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America Under Attack: A Christian
Response
 Brannon
Howse
American Family Policy Institute
This is an outline and transcript of a speech delivered by Brannon
Howse before 500 Christian school students on September 14th
and a Church congregation of 1,200 on Sunday Morning September
16th 2001. Due to the numerous requests we have received
upon airing this, we are posting it on our website, worldviewweekend.com
Today, I would like to try
and answer three questions:
1). Do ideas have consequences?
2).
What is patriotism?
3). What do we do now?
Since September 11th we have been
hearing some of the nation’s most liberal news anchors, Congressmen,
Senators, Governors, educators, authors and professors proclaiming
their dismay of the terrorist attacks that killed so many.
So many of these figures have lobbied for unlimited abortion
rights, the teaching of moral relativism in our nation’s schools,
doctor assisted suicide, the removal of God from our nation’s
school and public square, and now, this week we have heard some
of these same people describing the events and actions of the
terrorist on September 11th as wrong, absolutely wrong,
and evil.
Indeed, it was wrong, absolutely wrong and evil.
However, how can the same people who have so long proclaimed that
there is not right or wrong, that there are not absolutes, that
education must be value neutral, that all religions are of equal
value, that we must be tolerant of all beliefs and all ideas and
that we must not pass judgment on anyone, now proclaim their horror
at the ideas, actions and religious convictions of America’s attackers?
If indeed moral relativism, pluralism and situational ethics
are the prevailing standards as proclaimed by the cultural elite,
educrates and university professors, how then can it be said that
what the terrorist did on September 11th is wrong?
If indeed the killing of innocent civilians, which included children,
is what it took for the terrorist to reach their heaven, nirvana
or utopia, does not the end justify the means? If such actions
are acceptable under the “religious” philosophies of radical,
fundamentalist Islamic followers, how can we say that is wrong
lest we declare one value or belief system is better than another
or such a religion is evil and worthy of being declared as such?
What happens to pluralism then? What happens to moral relativism,
situational ethics? Perhaps these ideas will finally be exposed
for what they are: false, dangers and having serious consequences.
1). Evidence That Ideas Have Consequences?
A). Values Clarification
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Sidney Simon, the founder
of values clarification courses that were implemented in our
nation’s schools in the 1960’s and are in every public school
in America today, proclaimed, “The purpose of values clarification
is to involve students in practical experiences making them
aware of their own ideas, their own beliefs and their own
values, so the choices and decisions they make are conscious
and deliberate, based on their own values system.”
-
Moral Relativism: There
is no right or wrong.
-
Situational Ethics: The
end justifies the means.
-
U.S. Supreme Court removes
the Bible and Prayer from our nation’s public schools in 1962
& 1963.
-
In 1980, the U.S Supreme
Court rules that the Ten Commandments must be removed from
the walls of our nation’s schools because students who are
forced to look at them day after day, week after week, month
after month, year after year, may be compelled to follow them
even if they don’t want to.
-
James Madison, Father of
the Constitution wrote:
“We have staked the whole future of American
civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We
have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon
the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity
of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves,
to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
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Since the removal of Christian
principles from education and the public arena, violent crimes
have risen nearly 700 percent, teen pregnancies have increased
nearly 700 percent, academic achievement scores have plummeted,
America now consistently places among the last in the world
in international testing in math and science and American
literacy has fallen from the best in the World to a deplorable
48th –the worst of any industrial nation.
B). Pluralism: The belief that all religions,
values, and standards are equal.
-
An 8th
grade textbook from a major national publisher reads: “America
has marveled at the broad diversity of its people…Prided
itself on its ability to accept-and borrow from-lifestyles
and values of many different nationalities…[Pluralism] means
that people must compromise…by yielding on certain points. Americans [must] exercise tolerance…for…the
lifestyles of others.”
-
One
of our Worldview Weekend speakers is historian David Barton
who has said, “Critics today argue that times have changed-that
America is very different from what she was at the time of
the Founders-that we are pluralistic while they were homogeneous
in religious belief and practice. This, however, is not true.
