THE BANNING OF CHRISTIANITY
By Jon Christian Ryter
December 21, 2003
NewsWithViews.com
It's getting to the point where 1st century Christians have little on today's Christians in the area of persecution even though 21st century Christians (in the industrialized nations) are not being thrown into dens with hungry tigers and lions, nor are they being burned at the stake as they were during the Dark Ages when the Catholic Church attempted to stop the Christian's thirst for a personal knowledge of his Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today, in the United States where American citizens are theoretically protected by the Constitution, the persecution of anyone for their religious beliefs is a violation of constitutional law. Very clearly, the 1st Amendment of the Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." What that says, in simple everyday language that constitutional lawyers should not trip over, is that the government cannot deny anyone the privilege of exercising their religious beliefs in any way they chose . Further, the Constitution assures us that we can worship as we choose without interference from the government.
Yet that "interference" happens 24-7 in every city, in every State, in the nation. And the U.S. Justice Department, which is the caretaker of the constitutional privileges found under the rule of law has done nothing to protect those who are persecuted. Why? you ask. Because the Justice Department is charged with the task of persecuting (of, if you prefer, maliciously prosecuting) Christians who dare to exercise their religious rights under the Constitution. Sadly, Christians are no longer a protected class in America. Sadder yet is the fact that America rose to become the greatest nation in the history of mankind only because God blessed America for its witness of Him.
As the Utopians who were determined to create a secular new world order that merged not only the political and economic structures of the world community, but its theology as well, Christianity suddenly became a square peg in the proverbial round hole. As the utopians preached a social gospel that encouraged mankind to ignore the differences between the various religious sects and seek communal salvation upon common ideals with which they agreed, Christianity stood out like a throbbing sore thumb.
Christianity teaches, and acknowledges, that Jesus Christ is the one and only incarnate Son of God. That a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, gave birth to God--Jesus, the Messiah--and that we will achieve eternal life in Heaven only through Him. Christians understand that Jesus atoned for our sins with His shed blood. And it is only through His death and resurrection that we are saved. No other religion encompasses that teaching. Further, Holy Scripture very clearly and very pointedly admonishes man that there is no other way by which salvation can be obtained, and that all other forms of worship are an abomination. God reminds the Christian and the Jew that He is a jealous God.
Scripture teach man to love the sinner but hate the sin. Some of the sins mentioned are fornication, greed, lust, envy, stealing, killing, lying, envy, ego, homosexuality, adultery and idolatry--worshipping false gods.
Buried within Christianity's or Judaism's theological no-nos are the core tenets of most of the world's other religions--including the fastest growing religion in the world: Islam. And, that's the rub. Christianity is now viewed as the religion of exclusivity--the world's religion of hate. To the secular globalists who are structuring the framework of governance for the New World Order as a society of inclusiveness, there is no room in their humanist Garden of Eden for a religion that excludes homosexuals, lesbians, atheists, polytheists or monotheists who believe in a different God than the Jewish Jehovah or the Christian's Yahweh. And, because of that, there is no room in the "New World Order Inn" for Christianity.
At the end of World War II when the United Nations was reshaped from the failed League of Nations, globalism was the vision of the future and a one world government, one world economy and one world religion was the core objective. The industrialized nations opened their doors to the impoverished peoples of the third world as Europe's Asian and African empires crumbled into the communist dictatorships of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Those decades became the era of the political refugee.
With the influx of new citizens came new theologies. Some of these new citizens were polytheists. Some were monotheists. Some were atheists. All of them resented the Christian's Jesus. Jesus was the God of exclusively. In the 1940's the most Christian nation in the world suddenly came under siege when theists with different world views settled here and in the other industrialized Caucasian nations that are largely Christian in perspective.
The attack on Christianity began shortly after the United States joined the newly disguised League of Nations that was now adroitly garbed in red, white and blue and renamed the United Nations. The League was even given a high visibility, posh New York address even though the power of the UN remained in Brussels, Belgium.
The first assault on Christianity began with Everson v Board of Education (330 US 1, 18) in 1947. In Everson, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that the 1st Amendment created a wall of separation between church and State. In point of fact, it did not. The simple reality was that the 1st Amendment forbids the government from creating a State-sponsored religion, or obligating its citizens to worship, or not worship, in a specific manner--precisely what government is now doing. It is important also to note that the 1st Amendment places all of the restrictions on government, not the people.
