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Did father really know best?

Posted by :admin On : July 25, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Marriage

Father Knows Best was a late 1950s television program that depicted an idealized typical middle class family composed of a wise and loving father Jim Anderson, housewife and mother Margaret who was a voice of reason and patience, and three good kids (two teenagers and one pre-teen) whose comedic trials and troubles while growing up provided the basis for most of the weekly plotlines. In the end, Jim with Margaret’s help, would provide the needed sage advice and words of encouragement to whichever of his three children needed it.

Over a half century later, the iconic Anderson family portrayed a different time in America and is considered quaint if not laughable by a modern culture overwhelmed by a humanistic interpretation of the world as it should be. Now, the entertainment media consistently portrays the father figure as an inept buffoon of marginal importance if not irrelevant to the family. In spite of the modern belief in the fiction of the typical 1950s Anderson-type family, it is the humanistic view that is an anomaly, abnormality, or even a perversion that is a stain on the pages of the history of marriage and family.

Stephanie Coontz wrote in her book Marriage, a History, that the male breadwinner/full-time housewife marriages that were the standard in America and Western Europe of the 1950s and 1960s were not a brief historical oddity. Coontz argues that such male-female role characterization was the culmination of a trend that had been growing since the late eighteenth century. For over 150 years there had been continuous movement toward and development of the once radical concept that love should be the basis for marriage and that the marital decision process should be controlled by the couple considering marriage.[1] These dramatic changes began in the eighteenth century and were embraced by both the humanistic and Christian worldviews. However, the meaning and implementation of these changes would become a battleground in the war between the humanistic and Christian worldviews.[2]

The roles of men and women throughout history remainded relatively unchanged. Generally, men in all cultures and times have been the defenders of and providers for the family whereas women have been the nurturers and care givers for husband and children. Whether civilizations are modern or ancient, advanced or primitive, the complementary roles of husbands and wives along the lines just described will be present. Although those roles may or may not have finite and sharp distinctions (depending on the culture and time in history), the basic defender-provider/nurturer-care giver dichotomy remains a constant.[3]

The disappearance of the roles of men and women

The roles of men and women were defined and enhanced by the marriage relationship and made possible the enduring nuclear family unit. During the age of the Enlightenment and in particular the eighteenth century, advances toward the modern nuclear family would also bring dangers that would threaten its survival. These dangers included a more secular view of marriage and sexual relationships propagated by the tide of humanist thought and influence that swept through the nineteenth century.[4] By the 1960s and for the first time in history, the ideal of marriage came under direct attack by social engineers who “…believe a lifelong vow of fidelity is unrealistic or oppressive, especially to women…[and] marriage and family ties were…potential threats to individual fulfillment as a man or woman. The highest forms of human needs, contended proponents of the new psychologies, were autonomy, independence, growth, and creativity,” and marriage was considered a hindrance to fulfilling these human needs.[5]

In 1963 Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique whose theme centered on the supposed alienation and meaninglessness experienced by the typical housewife.[6] Friedan’s shot across the bow of traditional marriage and family eventually led to the establishment of the National Organization of Women three years later. NOW’s 1966 Statement of Purpose was clear in its efforts to redesign the role of women in American society (and by implication the roles of men and children).

NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women…must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential…it is no longer either necessary or possible for women to devote the greater part of their lives to child-rearing…True equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of child care centers, which will make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown…We reject the assumptions that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman’s world and responsibility—hers, to dominate—his to support…We will seek to open a reexamination of laws and mores governing marriage and divorce…We are similarly opposed to all policies and practices—in church, state, college, factory, or office—which, in the guise of protectiveness, not only deny opportunities but also foster in women self-denigration, dependence, and evasion of responsibility, undermine their confidence in their own abilities and foster contempt for women.[7] (emphasis added)

At its core, the feminist view of the roles of men and women in marriage and family is essentially humanistic which differs markedly from the Christian worldview.

