Recently the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of the state of California ruled that the reference to God, which was added to the pledge by Congress in 1954, amounts to a government endorsement of monotheism, and therefore violates the supposed separation of church and state establishment clause. The leading of schoolchildren in a pledge that states that the United States is "one nation under God" is as objectionable legally as making them say "we are a nation "under Jesus,' a nation "under Vishnu,' or a nation "under Zeus,' or a nation "under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion," wrote Circuit Judge Alfred T. Goodwin. In other school-related religious cases, the high courts across the country have said public schools cannot post the Ten Commandments. And in the state of Ohio, a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio's motto, "With God, all things are possible," is unconstitutional and is an endorsement of Christianity, and that the words of Jesus must not be permitted to erect a state religion.
Nonetheless, millions of Americans, shocked by the pledge ruling, are properly asking whether it will be overturned. Yet the more important question is how this decision came to be made in the first place. The nation received its first public glimpse into what lay behind this decision during the second presidential debate in St. Louis in 2000. Then Vice President and Presidential candidate Al Gore promised that if he were elected President, he would continue the practice of his predecessor and place judges on the courts who believed that the Constitution was a living document. Then Republican party Presidential candidate George W. Bush, on the other hand, pledged that his judicial nominees would be strict Constructionists.
A strict Constructionist interprets the Constitution as it is written, not as he or she wished it had been written. Thus, the Constitution's guarantee of the "free exercise of religion" would protect the right to use "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
A judge who believes in a "living constitution" believes that what the Supreme Court says about an issue is more important than what the Constitution says about the same issue. The California and Ohio judges agree with the living philosophy set forth by former Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes that, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is."
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There are 60 million evangelicals in America, and in the last election only 15 million voted (and 24 million of those 60 million evangelicals are not even registered to vote)!
Understanding the importance of Christian involvement in elections, and its impact on the entire nation, Rev. Charles Finney (a leader in the 19th century's Second and Third Great Awakenings) warned: “The Church must take right ground in regard to politics. The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics. God cannot sustain this free and blessed country which we love and pray for unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a religion in such a country as this, and Christians must do their duty to the country as a part of their duty to God. God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics. “
Christian Americans today need to consider the words of the Rev. Matthias Burnet, who in 1803 properly warned:
 Ye whose high prerogative it is to invest with office and authority or to withhold them and in whose power it is to save or destroy your country, consider well the important trust which God has put into your hands. To God and posterity you are accountable! Let not your children have reason to curse you for giving up those rights and prostrating those institutions which your fathers delivered to you.
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Utilizing the manufactured 1947 “separation of church and state clause,” America's new age courts systematically began an assault on Christianity in America. Beginning with the Engel v. Vitale case in 1962, the US Supreme Court first applied its innovation of the misappropriate use of public prayer. The conflict in that case centered on whether or not it was constitutional for New York students to pray the following simple prayer in school:
“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beseech Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”
The court declared the use of this prayer to be unconstitutional.
One year later, in 1963 in the infamous Abington Township v. Schempp court case, the Supreme Court again ruled something to be unconsitutional. This time it was Bible reading! Yes, Bible reading in school became unconstitutional after 1963. In this landmark decision the Supreme Court ruled that voluntary Bible reading in public schools was dangerous and even harmful to the child. And from these absurd landmark decisions by the Supreme Court, the decaying of American society and culture began its exponential downward spiral. I myself can remember reading over the intercom at my elementary school a few verses from John 14. I remember it like yesterday! I remember my teacher and principle smiling as I read from God's holy word. The event made me proud to be an American. But by next the school year, that act of Bible reading that I look back so proudly upon was considered to be an act of breaking the law.
As I think back today, I can't remember any outcry from the Christian world over those court rulings. My church never even mentioned that prayer and Bible reading were under assault by liberalized court rulings. Today, 40 years later as a I look back, I have to ask myself, “where was the uproar, where was the loud Christian voices defending my God given rights to pray and read the Bible in school, and why was there such a deafening silence to the onslaught against the Christian liberty that our founding fathers designed into our American Republic”?
Christians, we need to realize that when the courts of the land declare something to be “unconstitutional,” that they are in effect saying that the issue under scrutiny is against the “will and design” of our founding fathers, as embodied in the American Constitution.
They are saying that the founding fathers were not necessarily Christians, and that they did not really espouse to promote prayer and Bible reading and the words of Jesus Christ in this nation. They are further stating that Christians, and the Bible are simply irrelevant in the secular realm of American society, and that we should remain silent in our beliefs.
Nothing could be further from the Truth!
When I consider that the Lord has sent his servants forth into the world as Lambs among Wolves, I have to wonder why the lambs have failed to follow the shepherd.
Why has Christian America allowed the enemies of Christ to become the Constitutional interpreters? And I have to wonder why there continues to exist such a stony silence from the lambs when the wolves are gathering all around us, and systematically working to undermine our spiritual defenses. My fellow Christians, we have an adversary seeking our destruction, and his first lines of an demonic offensive assault has been to dissect us from our heritage as handed down to us by our Christian forefathers. By dismantling the foundations of liberty and freedom, Satan has been plotting America's destruction for a very long time now.
Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God, and we as Christians are all followers of the lamb. Yet, our Lord was never silent when it came to the truth. And our Lord was accused by the political, secular and religious elite of his day of perverting the nation in his day. Inflamed by the spirit of darkness, they wished to silence the voice of the Lamb.
Luke 23:2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation.
The Silence of the Lambs within America has allowed the culture of our nation to become perverted. Today, in American society, Christianity is outlawed and the precepts and principles espoused by Christ are repudiated regularly by those who remain wise in their own eyes. That is the only reason that absurd philosophies and political distortions relative to our founding document of the Constitution has found a prominence in our society. Our nation was once the lighthouse of truth and liberty to the whole world. Christians must awaken and be silent no longer! Freedom exists only in this world where Christianity, prayer, and Bible study prevails. Silence will not win the war against tyranny and spiritual enslavement.
Isaiah 5:20-21 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
Author: Darrell G. Young
Copyright©2002
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