Alan Keyes
God, the author of liberty, to Thee can we still sing?
Alan Keyes shares story of anti-Christ discrimination at D.C.'s Union Station
By Alan Keyes
A few days before Christmas, I went to Union Station in Washington, D.C., to sing Christmas carols with a group of folks organized by my friend, Jack Ames, a co-founder of the Defend Life organization. I arrived a little late, to find the group singing in a spot outside the entrance on the west side of the station, near stairs leading down to the Metro. They were gathered 'round a nativity scene, regaling passersby with infectious enthusiasm. I quickly caught their good spirit and joined in.
A small group of commuters and travelers formed, ever changing in its composition, who stood listening and occasionally adding their voices to the familiar Christmas hymns. Not a few smiled, waved, or otherwise signified their appreciation as they hurried to catch their train. The whole experience evoked the wonderful sense of comfortable good fellowship Christmas caroling invariably produces. That is, until some official person approached to tell us we had to move to another location.
Since I arrived late, I didn't know that it was the second time this had happened. The carolers started off occupying a little space inside the doors leading into the station's spacious court. They were asked to move outside. Now we were being told to move to a spot at the bottom of the stairs going down to the Metro. After singing one or two carols there, another official person approached one of the organizers. As before, he insisted that we had to move on, because religious activities weren't permitted on the property. We continued singing, however, generally receiving the same positive interest from passersby.
I guess the combination of public acceptance and official irritation is typical of the anti-Christ mentality that now pervades anything remotely associated with government in the United States at any level. The blatantly false notion that the Constitution forbids religious expression on publicly own property (a corollary of the equally false notion that the Constitution requires "separation of church and state" – a concept nowhere mentioned in its language) now allows the occasional hard-bitten atheists or secularists to impose their anti-Christ mentality on people of faith. This is so not just here in the United States, but throughout the Western countries whose citizens were once largely responsible for spreading the gospel.
What's particularly interesting, in this respect, however, is the anti-Christ discrimination more and more evident in these countries. The issue is, in fact, no longer the separation of religion and government; it's the redefinition of liberty to mean freedom from any public exposure to biblical Christianity. In the United States, parents are faced with public school curricula that indoctrinate a positive view of Islam while implicitly disparaging Christianity. In France, government officials have apparently decided to take a hands-off attitude toward public prayer by relatively large groups of Muslims while cracking down on statues, crosses, and other longstanding (and less obtrusive) displays that reflect the Christian faith. Because its followers are, for the time being, an overall minority in the U.S. and other such nations, Islam appears to enjoy cultural privilege.
In an article I wrote some years ago, I argued that the assertion of such minority cultural privilege actually masks a preference for Islam as a replacement for Christianity once elitist faction oligarchy replaces constitutional self-government, of, by, and for the people as a whole. I noted that "in practically every...country where Islam is the predominant religion, the Islamic religion seems...to engender political regimes that plainly contradict the fundamental principles of the American republic." Once the ethos of constitutional self-government is obsolete, such a religion would facilitate unchallenged elitist control.
For a brief moment during the Christmas caroling last week, it occurred to me to wonder how we (the carolers) would react if some official person demanded that we desist and threatened to have us arrested. We were engaging in a public activity that was once a universally accepted aspect of the Christmas holidays. Now, under the pretext of unconstitutional statutes encouraged by a blatantly false jurisprudence, we are being subject to harassment intended to discourage innocuous, peaceful, emotionally uplifting activities because they may spread the gospel, in spirit and truth, as Christ commissioned us to do.
If government edicts demand that we desist from such evangelization, should we simply comply? Or should we question human authorities, as the Apostles did when "commanded...not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus," and ask "Whether it is right in the sight of God to obey you more than God..." (Acts 4:18-19)? There is something tragically self-destructive in the notion that human authorities must be obeyed when they abuse authority derived from the God-endowed human sovereign whose sovereignty authorizes their possession of governmental power – in our case, the people of the United States – to deny and disparage respect for the authority (God's rule) by which the people justify their exercise of the sovereign power that ordains and establishes the government.
Such a "separation of church and state" is shrewdly calculated to sever the American people from the roots of their constitutional self-government. It's easy to understand why elitists are eager to inculcate this doctrine, poisonous to the unalienable right of liberty. But why on earth are people who have proved and enjoyed the blessings of that liberty willing meekly to put away the public reverence for God's authority that substantiates their just claim to exercise it?
