They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them. (Romans 2:15 NRSV)
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. (Hebrews 10:16 NRSV)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Evangelicals will tell you that God has written his law on the heart of every person. This means we all know what the law of God says. However, based on the verses above, it is questionable whether God has written his law on the heart of every person — past, present, and future. Did Adam and Eve have the law of God written on their hearts? Or do these verses only apply to New Testament or New Covenant Christians? This is problematic because Jeremiah 31:31-34 says that ALL of us are God’s children. If he is our God and we are his people by default, there’s no need for us to be saved.
How is the term “law of God” defined? Ask a hundred Christians to define “law of God” and you will get a plethora of answers, many of which contradict the others. The Bible says God has written his law on our hearts. Which law? All 613 laws? Just the Ten Commandments? Just the Nine Commandments? Just the commandments of Paul? Just the commandments of Jesus in the gospels? How can we possibly know what, if anything, is written on our hearts? That is, after we figure out exactly what the heart is and where it is located. Personally, I think that heart and mind are synonymous. I readily admit that there’s a debate to be had on this issue, especially when you throw conscience into the discussion.
For Christians who say it is the Ten Commandments that are written on our hearts, I ask, which version of the Ten Commandments? Is the command to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy written on our hearts? If yes, why is it that MOST Christians do not keep the Sabbath?
I could go on and on with questions about the claim that the law of God is written on our hearts. The next time an Evangelical apologist tells you that the law of God is written on your heart, ask some of the questions I asked above. I suspect that most Evangelicals who make this claim haven’t thought about it. They regurgitate what they heard from church pulpits or read in apologetics books.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, sat down with Rolling Stone journalist, Lorena O’Neil, to discuss Louisiana’s law that mandates posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms:
“The Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization, and you’re telling me we can’t hang them in school?” he [Governor Jeff Landry] asked me.
When I [Lorena O’Neil] brought up people who don’t believe in God, Landry got impassioned. “They don’t have to look at the poster! They don’t believe in what? Do not kill?”
Landry, a Roman Catholic, thinks the Ten Commandments (the Exodus 20 version) are the fabric of civilization. Either Landry is ignorant about human history or he’s deliberately misleading his constituents. I suspect it’s the latter. It is also possible that Landry is using the word “civilization” in a narrow sense of the world, but regardless, human civilizations predate the Bible story that records God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. It is unlikely Moses was an actual person, and the Ten Commandments were written down over three millennia after the establishment of human civilization. Historians debate the dating of the Ten Commandments and the start of human civilization, but whatever dates you go with, human civilization predates the Ten Commandments. This means Landry’s claim that. the Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization is false.
THIS [Posting the Ten Commandments in Schools] MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY.
Donald Trump on Truth Social
Landry seems to think that Louisiana public schools are religious institutions that grudgingly allow non-Christians to enroll with the understanding that they will be exposed to the trappings of Christianity. “Don’t like the Ten Commandments posters?” Landry asks. “Don’t look at them.” Landry wrongly thinks that those who oppose the posting of the Ten Commandments lack moral grounding or a basis for morality. He doesn’t seem to understand that moral foundations can be built from various sources, including the Ten Commandments. And let’s be clear, the Ten Commandments are insufficient for building a broad, comprehensive moral foundation.
The first four commands are explicitly religious in nature. They have no relevance to non-Christians. Landry brings up the sixth command. He must think that this command is self-explanatory, but it’s not. What this command means is debated both within and without the Christian church. The same can be said of all ten commandments. Who, exactly, is going to interpret the commandments for students? What’s next, bringing in priests and preachers to provide the proper interpretation for students?
I support teaching the Ten Commandments in a high school World Religions class. Surely, one class session on the history of the Ten Commandments should suffice, right? Why must the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of every classroom? Students will soon get used to seeing the poster and, before long, not pay attention to it. Posting the Ten Commandments will not make a bit of difference for public school students. All Landry has done is win a paper victory in the latest culture war.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, my friend Ben Berwick got into a discussion with several Christians about [the] moral law. You can read his post on the matter here.
