< Changing Worldviews.Commentary >

Words are powerful - Thoughts shape - Ideas have consequences

Tal Brooke

Spiritual Counterfeits Project

America's Search for an Alternative God
Part 2

At issue for each of us is the freedom to speak our minds, freedom of speech, a God-given right guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If today’s citizens are cowed by the all-powerful State they will be left in the position of Muscovites in the Soviet Union. As Nobel Prize winning Russian novelist Aleksander Solzhenitsyn portrayed again and again in his Gulag books, there was an ongoing dread in the vast Soviet population of being incarcerated at whim by the Soviet state simply for saying the wrong thing—a hate crime. If the State happens to be atheistic then it can ban the use of all references to God and the Christian faith, which the atheistic Soviet regime did. Soviet citizens had no Constitution or Bill of Rights to which they could appeal. Soon, we may not either.

Let’s say someone outside the Christian faith is offended by the gospel and hires the right attorney. This is similar to the “One Nation Under God” case before the Supreme Court. Perhaps there is a well organized group pursuing the legal sanction, such as the one that has pushed to try Mel Gibson for hate crimes at the World Court in the Hague for having the audacity of practicing his religion freely and producing The Passion of The Christ. If well-funded litigious groups insistently press their case year after year and one judge finally yields, that decision becomes the new precedent. Christianity will have suddenly become the source of hate speech ironically, in the very nation founded upon its beliefs! The unthinkable will have happened.

William Penn’s warning becomes more prescient by the day considering the direction America has been heading in recent times. As our character and morals decline, the prospect of Big Brother looms ahead, ever monitoring and controlling more and more aspects of our lives. Compared to the dignity of the past, the postmodern American is increasingly becoming more like chattel that the State manages. This is a horrible loss that few appreciate and it has happened incrementally—one right or freedom at a time—as citizens become used to the process.

I miss the old America more than I can put into words. I am afraid it is gone forever. I miss the innocence, the optimism, the character of good people who seemed the majority then. As a child I experienced the freedom to roam neighborhoods at whim. I even walked to movies alone. It was safe. Almost no neighborhood was off limits (I pressed this at age 6 by riding my tricycle down Washington DC’s M Street across Key Bridge in heavy traffic en route to the Hot Shoppe for a sundae, creating quite a stir. Some kindly officers took me home). I could trick-or-treat unsupervised and came home with full bags of goodies; no fear of razor blades in apples, crack cocaine or hash in brownies, or of being molested. At my elementary school—though I grew up in an agnostic family—the unabashed Christian celebrations warmed my heart--gave me hope in a higher good. Christmas carols in the school auditorium robustly spoke of God and Christ. These were public school celebrations that honored America’s Christian foundation long before ACLU lawyers cleverly used the legal system to change the America I knew. Oh, what a loss.

I am sure when I was in India before my conversion that these memories played a very real role in getting me to see the light. When my family went overseas on diplomatic assignment, that was the America I remember leaving behind. I loved and cherished it---and in some ways I am still trying to return to it. I value America today, but am saddened by the scope of the colossal loss of what we once had. I grieve over what America is becoming—a wanton, defiant, post-Christian State, ever more bureaucratic and controlling—-and growing more ugly by the day.

These days, for expediency, our political leaders assure the shrinking remnant of old moralists that the status quo of the old America is intact. Perhaps they are pacified. But newer post-Christian generations see what is happening and revel in the barn-burning of every possible traditional index.

Recent precedents: Mass “gay and lesbian” marriages are celebrated in San Francisco as its new mayor flexes his political muscle, demonstrating his tolerance; a homosexual bishop is installed by a major denomination; two women rock stars have a lesbian kiss on a TV spectacular; another woman diva at the Superbowl halftime celebration exposes her naked breast in prime time viewing (an act once limited to burlesque shows with adults); elementary school kids experiment with ultra-violent computer games; drug usage and sex parties in public schools hit ever younger pre-teen groups as real education plummets; police no longer treat citizens with the dignity of former eras but, empowered by the state, violate and abuse citizens’ rights; predatory lawsuits savage countless lives and businesses; broadscale illegal immigration flows across porous borders, changing the demographics of the nation; corrupt political officials garner votes by cutting deals; illegal immigrants manipulate welfare as a growing army of the “needy” live off the system; profanity becomes commonplace in the public lexicon; murder and rape keep rising; taxes fund growing government spending as trade deficits and national debt soars, further indenturing future generations under a mountain of debt; the dollar shrinks in value against other currencies as it is printed at whim; corruption in the corporate world rocks Wall Street; politicians bow to special interests who hold the money power over elections.

A United States president, representing the most trusted and dignified office in the nation, betrays the national interest as he indulges in brazen scandals in the Oval Office in various sexcapades.

How far we have fallen as a nation since honorable men of moral principle like Washington, Madison, and Adams governed the early republic which really was “One Nation Under God.” Fifty-two of the fifty-five signers of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies and it is no accident that there are Bible verses etched in stone all over the federal buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C.

Joseph Sobran in his essay “Things To Come” (1998), looks at the future:

In the year 2020, this country will be hard to recognize. But by extrapolating from current trends, we can make a few safe predictions: We will elect a U.S. president with hair dyed green and a pierced tongue. His vice president will be a transsexual. Conservatives will call for a return to the standards of Bill Clinton.

As we continue to abandon the true God for other gods, the protection this land has had for so long will vanish, leaving America vulnerable in a wholly new way.

© Tal Brooke 2005 Reprinted by Permission

Tal Brooke is President and Chairman of SCP, one of the foremost apologetics and culture watching organizations in America in the heart of Berkeley, California. The son of an American diplomat spending his youth abroad in many countries, Tal intently explored the occult in India, as the right-hand man for the famous guru, Sai-Baba, until he underwent an extraordinary Christian conversion experience, detailed in his book Lord of the Air, which rocked India before it was banned. Tal is the author of 9 books, a graduate of the University of Virginia and Princeton, is listed in Marquis Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, and has spoken around the world including at Cambridge, Oxford and other top universities. http://www.scp-inc.org/ Contact: tal7@comcast.net