The Challenge 1 July, 2004
I'm really having a
tough time getting these out lately. I
know I say that a lot lately. I do feel
bad. This one has been about 2 weeks
late I think... it started with a surprise birthday party for my wife that I
was helping to facilitate which happened on the 12th of June. She was surprised all right but I just got
bogged down in details and keeping it a secret was pretty tough. The following week we were 100% into
preparation for our mission trip with the youth from the church. There were two training dates with the kids
and Deb went out of town for 3 days with a friend. It was just hectic. Then last
week was the actual mission trip. It
was a great experience and we worked our collective behinds off every day. Our days were completely packed and by the
end of each day we were all completely exhausted. Did not even have time to pick up my Blackberry and do work email
and for those of you who know me well... that means that I was REALLY busy
cause I love my blackberry...Got home last Friday night and literally just
crashed for the whole rest of the weekend and did basically nothing... Trying to get back into a work routine this
week was hard because I've basically been doing off-sites and team building
stuff out of the office all week so far.
I just feel like I haven't stopped moving in the last few weeks. All that to say... I'm back...
The Great
Communicator
As stated above, I've been meaning to send this out
for some time now. Of course, Jesus was
"the" Great Communicator and His words are timeless to those who love
Him. Jesus words are living and active
and sharper than any two edged sword and since He is the Very WORD of God...
(see John) He is the absolute Great Communicator. But when we say that phrase "the great communicator"
folks my age automatically think of Ronald Wilson Reagan our 40th
President. With his death a few weeks
ago there was a litany of old speeches and sound bites that came out about him
and I ran across one that I'm pretty sure was not well publicized when it was
first written or a few weeks ago.
We Christians live in a free society. We are free to worship the one true God
because our founding fathers established this country on the basis of a
Judeao/Christian heritage and with the direct thought in mind that "we the
people" are given certain rights by "our Creator" first. The problem is that this heritage, the
Christian basis of our country, our very history is being taken away from us on
a daily basis. Kids come home from
school after learning about the 1st Thanksgiving and they do not
know that the Pilgrims were even a religious people who were fleeing religious
persecution! They think that
thanksgiving is about Indians and being nice to each other ONLY! The Phrase "One Nation Under God"
is being assaulted. Groups like the
Fellowship of Christian Athletes is being banned from our schools, Crosses in
symbols of city seals are being taken out because of law suits from the ACLU
and the attacks go on and on. We are
definitely not a persecuted group, we believers in Christ, here in America...
but if you look hard you will see the beginnings of that persecution bubbling
up in the actual court rooms of this country as we take the ten commandments
and all reference to Christianity out of our collective societies
consciousness. It's crazy. Our 40th President knew what was
happening and called it like he saw it in the following speech he gave in
Dallas in August of 1984. I challenge
you this week to read the entire text of this speech which our President wrote
himself almost 20 years ago and see where it stirs your heart. Read on...
"It's
wonderful to be here this morning. The past few days have been pretty busy for
all of us, but I've wanted to be with you today to share some of my own
thoughts.
These past few weeks it seems that we've all been hearing a lot of talk about
religion and its role in politics, religion and its place in the political life
of the Nation. And I think it's appropriate today, at a prayer breakfast for
17,000 citizens in the State of Texas during a great political convention, that
this issue be addressed.
I
don't speak as a theologian or a scholar, only as one who's lived a little more
than his threescore ten -- which has been a source of annoyance to some --
[laughter] -- and as one who has been active in the political life of the
Nation for roughly four decades and now who's served the past 3\1/2\ years in
our highest office. I speak, I think I can say, as one who has seen much, who
has loved his country, and who's seen it change in many ways.
I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of
our nation -- and always has -- and that the church -- and by that I mean all
churches, all denominations -- has had a strong influence on the state. And
this has worked to our benefit as a nation.
Those who created our country -- the Founding Fathers and Mothers -- understood
that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the
state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral
order is religion.
The Mayflower Compact began with the words, ``In the name of God, amen.'' The
Declaration of Independence appeals to ``Nature's God'' and the ``Creator'' and
``the Supreme Judge of the world.'' Congress was given a chaplain, and the
oaths of office are oaths before God.
James Madison in the Federalist Papers admitted that in the creation of our
Republic he perceived the hand of the Almighty. John Jay, the first Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, warned that we must never forget the God from
whom our blessings flowed.
George Washington referred to religion's profound and unsurpassed place in the
heart of our nation quite directly in his Farewell Address in 1796. Seven years
earlier, France had erected a government that was intended to be purely
secular. This new government would be grounded on reason rather than the law of
God. By 1796 the French Revolution had known the Reign of Terror.
