In the United States today, there are very few words that provoke as much outrage as the name of Jesus. It is being banned from graduation ceremonies, chaplains all over America are being forbidden from using His name in their prayers, and many school officials all over the nation have become absolutely fanatical about eliminating every trace of Christian expression from their schools. One elementary school in North Carolina even ordered a little six-year-old girl to remove the word “God” from a poem that she had written to honor her grandfathers. Political correctness is spreading like a cancer in this country, and our “freedom of religion” is rapidly being transformed into a guarantee of “freedom from religion” for those that hate the Christian faith.
Without a doubt, there is a war on the Christian faith in America today. It is being waged in classrooms, courtrooms and churches all over the nation.
The following is an excerpt from a speech that Rand Paul gave earlier this year…
There is a war on Christianity, not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide.
And your government, or more correctly, you, the taxpayer, are funding it.
Evidence of this war on Christianity is everywhere these days. The following are just a few examples…
-An elementary school in North Carolina ordered a little six-year-old girl to remove the word “God” from a poem that she wrote to honor her two grandfathers that had served in the Vietnam War.
-The Ohio Statehouse banned Christian pastors from using the name of Jesus when they open up the daily sessions with prayer.
-The use of the name of Jesus was also forbidden in all prayers opening sessions of the North Carolina State-House.
-Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that prayers before commission meetings in Forsyth County, North Carolina that included the name of Jesus were unconstitutional.
-Earlier this year, a Florida Atlantic University student that refused to stomp on the name of Jesus was banned from class.
-A student at Sonoma State University was ordered to take off a cross that she was wearing because someone “could be offended“.
-A teacher in New Jersey was fired for giving his own Bible to a student that did not own one.
-An open air preacher in Illinois was recently threatened with arrest for “scaring people” with the message of the gospel.
-A high school track team was disqualified earlier this year because one of the runners “made a gesture thanking God” once he had crossed the finish line.
-Volunteer chaplains for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have been banned from using the name of Jesus in their public prayers. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Chaplains all over the nation are now being banned from using the name of Jesus.
-In recent months, daredevil Nik Wallenda has walked a tightrope across Niagara Falls and has walked a tightrope across the Grand Canyon, and yet both times the mainstream media has gone out of the way to keep the name of Jesus out of news reports…
Despite Nik Wallenda’s frequent mentions of God the Father and Jesus during his high-wire crossing of Niagara Falls Friday night, an ABC News blog documenting virtually every moment of the achievement makes no mention of his verbal thanks to the Creator.
Wallenda, 33, the great grandson of legendary tightrope walker Karl Wallenda, walked across Niagara Falls on a high wire, as hundreds watched on TV at a block party in his Florida hometown of Sarasota, Fla., and millions of others tuned in for ABC television coverage.
Wallenda was fitted with a microphone during his tension-filled, 25-minute saunter at 200 feet high, and he could be heard praising God numerous times as he walked the length of four football fields from New York to Canada.
A recently released 140 page report entitled “The Survey of Religious Hostility in America” included some more examples of how Christianity is being systematically oppressed in America today…
- A federal judge threatened ‘incarceration’ to a high school valedictorian unless she removed references to Jesus from her graduation speech.
- City officials prohibited senior citizens from praying over their meals, listening to religious messages or singing gospel songs at a senior activities center.
- A public school official prevented a student from handing out flyers inviting her classmates to an event at her church.
- A public university’s law school banned a Christian organization because it required its officers to adhere to a statement of faith that the university disagreed with.
- The U.S. Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that the federal government can tell churches and synagogues which pastors and rabbis it can hire and fire.
- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs banned the mention of God from veterans’ funerals, overriding the wishes of the deceased’s families.
- A federal judge held that prayers before a state House of Representatives could be to Allah but not to Jesus.
Are you starting to get the picture?
And one of the biggest battlegrounds for religious freedom in America at the moment is the U.S. military.
Right now, there are some very powerful forces that are trying to eradicate all expressions of the Christian faith from the U.S. military. It has gotten so bad that a 23 year Air Force veteran was recently ordered to remove his Bible from his desk, and the Air Force recently came out and announced that service members are only allowed to talk about their faith if it “does not make others uncomfortable“.
The U.S. military is a far different institution than it once was. Today, political correctness rules the U.S. military.
If you doubt this, just check out this example…
Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes is a Christian chaplain currently serving in the U.S. Air Force. He is stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. As an ordained clergyman whose duties are to provide religious instruction and spiritual counseling, he has a page on the base’s website called “Chaplain’s Corner.”
