Think on: “When one gives up Christian belief, one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality.” FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Tumbleweed doesn’t believe Nietzsche for a nanosecond, as old Friedrich never truly understood the fundamental Christian tenets of faith, salvation, and forgiveness that transcend evil. That would require humility, and Friedrich was anything but humble. Recall that Friedrich famously said that God was dead. (Maybe the first five letters of his name describe his brain.)
Having had my fun with Nietzsche, let’s briefly examine how the excising of faith contributes to the title of this post. The tyranny Tumbleweed refers to here is that of public opinion as driven by morality. Imagine if the United States were to be ruled by the public opinion of the moment. It might resemble the great coliseum in Rome where the fate of gladiators rested on the whim of the crowd’s thumbs up or down. Thankfully, we’ve got a democratic republic and the Electoral College to prevent such tyranny of the masses.
Tumbleweed contends that there is a direct correlation between the continuous removal of religion from the public square and the steadily declining morality in our nation. Recall “separation of church and state?” It was defined in a 1947 landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in Everson v. Board of Education which incorporated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as binding upon the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The decision in Everson marked a turning point in the interpretation and application of religious disestablishment law in the modern era. Then on June 17, 1963 the Supreme Court in Abington Township School District v. Schempp made its famous “school prayer” decision. This prohibited school officials from organizing or leading prayers and devotional Bible reading in public schools. Few of us have actually read the decision, which means that we’ve been susceptible to successive opportunistic religious and political leaders – like a bunch of Nietzsche Chicken Littles blabbering about “kicking God out of the schools.” It turns out that the Supreme Court ruling never banned prayer or the Bible from public schools. Students do have a First Amendment right to pray alone or in groups, bring their scriptures to school, share their beliefs with classmates, form religious clubs in secondary schools, and in other ways express their faith during the school day as long as they don’t disrupt the school or interfere with the others’ rights.
Tumbleweed contends that especially since the Schempp decision, our nation has devolved into near moral bankruptcy as Christian morality has been systematically excised from the public arena. Ironic how a mere 60-second daily devotional exercise – feared by left-wing atheistic zealots – is viewed as threatening the outcome of a social-justice-based curriculum indoctrinating children every day for 12 years.
The bottom line is God-centered versus man-centered worldviews. It’s whose you are versus who you are. For those never exposed to or accepting of Christian values, it can be a slippery slope to cultural decay. And even for those who claim to be Christians, too often human pursuits ease out Godly pursuits. We dare not forget Romans 13:8-10, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Love your neighbor. That can be a bit of a challenge in today’s social media driven society. Love is mentioned as many as 538 times in the Bible, depending on the translation. Tumbleweed has observed a not-so-subtle cultural engineering prevalent in social media, as the persons who control the menu control the choices people make. This self-centered view fostered by social media has bred an intolerance that tears away at freedoms in schools, courts, and communities. It’s a logical leap that the more social media with its aversion to Christian morality picks informational winners and losers, the less freedom Christians and others will enjoy. It isolates us and presents easy socio-political targets for our enemies. Indeed, we wind up with a mechanism that enables left-wing progressives and their socialist ilk to deliver on their tyrannical social, economic, and political views. They wield the establishment clause as a hammer to remove every last vestige of religion from the public square. With it go our freedoms.
Dare we be surprised that Biblically-based morality is fast-disappearing from our nation? Dare we fight back against the tyranny of the left? Why not? Just sayin’.