In Christian thought, there is a difference between “moral law” and “the moral law.” Moral law is generally viewed as natural law; the law that is supposedly written on the hearts of all humans. (Jeremiah 31:33, Romans 2:16, and Hebrews 10:16) Most Christians think the law written on our hearts is the Ten Commandments. Which version? Or just the Nine Commandments since keeping the Sabbath is practiced by few Christians today? The Bible never says what the laws that are written on our hearts, so Christians assume what these laws are, much like they assume God exists to start with and that we have a “heart.” If the law is written on the hearts of all humans, why is there such diversity and disagreement on morality — even among Christians? Is the Ten Commandments the only law that is “moral”? If not, why didn’t God write all of his laws on our hearts? Maybe it is a memory problem. We don’t have enough storage space for 635+ laws, so God just gave us a summary list of laws to follow.
Many Christians, especially those of a Calvinistic/Reformed persuasion, take a different view of the moral law. Believing ALL Biblical law is moral, these Christians divide God’s law into three categories: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. Some Calvinists believe the moral law is binding and in force, but the ceremonial law was fulfilled in the atonement of Christ and the judicial law applied only to the nation of Israel. While the judicial and ceremonial laws can still be instructive, only the moral law is binding today. Good luck with deciding exactly what those moral laws are. Other Calvinists believe that only New Testament law is valid and in force. Much metaphorical blood has been spilled defending these positions. As a Calvinistic Baptist, I held to the former view — that of theonomist Rousas Rushdooney — that all the law of God, rightly interpreted, is in force today.
Evangelical apologists would have you believe that the moral law is clear and absolute. Why, then, is there so much debate and confusion among Christians about God’s law? It seems to me that Christians are every bit as subjective on God’s law as they claim unbelievers are. They believe what they want to believe and ignore or interpret away the rest. Ever cafeteria Christians, they pick and choose which laws to believe and, hopefully, practice. I say hopefully since there is no evidence that Christians are meaningfully more moral than unbelievers.
A whole separate argument is whether God himself is moral. I argue that he is not, and that many of his “moral” laws are, in fact, immoral.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Recently, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Patrick Holt, who pastors Bible Baptist Church in Grover Hill, Ohio, wrote a letter to the Defiance Crescent News decrying the decline and depravity he sees everywhere he looks. He blames these things on “liberals,” saying if we just allowed school teachers to lead children in (Christian) prayers and (Protestant Christian) Bible readings and taught them the Ten Commandments (which Holt doesn’t keep), the United States will magically return to the glory days of the 1950s. Never mind the fact that most Americans are Christians, so if he wants to place blame, I suggest he look in the mirror.
Here’s what Holt had to say:
Liberals got what they wanted
It is definitely a tragedy with the recent and past mass shootings at our public schools. Debate continues on about guns being the problem.
I graduated in 1967. Guys driving their pickup trucks to school may possibly have had a gun rack with a shotgun or a rifle in the back glass. Semi-automatic guns had been invented by that time. But there were no mass shootings in our public schools.
During the 12 years of my schooling, the day would start as a student read a Bible verse and then followed by another student reading a prayer over the PA system. Then Mr. Dunlap would make the announcements. But along that time there was the liberal left party which said it didn’t want the Bible, prayer and the Ten Commandments in our public schools. And they got their wish.
Shortly after that they said they didn’t want those terrible three in our society. And they have been fairly successful at that. So what they were asking for was a godless school system and a godless society.
Now you have the right to choose what you want or don’t want, but you cannot choose what the outcome will be. You can choose to drink and to drive, but then you shouldn’t complain about the results of your choice.
The liberal, leftist party said, “We don’t want that commandment that says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ taught to our children in school.” Toss it out. You got your request and the results.
Remember when you point your finger and say, “guns are the problem,” you have three fingers pointing back at you. Those three fingers are: no Bible, no prayer and no Ten Commandments. You got your wish and the results.