Humanistic worldview

The humanistic worldview and its values focus on the individual person and his/her independence, freedom, self- actualization, autonomy, growth, and creativity. Hence, marriage becomes secondary to the individual and is at best a contractual arrangement devoid of the requirements of covenantal “self-giving” as it interferes with humanistic values…Further, marriage is only one of several relational choices open to the individual. Marriage is not central or necessary for nurturing and the transmission of moral and cultural values to children. The pair-bonding elements of monogamy and permanency are individual decisions and not cultural universals.

Christian worldview

The supreme reflection of God’s image in humankind is in the marriage relationship followed by family. The roles of husband and wife and father and mother (monogamous married couple living with their children) are not societal constructs. The surface patterns and functioning of family may vary markedly in various cultures and societies down through the ages. However, the divinely ordered family structure is intrinsically a part of the fundamental identity of the family in every society and for all time. It is one of those universals or permanent things that are imbedded in the foundation of creation.[8] (emphasis in original)

Essentially, feminists view marriage as a zero-sum game in which gain by one person or side results in a loss by another person or side. In life there are only winners and losers—takers or givers. This is the humanistic worldview in which self is exalted at the expense of relationship. But life is not a zero-sum game. The ordered marital and family structure as reflected in the Christian worldview is a universal which focuses on giving, other-directedness, and relationship.

Not only is life not a humanist zero-sum game, playing the game leads to loss for the whole of society. When humanists and their feminist followers attempt to change the roles of men and women through a change of rules and mores regarding marriage, they discover the inflexibility of the marriage universal. Such changes have led to illegitimacy, cohabitation, divorce, fatherlessness, single-family households, and poverty in which the children face a rootless quest for meaning in life.

Did Jim Anderson always know best? No. But together Jim and Margaret Anderson usually got it right when it came to marriage, family, and life in general. In the Christian worldview, the complementariness of the roles of men and women in the marriage relationship is based on differences. Just as the differences make sexual union possible, the emotional and psychological differences of the marriage partners complement and complete each other, and the union becomes stronger than its parts. It is when the humanists attempt to erase the complementary and unique roles of men and women that marriage, family, and society suffer.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Coontz, Stephanie, Marriage, a History, (New York: Penguin Group, 2005), pp. 4-5.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for the Central Cultural Vision in America, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 323.
[3] Ibid., p. 323.
[4] Ibid., p. 325.
[5] Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage, (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 1.
[6] “The Founding of NOW,” National Organization of Women website,
http://www.now.org/history/the_founding.html (accessed July 16, 2014).
[7] “The National Organization for Women’s 1966 Statement of Purpose,” National Organization of Women, http://now.org/about/history/statement-of-purpose/ (accessed July 16, 2014).
[8] Johnson, p. 391.

Mainstream Environmentalism – The Dark Side – Part II

Posted by :admin On : July 18, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

The unifying element between mainstream and radical environmentalism is the status or position of human beings in nature’s hierarchy. In Part I we noted that this unifying belief is sometimes called “deep ecology” by which is meant “a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans and nature.”[1] This false concept of the value of human beings has its roots in humanism, one of two worldviews contending for dominance in Western civilization and particularly America, the other worldview being Christianity.

Modern environmentalism and its humanistic worldview

This humanistic worldview offers two pillars upon which environmentalists rest their efforts. First, life is the product of a long evolutionary process of nature. Corliss Lamont was one of the twentieth century’s leading humanists and author of The Philosophy of Humanism. Lamont brings together all of the variations and branches of humanist thought under the title of naturalism.

Naturalism considers that human beings, the earth, and the unending universe of space and time are all parts of one great Nature. The whole of existence is equivalent to Nature and outside of Nature nothing exists. This metaphysics has no place for the supernatural, no room for superphysical beings or a supermaterial God, whether Christian or non-Christian in character, from whom we can obtain favors through prayer or guidance through revelation. But the adherents of Naturalism recognize and indeed rejoice in our affinity with the mighty Nature that brought us forth…[2]

It is from naturalism that springs forth the environmental movement’s current adulation of “…mighty Nature that brought us forth…” and in which we “…are all parts of one great nature.” But such beliefs require that we jettison belief in the supernatural and the specialness of man’s creation. In other words, humans are no more important than other species which requires a new view of the relationship between humans and nature which is articulated in the numerous environmental laws, regulations, and restrictions to enforce the ordinariness of humans.