The U.S. Supreme Court separation doctrine does not come from the Constitution of the United States. Rather, it comes from Article 13 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights which the high court saw fit to couple with the U.S. Bill of Right to arrive at its convoluted conclusion. Article 13 says: "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations that are prescribed by law." When the U.S. Supreme Court rules in religious freedom issues today, its decisions are not based on the inalienable rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights, but the conditional rights promised under the Declaration of Human Rights. Look at them side by side, and ponder the most recent court decisions on religious 'freedom."
You will note that in the Bill of Rights, all of the restrictions are placed on the government. In the Declaration of Human Rights, all of the restrictions are placed on the citizen. In every local, state, or federal court decision dealing with religious freedom in the United States, the restrictions are illegally placed on the Christian, and on Christianity as a whole, not on the government where the Founding Fathers placed the restrictions.
In 1947 and again in 1948 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that voluntary church release programs that allowed students, with the consent of their parents, to attend religious training--in their own church--violated the rights of atheists who attend no churches. In McCollum v Board of Education (333 US 203, 207-209) Vashti McCollum, a Champaign, Illinois atheist, asked the court not only to kill the voluntary religious program, but to forbid any type of religious training for children n the United States if that suggested there was a God. The religious training in Illinois was funded by the churches. The students who participated received their religious training at their family church. And, most of all, the State of Illinois sanctioned the program and authorized the time release. While McCollum was seeking a national ban on religious education, the U.S. Supreme Court would not touch that sacred cow. Instead they killed the Illinois program as a violation of the wall of separation between Church and State.
Over the years, as America became more theologically and culturally diverse, the federal court system began relying more and more on UN legal precepts and less on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Of course, since the Supreme Court is now codifying UN law into American case law, its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
But there is a common thread woven through almost every Church-State case that has ever been heard by the Supreme Court . That common thread is the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU was created in 1920 (coinciding with the creation of the League of Nations) in order to wage war against the Constitution by destroying the latchpin of democracy--the rule of law--and implement the communist precept of social justice in the United States.
America is a country that was founded as a Christian nation based on Christian ideals, integrity and upon the principle that man's rights are derived not from other men, but from God. To steal the liberty of the American people the utopians at the gate knew it would first be necessary to steal America's God--or make that God unpopular enough, or politically-incorrect enough that man would reject Him as unnecessary in a modern world. Once God has been repudiated as the Supreme Being, man's liberty then becomes as conditional as his God.
Over the past two decades the ACLU has fought Christians on every front to eliminate all vestiges of Jesus from Americana--even to the extent of outlawing the use of the word "Christmas" because it contains the Greek word for Messiah, the "Anointed One"--Christos--in its name.
Today, it has become politically incorrect to wish someone a Merry Christmas out of fear that we will offend those who are Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, atheist or homosexual (since Jesus is projected by the Christophobes as a homophobic). Today, the appropriate greeting, according to the politically correct, is "Happy Holidays." We are reminded by those with smug faces that not only do we celebrate Christmas during this time of the year, we also celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah) and newly created African American holiday of Kwanzaa (which was manufactured as a Yuletide holiday simply to muddy the water. It is interesting that when the Holy Roman Empire conquered pagan Europe, it laid its own manufactured holidays over the pagan events until, eventually, the church holidays superseded the significance of the pagan rites. Think of that this year when you wish someone "Happy Holiday" instead of "Merry Christmas."
But anyway, let's get back on schedule here since the banning of Christianity is pretty much progressing along on schedule to coincide with the timeline of the globalists who are, themselves, pretty much right on schedule to bring you is version of a shiny new world government by the end of this decade.
This year, even more than last, it is getting easier for the atheists and the utopians with a theological agenda to ban Nativity scenes and other symbols of Christ from the American landscape. It's getting to the point that the ACLU barely has to sue cities anymore. Communities are so gun-shy of anything that smacks of Jesus that, long before the ACLU rears its socialist head, the cities themselves are over-reacting towards Christians and anything that smacks of Christianity. Which, of course, is what the globalists want. Clearly, they are winning the war to ban Jesus as the Messiah.