You see, if we are godless, then we are lawless. Own up to who is at fault. The problem is not what is in a person’s hand, but what is in their heart.
Patrick Holt
Grover Hill
Here’s my response, which I submitted to the newspaper today.
Dear Editor,
Patrick Holt is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preacher. Stuck in the 1950s, Holt thinks America would be great again if we just returned to the homophobic, racist, misogynistic 50s; a return to the days when Evangelical Christianity ruled the roost. Holt looks at our culture and sees decline, decay, and godlessness. He blames these failures on the removal of Bible reading, prayer, and the Ten Commandments from public schools. If only our progeny were led in daily prayer and Bible reading by their teachers and taught the Ten Commandments, our culture would magically return to the glory days of the 1950s.
That ship has sailed, never to return. The 1950s were hardly what Holt intimates them to be. Racism. Homophobia. Misogyny. Patriarchalism. McCarthyism. Criminalization of birth control and abortion. Shall I go on? Those of us who value social progress, equality, and equal protection under the law have a very different view of the world. We intend to push back when Evangelicals try to drag us back to the “good old days.” Evangelical Christianity is dying on the vine. Younger Americans are abandoning organized religion in record numbers. The number of atheists, agnostics, and nones continues to grow, now equaling Evangelicals as a voting bloc.
Holt would have us believe that the only thing keeping him from being a thief and murderer is Jesus. Is that not the conclusion we must come to when he says “Godlessness leads to lawlessness?” I don’t know about Holt, but I murder all the people I want to. I burglarize as many of my neighbors as I want to. I just don’t want to. The unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world have moral and ethical values — no God needed.
This Saturday, Defiance will have its first Pride Walk. I have no doubt that Holt will see this event as yet another sign of decay and depravity, a sign of the soon return of the dead Jesus. I plan to be at the Pride Walk. I am sixty-five years old, by all accounts a curmudgeon. Yet, I know that a better tomorrow requires justice and equality for all. I have thirteen grandchildren. I want a better future for them. I understand Holt’s beliefs. I once was an IFB preacher, an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I also know that it is possible to break free from the narrow, bigoted, anti-human beliefs of Evangelical Christianity.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
Several years ago, a fundamentalist Christian by the name of James commented on several of my posts on this site and on Facebook. James, a seminary-trained Baptist, is convinced I hate God, hate Christians, hate the Bible, and live for the opportunity to mock and ridicule Christianity.
James describes himself this way:
I am a man “of the book.” I am a man of faith. My entire life is governed by my faith in an unseen God. Hebrews 11:6 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” My entire life falls under the authority of the Word of God. No surprise there! And because my life is governed by God’s Word, I live a holy and godly life.
According to James, his entire life is under the authority of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. God said it, and that settles it, and the real problem with atheists such as I is that we refuse to bow before the power and authority of the Bible. “One day,” James warned, “there will be a day of reckoning and judgment by that man (Jesus) whom God hath appointed to be the judge. And on that day, you WILL bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!”
I’m sure James really believes what he is saying. However, does James really govern his life by the word of God? Does he really believe every word in the Bible is pure and true? I’m sure if James reads this post he will shout from the rooftops, I BELIEVE EVERY WORD IN THE BIBLE . . . STRAIGHT FROM GOD’S MOUTH TO MY EAR AND HEART!!!
What follows is how a conversation between Bruce, the atheist, and James, the pastor might have gone . . .
Bruce: Every book, every chapter, every verse, every word?
James: Yes, the Bible says in Leviticus 18:22 that homosexuality is an abomination.
Bruce: So, you support the execution of homosexuals? Leviticus 20:13 says homosexuals should be put to death. And Leviticus 20:10 says adulterers should be put to death. Do you support the execution of homosexuals and adulterers?
James: Well, you see . . . that’s in the Old Testament, so those verses are under the Old Covenant. We are under the New Covenant now. Praise God for his grace and mercy!
Bruce: Where does the Bible say it is no longer in force?
