God Fixation Can Fix This Nation
It's been said that Oliver Wendell Holmes, the eminent Supreme Court Justice, was on a train reading his newspaper when the conductor came by punching tickets. The justice first searched his coat pocket. Then he searched his vest pocket. Each time he came up empty.
Finally, the conductor, who recognized him, said, "Justice Holmes, don't worry. I'm sure the great Pennsylvania Railroad won't mind if you send your ticket to us when you find it." With this the distinguished jurist looked up at the conductor and said, "My dear young man, the problem is not where is my ticket? The problem is, where am I going?"
Atheists, who recently posted billboards in Charlotte, North Carolina, in anticipation of the Democratic National Convention, have a similar dilemma. They neither know where this nation has been, much less where it would go if it were to become atheistic.
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American Atheists paid $15,000 to attack Christianity, posting a billboard in the Queen City that called God "sadistic" and Christ "useless." That billboard eventually had to be taken down because of protests. But now the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is placing two billboards in Charlotte, featuring an anti-religious Uncle Sam. Drawn by cartoonist Steve Benson, the patriotic national icon is depicted wagging his finger with a caption that says, "God fixation won't fix this nation."
These groups would prefer us to believe that religion, more specifically, the Christian faith, as a social and civil factor, has only a scant or apologetic mention in the nation's history. It's hard to know whether this is just a gross and unfortunate oversight on their part or a deliberate purpose. Whatever the case, it's deplorable, nonetheless.
More than any other factor, whether geographic, economic, racial, or just pure politics, the Christian religion determined the character of the American civilization and its form of government. A little over a hundred years ago, Bishop Charles B. Galloway rightly declared in Christianity and the American Commonwealth:
"Christian teachings were the seed-thoughts of our political constitutions, and Christian evangelism was the inspiration of American colonization. If we eliminate from our national history the direct and all-powerful influence of the Christian religion, we have nothing left but a set of disjointed facts without significance, dry and dreary annals without parentage or posterity." [1]
Quite to the contrary of the atheistic mindset, it was a "God fixation" that actually built and prospered this great country.
All the values most beloved by Americans – those that changed much of the world – derived from a Christian perspective. The dignity and sanctity of human life, the right to private property, the concept of unalienable rights, the elevation of women, the protection of children and the elderly, equality and justice for all, even tolerance for those who believe and choose to disbelieve in a God or gods, comes directly from the Christian religion – not any other religion and most certainly not atheism.
David Hume, a historian and philosopher, though himself a skeptic, once summed-up the matter quite well, saying, "If you find a people without religion, rest assured that they do not differ much from the brute beasts." [2]
Where is there proof of Hume's bold assertion? One needs look no further than where communism has held sway. Communism maintains that religion is purely a man-made institution. Communists are materialists – only the material world is real. Man is supposedly a material machine, shaped by his experiences, according to the class in which he is born. Communism promises that when its goals are achieved and the class conflict ended, the flaws in human nature will disappear. Communism denies God, has no authority to which it is accountable greater than man himself, and is completely secular in its approach to life and how it ought to be governed.
But where does it take men? What's the end of man when he is governed solely by his own reason – his own judgments – and sees himself and the world as only material? According to historical records like the Black Book of Communism, compiled by several European academics, it leads to genocide, extrajudicial executions, deportations, torture, imprisonment, forced labor, rank poverty and famine. Communist regimes, fundamentally atheistic, have been responsible for more deaths (approximately 94 million) than any other political system in history.
Incidentally, atheists in this country, demand a strict and impregnable wall of separation between church and state, even though the words "church" and "state" don't exist in the Constitution. Those words, however, with the same demand do appear in the old Soviet Constitution.
Atheists are a sad lot. They would that the world, the nation, were like them. But what great good has atheism brought in comparison to Christianity? Christianity "sadistic?" Christianity "useless?" Granted, so-called followers of the Christian religion have demonstrated some inexcusable lows. But comparing the positive contributions of atheism to Christianity in America – in the world – would be like comparing a mountain to a molehill. It would be like comparing Madelyn Murray O'Hare to Mother Teresa.
Don't let these billboards deceive. It was a "God fixation" that built this nation, caused it to flourish, and worked to mend its flaws. And it's only a "God fixation" that can fix what's wrong with it now.
The atheists, the secularists and their ilk, are like someone on the train of life and having lost their ticket, they have no idea at what station this country would actually end-up if it became atheistic like them.
Resources
[1] Bishop Charles B. Galloway, D.D., L.L.D., Christianity and the American Commonwealth, American Vision, 2005 pg. 7
[2] Ibid, pg. 14