In fact, John Adams listed literally dozens of different religions
residing, working, and sharing their faith in America in his
day. And with all of those religions from which they might
choose, our Founders still chose Christianity, why? John Adams
explained that it was because they were “all educated in the
general principles of Christianity.”
The Founders believed that
Christianity’s influence on this world would produce at least
five tangible benefits:
-
- Self-governing individuals
- Good citizens
- Elevated academic achievements
- A stable society with a common
value basis.
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Tolerance means that you cannot
proclaim any ideas or beliefs based on moral absolutes and
that you must not only accept all lifestyles and beliefs,
but you must value them.
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A Biblical worldview, is intolerant in today’s
culture because Jesus said, “I am the only Way, the only Truth,
the only Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
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U.S. News
and World Report July 21st, 1997 article by John
Leo: No Fault Holocaust
-
“In 20 years of college teaching, Prof. Roberts
Simon has never met a student who denied that the Holocaust
happened. What
he sees quite often though is worse: students who acknowledge
that fact of the Holocaust but can’t bring themselves to
say that killing millions of people is wrong.
-
Simon reports that 10 to 20
percent of his students think this way…overdosing
on non-judgmentalism is a growing problem in
the schools.”
A).
Thomas Jefferson: “The Man who loves his country on its own
account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power,
[He] can never be divorced from it, can never refuse to come
forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he
has the means of warding off.”
B). What does patriotism mean to the average
American? If you asked the man on the street what the flag stands
for would he say-
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- Baseball
- Monday night football
- The right to a big house
- The dream of being rich
This is not patriotism but
materialism.
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American’s have amused themselves
to death. We have wanted all the rights that America affords
with as little responsibility as possible.
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True Patriotism is the willingness
to sacrifice for the ideals, values, standards and principles
that America was founded upon: Christianity.
-
For many, that has meant the
ultimate sacrifice for which we should be deeply grateful.
But patriotism is also the realization that our freedoms
are afforded to us as a gift from God and that means we
are accountable to Him as a nation.
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Engraved on the Jefferson
Memorial in Washington D.C. are these famous words by Thomas
Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence:
“God who gave us life gave us liberty.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the
minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift
of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God
is just, that His Justice cannot sleep forever.”
-
Patrick Henry wrote:
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this
great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians;
not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this
very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum,
prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
-
The U.S.
Supreme Court on numerous occasions ruled that America was
a Christian nation founded distinctively on Christianity:
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In 1892
for example they wrote: “Our laws and our institutions must
necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the
Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be
otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization
and our institutions are emphatically Christian.”
For those who doubt the Christian
heritage and worldview of our Founding Fathers, take into account
the following:
Among the
signers of the Declaration of Independence were:
Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon
who was responsible for two American translations of the Bible
including America’s first family Bible. Charles Thomson was
responsible for Thompson’s Bible. Benjamin Rush not only produced
the first stereotyped, mass-produced Bible in America, but he
also founded America’s first Bible Society, and the Sunday School
movement in America. Francis Hopkins, a church music director,
produced the first purely American hymnbook.
Among the
signers of the Constitution were:
ohn Langdon and Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney who founded the American Bible Society,
Rufus King was founder of the New York Bible and Common Prayer
Book Society, James McHenry founded the Maryland Bible Society
and Alexander Hamilton formed the Christian Constitutional Society
to elect people to office who would support Christianity and
the Constitution of the United States.
-
Patriotism
is the willingness to practice and sacrifice for the Biblical
Worldview that has afforded America to be the longest on-going
constitutional republic in the history of the world.
-
In any given
year, between two and three-dozen nations will enter a civil
war, revolution, or military conflict.
-
George Washington wrote: “It is impossible
to govern the world without God and the Bible.”
-
James Madison wrote in 1785, “Religion is
the basis and foundation of Government.”
-
D. James Kennedy has said:
“History teaches that great nations are seldom if ever
destroyed by invaders or other outside forces. Wars and
invasions may be involved in their final collapse, but
nations fall because of compromise of their own foundational
beliefs, loss of faith in the values that made them great,
and the lawlessness and disorder that arise as a result.”