James: Well, you see, it doesn’t, but if you take this verse, that verse, and a few others, and put them together with these verses, and then interpret it through the proper theological grid . . . viola! the command to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy is no longer in force.
Bruce: Didn’t Jesus say in Matthew 5:17-18: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” It seems to me that Jesus is saying the law of God is in force (valid, authoritative) until heaven and earth pass away. I just went outside and checked . . . heaven and earth are still here.
James: Well, you see, the Scripture must be rightly interpreted. You are interpreting it incorrectly and that’s why your beliefs are wrong. I interpret it correctly and that’s why my beliefs are right.
Bruce: I thought you were a man of the book, that you stand upon the B-I-B-L-E!
James: I do.
Bruce: Not really. If you were a man of the book, why would you need to interpret it? Aren’t you really saying that you are a man of a certain interpretation and that your interpretation of the Bible is the authority?
James: Pfft. You are putting words in my mouth.
Bruce: Let’s move on to the New Testament.
James: (under breath) Thank you, Jesus!
Bruce: So, you consider all the commands in the New Testament to be true and authoritative?
James: Absolutely!
Bruce: According to the Christian Assemblies International website, there are 1,050 commands in the 27 books of the New Testament. According to what you said previously, do you consider all 1,050 commands authoritative?
James: Yes, they are the Word of God.
Bruce: Do the women in the church you attend speak during the service?
James: That’s a silly question. Of course, they do.
Bruce: I Corinthians 14:34 says, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” This verse says women are not permitted to speak in the church.
James: Well, you see, you need to understand the historical and cultural context to properly interpret this verse.
Bruce: So, we are back to interpreting again. I thought you were a man of the book? Shouldn’t someone be able to pick up the Bible, read it, and understand it? If people wanted to be saved, could they just pick up the Bible, read it, and understand what they need to do to be saved?
James: Absolutely! I hand out tracts with Bible verses on them. If a person reads these verses, they will know all they need to know about being saved.
Bruce: Hmm . . . okay. Does a person need to be baptized to be saved?
Bruce: Doesn’t Mark 16 say he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved?
James: Well, you see . . .
Bruce: Does a person receive the Holy Spirit when they are saved?
James: Yes, they do. The Holy Spirit lives in every Christian. He is their teacher and guide! He is the third part of the Godhead.
Bruce: So there are three G . . . (stop, Bruce, stay on point) Sorry about that. If someone is saved, but not baptized, do they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them?
James: Yes, but they should be baptized as soon as possible. Baptism is an outward sign of what God has done on the inside.
Bruce: Doesn’t Acts 2:38 say: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”? This seems to say a person must be baptized before they receive the Holy Spirit.
James: Well, you see, the word “for” in the Greek is “eis” and it means “because of.” In other words, a person is baptized because their sins have been remitted, not in order to have their sins remitted.
Bruce: So, to understand the Bible you need to know Greek?
James: (silence)
Bruce: I thought a person could just read the English Bible and understand how to be saved? Now you are saying they need to understand Greek?
James: Well Greek is the original language of the New Testament.
Bruce: Wait a minute. There’s a Greek New Testament that came before the English New Testament?
James: Yes, and the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew.
Bruce: So, which words are the pure and perfect Word of God? The English or the Hebrew and Greek?
James: (launches into a long explanation about the original languages and translations)
Bruce: OK, where can I read these original manuscripts?
James: They don’t exist.
Bruce: What do you mean they don’t exist? Doesn’t this mean your faith is in a translation written by men, and not the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God?
James: Absolutely not! We can KNOW that the English Bible is the pure and perfect Word of God. God preserves his Word down through the ages.
Bruce: And you know this HOW?
James: The Bible says . . .
