Friday, February 10, 2012

Freedom??? (Yawn)

I have written several times about the unique nature of American freedom. History has shown us that the conception of the American experiment emerged from Christianity. I offer Original Intent by Barton and The Light and the Glory by Marshall and Manuel as my well documented supports for this statement. These two works let the Founders themselves tell of the philosophies and beliefs that inspired them.

With this kind of a conception, birthing and rearing (Christian), the U.S. launched on its way to an incredible future that included saving various peoples and the world from tyranny on several different occasions. Yes, the kind of freedom that comes from God (as defined in the Declaration) is that empowering.

Our Founders sought to establish a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" so that no one person could force their narrow views on the rest of us by fiat. All citizens including those elected to public office are to be governed by laws. It was their intent to establish the "rule of law" to prevent any one person from assuming dictatorial power.

In the past our Christian upbringing kept us vigilant against any threat to this system where we acknowledge that all men were created equal and the laws kept the playing field unbiased for all to have the same opportunity for improvement.

Since we have lost our Christian moorings, even shunned them, do we really love, admire, respect, covet, cherish our freedom? Do we appreciate the cost it came with? Do we understand how fleeting it is or how rare?

I hear one gigantic national yawn.

We have a president with the allegiance of his party that has begun the business of ruling your life through running your health care, being the sole dispenser of student loans, prosecuting only the laws they as an administration agree with (not prosecuting charges of voter fraud when they are brought by white citizens, not enforcing the DOMA legislation, by-passing immigration rules, making recess appointments while congress is not in recess...), regulating the banking system out of making loans to you, executing a monetary policy that is destroying the value of your savings, pension, salary, wages, life insurance... anything else measured in dollars, proposing legislation and policy that forces one to violate their conscience (not just the recent push for Catholic hospitals to provide contraception and abortion but also the forcing of Christian Pharmacists to dispense abortifacient drugs, the forcing of Christian public officials to write marriage licenses to gay couples, forcing Christian orphanages to place children with gay couples...) The list is ongoing and extensive.

The current administration and his party are actively destroying what is left of our Christian influence. In its wake will be a nation of government-dependent sheep seeking to avoid the rail car to the processing plant.

Moral conviction is what comes from an experience with a righteous God, a God who values human life to a degree we can hardly understand, a God who ascribes meaning and purpose to all of human experience. But I digress...

The conception of this country and what she would represent to the world was the culmination of Christian philosophy working in men who dreamed of a free nation on earth... because men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights and that AMONG these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Friends this is a Christian moral concept. Without Christianity this flavor of freedom dies.

If this administration is how it ends, well, it was our own doing.

It has been a long a glorious ride for the United States as a Christian nation. We understood and pursued good as a nation (with some missteps no doubt) with grand effect. We have delivered a world relatively free and certainly with an experience of freedom that has changed the course of human events.

Friends, Christianity will not die, but Its stalwart champion among nations may. We are in grave danger.

Seek God. Seek freedom through His truth. Seek a return to pursuing good with His guidance as a nation.

Shun those who know nothing of what is morally good. Call evil for what it is, evil. Evil is the spiritual way of saying something is harmful. It's not that hard. When you embrace something harmful, it will bring your pain. When you know something is harmful, yet compromise with it, you guarantee someone will be harmed.