January 1, 2018
A few days before Christmas, I went to Union Station in Washington, D.C., to sing Christmas carols with a group of folks organized by my friend, Jack Ames, a co-founder of the Defend Life organization. I arrived a little late, to find the group singing in a spot outside the entrance on the west side of the station, near stairs leading down to the Metro. They were gathered 'round a nativity scene, regaling passersby with infectious enthusiasm. I quickly caught their good spirit and joined in.
A small group of commuters and travelers formed, ever changing in its composition, who stood listening and occasionally adding their voices to the familiar Christmas hymns. Not a few smiled, waved, or otherwise signified their appreciation as they hurried to catch their train. The whole experience evoked the wonderful sense of comfortable good fellowship Christmas caroling invariably produces. That is, until some official person approached to tell us we had to move to another location.
Since I arrived late, I didn't know that it was the second time this had happened. The carolers started off occupying a little space inside the doors leading into the station's spacious court. They were asked to move outside. Now we were being told to move to a spot at the bottom of the stairs going down to the Metro. After singing one or two carols there, another official person approached one of the organizers. As before, he insisted that we had to move on, because religious activities weren't permitted on the property. We continued singing, however, generally receiving the same positive interest from passersby.
I guess the combination of public acceptance and official irritation is typical of the anti-Christ mentality that now pervades anything remotely associated with government in the United States at any level. The blatantly false notion that the Constitution forbids religious expression on publicly own property (a corollary of the equally false notion that the Constitution requires "separation of church and state" – a concept nowhere mentioned in its language) now allows the occasional hard-bitten atheists or secularists to impose their anti-Christ mentality on people of faith. This is so not just here in the United States, but throughout the Western countries whose citizens were once largely responsible for spreading the gospel.
What's particularly interesting, in this respect, however, is the anti-Christ discrimination more and more evident in these countries. The issue is, in fact, no longer the separation of religion and government; it's the redefinition of liberty to mean freedom from any public exposure to biblical Christianity. In the United States, parents are faced with public school curricula that indoctrinate a positive view of Islam while implicitly disparaging Christianity. In France, government officials have apparently decided to take a hands-off attitude toward public prayer by relatively large groups of Muslims while cracking down on statues, crosses, and other longstanding (and less obtrusive) displays that reflect the Christian faith. Because its followers are, for the time being, an overall minority in the U.S. and other such nations, Islam appears to enjoy cultural privilege.
In an article I wrote some years ago, I argued that the assertion of such minority cultural privilege actually masks a preference for Islam as a replacement for Christianity once elitist faction oligarchy replaces constitutional self-government, of, by, and for the people as a whole. I noted that "in practically every...country where Islam is the predominant religion, the Islamic religion seems...to engender political regimes that plainly contradict the fundamental principles of the American republic." Once the ethos of constitutional self-government is obsolete, such a religion would facilitate unchallenged elitist control.
-
Assuming that these elitists could find some way to dictate its leadership, a domesticated form of Islam would be an effective tool for keeping the population in submission. In any event, it is
liable to be less ornery and unpredictable than Christianity. The path of Allah revealed by Muhammad enforces submission. By contrast, the way of life Jesus Christ promises offers a share in the liberty
wherewith he frees those who trust in him.
For a brief moment during the Christmas caroling last week, it occurred to me to wonder how we (the carolers) would react if some official person demanded that we desist and threatened to have us arrested. We were engaging in a public activity that was once a universally accepted aspect of the Christmas holidays. Now, under the pretext of unconstitutional statutes encouraged by a blatantly false jurisprudence, we are being subject to harassment intended to discourage innocuous, peaceful, emotionally uplifting activities because they may spread the gospel, in spirit and truth, as Christ commissioned us to do.
If government edicts demand that we desist from such evangelization, should we simply comply? Or should we question human authorities, as the Apostles did when "commanded...not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus," and ask "Whether it is right in the sight of God to obey you more than God..." (Acts 4:18-19)? There is something tragically self-destructive in the notion that human authorities must be obeyed when they abuse authority derived from the God-endowed human sovereign whose sovereignty authorizes their possession of governmental power – in our case, the people of the United States – to deny and disparage respect for the authority (God's rule) by which the people justify their exercise of the sovereign power that ordains and establishes the government.
Such a "separation of church and state" is shrewdly calculated to sever the American people from the roots of their constitutional self-government. It's easy to understand why elitists are eager to inculcate this doctrine, poisonous to the unalienable right of liberty. But why on earth are people who have proved and enjoyed the blessings of that liberty willing meekly to put away the public reverence for God's authority that substantiates their just claim to exercise it?
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