A week ago a Nativity scene was removed from a showcase at the Simmons Elementary School in Horsham, Pennsylvania. What makes this newsworthy (since Nativity scenes have been outlawed in many of America's communities because, according to those community leaders, such displays are theologically-biased against those who do not believe in Jesus), is that the ACLU did not demanded that the Nativity scene at the Hatbro-Horsham School District be removed. District Superintendent William Lessa removed it because it was too overtly religious. Of course, Lessa alibied what his actions by claiming that the Nativity scene was "...a religious symbol so significant that it was not appropriate in the context of public education."
Excuse me? I have to say this about Mr. Lessa. When the Christians in Horsham manage to get rid of that hypocrite, he should find a good career as a politician. Lessa added that the Nativity scene was not needed since there were plenty of other symbols of Christmas in Simmons Elementary--including Christmas trees, a menorah and a symbol of Kwanzaa. Yup. Everything was there except the REASON for the season.
This Christmas, as we stand pridefully near our brightly decorated Christmas trees and survey the brightly wrapped presents under the tree, we should silently contemplate the true meaning of the holiday and the reason for the season. It isn't Santa Claus. And, even though most Christians realize that Jesus was not born in December they clearly understand that the reason for the season was Jesus' birth in a manger in Bethlehem, Israel some 2000-odd years ago,
Oh, and by the way--for those of you who claim to be Christians but who are politically correct enough due to your business profile in your community not to want to engage in the REASON for the SEASON debate, remember this as you unwrap all those Christmas gifts this year. It wasn't Santa Claus who said: "Whomever, therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of His Father..." it was Jesus who spoke those words.
Heed them. And, by the way, Merry CHRISTmas.
© 2003 Jon Christian Ryter - All Rights Reserved
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Christian Ryter is the pseudonym of a former newspaper reporter with the Parkersburg, WV Sentinel. He authored a syndicated newspaper column, Answers From The Bible, from the mid-1970s until 1985. Answers From The Bible was read weekly in many suburban markets in the United States.
Today, Jon works for the Washington Times. His website, www.jonchristianryter.com has helped him establish a network of mid-to senior-level Washington insiders who now provide him with a steady stream of material for use both in his books and in the investigative reports that are found on his website. E-Mail: baffauthor@aol.com
By Jon Christian Ryter
December 21, 2003
NewsWithViews.com
It's getting to the point where 1st century Christians have little on today's Christians in the area of persecution even though 21st century Christians (in the industrialized nations) are not being thrown into dens with hungry tigers and lions, nor are they being burned at the stake as they were during the Dark Ages when the Catholic Church attempted to stop the Christian's thirst for a personal knowledge of his Savior, Jesus Christ.
Today, in the United States where American citizens are theoretically protected by the Constitution, the persecution of anyone for their religious beliefs is a violation of constitutional law. Very clearly, the 1st Amendment of the Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." What that says, in simple everyday language that constitutional lawyers should not trip over, is that the government cannot deny anyone the privilege of exercising their religious beliefs in any way they chose . Further, the Constitution assures us that we can worship as we choose without interference from the government.
Yet that "interference" happens 24-7 in every city, in every State, in the nation. And the U.S. Justice Department, which is the caretaker of the constitutional privileges found under the rule of law has done nothing to protect those who are persecuted. Why? you ask. Because the Justice Department is charged with the task of persecuting (of, if you prefer, maliciously prosecuting) Christians who dare to exercise their religious rights under the Constitution. Sadly, Christians are no longer a protected class in America. Sadder yet is the fact that America rose to become the greatest nation in the history of mankind only because God blessed America for its witness of Him.
As the Utopians who were determined to create a secular new world order that merged not only the political and economic structures of the world community, but its theology as well, Christianity suddenly became a square peg in the proverbial round hole. As the utopians preached a social gospel that encouraged mankind to ignore the differences between the various religious sects and seek communal salvation upon common ideals with which they agreed, Christianity stood out like a throbbing sore thumb.
Christianity teaches, and acknowledges, that Jesus Christ is the one and only incarnate Son of God. That a virgin, impregnated by the Holy Spirit, gave birth to God--Jesus, the Messiah--and that we will achieve eternal life in Heaven only through Him. Christians understand that Jesus atoned for our sins with His shed blood. And it is only through His death and resurrection that we are saved. No other religion encompasses that teaching. Further, Holy Scripture very clearly and very pointedly admonishes man that there is no other way by which salvation can be obtained, and that all other forms of worship are an abomination. God reminds the Christian and the Jew that He is a jealous God.