And Washington voiced reservations about the idea that there could be a wise
policy without a firm moral and religious foundation. He said, ``Of all the
dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and
morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man (call himself a
patriot) who (would) labour to subvert these . . . finest [firmest]\1\
(FOOTNOTE) props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere Politician . . .
(and) the pious man ought to respect and to cherish (religion and morality).''
And he added, ``. . . let us with caution indulge the supposition, that
morality can be maintained without religion.''
I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without
the City of God, that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City.
Religion played not only a strong role in our national life; it played a
positive role. The abolitionist movement was at heart a moral and religious
movement; so was the modern civil rights struggle. And throughout this time,
the state was tolerant of religious belief, expression, and practice. Society,
too, was tolerant.
But in the 1960's this began to change. We began to make great steps toward
secularizing our nation and removing religion from its honored place.
In 1962 the Supreme Court in the New York prayer case banned the compulsory
saying of prayers. In 1963 the Court banned the reading of the Bible in our
public schools. From that point on, the courts pushed the meaning of the ruling
ever outward, so that now our children are not allowed voluntary prayer. We
even had to pass a law -- we passed a special law in the Congress just a few
weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after
classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no
opposition.
The 1962 decision opened the way to a flood of similar suits. Once religion had
been made vulnerable, a series of assaults were made in one court after
another, on one issue after another. Cases were started to argue against
tax-exempt status for churches. Suits were brought to abolish the words ``under
God'' from the Pledge of Allegiance and to remove ``In God We Trust'' from
public documents and from our currency.
Today there are those who are fighting to make sure voluntary prayer is not
returned to the classrooms. And the frustrating thing for the great majority of
Americans who support and understand the special importance of religion in the
national life -- the frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion
claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness.
Question: Isn't the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? [Applause]
They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.
If all the children of our country studied together all of the many religions
in our country, wouldn't they learn greater tolerance of each other's beliefs?
If children prayed together, would they not understand what they have in
common, and would this not, indeed, bring them closer, and is this not to be
desired? So, I submit to you that those who claim to be fighting for tolerance
on this issue may not be tolerant at all.
When John Kennedy was running for President in 1960, he said that his church
would not dictate his Presidency any more than he would speak for his church.
Just so, and proper. But John Kennedy was speaking in an America in which the
role of religion -- and by that I mean the role of all churches -- was secure.
Abortion was not a political issue. Prayer was not a political issue. The right
of church schools to operate was not a political issue. And it was broadly
acknowledged that religious leaders had a right and a duty to speak out on the
issues of the day. They held a place of respect, and a politician who spoke to
or of them with a lack of respect would not long survive in the political
arena.
It was acknowledged then that religion held a special place, occupied a special
territory in the hearts of the citizenry. The climate has changed greatly since
then. And since it has, it logically follows that religion needs defenders
against those who care only for the interests of the state.
There are, these days, many questions on which religious leaders are obliged to
offer their moral and theological guidance, and such guidance is a good and
necessary thing. To know how a church and its members feel on a public issue
expands the parameters of debate. It does not narrow the debate; it expands it.
The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's
foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need
religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government
needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can
bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the
citizens, the more decent the state. If you practice a religion, whether you're
Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or guided by some other faith, then your private
life will be influenced by a sense of moral obligation, and so, too, will your
public life. One affects the other. The churches of America do not exist by the
grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state.
The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their
own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims.
We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no
worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its
theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of
belief. All are free to believe or not believe; all are free to practice a
faith or not. But those who believe must be free to speak of and act on their
belief, to apply moral teaching to public questions.
I submit to you that the tolerant society is open to and encouraging of all
religions. And this does not weaken us; it strengthens us, it makes us strong.
You know, if we look back through history to all those great civilizations,
those great nations that rose up to even world dominance and then deteriorated,
declined, and fell, we find they all had one thing in common. One of the
significant forerunners of their fall was their turning away from their God or
gods.
Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the
conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that
tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of
the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we
ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone
under.
If I could just make a personal statement of my own -- in these 3\1/2\ years I
have understood and known better than ever before the words of Lincoln, when he
said that he would be the greatest fool on this footstool called Earth if he
ever thought that for one moment he could perform the duties of that office
without help from One who is stronger than all.
I thank you, thank you for inviting us here today. Thank you for your kindness
and your patience. May God keep you, and may we, all of us, keep God.
Thank
you."
Until next week time ~ Dave
To make comments, to suggest topics you'd like me to tackle, to get past
devotionals, or to be added to this weekly "devotional email" please
write to: Dave Hansen at philip419@earthlink.net