Monday, September 16, 2013
357 - Blowing a Big Chance
Spirituality Column #357
September 17, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
September 17, 2013
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Blowing a Big Chance
By Bob WaltersAuthor of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
I
am convinced no nation in history has been simultaneously freer to investigate
religion wholeheartedly nor more reluctant to do so seriously than the modern
USA.
Our
national, aggregate religious IQ seems to peak at either end of an inverted
faith bell curve, with a vapid, enormous, sagging, religiously-passive middle
that entertains the notion of God on the one hand but pursues inviolable,
unholy “whatever works for you” morality
on the other. America is succeeding at
religious freedom but failing utterly at religious understanding.
Our
constitutionally guaranteed “Freedom of Religion” has been ill-advisedly
reinterpreted as “Freedom from Religion.”
America’s resulting culture-wide ignorance of sectarian specifics prevents
her as a political nation from accurately comprehending – or of appropriately,
proportionately and morally acting in – world events.
Hence, I feel we
are blowing a big chance to provide leadership on this planet that more than
ever could benefit from the moral authority of a military and economic
superpower that truly has its cultural heart in a spiritually truthful – i.e. Godly
– place.
Religious
freedom in America has never been greater. The proof? Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus,
Mormons, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses – and how many others? – operate openly
and freely in a nation that will not tolerate the interruption of any
adherents’ private practice of their faith.
That high level
of religious freedom is unprecedented, even in this country. We may think “my faith” is being discriminated
against, but consider the virulent, codified, civil discrimination against, for
example, Catholics and Mormons a century ago.
Ironically, and
sadly, we also are a nation that now excludes God from the realm of civic
wisdom and no longer tolerates the public witness of faith. No single book is as important to
understanding Western culture as is the Bible, yet where is that book in our
broader culture today? It is hidden from
public view; an unwanted guide. We have
imposed an academic injunction against actually saying, authoritatively and out
loud, what America has known from its very beginning: that the truth of Jesus
Christ is the capital-T Truth that all humanity seeks.
“Don’t judge” – translation:
“don’t think” – is the horrible response of populist elites manning the pervasive
palisades of America’s contemporary religious ignorance.
America is flummoxed
by the modern Middle East because, as a nation, we refuse to take any religion
seriously and are therefore intellectually ill-equipped to understand or respond
when other nations do. We cannot
publicly fashion, or even fathom, a moral response to an international
crisis. We have no battle flag to plant.
Religious
freedom is indeed precious, but God’s truth – when Christ is allowed in the
conversation – is what leads a moral nation.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes in Christ,
loves America, and cheers God’s truth.
0 comments:
Post a Comment