that “Christian Nationalism” is an identifiable set of beliefs that intends to tell others they are less American because they are not Christian, well, then, I would agree that that use of Christianity is toxic. But appeals to Christian Nationalism are rarely framed to mean only that. Most appeals to discredit Christian Nationalism frame any sort of conservative Christian concern as an identifiable subset of the larger Christian Nationalism category and therefore, disqualified. The authors are guilty of doing just this in a sort of progressive genetic fallacy — refusing to evaluate the argument but just casting blame on a nebulous connection between religious liberty and “Christian Nationalism”.

To the extent that Christian Nationalism is a convenient label used to dismiss conservative Christianity’s concerns about institutional integrity altogether, then the authors are just as guilty of using their religion to exclude others as well. To be clear, Graves-Fitzsimmons and Saddiq’s appeals to their own religious identity is just as much a form of “nationalism” insofar as it is used to forge a template for normative and non-normative interaction in the public square.

Christianity has a long history of demonstrating social concern that animates Christians to care, for example, the poor, orphans, and the preborn. Lazy, broad-brush, and cynical appeals to Christian Nationalism fail to differentiate how theology can and ought to function in democratically appropriate ways. Seen in this light, accusations of Christian Nationalism are an empty shibboleth used to discredit the concerns of evangelical Christians.

To frame religious liberty the way the authors have typifies the careless use of the term. It paints Christians as insidious cultural actors while fundamentally misunderstanding the reciprocal nature of religious liberty. The logic that protects the Christian adoption and foster care agency to operate according to their convictions also protects the Jewish, Muslim, or Mormon-based adoption and foster care agency as well.

Interestingly, the authors cite my friend and ERLC Research Fellow Paul Miller’s research on Christian Nationalism. I reached out to Miller and asked him whether he agreed the authors’ appeal to his work is a correct appropriation of his work. He replied that it was not. According to Miller, “The right of private associations to define themselves exclusively has nothing to do with an effort to define the nation the same way.” In a longer tweet thread, Miller responded to the authors’ framing.

Miller’s thread is outstanding and offers the careful nuance missing in Graves-Fitzsimmons and Saddiqi. Rather than scoring cheap points, Miller demonstrates what is and is not at stake. There’s a clear categorical difference between using Christianity to exclude others from participating in a national identity and Christian institutions being committed to Christian principles that animate their social involvement.

All this is to show that accusations of “Christian Nationalism” does not a Christian Nationalist make. Obscuring important constitutional principles in service to lazy labeling does no service to the common good; all it does is undermine it.

From the earliest days of English colonization in the 17th Century, America was a land of many religious faith traditions. Out of this rich diversity, American notions of religious tolerance as well as the strong desire to separate church and state would emerge. At the same time, however, some early American faith traditions initially followed exclusionary policies that rejected ideals of religious equality, notably among New England Calvinists.

Religious Diversity in the American Colonies

Massachusetts was settled by Puritans and Separatist Pilgrims. Following John Calvin’s theological system, Puritans adhered to the “Covenant of Grace” and enforced a strict theocracy that rejected frivolous activities, Sunday recreation, and even holidays like Christmas. Puritans were to be a “visible kingdom” on earth, according to their governor, John Winthrop. Detractors were banished from the community or left of their own accord.

In the Chesapeake Bay colony of Virginia, the official religion was the Church of England. Sunday attendance was mandatory by everyone in the colony, whether they subscribed to Anglicanism or not. Here also the church held civil powers and received support from the state. Catholics could not act as judges in Virginia courts nor hold political offices. After the Revolution, the Church of England became the Episcopal Church, shedding its identity with British influences.

New Amsterdam was the chief colonial commercial center of the Netherlands until the Anglo-Dutch wars of the mid to late 17th century ceded it to Britain. Under the first Governor, Peter Stuyvesant, all Protestant faith traditions were welcome. A boatload of Jews seeking refuge, however, was turned away by the governor, his reasons couched in commercial considerations.