I could go on and on and on in endless directions with this fictitious dialog between James and me. As I have easily shown, James’ belief in the Bible requires him to interpret the text, so what is really pure and perfect is not the Bible, but his interpretation. Whatever translation James uses has the fingerprints of man all over it. Since the original manuscripts no longer exist, James can’t be certain that the extant manuscripts contain the exact words of God, and he can’t be certain the translation he uses contains in perfect form the exact words of God. Instead of saying THUS SAITH THE LORD, James should say, THUS SAITH THE IMPERFECT BIBLE, AS INTERPRETED BY JAMES, THE PASTOR.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Socialism teaches that wealth should be held in common ownership, controlled by the state. Hence, the Democrats’ constant push to have government confiscate ever more income and power.
By contrast, the Bible teaches that God owns all things and that we’re merely stewards of His creation. When we look at each of the Ten Commandments, we see that they’re directly at odds with socialism.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
Socialism and its offshoots – communism, fascism, democratic socialism and National Socialism (Nazism) – enshrine the state above all other powers. There is no room for God, which is why socialists are in a permanent war with the church and are bent on creating a faith-free society.
You shall make no idols.
Idols are anything that takes the place of God in the hierarchy of values. Under socialism, sheer power over one’s fellow man is an idol. Another is building utopias – the unicorns of government because such perfect societies do not exist.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
When socialists take over a culture, it becomes depraved and perverse. To enforce their new immoral order, socialists openly blaspheme God and particularly Jesus Christ.
….
Keep the Sabbath day holy.
Sundays are no different from any other day in socialist societies. In fact, people going to church on a Sunday are identified and often persecuted in places like communist China, where atheism is the official state religion. Even in our market-based society, materialism – a necessary precept of socialism – has pushed respect for the Sabbath to the margins.
Honor your father and your mother.
Socialism has been at war with marriage and family since the French Revolution in 1789.
….
You shall not murder.
Many people misread this commandment as a broader order not to kill for any reason, which denies the moral difference between taking innocent human life and executing murderers. Socialists have long promoted abortion – the direct taking of an innocent human life – as a way to “liberate” women and men from parental responsibilities.
You shall not commit adultery.
In the 1960s, Americans became familiar with the term “free love,” but socialists have been promoting it heavily since the early 1800s. Sex outside marriage, prostitution, pornography and abortion all militate against marriage fidelity. Socialists deploy euphemisms like “choice” and “sex work” to cover the retreat from Biblical morality.
You shall not steal.
Socialism is grand theft. It uses the state to take earnings from productive people and redistribute it to create dependency and thus political power for those handing it out. Slavery is 100 percent taxation – when someone else controls the fruits of one’s labor. Socialist countries first control and then seize private property.
….
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
This is not just about telling lies in a witness situation but also about using lies to advance one’s wellbeing. Socialism is built on a mountain of lies about human nature, which is why it eventually must resort to violence.
….
You shall not covet.
Socialism’s main engine is envy, stoking resentment against others who have more, even to the point of using violence to get it.
….
Coveting divinity got Satan kicked out of Heaven, and it’s what he and his minions continue to peddle in a variety of forms – including pride, envy and socialism.
While their animosity [Democrats] toward God is easily demonstrable (who doesn’t know that Democrats typically hate Him?), it’s the Democratic Party’s platform contrast with the Second Table that might need closer inspection.
Consider the 6th Commandment: “You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13)This seems simple enough, yes? The Hebrew word is רָצַח (ratsach) and means, “the unjust taking of innocent human life.”
And yet, the Democratic Party platform promotes . . . Abortion on demand, murdering babies for the sake of convenience.
Consider the Seventh Commandment: “You shall not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14)
Jesus interpreted this command for us in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he equated any kind of sexual impurity as a Seventh Commandment violation (Matthew 5:28). Any of the Bible’s lists of sexual sins – including the desire itself, acted upon or not – fit under the condemnation of the Seventh Commandment.
And yet, the Democratic Party promotes: The special protected status and special rights (including marriage) for homosexuals and others with perverse sexual desires.
….
Consider the 9th Commandment: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16)
We are not supposed to lie. A “lie” is something that is demonstrably untrue. God is truth. To not speak truth is to misrepresent God as his image-bearers.