Scripture teach man to love the sinner but hate the sin. Some of the sins mentioned are fornication, greed, lust, envy, stealing, killing, lying, envy, ego, homosexuality, adultery and idolatry--worshipping false gods.
Buried within Christianity's or Judaism's theological no-nos are the core tenets of most of the world's other religions--including the fastest growing religion in the world: Islam. And, that's the rub. Christianity is now viewed as the religion of exclusivity--the world's religion of hate. To the secular globalists who are structuring the framework of governance for the New World Order as a society of inclusiveness, there is no room in their humanist Garden of Eden for a religion that excludes homosexuals, lesbians, atheists, polytheists or monotheists who believe in a different God than the Jewish Jehovah or the Christian's Yahweh. And, because of that, there is no room in the "New World Order Inn" for Christianity.
At the end of World War II when the United Nations was reshaped from the failed League of Nations, globalism was the vision of the future and a one world government, one world economy and one world religion was the core objective. The industrialized nations opened their doors to the impoverished peoples of the third world as Europe's Asian and African empires crumbled into the communist dictatorships of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Those decades became the era of the political refugee.
With the influx of new citizens came new theologies. Some of these new citizens were polytheists. Some were monotheists. Some were atheists. All of them resented the Christian's Jesus. Jesus was the God of exclusively. In the 1940's the most Christian nation in the world suddenly came under siege when theists with different world views settled here and in the other industrialized Caucasian nations that are largely Christian in perspective.
The attack on Christianity began shortly after the United States joined the newly disguised League of Nations that was now adroitly garbed in red, white and blue and renamed the United Nations. The League was even given a high visibility, posh New York address even though the power of the UN remained in Brussels, Belgium.
The first assault on Christianity began with Everson v Board of Education (330 US 1, 18) in 1947. In Everson, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that the 1st Amendment created a wall of separation between church and State. In point of fact, it did not. The simple reality was that the 1st Amendment forbids the government from creating a State-sponsored religion, or obligating its citizens to worship, or not worship, in a specific manner--precisely what government is now doing. It is important also to note that the 1st Amendment places all of the restrictions on government, not the people.
The U.S. Supreme Court separation doctrine does not come from the Constitution of the United States. Rather, it comes from Article 13 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights which the high court saw fit to couple with the U.S. Bill of Right to arrive at its convoluted conclusion. Article 13 says: "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations that are prescribed by law." When the U.S. Supreme Court rules in religious freedom issues today, its decisions are not based on the inalienable rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights, but the conditional rights promised under the Declaration of Human Rights. Look at them side by side, and ponder the most recent court decisions on religious 'freedom."
You will note that in the Bill of Rights, all of the restrictions are placed on the government. In the Declaration of Human Rights, all of the restrictions are placed on the citizen. In every local, state, or federal court decision dealing with religious freedom in the United States, the restrictions are illegally placed on the Christian, and on Christianity as a whole, not on the government where the Founding Fathers placed the restrictions.
In 1947 and again in 1948 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that voluntary church release programs that allowed students, with the consent of their parents, to attend religious training--in their own church--violated the rights of atheists who attend no churches. In McCollum v Board of Education (333 US 203, 207-209) Vashti McCollum, a Champaign, Illinois atheist, asked the court not only to kill the voluntary religious program, but to forbid any type of religious training for children n the United States if that suggested there was a God. The religious training in Illinois was funded by the churches. The students who participated received their religious training at their family church. And, most of all, the State of Illinois sanctioned the program and authorized the time release. While McCollum was seeking a national ban on religious education, the U.S. Supreme Court would not touch that sacred cow. Instead they killed the Illinois program as a violation of the wall of separation between Church and State.
Over the years, as America became more theologically and culturally diverse, the federal court system began relying more and more on UN legal precepts and less on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Of course, since the Supreme Court is now codifying UN law into American case law, its hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
But there is a common thread woven through almost every Church-State case that has ever been heard by the Supreme Court . That common thread is the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU was created in 1920 (coinciding with the creation of the League of Nations) in order to wage war against the Constitution by destroying the latchpin of democracy--the rule of law--and implement the communist precept of social justice in the United States.
