On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the democratically elected chancellor of Germany. Almost immediately Herman Goring began reordering society along National Socialists (Nazi) lines. By fall of that year the Jewish community would understand the full scope of what Goring called “merely an administrative change.” Jewish businesses were boycotted. Jews could not hold civil service jobs or be patent lawyers, and doctors, dentists, and dental technicians were not allowed to practice in hospitals or offices connected with state-run insurance. Anti-Jewish laws were expanded to include university professors and lecturers. By October Jews were banned from journalism and all entertainment and cultural activities including literature, the arts, theater, and film.[1]
Given hindsight, Tulsa World associate editor Mike Jones (“War talk”)[2] would probably consider these actions a war on Judaism. However, Jones insists there is not a war on Christianity in spite of a vast amount of media coverage reporting similar restrictions on Christians throughout America because their beliefs and practices of their faith.
Christian-owned business are being boycotted, fined, and/or driven out of business because of their owners’ faith. Because of their Christian beliefs, university students have been expelled or blocked from entering certain professions, professors have been denied jobs or promotions, health care professionals are being fired, public employees are being fired, media professionals have been fired or denied jobs, and military chaplains are being demoted or dismissed from the armed services. Pastors have been threatened with criminal prosecution because of the content of their sermons. The political and cultural parallels of the assault on Judaism in 1933 Germany and Christianity in 2015 America are exact and undeniable. And these attacks on Christians and their faith are not just isolated incidents but are occurring by the thousands in every sphere of American life.
Jones labels the alleged war on Christianity as merely a vote-getting ploy and that “those who insist on the Founders’ Christianity are sorely unaware of history or have simply chosen to ignore it.” According to Jones, only a handful of the Founders were really followers of the Christian faith and only one of the seven key Founders was an orthodox Christian. Jones claims the others were deists who did not believed in a providential God but a God that did not meddle in the affairs of men.[3] Were they really deists? The Founders’ own words expose the falseness of the allegations of their deism.
George Washington: “The hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this (the course of the war) that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith…”[4] James Madison: “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of revolution.”[5] Benjamin Franklin speaking during the Continental Convention: “…the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God Governs in the affairs of men.”[6] Thomas Jefferson in 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.”[7] John Adams proclaiming a national day of fasting spoke of, “…of a deep sense and due acknowledgement of the growing providence of a Supreme Being…”[8]
What “providence” meant to the Founders was “Foresight, timely care; particularly active foresight…the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures.”[9]
Jones implies that the war on Christianity is nothing more than standing up for the rights of all Americans and quotes Washington to justify his views.
If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.[10]
Rather than supporting Jones’ contention that there is no war on Christianity in America, Washington’s words condemn those whom Jones’ attempts to defend and are a perfect descriptor of a government in league with the spiritual tyranny of the religion of humanism which seeks to render the Christians’ liberty of conscience insecure. Humanism has become the de facto official religion of the nation at whose altar all other faiths must bow.
Jones’ article fails on two counts. There is a fanatical war on Christianity in America, and no amount of historical revisionism will demolish the indisputable Christian foundations of this nation.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 156, 160.
[2] Mike Jones, “War talk,” Tulsa World, May 31, 2015, G-1.
[3] Ibid.
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: Fame Publishing, Inc., 1996), p. 643.
[5] W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap, www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1981, p. iii.
[6] Federer, p. 248.
[7] Ibid., p. 200.
[8] Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), p. 77.
[9] Noah Webster, “providence,” American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828, Facsimile Edition, (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).
[10] Jones.