The Democratic Party platform promotes: Reinforcement of the idea that it’s possible to transition gender, and that a man can be a woman, and a woman can be man.
….
After comparing the Democratic platform to the Second Table of God’s Law it becomes apparent that it’s not so much a platform as just a list of things that God hates.
While the Democratic Party may try to convince the public that they are the compassionate party of love and kindness, in reality it’s God’s Second Table of law that tells us how to love our neighbor. And if that’s the case, the Democratic Party breaks each and every command that teaches us how to love our neighbor.
Being a Republican does not make you a Christian, but being a Democrat probably means you aren’t.
This is the seventh installment in The Voices of Atheism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. Know of a good video that espouses atheism/agnosticism or challenges the claims of the Abrahamic religions? Please email me the name of the video or a link to it. I believe his series will be an excellent addition to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser.
Evangelicals often claim that the reason for school shootings is that the Christian God has been banned from public schools. According to Evangelicals, all sorts of maladies afflict our society due to the fact that prayer, Bible reading, and the Ten Commandments have been litigated out of public schools. If only people would see the importance of the Christian God (and only the Christian God) in educating children and return him to his rightful place, why all sorts of societal ills would disappear overnight. The same argument is made for banning abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and any of the other hot-button issues Evangelicals deem a threat to their God and way of life.
This argument, of course, is patently false. God isn’t banned from public schools. I attend several local high school girls’ basketball games each week in the winter month. Many of these games have prayer times by led by players before and after the games. Such student-led prayers are legal. I don’t care for the prayers, and I refuse to stand silently in the stands until the prayers are done. Not my God, so I am not going to give my approval to such bawdy displays of religiosity. That said, students are free to pray, read the Bible, and have a Ten Commandments book cover. Teachers are free to do the same during their breaks or other times when they are not teaching their students. What schools and teachers are not permitted to do is advance or evangelize for sectarian religious beliefs.
Most local schools have Christian student groups, including groups associated with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (an Evangelical ministry whose goal is to “present to coaches and athletes, and all whom they influence, the challenge and adventure of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, serving Him in their relationships and in the fellowship of the church”). Youth for Christ has an active presence in many schools. Local churches are free to rent/use school facilities. Over the years, new church plants have used local school buildings as their meeting places. Local school boards are dominated by Christians, and I suspect most teachers profess some form of Christian faith. It seems, then, that the Christian God is alive and well in public schools.
What upsets Evangelicals is that they can no longer demand preferential treatment for their religious cult. If Satanist, atheist, or secular students want to start student-led clubs, they are free to go so. If Satanists on school sports teams want to offer a prayer up to Beelzebub before the start of the game, they are free to do so. Evangelicals want exclusivity and it irritates the heaven out of them that other sects and groups are given equal status.
What kind of God allows children to be murdered, all because his adult followers aren’t allowed to proselytize public school students? What a vindictive, petty God this is, akin to a man who burns down a house with his ex-wife and children in it, all because his ex wouldn’t let him in the door. Such a God is not worthy of worship. Worse yet, are Evangelicals of a Calvinistic bent who believe school shootings are all part of some sort of perverse cosmic plan. According to Calvinists, these children were murdered because God willed it to be done. It is God who ultimately fires the bullet that kills us all.
Such a God is an abomination, one unworthy of worship, love, and devotion. This is one of the things that makes it clear such a God does not exist. A moral, loving God would neither be an instrument of murder, nor would it stand by while children (and teachers) are killed by deranged gunmen. What the school shootings tell us is that the Christian God is either a work of fiction or he is too busy to be bothered with the pain and suffering of his creation. If God has the powers Evangelicals say he does, he could have stopped Nikolas Cruz from killing seventeen and wounding four of his fellow students (including several school staff members). That God did nothing is a sure sign that he doesn’t exist. Evangelicals love to tell us mere humans that we are sinners deserving judgment from their God and eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. Yet, I suspect many of us sinners, if given the opportunity, would have done all we could to protect children from murder. Unlike God, we value life, especially that of those who are in the early years of this wonderful experience we call life. That it was humans, not God, who tried to protect children from slaughter is yet another reminder of the fact that God is, at best, an absentee father who has no interest in his children.
