UI – Part 410 – Church and Government (1 of 3)

(To be presented 3 parts)

What Does the Church Mean to the Government?

Religion and the Establishment

Having endured the past 8 years with a progressive liberal President we have seen how liberal thinkers strive to achieve a State devoid of religion. Although they embrace many groups, those most favorable to their platforms, often labeled for their purposes as victims. They do so when it serves a purpose. From the book, The End of Secularism, by Hunter Baker (Crossway, Wheaten, Ill, 2009) a definition, “Secularism is a way to suppress that which they (those in power) find troubling and to bring about the existence of a political and legal regime more agreeable to their tastes” (pg. 16, loc. 197 ebook). The liberals have preferences, as do the conservatives, attempting as they can a community most suitable to them.

The poor have needs which the government can and should do something about.  Fully satisfying those needs is impossible without an effort on the part of those impoverished.  Yet the liberal agenda claims they can satisfy, seeking their support, their vote, in exchange.  Providing the impossible always sounds wonderful, more superhuman than practical, more a Marvel Comic hero in a suit and tie (or pantsuit in the case of Hillary Clinton), than a normal person. Welfare for votes. The irony is since President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and the expenditure of billions the statistics suggest little change in the status quo of the impoverished then and now. Yet the bureaucracy needed to administer the programs, the increase in government employment, is demonstrable.  The poor do receive money, food stamps, child care assistance, phones and other items to help in their plight, and to aide in their rise from poverty to prosperity. But the rise has been difficult to achieve. There are reasons. Yet the poor see the Democrats as their champions and hold their hands out expecting them to be greased with funds obtained from the achievers. The liberals act as Robin Hoods using taxes to take from the rich and give to the poor.  Incentivizing the downtrodden to escape the peril of their state is more rhetoric than practice.  Those who continue to vote the liberal ticket have been drugged by the rhetoric, and possibly the free stuff, and for the most part few have risen from the deplorable state from which they began.

Women are a group.  It is the young women, of child-bearing years, who in this progressive age of sexual freedom, want protection from unwanted pregnancy. So the liberals see a support constituency potential, a victim, and votes if they can give them something, thus supporting what this victim group needs to have a choice. They argue for funding for abortion via Planned Parenthood and contraceptives to be readily available, and cost free if possible.  No consideration is given self-pay for play-with-consequences. Whether for or against ‘choice’ when it comes to a woman’s body, and abortion, the real dilemma is who pays.  Should it be the victim, the one impregnated, who pays or a third party.  The liberal mindset sees that third party as the government, the people, or in truth the tax-payor.  What about the dad or the lassie herself?  Choices have outcomes and if a decision is made in error, should it be the people who pay to correct the mistake?

There are ethnic groups, climate-change global warming advocates, and groups to be protected as a class, a victim.  One now enjoys the alphabet soup letters LGBT, and most recently added Q.  It is queer to me too.  The partisan-left position seeks equal and fair treatment of everyone regardless, and when attitudes suggest elements of discomfort with public displays, dress or practices of the victims, words fly such as ‘racist,’ ‘bigot,’ ‘hatred’ and others as demeaning as possible to those that may raise even a hint of objection to displays of immorality, or disagreement, or an opposing viewpoint, as judged by the classic codes of right and wrong.

Hillary Clinton is offended by those who oppose her and support Donald Trump for President, calling his followers, her detractors, ‘deplorable.’  Her discomfort, in her own words, makes her a victim, one that deserves more, and the vote. She wants those who are of the victimhood of Obama to be her own, and vote accordingly.  In her case for a woman, because she is a woman; a woman who lacks the proper credentials to hold the highest office of our Country. In Obama’s case for a black man.  Neither sex nor color should be justification alone for the office of President.  Needed is a healthy, capable, competent, careful, law abiding, accomplished, successful individual who has achieved outside of the political science classroom and environment.  As to the liberal posture of ‘equal and fair treatment of everyone regardless’ Hillary falls from the Democrat’s stage. She has her referenced ‘deplorables’ as a target of her bigotry, and that of her wealthy liberal supporters who cheered when she made the remark. Was that not on its own racist, sexist and xenophobic?

When the liberal see the victim they try to assemble them all, forming a victimhood, and seek their support.  Often uncomfortable with moral aspects of their plight, such as the killing (murder) of a baby, living in sin, or a dependency and the guilt or shame of their indolence, or an awareness of their sexual habits or proclivities as abnormal, or the idea of marriage between and man and a woman as a God thing, and lacking self-confidence for being different, the church can provide direction, solace and understanding.  But this brings the Bible into the room and is a problem for the liberal, as God to them is not real and cannot decide. The elites want and will make the choices.  God just makes the wrongdoer, the guilty, the shamed and the sinner uncomfortable.  The progressive liberal finds the truth in the Bible problematic, for them as individuals, as persons possibly with questionable moral and ethical values.  The secular body grows bringing into their arena all those who say no god and wish to avoid the unease they feel when considering the god thing. The discomfort to the dismay of all cannot be erased, as God cannot be erased.  But try they will.  They call it ‘modernization.’  I refer to it as ‘secularization.’