America is a country that was founded as a Christian nation based on Christian ideals, integrity and upon the principle that man's rights are derived not from other men, but from God. To steal the liberty of the American people the utopians at the gate knew it would first be necessary to steal America's God--or make that God unpopular enough, or politically-incorrect enough that man would reject Him as unnecessary in a modern world. Once God has been repudiated as the Supreme Being, man's liberty then becomes as conditional as his God.
Over the past two decades the ACLU has fought Christians on every front to eliminate all vestiges of Jesus from Americana--even to the extent of outlawing the use of the word "Christmas" because it contains the Greek word for Messiah, the "Anointed One"--Christos--in its name.
Today, it has become politically incorrect to wish someone a Merry Christmas out of fear that we will offend those who are Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, atheist or homosexual (since Jesus is projected by the Christophobes as a homophobic). Today, the appropriate greeting, according to the politically correct, is "Happy Holidays." We are reminded by those with smug faces that not only do we celebrate Christmas during this time of the year, we also celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah) and newly created African American holiday of Kwanzaa (which was manufactured as a Yuletide holiday simply to muddy the water. It is interesting that when the Holy Roman Empire conquered pagan Europe, it laid its own manufactured holidays over the pagan events until, eventually, the church holidays superseded the significance of the pagan rites. Think of that this year when you wish someone "Happy Holiday" instead of "Merry Christmas."
But anyway, let's get back on schedule here since the banning of Christianity is pretty much progressing along on schedule to coincide with the timeline of the globalists who are, themselves, pretty much right on schedule to bring you is version of a shiny new world government by the end of this decade.
This year, even more than last, it is getting easier for the atheists and the utopians with a theological agenda to ban Nativity scenes and other symbols of Christ from the American landscape. It's getting to the point that the ACLU barely has to sue cities anymore. Communities are so gun-shy of anything that smacks of Jesus that, long before the ACLU rears its socialist head, the cities themselves are over-reacting towards Christians and anything that smacks of Christianity. Which, of course, is what the globalists want. Clearly, they are winning the war to ban Jesus as the Messiah.
A week ago a Nativity scene was removed from a showcase at the Simmons Elementary School in Horsham, Pennsylvania. What makes this newsworthy (since Nativity scenes have been outlawed in many of America's communities because, according to those community leaders, such displays are theologically-biased against those who do not believe in Jesus), is that the ACLU did not demanded that the Nativity scene at the Hatbro-Horsham School District be removed. District Superintendent William Lessa removed it because it was too overtly religious. Of course, Lessa alibied what his actions by claiming that the Nativity scene was "...a religious symbol so significant that it was not appropriate in the context of public education."
Excuse me? I have to say this about Mr. Lessa. When the Christians in Horsham manage to get rid of that hypocrite, he should find a good career as a politician. Lessa added that the Nativity scene was not needed since there were plenty of other symbols of Christmas in Simmons Elementary--including Christmas trees, a menorah and a symbol of Kwanzaa. Yup. Everything was there except the REASON for the season.
This Christmas, as we stand pridefully near our brightly decorated Christmas trees and survey the brightly wrapped presents under the tree, we should silently contemplate the true meaning of the holiday and the reason for the season. It isn't Santa Claus. And, even though most Christians realize that Jesus was not born in December they clearly understand that the reason for the season was Jesus' birth in a manger in Bethlehem, Israel some 2000-odd years ago,
Oh, and by the way--for those of you who claim to be Christians but who are politically correct enough due to your business profile in your community not to want to engage in the REASON for the SEASON debate, remember this as you unwrap all those Christmas gifts this year. It wasn't Santa Claus who said: "Whomever, therefore, shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of His Father..." it was Jesus who spoke those words.
Heed them. And, by the way, Merry CHRISTmas.
© 2003 Jon Christian Ryter - All Rights Reserved
Sign Up For Free E-Mail Alerts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Christian Ryter is the pseudonym of a former newspaper reporter with the Parkersburg, WV Sentinel. He authored a syndicated newspaper column, Answers From The Bible, from the mid-1970s until 1985. Answers From The Bible was read weekly in many suburban markets in the United States.
Today, Jon works for the Washington Times. His website, www.jonchristianryter.com has helped him establish a network of mid-to senior-level Washington insiders who now provide him with a steady stream of material for use both in his books and in the investigative reports that are found on his website. E-Mail: baffauthor@aol.com