A). We
must educate our fellow citizens and children of the truth behind
and the reason for America’s founding and following greatness.
-
The Bible
says, “Blessed in the nation whose God is the Lord.”
- We are currently living off
a 380-year Christian history and we are eating it right down because
it is not being built back into enough of our children.
B). We must instruct
our children and church members in a Biblical-worldview.
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A worldview is the lens, glasses,
framework or grid through which you look at the world and
every issue and aspect of life.
You will either view life through the lens
of a secular humanist worldview or that of a Biblical
Christian worldview.
-
Our worldview is the foundation
of our ideas & values and our ideas & values is
the foundation of our conduct.
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National Worldview Survey
Reveals Trouble Ahead
Solution: Educate and equip
Christians with the knowledge & understanding of biblical
principles and standards for every area of life and everyday
life. This is the goal of a Worldview Weekend and why we organize
these conferences in numerous states.
Researcher George Barna’s
recent study has revealed that ony 10% of American Christians
actually posses a biblical worldview and four out of ten self-professing
Christians do not believe in moral absolutes, at least one out
of every two, 50% of students from Christian homes deny their
faith before they graduate from college.
C).
We must take what is common to the culture and turn it into
a pulpit.
-
Everyone in this nation
is thinking about life and death and the uncertainty of
tomorrow.
-
Even many of the liberal
media members have been invoking comments about God, prayer
and God blessing America.
-
We have the answers to life
and death and the knowledge of how to take the sting out
of death and the grave.
-
Just as many of those firefighters
on September 11th gave their lives to save their
fellow man from the fires of terrorism, we must become spiritual
firefighters, rushing to keep our fellow man from eternal
fire by leading them to everlasting water that only comes
through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
-
Although we live in dark
days, if we would understand what God has done in history,
we would know that it is in those darkest hours that God
brings awakening, revival and restoration.
-
There were four great awakenings
in American history…all 50 years apart…all preceded by a
depression and post-ceded by a war.
D).
We must do what Paul did. We must examine our own life to make
sure we are in the faith.
E).
Finally, we must understand that we are providentially placed
at the exact time God wants us, and providentially placed in
the exact country God wants us.
Act 17:26-28: “From one man he made every nation
of men; that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined
the times set for them and the exact places where they should
live. God did this so that men would seek Him and find Him,
though He is not far from us. For in Him we live and move and
have our being.”
F).
Pray for our elected officials, that God will give them wisdom
and understanding.
G). Every Christian home must build a spiritual family
dynasty to pass on to future generations:
As
my friend Dr. Marshall Foster says, “We can all leave a 200-year
footprint if we so desire. We each one of us, right now, whether
we know it or not, stand at the apex of an unfolding generational
drama. We are heir to the past, and ancestor to the future.
Counting our grandparents or early mentors, through our children
and grandchildren, we will most likely mentor or be mentored
by, people whose life cycles will extend will over 200 years
and include parts of four centuries.”
Jonathan
Edwards, one of the greatest Preaches of all time, was married
in 1727. He and his wife Sarah had 11 children and are an excellent
example of two people who built such a spiritual family dynasty:
173
years after their marriage, a study was made of some 1,400 of
their descendants. By 1900 this single marriage had produced
13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers, a dean of
an outstanding law school, 30 judges, 56 physicians, a dean
of a medical school, 80 holders of public office, 3 United States
senators, 3 mayors of large American cities, 3 governors, 1
Vice-President of the United States, 1 comptroller of the United
States Treasury.
Members of the family had written 135 books, edited
18 journals and periodicals. They had entered the ministry in
platoons, with nearly 100 of them becoming missionaries overseas.
I refer to the Jonathan Edwards story as an example
of a Christian family dynasty that can be an example and model
for all of us.
Thank You,
Brannon Howse
Worldviewweekend.com
Understanding the Times: A Worldview Weekend - Christian Conferences
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