The second pillar of environmentalism is that man has the ability to solve his problems through science and reason and without help from God. Modern concepts of humanism emerged from eighteenth century Enlightenment which “…promoted the belief that critical and autonomous human reason held the power to discover the truth about life and the world, and to progressively liberate humanity from the ignorance and injustices of the past.”[3] But Charles Colson has identified the singular riff in the humanist reverence for both progressivism and naturalism and has labeled them the optimistic and pessimistic sides of the same coin. With the rise of science and technology during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, humanist philosophy optimistically exalted the ability of humans to solve their problems without God. Human reason allowed man to control his own destiny.[4] However, any student of world history over the last two hundred years will agree that man’s ability to solve his problems without God has failed miserably.

So what is the humanist to do? As humanist optimism fades to pessimism that man can fix his own problems through evolutionary progressivism, the humanist overlords intercede to save man and nature from man himself. Environmentalism is once again man’s attempt to control all the variables without God or even knowing what the variables are or the impact of the unintended consequences resulting from their efforts. Man’s solutions for the environment almost invariably come at great cost of time, money, and freedom to humankind and often at great cost to the ecosystem they propose to protect. “In today’s clash between two forms of humanism, Christianity can offer a balanced alternative.[5]

Tactics of environmentalism’s activists

The early history of the Sierra Club illustrates the tension between the worldviews of biblical Christianity and humanism with regard to nature and the environment. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln had originally set aside a portion of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California in a public trust under the jurisdiction of that state. Efforts by naturalist John Muir to restrain local interests and curb development of areas in and around the Yosemite Valley led to a shift of control of the area to the federal government and the establishment of Yosemite National Park. Muir’s successful efforts to bring the area under federal jurisdiction led directly to the founding of the Sierra Club in May 1892 with the expressed purpose to protect the new park. From the very beginning of the club there was a tension between utilitarian conservation as directed by Gilford Pinchot, the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, and the aesthetic preservation of Muir and the Sierra Club. This tension between the two dissimilar environmental philosophies and tactics would continue for decades.[6]

As Muir and the Sierra Club began promoting its philosophies and exerting its influence, the club’s leaders learned two important lessons for successful environmental activism: first, the need to build a broad base of membership through the establishment of chapters far from local and even state boundaries, and second, “the need to elevate local or regional preservation issues to the national agenda to overcome the entrenched political power of local interests.”[7] Over one hundred years later, we see the success of these tactics as the environmental movement has indoctrinated the federal government, academia, and science with its humanistic approach to the environment and has influenced the enactment of environmental policies and practices that fit its humanistic worldview.

Be it Smokey the Bear and fire prevention, recycling campaigns, or cleaning up trash at a local park, few elementary school rooms in America are devoid of worthwhile and reasonable instruction with regard to conserving and protecting the environment. These efforts are in agreement with the Christian worldview that we are stewards and conservators of the earth and its environment. However, these early efforts at stewardship and conservation are used by environmental activists to condition children to accept the larger and more radical message and agenda of environmental activists and their humanistic worldview. This normalization or reasonableness of what was once thought radical is a standard practice in the humanistic attack on the larger culture (e.g., acceptance of homosexuality, abortion, gay marriage, and co-habitation). This was a favorite tactic used by David Brower, the reputed father of the modern environmental movement. Brower described the increasingly radical direction of his environmental activism throughout his life.

The Sierra Club made the Nature Conservancy look reasonable. I founded Friends of the Earth to make the Sierra Club look reasonable. Then I founded Earth Island Institute to make Friends of the Earth look reasonable. Earth First! now makes us look reasonable. We’re still waiting for someone else to come along and make Earth First! look reasonable.[8]

However, when one removes the façades of many of these seemingly reasonable environmental organizations, the deep ecology dark side is revealed. And however successful the environmental movement is in promoting the supposed reasonableness of its philosophy, its deep ecology dark side remains immersed in a false and destructive worldview, and its efforts will continue to fail as it has over the last one hundred years.