Reyes recently wrote an essay entitled, “No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II.” This common saying is attributed to a Catholic priest in World War II, made famous when President Dwight D. Eisenhower said during a 1954 speech: “I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.”
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation was absolutely outraged when they heard about this. They demanded that the commander of the base, Col. Brian Duffy, do something about the “anti-secular diatribe” that Reyes had authored.
In the old days, a base commander would have had a good chuckle and then would have told the MRFF where to stick their complaint, but the old days are gone.
These days, base commanders cower subserviently before politically correct organizations such as the MRFF. Just check out what happened next…
Nonetheless, only five hours after MRFF’s complaint, the essay was removed from the website. Duffy has profusely apologized to MRFF for not stopping this religious leader from sharing religious thoughts.
But this response—which again appears to be a violation of Reyes’s First Amendment rights—is insufficient for MRFF. They said, “Faith based hate, is hate all the same,” and, “Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately punished.” (Emphasis added).
And thanks to the MRFF, special edition Bibles for service members have been banned from being sold on military bases…
Bowing to a complaint from a religious watchdog group, the Pentagon will no longer give consent for a publisher to use the official emblems of the military services on a line of Bibles sold on base exchanges.
The group claimed victory, but an association of former military chaplains is demanding that Congress overturn the Defense Department’s decision.
The Bibles, branded for each of four services as “The Soldier’s Bible,” “The Sailor’s Bible” and so on, are published by LifeWay Christian Resources’ Holman Bible Publishers, a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Bible Convention, said Chris Rodda, the senior research director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
The MRFF is a very insidious organization. It is headed up by a man named Mikey Weinstein. He has called Christians “human monsters” and “enemies of the United States Constitution“. Weinstein is convinced that sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ while in the military is “sedition and treason” and should be punished as such.
You would think that people like Weinstein would be dismissed as lunatics, but unfortunately under the Obama administration he has been brought in as a special adviser to the Pentagon.
What a crazy world that we live in.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama himself has remained completely silent as a totally innocent American citizen is being tortured in an Iranian prison. If that prisoner was a liberal activist, Obama would be moving heaven and earth to get him released. But because he is a Christian, we haven’t heard a peep out of Obama, and many Christian leaders want an explanation…
One of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders wants to know why President Obama has remained silent as Iran tortures an American pastor held captive in one of the Islamic republic’s most notorious prisons.
Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse, told Fox News the imprisonment and torture of Pastor Saeed Abedini is a blatant example of “religious intolerance.”
“Many in the international community are expressing outrage over this blatant example of religious intolerance,” Graham said. “I ask that our government do the same and demand that Pastor Saeed Abedini be released and allowed to return home to his wife and family in the United States.”
We are rapidly moving toward a time when followers of Jesus will be treated as second class citizens in America. The following are some other examples of this trend…
- A War Games scenario at Fort Leavenworth that identified Christian groups and Evangelical groups as being potential threats;
- A 2009 Dept. of Homeland Security memorandum that identified future threats to national security coming from Evangelicals and pro-life groups;
- A West Point study released by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center that linked pro-lifers to terrorism;
- Evangelical leader Franklin Graham was uninvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service because of his comments about Islam;
- Christian prayers were banned at the funeral services for veterans at Houston’s National Cemetery;
- Bibles were banned at Walter Reed Army Medical Center – a decision that was later rescinded;
- Christian crosses and a steeple were removed from a chapel in Afghanistan because the military said the icons disrespected other religions
For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled “All Over America Evangelical Christians Are Being Labeled As Extremists And Hate Groups“.
This is not what America is supposed to be about.
How quickly we have turned our backs on the values of our founders.
In a recent article, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin tried to remind us of how far we have drifted from what our founders intended…
It’s a good thing that George Washington is dead and military history effectively banished from our campuses. Otherwise, we might remember the general order Washington issued upon taking command of the embattled Continental Army–and in Boston, no less. The general “requires and expects of all officers and soldiers a punctual attendance at Divine services, to implore the blessing of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense.” In the same way, any assistant professor of government hoping to achieve tenure will likely skim over certain sections of the first president’s Farewell Address, which reads: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”
Will America be able to stand if we continue to try to push every shred of the Christian faith out of public life?
What do you think?
I am sure that a lot of people out there have some very strong opinions about all of this. Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…
