Contrary to popular belief, our American government
is not now, and never has been, religiously neutral. In fact, it is
impossible for any government to be neutral when it comes to matters of
right and wrong. For example, government must condemn theft or allow
it, condemn murder or allow it, condemn homosexuality or allow it, but
it cannot remain neutral. Moreover, because the men who founded our
American Republic knew that government could not be neutral, they never
intended for it to be neutral, and there was no attempt to make it
neutral until the last century. Therefore, while the founders did make
it clear that Congress was not to make any law establishing a state
church, the idea that they wanted government to be totally secular is
simply not true.
At the time the Constitution was drafted all but
five of the original thirteen states already had an establishment of
religion, and First Amendment was adopted to make sure that the federal
government would not abolish those statewide religious establishments,
or impose one of its own. As a result, some of the states continued to
have state supported churches well into the nineteenth century – and
the men who drafted our Constitution did not see that as
“unconstitutional”.
In order to understand the First Amendment you need
to realize the significance of the words, “Congress shall make no law.”
Those words tell us that the amendment places a limitation on Congress
alone, not the states. Moreover, its specific reference to the freedom
of speech, press, peaceful assembly, and petition addresses specific
ways in which religious freedom was denied in the past. Under the
Church of England, dissenters had been denied the right to preach
(freedom of speech), publish religious literature (freedom of press),
assemble for worship (freedom of peaceful assembly), or even petition
the government for a redress of grievances. Nevertheless, those who now
yell loudest about keeping church and state separate, treat Bible
believers as second-class citizens and seek to exclude their views from
the halls of government, while striving to make secularism the religion
of the realm.
Those who want to see Christian influence excluded
from public life have taken advantage of popular misconceptions in
order to create a religion that most people fail to recognize as a
religion. In order to better understand what they have done, I would
like to go back to the to very roots of congregational worship. As the
Jews sought to preserve their national identity and culture during the
Babylonian captivity, they established synagogues, and each of those
synagogues served a threefold purpose. They functioned as a “house of
fellowship” (or community center), a “house of learning” (or school),
and a “house of prayer”. Jews were free to come to the synagogue at any
time during the week, and as they gathered those who remembered life in
Israel would teach the law, and various traditions, to the younger
generation. On the Sabbath they would then join together for worship.
However, as those old enough to remember life in Israel began to die
off, the synagogues had to hire teachers (rabbis) who were well versed
in the law. Therefore, by the time of Christ it was customary for the
rabbi to teach the boys reading writing and arithmetic during the week,
while also instructing them in the law, the tradition of the elders,
and the opinions of various commentators.
Nevertheless, even though education has always had a
place in the work of the church, Christian congregations have tended to
separate religious instruction from academic education – either
dropping academics, or treating it as an extra for which tuition is
charged. However, try to imagine a society where congregations are
primarily devoted to education, and people worship in private. In such
a society churches would function as schools, and where there was state
support, the state church would consist of a network of state supported
schools. Now, suppose that another religion took over those schools,
and began teaching evolution rather than creation. Students would be
taught that they have an animal nature rather than a fallen nature,
that the environment determines behavior, that morality is just a
matter of opinion, that Jesus was just one teacher among many, and that
there is no life after death. How, I ask you, how would that religious
system differ from the public school system that we have today?
Many educators like to blame the current social
malaise on the family, however, the primary reason for the breakdown of
the family, has to do with the false religion being disseminated
through the schools. Satan has simply taken advantage of certain
cultural paradigms in order turn our schools into an educational cult
that we do not even recognize as a cult.
The state religion that I have described did not
come into existence by accident, instead, there have been people
working for generations to bring it into existence. Moreover, even
though Christians founded most of our schools and Universities,
secularists have been using state support to force Christian influence
out of education.
In his book, “NEA: TROJAN HORSE IN AMERICAN
EDUCATION”, Samuel L. Blumenfeld offers a number of quotations
documenting the fact that certain key people intended from the start to
establish a secular religion. The following quotations are from his
book.
In 1984 U.S. Department of Education held hearings
in which parents, students, and a number of teachers were called to
testify in regard to proposed regulations for the protection of
student’s rights. In the course of those hearings, over 1,300 pages of
testimony were recorded, and excerpts from the official transcript were
compiled by Phyllis Schlafly and published under the title “CHILD ABUSE
IN THE CLASSROOM”. The testimony recorded in that book documents the
attack on students’ religious beliefs, as it is zealously being carried
out by many teachers. In regard to the religious nature of secular
education, I offer the following quotes:
In light of these facts, is it any wonder that Karl
Marx, in his “Communist Manifesto,” called for the creation of free
public schools? A government controlled school system is just as
antithetical to freedom as a government controlled press, for both
easily become tools for political indoctrination.
One of the main objections to an establishment of
religion listed in The Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom reads, “To
compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of
opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical” (signed into
law by Patrick Henry, in 1786). If that complaint is valid, then it
does not cease to be valid just because we call the state-supported
vehicle of religion a school. In either case, it is evil and tyrannical
for the government to force Christians to furnish contributions of
money for the propagation of opinions that they find abhorrent, or to
have those opinions taught to their children. At present, those who
object to the secular indoctrination of their children can avoid it
only by great personal hardship, and that must change if we are to
preserve freedom. We must separate government from education!