Daily Archives: April 2, 2015

Freedom of Religion

There has been a lot of attention given to the Freedom of Religion law recently passed here in Indiana. I don’t know enough yet about all the legal issues involved and I won’t go into them here. This only will I say, this country was founded on Judeao-Christian values, i.e., the values we find revealed by God in the Bible. Those basic values are what made this country the great nation that it is and, I am afraid, to willfully remove ourselves from them will be to remove ourselves from the protection of God’s Providence which brought us to this place of distinction in the world.

Quote after quote could be produced showing the favorable disposition of the Founding Fathers to God, Christianity and the Bible. For example, President Washington said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” In a speech to the Delaware Indians, he stated:

“You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention; and to tie the knot of friendship and union so fast, that nothing shall ever be able to loose it.”

Truly, so long as this country adhered to it’s Judeao-Christian heritage, God blessed this nation. But since, through the threat of financial ruin and intimidation of an influential minority, the constant drone of the liberal media against conservative, Christian points of view, and the passing off of the perfidious plague of political correctness as serious thought, we have devalued human life by adopting the insanity of abortion, we have glorified the sickest kind of immorality and debauchery through Hollywood’s hypnotic “eye,” we have sanitized and “normalized” the unnatural, sick and perverse abominations of homosexuality (which until 1986 was classified as a mental illness in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and, of late, powerful people in high places have attempted to foist upon the American people the rejection of Christ and the gospel in favor of the adoption of Mohammed and Islam.

It is only natural that sincere and conscientious Christians voice concern about their place in this increasingly hostile-to-Christian society. We should not expect things to get significantly better anytime soon for the Christian or even the nation. Indeed, expect them to worsen considerably. But this much we know: God is ultimately in complete control and shall work out His will in His own time, in His own way (Dan. 4:17,25,32; 5:21).

In the meantime, however, we should know that anytime the government attempts to force Christians to do that which they cannot conscientiously do–and make no mistake about it, this is happening even now!–they must adamantly refuse. Clearly “we ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:9). This action, of course, will have serious consequences and we will be persecuted as a result but all that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (II Tim. 3:12). We must have enough faith to not fear men but God (Matt. 10:28).

Unless we Christians stand up and loudly voice our opposition to the godless agenda being advanced while we are still free to do so, there may come a time when it will be impossible to do so. It is terribly ironic that God does not even force us to do His will like the government is now trying to force us to do it’s will. God made us free and makes us free. We have freedom of religion with God, but not with man. Our federal and many state constitutions promise us that these God-given freedoms will not be abridged but in this day of lawlessness that may not mean anything.

Eric L. Padgett