If the root cause of mass shootings is the Evangelical God being kicked out of our culture and schools, how then do Evangelicals explain the shooting at an Evangelical Baptist Church that claimed the lives of twenty-six God-fearing souls? How then do Evangelicals explain Dylan Roof’s murder of nine Christians while they were praying at church? Surely, the people killed in these shootings were devoted followers of Jesus, yet God, as he does in EVERY case, stood by and did nothing. In fact, based on demographics, it is likely that many of the students murdered in the school shootings over the past three decades were believers in the Christian God. What possible reason could be given for the Christian God — he who holds the keys of life and death — wiping these people off the face of the earth?
Well, you know Bruce, God’s ways are not our way.
No shit, Sherlock. And you wonder why atheism is growing?
God is not going to fix the school shooting problem. It’s up to us, just as is everything else in life. Waiting for God to act is a fool’s errand, one that leads to countless heartaches. We are the Gods in this morality play, and it is time we exercise our divine powers and put an end to gun violence. It’s time to run the NRA and their Republican lackeys out of town. It’s time we recognize that guns are instruments of death, and a country without 300 million of them would be a better place to live. While a total gun ban will never be implemented in the United States, we can ban weapons capable of causing horrific bloodshed in short amounts of time.
Or we can put prayer and Bible reading back in the public schools….
Letter submitted to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News on April 11, 2016
Dear Editor,
Recently, Cal Thomas pontificated about the need for an objective standard of morality. Of course, Thomas, an Evangelical, believes the moral code found in the Bible is the true standard of morality. Thomas believes America is mired in a moral quagmire. Blaming liberals, secularists, and atheists, Thomas believes America’s only hope is for Americans to once again prostrate themselves before the Bible and promise resolute fealty to its author — God.
What exactly is the Bible’s objective moral standard? The Ten Commandments? Or is it the Nine, since most Christians no longer “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy?” Or, as dispensational Evangelicals suggest, is just the New Testament the standard for morality? If it is just the New Testament, then why do Evangelicals continue to condemn homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion — none of which is mentioned in the New Covenant? And why do Evangelical pastors continue to collect tithes and offering each Sunday, a practice not found anywhere in the New Testament?
While Evangelicals will point their peculiar interpretation of the Bible to justify the notion that they are the holders of God’s standard of morality, any careful examination of their churches shows that Evangelical moral beliefs are every bit as subjective as their atheist/agnostic/secularist neighbors. There are over one hundred churches in Defiance County, and not one of them agrees with another about what is considered moral behavior.
On matters of greater importance: salvation, baptism, and communion, local churches fight among themselves, each believing that it has the keys to the kingdom. One church has been running weekly ads in the Crescent-News to remind locals that their church — a Campbellite congregation — preaches the true gospel. Down the street Baptists preachers remind congregants that the heretical followers of Alexander and Thomas Campbell were thrown out the Baptist church mid-19th century. It is the Baptists who have the true gospel. And so the internecine wars continue unabated since the day Jesus was buried in a pauper’s grave.
Atheists such as myself laugh when Evangelicals suggest that the Bible is the standard for morality. Seeing the utter confusion and contradictory beliefs among the various Christian sects, how can anyone know for sure who is right? My money is on none of them being right. As a humanist, I believe it is up to people — not religions — to determine the standards by which we want to govern our lives.
Evangelicals often claim that the reason for school shootings is that the Christian God has been banned from public schools. According to Evangelicals, all sorts of maladies afflict our society due to the fact that prayer, Bible reading, and the Ten Commandments have been litigated out of public schools. If only people would see the importance of the Christian God (and only the Christian God) in educating children and return him to his rightful place, why all sorts of societal ills would disappear overnight. The same argument is made for banning abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and any of the other hot-button issues Evangelicals deem a threat to their God and way of life.
