Back to Church - Back to America - Back to Freedom

We’ve been hearing of a possible trend of people heading back to church in the face of the relentless sense of crisis gripping the country. Columnist Peggy Noonan—at her best when observing general moods and attitudes—comments on this trend in her latest column, and is actually pretty dark in her sense of what the core fears and concerns really are and where they are leading. She’s more or less at the same place in thought that Powerline was in its observation that “…the living heart of the economy, confidence in the future, has been wounded if not killed.” (See the Brushfires essay, "Duty Calls" .)

But in noting that people may be returning to church in greater numbers, she’s missing the bright promise implicit in that fact: we really haven’t lost anything right or good, but we are feeling that both are threatened. There may not be unanimity as to why we are feeling this way, but our instincts are telling us where to go to find direction. This is good. In Ms. Noonan's terms, this is better than a pill for depression.

Our faith, when applied to our love for America, can serve to remind us: America is God-given. It is the ‘shining city on a hill’. It is the ‘the last, best hope on earth’. We, as part of God’s creation, know this, and feel in our hearts when it is being threatened or abused or violated. Going back to church can help us realize why we’re so concerned, even if the particular priest or pastor or minister (or rabbi) doesn’t totally get it. God ‘gets it’, and so do we.

We’re always amazed when the godless left goes apoplectic at anything spoken or written that resembles the previous paragraph. There are many reasons for this, but some of it springs from a predisposition to equate the term “Americans” to white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and in particular to a view of all WASPs as racist, bigoted, intolerant and exploitative. But it’s worth remembering the widely web-circulated essay that followed a Pakistani militant’s call to kill ‘an American, any American’ in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The essay, written by law professor Peter Ferrara, is worth a full read, here, but we need only a few excerpts for our point.

Mr. Ferrara offers a description of Americans in order to help the lunatic Pakistani find one:

“An American is English…or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

…

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.

But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

(bold font added by Brushfires)

We would add one thing. That ‘human spirit of freedom’ wasn’t self-generated; it is how we are made as the child of a loving Creator. The Creator hasn’t changed, and neither have we. When we go back to church, we’ll be reminded of this.

We “Americans” will not be convinced or made to love godlessness and socialism. It simply is not possible. No popularity poll or ‘approval rating’ will ever supplant our inherent love of freedom, just as no person, no matter what office he or she holds, will ever supplant our inherent feeling of connection to God—not to any politician—and a sense that our right to freedom derives from that connection.

And so the extreme angst of Americans at the ongoing revelation of the godless, socialist, freedom-killing agenda of Obama is not only understandable; it is inevitable because of our very nature. The refusal of Americans to accept this agenda is also not only understandable; it will ultimately be seen as absolute. Going back to church will stir the spirit of this refusal.

President George W. Bush endured unimaginable scorn for his steadfast willingness to proclaim that freedom was a gift of the Almighty to everyone in the world. But he was right; the world is better for his having done so, and Americans everywhere know it.

We think Obama owes Americans his resignation for reasons we’ve stated, repeatedly. But we’d also be happy to see Obama have a major change of outlook and engineer a radical course-reversal back to the God-respecting, freedom-loving America of the founding. We harbor no ill will toward him personally. But if he doesn’t resign or radically change course, and continues to advance a godless, socialist, freedom-killing agenda, he will be pursuing a fight that cannot and will not be won. In the process, he will be endangering everyone throughout the world who holds to the spirit of freedom. Which is to say, everyone.

History will not judge Obama kindly for doing so. As Americans head back to church, this history will be made.

Paul Gable

Posted March 15, 2009