Charles Colson succinctly captures the dilemma of humanists and their environmental activist cohorts as well as the solution.

The lesson is clear: Humanism in any form is not only arrogant but mistaken. We are not God and we cannot control the variables—or even foresee them. The solution to our environmental problems must be found elsewhere: in the biblical teaching that God made human beings to be stewards over creation. That means that God intended us to develop the potential in creation through industry and technology. But it also means creation is not ours to misuse for our own purposes. We are responsible to someone higher than ourselves for how we treat creation.[9]

From Colson’s observations we see the fundamental difference between the biblical prescription of stewardship and conservation and the hammer of humanistic environmentalism that devalues and controls man through worship of the creation instead of the creator.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1]“deep ecology,” Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20ecology (accessed July 7, 2014).
[2] Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, 8th Edition, (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1997), p. 35.
[3]Christian Smith, ed., The Secular Revolution, (Berkley, California: University of California Press, 2003), p. 54.
[4]Charles Colson with Nancy R. Pearcey, A Dance with Deception, (Dallas, Texas: Word Publishing, 1993) pp. 223-224.
[5] Ibid., p. 224.
[6] Christopher J. Bosso, Environment, Inc., (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005), pp. 23-24.
[7] Ibid., p. 24.

Mainstream Environmentalism – The Dark Side – Part I

Posted by :admin On : July 11, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Humanism, Worldview

According to his website, Finland’s Pentti Linkola is “…an ecological activist of the most serious kind: those who believe humans must set aside individual desires in order to preserve nature.”[1] The 82 year old Mr. Linkola’s eco-fascism includes extreme population control measures. His objectives and methods become clear when we read his thoughts on protecting the environment.

What to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who love and respect life will take the ship’s axe and sever the extra hands that cling to the sides. (emphasis added)

If the present amount of Earth’s population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then…birth giving must be licensed. To enhance population quality, genetically or socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth licenses can be allowed to families of quality.

In this time and this part of the world we are heedlessly hanging on democracy and parliamentary system, even though these are the most mindless and desperate experiments of the mankind…In democratic countries the destruction of nature and sum of ecological disasters has accumulated most…Our only hope lies in strong central government and uncompromising control of the individual citizen.[2]

David Brower (1914-2000) is considered as the father of the modern environmental movement and whose message has helped recruit generations of environmental activists. He was the executive director of the Sierra Club from 1952 to 1969 and whose membership increased from 7,000 to 70,000 during his tenure. Later he founded Friends of the Earth and Earth Island Institute. A three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, his accomplishments are listed as fighting dams in the Grand Canyon and Dinosaur National Park, campaigns to establish ten new national parks and seashores, and significant work in passing the Wilderness Act of 1964 which restricted usage of millions of acres of public lands.[3]

Many may object to linking Brower’s environmentalism with Linkola’s brand of eco-fascism; however, most American’s would be shocked that Brower’s beliefs are remarkably similar to Linkola’s in the callous disregard for the human element in environmentalists’ efforts to advance their ecological agenda.

While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind.

Childbearing [should be] a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license…All potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.

Loggers losing their jobs because of Spotted Owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau shut down.[4]

In Mr. Brower’s world, war casualties, freedom to bear children, and loggers are the equivalent of touching mountains and wilderness areas, unlicensed childbirth, and death camp executioners. It is these statements we see the similar worldviews of Brower’s mainstream and Linkola’s radical environmentalism.

Based on Linkola and Bower’s similarity of views as to the value of human beings in relation to nature, it becomes very difficult if impossible to distinguish between mainstream environmentalism depicted by Smokey the Bear and lovable dolphins as opposed to radical environmentalism. The foundation of both rests on a philosophy often called “deep ecology” which is “a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans and nature.”[5] In reality, the kid-friendly icons and school programs offered by the environmental movement are mere cover for the real agenda of indoctrination of children into a worldview that leads to the enslavement of humanity to the god of nature and its humanistic enforcers.