An expression of the extent of secularism in the minds of many Americans came recently from Mikey Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He fired off a letter to the Chillicothe VA Medical Center (Athens, Ohio) on behalf of a veteran, unidentified, who wrote to him saying, “our government is secular and must remain secular,” complaining as to the presence of a Bible in the waiting room of the facility. Weinstein’s letter then alleged that the presence of the Bible inside a government facility is a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Todd Starnes, of Fox News radio said of Weinstein, “(He’s) a fussy man with a strong aversion to our Lord, (who) said the Bible’s placement in the waiting room was ‘illicit and unconstitutional.’ ”

Church

Then there is the church. This is not a victim group for liberals, but an organization the government sees as a competitor. The church provides people, everyone, a lifeline. The church defines the moral order and provides boundaries for ethical standards. The church helps to define humane treatment and respect.  The lifeline makes us all aware of family structure and values, the importance of a home in which children are raised having a mother and father to consistently achieve the best outcomes for children. When the question is asked how to live a proper life, the church can provide the answer. Often the answer is not what one might prefer, but they know it is right. So as to stating the obvious as to what is right and wrong the church is respected. When the answer conflicts with the liberal worldview, such as in the case of abortion, sides taken are religion verses secular. From The End of Secularism, “Secularism represents a partisan position, not a neutral one” (pg. 16. loc. 195).  It is important to fully understand that it is the Bible that is foundational for the teachers that guide, lead, and preach to those that make-up the church.  The focus, from the time of the garden of eden, is good versus evil.

An area of significance that reflects the attempt by government to sideline the church has to do with charity.  During Katrina even FEMA could not handle the needs of those effected by the flooding caused by the levee breaks.  Non-profits like Red Cross and United Way did their part.  But more was needed.  The churches were willing and able to help, their volunteers ready and free, but they did not have the money needed to purchase the supplies they could distribute.  They did what they could from the funds on-hand, but the situation required more.  Turning to the government for additional dollars for supplies the regulatory brain woke-up to the concern that God might be introduced in exchange for food, water, blankets and clothing if distributed by religious organizations.  When it comes to God in the public square there is despair on the part of the secularists.  Should the atheist be in charge? The question as to who is correct about the existence of a supreme being is not the one that needs an answer when lives are at stake due to a natural disaster.  But the body politic never seems to miss the opportunity to use a disaster to their benefit. Just how can they make the victim their voter is on their lips when discussing how to react to situations. It certainly impedes their decision making.

Having God as your reminder is not a bad thing. But often God as the overseer makes people nervous as they do what they know they should not do, even if the system allows it. Think adultery. When the church discusses how actions may not please God, at the same time making those in the pews or hearing the Word uncomfortable, feeling judged, unhappy, and fearing, resistance can arise.  Hell is not what people want to hear about.  But those who squirm are being told by a liberal humanist that, ‘you do not need God.’ They may then feel a union with those similarly offended, thus preferring the comfort they derive from their ‘me’ society associates. This goes back to the book of Genesis when the serpent suggested to Eve, “You will not surely die,” considering what God told her about eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The secular government advocates seek to make this uncomfortable group part of the victimhood, their base.  They too often advocate for the ‘evil’ component of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’  which entails disobedience to God and what humans inherently know is wrong.

As the pendulum swings towards a collective society’s preferences reflected in the legal realm, the position of the church, and any reference to the bible as a source, becomes a contentious issue.  Religious considerations, the liberal-left having their way, would be excluded from civil affairs.

Unfortunately the voice of the people can and will be heard if enough are speaking.  The voice of the church’s constituents, often the family against the system, the system being the government, the bureaucracy, is intended and necessary to maintain moral order over chaos. The system seeks to orient its decisions towards breaking down the family and any learned responses as a result of a religious upbringing.  Look at the public schools today.

Children are a target.  Begin with the youth.  Turn them from God and family early and prevail having them as a liberal progressive member. As the bullseye children become a stronghold where evil can be established.

(To be continued…..)

Visit Amazon to purchase Tom Balderston’s most recent book, The Wonder of Terra.  Read it and discover a new view of the good and evil of the world, along with creation and our existence.  Other books are also available, to include, The Damascus Quran, a novel.