More Murders in Texas
On May 18, 2018, eight students and two teachers were murdered in a Texas high school shooting. A seventeen year old student armed with a sawed off shotgun and a pistol made his way past a school resource officer at the Santa Fe High School, about 30 miles southeast of Houston and opened fire on select targets. As the nation watched the aftermath of the carnage that left ten people dead and ten others wounded, Leigh Wall, Superintendent of the Santa Fe School District wrote a letter to the parents. “Our community has suffered a terrible tragedy. We are all feeling the overwhelming grief of this horrific event.”
The words of Mr. Wall were well intended, but they do little to address the underlying core problem that led to the Texas shooting. The ultimate reality, is that America is a nation with a moral crisis of the spirit, which is manifested with physical actions. The Bible says that as a person thinks in their heart, so are they (Prov. 23:7). Jesus said, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:” (Matt. 15:19).
Secular Religions
Because this is true, it is time for Americans to reconsider the major values that are being taught in society. Another look must be taken at secular religions in particular. A secular religion mimics the forms of religious institutions.
Atheism. High on the list is that of atheism. Society has decided to banish God from social consciousness as much as possible. This fact is reflected culturally by removing the Bible, and prayer, from the public schools, and by promoting evolution as a viable alternative to a Divine Creator to whom individuals are responsible. The Ten Commands cannot be displayed on public properties without a lawsuit from the godless organization, the ACLU. The secular religion of atheism and evolutionary thinking is further promoted in the name of comedy reflected in Young Shelton, and the Big Bang Theory television shows. Atheism is rightly called a secular religion because its proponents evangelize or proselytize; they actively work to make sure others do not believe in the God they deny exists. Bill Nye, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens, are some of the high priests of this secular religion.
Unitarian Universalism is another form of a secular religion, for it is a religion with no concrete concept of God, gods, or the supernatural. This religion has found a way to influence some Quakers, and the Church of England.
Environmentalism and nature worship. Friday, November 6, 2015. Writing for the Hoover Institution, Bruce Thornton commented on The Religion of Environmentalism. “Ancient myths about nature and our relationship to it are deeply embedded in our culture. Particularly influential has been the myth of the Golden Age, a time before civilization when humans lived in harmony with nature, “free from toil and grief,” as the Greek poet Hesiod wrote, and enjoying “all good things, for the fruitful earth unforced bore them fruit abundantly and without stint. [People] dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands and with many good things.” Hesiod establishes the key elements of the myth that have persisted until today: an imagined time without crime, sickness, war, and misery; and a maternal nature that provides sustenance without human labor.” One, just a myth, the ideas of the environmentalists has turned into a modern day religion with the climate change agenda. The highest of the priests in this secular religion is former United States Vice President, Al Gore. His 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, has proven to be as silly and as false as his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Nevertheless, for true believers, the religion survives to recruit other converts to their “mythic longings for a lost paradise that never existed” (Bruce Thornton).
Marxism. While purporting to be only an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in practice Marxism is a religion in its own right, for “Marx is Jesus, the First International, his apostles and disciples, the international Communist movement, the Church, proletarian revolution, the Second Coming, socialism, the Millennium, and communism, the New Jerusalem which descends from heaven.” (John Michael Greer). In Marxism, the Christian religion is the opium of the people. Marx did not want any religion in his society,, for he did not want Christ to be a rival to the government.
Moral Confusion
When people are in a state of mental schizophrenia regarding the existence of God, they become confused, angry and without a moral compass. So they can eat, drink, and be merry, as the Playboy philosophy mandates, or, they can rape, control, and kill, as the Mara Salvatrucha (“Salvadorian gang”). If there is no God, what difference does it make?
What Can, and Should, Be Done
If Americans in general, and Christians in particular, really want to do something about the murders in society, in addition to moments of prayer, then let us protest the making and promotion of gratuitous violence in music, and in the movies. Let us challenge the corroding and corruption of our culture with profane language, and insist that whole sentences and thoughts be articulated in conversions on social media. Let us return to sanity, and use normal and intelligent words again that have meaning. Marriage is between a man and a woman.
Homosexuals are not gay people, but sexual deviants from nature. The home must not be broken up. Government must stop financially subsidizing irresponsible adults. Welfare to work should be mandated. Respect for the office of the presidency must be promoted. The corruption of the FBI, CIA, and IRS must take place with new safeguards put in place to prevent the abuse of power. The murder of the unborn must stop, as well as the selling of baby body parts. The excessive and easily availability of recreational drugs must be forbidden. However, these good, godly, and wise conservative practices will only come from the righteous principles found in a new heart, and a new spirit, which Christ can give. Let the Church pray for God to drag America back to Himself (John 12:32).
A Better “Drug”
One day, someone at a store in a small Southern town read that a methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked a rhetorical question, ”Why didn’t we have a drug problem when we were growing up?”
Someone standing by replied rather seriously, “Well, I did have a drug problem when I was young.” Then he smiled and continued. “Yes, Sir, I was drug to Church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and even on Wednesday nights. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather. I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me. I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profane four-letter word. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad’s fields. I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood; and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed. Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.”
Christians, it is not hard to know what to do. What is hard is to live out the ethics of our Christian faith. Let us humbly ask God to help us in this hour of our need.