Pennsylvania was the land of Quakers. Founded by William Penn, the colony grew out of the city of “brotherly love,” Philadelphia. Protestants of all stripes, particularly those of Pietistic background, found a welcome in Penn’s Woods. This included the “sectarian” Pietists such as Mennonites, the Amish, Moravians, and Dunkers or Brethren. So-called “Churchly Pietists” like Lutherans.

Dr. Francis Daniel Pastorius brought significant numbers of German Protestants to Pennsylvania, founding Germantown. In 1688, he authored a declaration condemning slaveholding. This was the first such protest in the colonies against slavery in American History.

Other Religions in the Colonies

Following religious upheavals in France, Huguenots or French Calvinists fled to North America seeking a safe haven to practice their faith. Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere came out of the Huguenot tradition. In Maryland, Cecilius Calvert (Lord Baltimore), established a colony in 1634 for Catholics, although most settlers tended to be non-Catholic.

Scandinavian Lutherans settled in Delaware while Protestant Scots-Irish found their way into the back country of the Carolinas. At least six of the original colonial attempts were made in the name of religion: Plymouth, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.

By the early 18th century, the First Great Awakening would galvanize many colonists as revivals swept New England and the Middle Colonies. John Wesley traveled the colonies preaching a message that would build the Methodist Church in America. Puritanism would give way to the Congregationalist traditions. By the time of the Revolution, Mother Ann Lee arrived, building an Adventist community known as Shakers that would thrive well into the next century.

Legacy of Colonial Religious Diversity

From these earliest expressions of faith, a long religious tradition emerged and expanded over the next two hundred years of American history. Frequently changed or redirected during periods of “Awakenings” or spiritual revivals that were nationally universal, the unique and peculiar nature of American faith traditions can be traced back to the earliest days when persecuted Europeans seized an opportunity to practice their beliefs without the fear of reprisal.

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Sources:

Alan Taylor, American Colonies (New York: Penguin/Viking Press, 2001)

It is official: theological literacy in America has reached a new low. This was established Jan. 17, 2011, when new Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley created a firestorm of controversy through his comments at a Martin Luther King Day speech in the Montgomery church where King once preached. Speaking to a diverse gathering at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, Bentley dared to appeal for the conversion of his hearers. In today’s politically correct climate, that was taken as a scandalous act.

After clarifying that he was color-blind and that it was imperative for Alabamians “to love and care for one another,” Bentley proceeded to make an appeal for his hearers to embrace Christianity. According to Fox News, the governor said, “There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in[to] God’s family like I have, and like you have if you’re a Christian and if you have been saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers.” According to ABC News, Bentley went on to press his appeal: “Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I’m telling you, you’re not my brother and you’re not my sister, and I want to be your brother.”

Not that long ago, it would have been quickly recognized that the governor was using the family imagery of the New Testament. This metaphor for salvation flows from a central doctrine of the Christian faith: that everyone needs to be regenerated, or “born again.” Bentley was echoing the words and theology of John the Apostle, who wrote: “But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

The reaction that followed Gov. Bentley’s remarks indicates almost no trace of recognition of the biblical background for his comments. Jewish groups said they felt “disenfranchised” by his words. An American Hindu group said the words were “intolerant, repulsive and wholly unacceptable.” David Silverman, representing American Atheists, said Bentley’s words were “disgusting and bigoted and reinforce Alabama’s reputation for being backward and bigoted.”

Clearly, given the context, the governor was not speaking about extending civil rights only to a select group, whether that group is identified by class, race or religion. Nor is there any indication that he “condemned the beliefs of non-Christians,” as a FoxNews.com article summarized the matter. What he did was express his conviction -- in the pulpit of a Christian church no less -- that the Bible is correct when it says that the only path of reconciliation between a Holy God and sinful man is found by faith in the only Savior of mankind, Jesus Christ.

This is the single most scandalous teaching of Christianity today: We preach that salvation is available to all, but only through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross. An ABC News article reported that the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League centered their criticism on exactly this basis. Bill Nigut, the ADL’s regional spokesperson, said: “On the day that he is sworn in as governor, he’s sending a statement to the public saying if you’re not Christian, you can’t be with me. From our point of view, that is proselytizing for Christianity and comes very close to a violation of the First Amendment.”

