It cannot be denied that we live in
a time of unprecedented violence against Christians and Jews. In the Mideast, Christians are routinely
murdered. We’ve seen children beheaded
by ISIS and al Qaeda; other children are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery by
Islamic extremists. Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Iraq … countries on whom American taxpayers have lavished billions
of dollars in foreign aid … provide no protections for their Christian minorities. Israeli homes and schools have come under
rocket attack daily from Hamas in Gaza. Jews
are being driven from France … even before these latest terrorist attacks in
Paris … with some 7,000 Jews emigrating last year to Israel.
But listen: In the U.S., our first constitutional
freedom is under assault.
The Obama Administration has issued
HHS Mandates that force us to subsidize the killing of unborn children. It’s not enough that this is the most pro-abortion
administration in history … evening spreading its lethal pro-abortion message
with U.S. foreign aid dollars to Africa and throughout the world. President Obama now wants to overturn the
protections of the Hyde Amendment and
force us all to violate our consciences as he “fundamentally transforms this
country” by paying for the brutal execution of 3,000 unborn children a day.
We saw the firing of Atlanta’s Fire
Chief Kelvin Cochran. Chief Cochran’s
record of achievement was without reproach. He had risked his life for his fellow
Atlantans throughout a distinguished career. But because he wrote a book about his
Christian faith, because he expressed his personal view that sex between men
was wrong, Chief Cochran was fired. Chief
Cochran based his belief on Scripture’s clear teaching. This happened in the same city of the late Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … the cradle of the great American Rights Movement
(a Christian led movement). But Chief
Cochran not only lost his job, but (more importantly) his human right to think
and speak freely.
In launching the Montgomery ‘bus
boycott’ that sparked the modern Civil Rights movement, the Rev. Dr. King said
this: “I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout the nation
that we are a Christian people … and we are determined here in Montgomery to
work and fight, until justice runs down like water and righteousness as a
mighty stream.” King cited Scripture as
his inspiration.
James Madison celebrated the passage
of Virginia’s Statute for Religious
Freedom in 1786 by writing to Thomas Jefferson in Paris. Madison said we had “extinguished forever the
ambitious hope of writing laws for the human mind.”
But that’s what political correctness
does; it crushes all public expression of opposing views. It’s why we will see a White House summit on
“violent extremism” that dares not mention jihad or Islamist terrorism … because
such realities are not politically correct. Controlling public speech is the first step to
controlling private thought.
Madison was clear on the link
between civil and religious freedom. The
guarantees for civil freedom in the Constitution, he wrote in Federalist 51,
are the same as those for religious freedom — in the “multiplicity of sects.” For us, that translates as diversity. Our diversity is not simply of colors, races,
or sexes; but an American diversity of ideas and expression.
Ken Blackwell, a
senior fellow at the Family Research Council, says, “Think of Christians as the
canary in the coal mine. When the canary
dies, you know it’s unsafe for the miners, too. Free exercise of religion is the First Freedom
mentioned in the First Amendment. That’s
because the Founders recognized that all civil freedom is based on that firm
foundation of religious freedom. When
religious speech is suppressed, all civil freedom is threatened. And it has never been as threatened in America
as it is today.”
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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