One example of environmental activists’ deep ecology that elevates nature over man is their efforts to have the federal government declare the greater sage grouse as an endangered species. The obscure chicken-sized bird is known for its mating dance. The government’s proposal will have the effect of limiting hunting, energy exploration, and ranching on 165 million acres of the bird’s habitat spread over eleven western states. This acreage is in addition to 400,000 acres that the federal government has already declared off-limits for development to protect the bird. Opponents state that the federal limits will cost between 5,000 and 31,000 jobs, but local and state efforts to protect the bird’s habitat will avoid most of the job losses. Hinting at a much wider agenda, several environmental groups say the bird is a merely a stand-in as a means of preserving a vanishing Western ecosystem.[6]

The environmental movement’s legal and regulatory demagoguery not only costs thousands of jobs but is so uncompromising in its eco-theology that it willingly sacrifices millions of taxpayer dollars to enforce its will even when their actions damage the very environment they profess to protect. One recent example is the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency agreement to end the Federal Excess Personal Property and Firefighter Property program which provides excess DOD vehicles to rural fire districts. Under the twenty-five year old program, 8,812 vehicles and pieces of equipment valued in excess of $150 million have been remanufactured and transferred to rural fire departments for use in wilderness areas. The U.S. Army stopped providing the vehicles in order to comply with a previously unenforced twenty-five year old agreement with the DOD and EPA originally aimed at the reduction of emissions for vehicles not meeting EPA standards. Rather than giving these to rural fire departments, these vehicles, ten years old or newer with fewer than 20,000 miles, will be destroyed. A spokesman for the Oklahoma Forestry services said the decision will expose those communities to increased risk of loss of life and property, and “The greenhouse gas emissions associated with the vehicles are marginal at best compared to emissions of an uncontrolled wildfire.” [7]

These are just two recent examples of a vast array of laws, regulations, and restrictions generated over decades by activist environmental movements in which American citizens are being subjugated to the whims and beliefs of radical environmentalists and their humanistic worldview. They have captured much of the nation’s political and regulatory machinery and insulated it from the will and wishes of the people.

The beliefs of environmental activists and the agendas of the organizations that support them have their roots in the humanism. In Part II, the foundational beliefs and tactics of the environmental movement will be examined in some detail.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Pentti Linkola,” penttilinkola.com, http://www.penttilinkola.com (accessed July 5, 2014).
[2] Ibid.
[3] “Who was David Brower?” David Brower Center. http://www.browercenter.org/about/who-was-david-brower (accessed July 5, 2014).
[4] “David Brower,” Activist Facts, https://www.activistfacts.com/person/3507-david-brower/ (accessed July 7, 2014).
[5] “deep ecology,” Merriam-Webster.com http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20ecology (accessed July 7, 2014).
[6] Nicholas Riccardi, “Bird known for mating dance may decide Senate fate,” Associated Press, July 5, 2014. http://news.yahoo.com/bird-known-mating-dance-may-decide-senate-fate-124650685–election.html (accessed July 7, 2014).
[7] Rhett Morgan, “Federal deal may hit rural fire departments hard,” Tulsa World, July 5, 2014, A11.

Freedom

Posted by :admin On : July 4, 2014
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Category: America, Archives, Christianity, Humanism

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. So began the first steps in forming a new nation. It was a typically hot summer in Philadelphia in 1776. Day after day a group of men met to argue, pray, sweat, and wonder what would be the outcome of their deliberations. Eventually, the product of their labors was the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The wording of the revered document was approved on July 2nd by the Continental Congress, and on July 4th the delegates voted to accept it. What was so valuable that these men would risk their lives for it? It was freedom.

The word “freedom” is misused much as is the word “love.” Freedom’s meaning is misunderstood and has been stretched, changed, distorted, overused, cheapened, made merchandise, used to defend or promote conflicting purposes, and co-opted for support of principles and philosophies that are inherently in opposition to its real meaning.

Why is it that human beings value freedom so much? Before we can answer, we must realize that one’s worldview will ultimately define his or her understanding of the concept of freedom. If a worldview is fundamentally flawed in that it is in conflict with truth, that worldview’s concept of freedom will also be flawed and result in bondage of some type and degree. In Western civilization there are two worldviews contending for dominance—humanism and Christianity.

