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In fact, there are those who would make it illegal for parents to “inflict” their religion onto their own children! If they win, you will not be allowed to bring your children to church or Sunday school, or ask them to pray with you at home. Can you imagine that?
Herbert Schlessberg, in his book, Idols for Destruction, Christian Faith and its Confrontation with American Society, argues that God reveals Himself as the Lord of all history. The significant history that takes place, the moral decisions that happen moment by moment in the public square, are all matters that concern Him.
Schlessberg goes a step further then Dannemeyer as he places Jesus Christ at the center of the whole planet’s public square. He writes: “The Church’s paramount message about history, of course, is that the dividing between B.C. and A.D. is not just a convention, and that the coming of Jesus Christ into history is the manifestation of eternity into time.”
The coming of Christ gave us the yardstick for measuring history as it had been, and history as it would be. God worked within the secular Romans, including Pontious Pilate, He worked within the corrupt politics of the Jewish antagonists, He worked in the teaching and healing ministry of Christ (which almost always took place in public settings), to bring Jesus to the Cross where, after His resurrection, history now only had meaning in Christ.
It is because of Jesus, and His teachings, that I can tell you that when Caesar says make County Road 14 a blacktop and not a gravel road, God sits and watches. But when Caesar says its all right to abort children in the womb, or practice infanticide, God says such decisions do not belong to Caesar, or his politicians, but to God. And God says No! And our youth need to know that God says No!
Morality, which should be learned in the public classroom, is not up to debate, or a vote, not according to God’s play book, the matter is settled. No debate. Wrong is wrong! And if we do not teach right and wrong within the public square and the public classroom, do not be surprised when kids bring guns and kill each other with them.
It’s not the guns that are doing the killing, it’s kids who have lost all proportion for right and wrong that are killing their peers, their parents, and even strangers.
But wait a minute, pastor, our Founding Father’s placed a wall between church and state. That’s just the way it is!
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