Posted by
Jay Noble on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 5:59:49 PM
The polls tell us that a large majority of the American people believe in God. A lesser but still healthy majority believe in Heaven and Hell and in a Devil. Pundits interpret these polls as indicating Americans are a religious people but I think such an interpretation is misleading.
The fact that a person acknowledges a belief in God does not tell us what he believes about God or how that belief influences his life. Adolf Hitler, from all accounts, believed in God, but clearly what he believed about God and how it influenced his life is dramatically different from a typical view. A person may believe in God, may believe in the afterlife, or in a satanic force, but evidence little or no indication that these beliefs influence the conduct of his life. Most Americans may believe in a divine being, an afterlife, or in an evil one, but this does not make them religious. Indeed, what they believe in this regard may be profoundly wrong. True religion involves an abiding faith, which requires a deep conviction uniting the heart and mind. This is the human soul, which from creation has written in it the capacity to know God. This faith actuates and motivates the thoughts, opinions and conduct of the believer. This faith molds the character of the believer. In the language of the old hymn, God is the potter and man the clay. I think that only people who are blessed with such faith should be considered truly religious. Consequently, understood this way, really only a small minority of Americans can be considered to be truly religious.
Present day American society and culture do not support the argument that the we are a religious people. Majorities retain loyality to certain forms and traditions ("In God We Trust" on coins, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, marriage as a union of one man and one woman) but I think that for most of this majority none of these causes stirs any real emotion. Oh, the latest judicial outrage might cause dinner table protest or outburst at the local bar, but individuals feel no personal stake in the outcome of these debates. For the majority who claim to be religious, whether "under God" stays in the Pledge of Allegiance is a one day story, having the same weight in their lives as a blown call by an official in yesterday's football game. They don't agree with it, but it doesn't affect them in any spiritual sense. In America, expressing religious belief has become perfunctory, something that is expected but not acted upon.
In fact, Americans are uncomfortable with genuine religious faith. People of deep faiith are much too "hot" for our society, which likes its role models to be "cool" and detached. People whose lives are centered around praising and serving God, particularly the God of the Old and New Testaments, are viewed with suspicion and distaste. Popular entertainment mocks these people and ridicules their faith, an example of the ignorant making fun of that they do not understand.
I should state now that I do not intend the above to be too severe an indictment of the American people. As I have written in previous blogs, I believe the American people to be by and large a generous, good hearted people. We still possess, most likely as the residue of our forefathers and those saints still among us, at least some loyality, even if superficial, to essential moral precepts. I still believe this is the best country on earth. None of this, however, can disguise the truth that every day witnesses the dimunition of religious influence in our culture, to our detriment.
Ironically, the enemy dedicated to our destruction, the Islamic jihadists, view the United States as a Christian nation at war with Islam. Obviously they are ignorant of the thorough secular nature of American society and how Christianity has been marginalized in our nation. Equally obvious is the fact that they have not throught through their rationale for believing us decadent and weak. The jihadists believe their strength derives from their dedication to serving their God, Allah, and they are invigorated by their faith to fight to the death against the infidel. If the United States were really the Christian nation the jihadists believe us to be, then our faith in our God would strengthen us to carry the fight to them. In fact, it is the secularism of American society which has gutted our spirit and deprived us of the fiber to combat the jihadist enemy. At this moment in our history, when deep and abiding religious faith is more needed in the United States than ever for the sake of our people, the twin maladies of multiculturalism and political correctness stand as social and cultural barriers to that spiritual revivial. Each works in tandem to deny truth: that some cultures are superior to others; that some so-called religions are in fact death cults; that there is a such a thing as good and evil; that the "historically oppressed" may be even more murderous and barbaric than their alleged oppressors, and so on.
The United States will not prevail against the forces of darkness and evil that the jihadists represent unless a spiritual revivial takes place in this country. The true God is not Allah but the God who has made himself known through the Holy Bible, and the only avenue to reconciliation with the true God is through his son, Jesus Christ. The God who gave his son to redeem the world does not embrace the murder of innocents as an act of faith. This God grants life to the full, an experience the truly religious among us are now enjoying, and is available as a free gift to those who recognize their need for Him, and accept his Son, Jesus Christ, as their personal savior.
We must truly become the Christian nation the jihadists seek to destroy, in order to avoid destruction. The reader may disagree; unlike the jihadists I don't call for your beheading. Being a good people, professing a belief in God, and hoping for the best will not grant us victory. Observing religious forms and observances are no substitute for true faith and worship from the heart of man.
When I was a kid I remember the Platte River in Nebraska being described as a mile wide but an inch deep. In America today, most is called religious belief is like the Platte River. If we hope to overcome the demonic forces behind the jihadists, true faith must borrow deep and wide in the soul of the American people.