A Freedom that coerces

In the humanist worldview, man is encouraged to realize his own creative talents and desires and exercise maximum individual autonomy that is free from the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. This freedom gives unbridled expression to self and senses. However, one must read the fine print in the humanists’ promises of freedom which requires individual autonomy to be consonant with social responsibility. Therefore, humanists harness an individual’s dignity, worth, and freedom to the principle of the greatest-happiness-for-the greatest-number which is hitched to the humanist belief that the highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole. Freedom of the individual is subservient to his obligations to the larger society, and those obligations are determined and defined by the humanist intellectual elite. In other words, man replaces God as the defining authority for truth, and man’s highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole and not to God.[1]

The source of true and lasting freedom

To understand the Christian worldview as it relates to freedom, we must examine God’s creation of man. Man was created with God’s divine image stamped upon him. Man has an insatiable thirst for freedom because God made man with freewill. It was necessary for man to have freewill in order for love to exist. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity. By creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. Being God, He knew the course and cost of His creation would be the death of His Son on the cross. In other words freewill and the potential for rejection of God was the penalty for the possibility of love. So it is on the earthly plane, to risk love is to risk rejection.[2] Love is a choice because man has freewill, and true love reflects the divine in that it focuses on relationships and not self.

Now we begin to see the fundamental differences between humanism and Christianity that shape the disparities of how those worldviews define freedom. In the Christian worldview, freedom simply means a lack of coercion but also implies self-restraint and deference to relational patterns revealed in the mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. True freedom is found only when an individual chooses a right relationship with God through the acceptance of Christ as one’s savior. In such relationship, man chooses to subordinate his own freewill to Christ, to accept Him, and to follow the road of freedom found in the revelation to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians. From this foundation of a right relationship with God, man can find right relationships with his fellowman in family, community, and state.

In a contrary view of freedom that exalts self, humanists attempt to release the individual from the relational patterns flowing from those same mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the subjugation of divinely ordered relational patterns to the god of self results in loneliness, pain, suffering, and loss in this life and eternity thereafter. In other words, true freedom is found in freely subduing one’s will to that of God’s will as opposed to the exaltation of self and the senses. Christ’s words in Luke’s gospel capture the essence of this seeming enigma.

…If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. [Luke 9: 23-24. RSV]

Freedom lost

In twenty-first century America, the god of self rules the day. America’s humanist masters have taken control of the nation and its institutions. Many Americans recognize there is something amiss with the country, but they take little time to look, listen, understand, and challenge the despoiling of America’s central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded. Americans are much like Esau who sold his valuable birthright for a bowl of stew, that is, he traded what was important, godly, and honorable for temporary pleasures. America’s hard-won two-hundred-plus year birthright of freedom is being willingly and rapidly surrendered to a growing legion of humanistic overlords in exchange for a bowl of entitlements, fleeting and licentious pleasures, self-centeredness, egotism, radical egalitarianism, imaginary rights, sloth, and an obsession for life-consuming leisure activities.

Fifty-six traitors to the crown signed their own death sentences and then fought to escape the hangman’s noose. They were overwhelmingly Christian in worldview, and like God in His creation of man, the Founders knew the cost of freedom as revealed in the final words of the Declaration of Independence, “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.”[3] (emphasis added)

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence paid a tremendous price for our freedom: 5 were arrested by the British as traitors, 12 had their homes looted and burned by the enemy, 17 lost their fortunes, 2 lost sons in the Continental Army, and 9 fought and died during the Revolutionary War.[4]

Edmund Burke’s famous observation of the eighteenth century still rings true today. “All that is necessary for the evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”[5] To defend America’s birthright of freedom, good and Godly men and women must once again depend on the providence of God and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to subdue the humanistic apostles of self that are enslaving the nation.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American
Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 389.
[2] Ibid, p. 158.
[3] Henry Steele Commager, Documents of American History, (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1934), p. 102.
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 144.
[5] Ibid., p. 82.