Gov. Bentley has since apologized for giving offense with his words. Perhaps he realized that when there is no biblical literacy, there would be no way to explain his comments. But the truth that salvation is exclusively found in Jesus still remains and the cross will continue to be a stumbling block to the pride of men. As a Christian, I am happy to be a fellow American with Jews, Hindus, atheists and more, but I do believe in the necessity of the new birth.

The great evangelist George Whitefield was reportedly criticized for always preaching on but one theme -- the new birth. Perhaps it is time Christians in America return to that emphasis today. Accepted or rejected, Jesus still spoke the truth when He said, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

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Paul Brewster is pastor of Ryker’s Ridge Baptist Church in Madison, Indiana.

Two women who converted from Islam to Christianity in Iran were expelled from the country in May 2010. Rostampour and Amirizadeh were arrested in March the previous year on charges of anti-state activity and for “taking part in illegal gatherings.” In other words, they participated in house church activities. They were detained in the notorious Evin prison, a facility known for its human rights violations and capital punishment, and were psychologically abused.

In prison, the two were pressured to renounce their new Christian faith and to return to Islam. But they repeatedly refused. During a court hearing, they told the judge, “We love Jesus,” “Yes, we are Christians,” and “We will not deny our faith.”

It was then that they had a new charge leveled against them: apostasy. The penalty is death. So their expulsion was actually a merciful action by the Iranian government. Many Christians living in Islamic states face similar persecution.

A recent episode of the “Diane Rehm Show,” one of the most listened-to public radio programs in the country, featured a conversation with Sandra Fluke. Fluke, as you may recall, is the former Georgetown Law School student who testified before Congress in favor of the HHS mandate. She was then turned into a kind of “martyr” when Rush Limbaugh made outrageous comments about her personal life.

Not surprisingly, Fluke defended the HHS mandate on the “Diane Rehm Show” as well. Nothing especially noteworthy here.

What is noteworthy, although not surprising, is the grounds on which Fluke justified the infringement of religious freedom: the right of women to bodily autonomy and the benefits to society from universal, subsidized contraception.

It’s noteworthy not because it represents something new, but on the contrary, it represents something as old as the modern state itself.

This is the conclusion of a fascinating and important article on the “First Things” website written by Patrick Deneen, a professor of Political Science at Notre Dame.

The title of the article, “President Obama’s Campaign for Leviathan,” a reference to philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ book of that name, does the piece a disservice by suggesting that the problem is of recent vintage. That’s not at all the case.

As Deneen tells us, “the origin of the [HHS] mandate lies in an impulse that can be dated back to the beginnings of the modern era and the rise of the state.” If your history is a bit rusty, the beginnings of the modern era date back to the early-to-middle seventeenth century.

The “impulse” Deneen is referring to is the way that the modern state, as described by Hobbes, poses as a kind of “liberator.” In this case, the one being “liberated” is the individual. What he — or in this case, she — is being liberated from is interference, or even the fear of interference, from other individuals. The “liberation” offered by the modern state is the freedom to “pursue his or her own ends” as he or she sees fit.

In other words, personal autonomy.

Of course, there’s a catch: in exchange for being liberated, individuals must pledge their primary allegiance to the state. Every other traditional allegiance — to family, church and community — is seen as secondary and voluntary. They have no authority over us apart from what we choose to let them have, which, practically-speaking, means none at all, since we can always change our minds.

In this telling, religion is less than a private matter — it’s an individual one. Religious teachings about, well, anything, can bind the individual’s conscience, but any larger applicability is dependent on whether it meets the state’s interests.

It was this vision of the modern state that set in motion the forces that, over time, led to what the late Richard John Neuhaus called the “naked public square.” I say “over time,” because the kind of secularization Deneen wrote about unfolded gradually. But while the American founders, for the most part, viewed religion and religious freedom as vital for the maintenance of self-government, the seeds of secularization were present at the birth of the republic.

Those seeds have sprouted in full. Fluke’s justification for the HHS mandate is, consciously or not, straight out of Hobbes’ playbook: religious freedom sacrificed in the name of personal autonomy and allegiance to the state.

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Copyright (c) 2012 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.