One of the most controversial and confusing of all issues for many is just
what is the proper role of religion and morality in public life?
In search of the right answer today, we are compelled to conclude that there
"is a famine in the land," with nearly all sides of the debate muddled up to
their necks in poor history, poor politics, poor reasoning and, all too often,
poor religion – having nothing better to offer than a multifaceted deliberation
where few seem to know where religion and morality are appropriate and where
they are not.
The unspoken consensus, though few will admit it, goes something like this:
"It is appropriate to inject religion and morality into political debate and
into public policy just so long as the moral slant parallels my moral view of
the universe, and it is highly inappropriate if it does not."
One popular point of contention on the issue, Modern Liberalism, favors the
relative ethics of Humanism and Socialism sprinkled creatively with
Judeo-Christian teachings. Its cardinal dogma is that "the ends justify the
means," or in other words, "anything goes, just so long as the political goals
of the revolution are served."
It is a flexible creed, which turns a blind eye to any dilemma of conscience
that a constant round of moral reversals ought to cause, one which fights
against all religious involvement in public life while aggressively campaigning
for a broader and broader interpretation of just what is public – yet one which
applauds any decidedly liberal professor of religion, insuring that just such
ministers are honored with Noble Peace Prizes, idolized with public statues,
glorified by children by way of public school mandates, and held true to the
faith throughout their lifetime via obligatory cultural awareness seminars for
all adult "public" employees.
Recognizing the religious nature of most human beings as a fact, while
publicly denouncing the same as “mere speculation,” the creed of liberalism
employs other strategic uses of religion such as placing a constant parade of
victims before our eyes, hoping that the moral sensitivities every human
possesses might be misdirected into seeing a logical link between the biblical
invitation to "love thy neighbor as thy self" and the Marxian mandate to "rob
from the rich to give to the poor."
Further, while this creed has banned our forefathers' Judeo-Christian based
teachings from the classroom, it has mandated (in many places) the teaching of
the religious traditions of indigenous peoples who, consistent with the creed of
Modern Liberalism, view property and natural resources in terms of collective
ownership.
The truth is Modern Liberalism does not oppose moral law; rather it haughtily
believes that it has a fresher, higher, smarter moral perspective than that
contrived by the rough and puerile rabble. Thus, the advocates of this creed
feel compelled to share it, to order it, to mandate it – and with the power of
the state behind them, they have met with great success in decreeing their
religion throughout the land. Among this creed's leading precepts, we find the
following moral peculiarities, among many others:
1. Unborn babies do not possess the inalienable right to life;
but fungi, fruit flies and convicted murderers do.
2. Ranchers and farmers do not have the right to control, develop and utilize
their private property as they please; but rodents, predators and desert
tortoises do.
3. Business owners who have put blood, sweat, tears and a great deal of
financial risk into engendering an enterprise, do not possess the right to
manage their employees creatively, as per their best interest; but distant
bureaucrats do.
4. Religious fundamentalists, heterosexuals, capitalists and white males do
not have the moral right to equality before the law; but hedonists, gays,
socialists and minorities of every stripe do.
5. Since the advocates of this creed believe in arbitrary law and in the
Hitlerian principle of collective guilt: gun manufacturers, gun dealers and
parents who legally produce, sell or own private firearms do not have the right
to leniency and protection before the law for crimes committed with those
weapons (by others); but criminals who choose to misuse those same weapons do.
6. The children of industrious and intelligent parents who have labored a
lifetime to provide property, finances, employment and education for their
family members do not have the right to be eligible upon their parentīs death to
inherit what is rightfully theirs; but unrelated children of indolent and
ignorant parents do. (1)
7. Finally, because this creed defends the utilitarian moral position that
the good of the group and the rights of the group always exceed the good of the
individual and the rights of the individual – except when the curators of this
creed say that they don't – its proponents are fully in favor of the state being
fully in charge of every businessman's social responsibility, every
schoolteacher's curriculum and every parent's children, and the state being
fully trusted and fully the dictator of every fine point of moral conduct
(except deviant conduct, which must be protected at all costs) – and thus in
favor of the state on the one hand and hedonism on the other being fully
worshipped.
That is, traditional Christians and Jews do not have the right to worship as
they please; but Humanists, Statists and Communists do. (2)
This is the ideology of Modern Liberalism; what some call dysfunctional
morality, or Statism, or the moral force of the coming “civil society.” It is in
fact, “The State Church of the Left;” a heavy-handed religion whose ministers,
would if they could, “cleanse the earth” of the most virtuous elements of
traditional Christianity and American culture. The fact that roughly 50 percent
of all America worship before this alter of state, begging for free food, unjust
privileges and endless moral accommodations, stands as a sad testimony of the
pathetic state of religion, morality and education in the United States today.
Footnotes
1. Via inheritance taxes and wealth redistribution.
2. Revealingly, liberalism added to its strange list of whose morality counts
and whose does not: Islamic fundamentalists, who were granted special prayer
privileges on public school property during public school hours by the liberal
school establishment in several key liberal cities, post-9/11, as a display of
liberalismīs "blessed tolerance" for those who would in the name of God attack
America. Christians and Jews, hurting and horrified, were denied the same
privilege.
