Slip-n-Slide

It is quite apparent to me that there is a concerted effort to remove all semblances of religion, and specifically the Christian faith, from not only the so-called “public square,” but from our lives as individuals. My wife and I were watching the news this evening, disturbed by a report that the governor of Rhode Island would not call a Christmas tree by its rightful name. Instead, in order to be politically correct, the tree is now referred to as a “holiday tree.”

I suppose there is an argument that such things are trivial, unimportant and not worthy of discussion. But I would disagree. There are so many attempts to eliminate religious symbols, references, and images from our daily lives that it makes my head spin, wondering when the next assault is coming.

The danger is in allowing these attempts to be successful. Incrementally we lose freedoms that were purchased for us by the blood of patriots who fought to defend our “Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” We are slipping into a gradual loss of these freedoms, as well as the marginalization of the Constitution to the point where some of our government leaders are declaring it irrelevant. Already there are those who have labeled this most splendid of transcripts as a “living document,” which sounds pretty enough, but it is what underlies it that is troubling. The concept of a “living document,” to those who are Progressives, implies it can be changed to suit the times. That type of thinking is disastrous and will lead our nation to socialism in a hurry. Even a cursory study of the history of European nations during the 20^th Century will quickly reveal their slip-n-slide into financial oblivion. This has led them to the economic crises they are all experiencing, and none of these nations seems to have a clue how to find their way out of the mess.

But I digress.

What made the United States a great nation is the blessings of God. Yet today we are steadily rejecting his involvement in our lives as a people. Certainly there are individual Americans who are honoring God with their lives, but as a nation we are disconnecting from the divine.

There is a movement at work in our nation where people are attempting to shed the responsibility of being responsible. Let me explain.

If America is to continue to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” we must uphold the laws and principles that are the foundation of our nation. When as a people we push back against those laws and principles we are intentionally fracturing that foundation.

God has certain laws in place which we cannot violate without harming ourselves both as individuals and as a nation. One of the vilest principles we have been seduced into accepting is the wanton destruction of human life through the legalization of abortion. There is no possible way to justify taking the lives of unborn babies without violating God’s basic laws of life. He made us in his image and likeness and it is not for us to destroy his creation regardless of our theological leanings or philosophical persuasions. The numbers of babies “legally” murdered in the United States since Roe v Wade in 1973 is in excess of fifty million. All the wars of America combined with the loss of American lives, including the losses in the Civil War of both Union and Confederate forces may reach nearly 1.5 million. That’s about the same number as the number of abortions performed annually.

Man’s nature being such that he does not want to be told what to do by anyone, including and especially God, there is a natural tendency to rebel against the authority of God. I remember hearing the phrase as a kid, “Laws are made to be broken.” That always seemed a strange phrase to me. To push back against laws which are in place to protect us from each other, is to invite anarchy and the ultimate loss of the very freedoms people thought they were enjoying. To liberalize our laws opens us to no end of trouble. My generation opened a veritable Pandora’s Box with the whole Hippie/Free Love philosophy that literally tore down the moral fabric that once held our nation together. We became immoral, slipping down that slope to debauchery and decadence. What seemed fun, and even the right thing to do, has proven to be a moral disaster.

On the news this week the city council of San Francisco was debating the public nudity laws, replete with protestors stripping off their clothes down to their birthday suits in the council chambers. Do we actually believe we can blatantly disregard the spiritual and moral laws of God and not suffer the consequences of our own actions? It’s a wonder that we engage in debating these immoral activities in the first place. And the list of such behavior goes on.

So, for all of man’s attempts to remove God and his influence from our lives, you can be sure that God is not going anywhere. The question that remains is: What will you do with Him?