Archives for July 2015

America needs to prepare for a major governmental assault on religious liberty in the wake of the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, but those standing against the tide can find plenty of inspiration from those who pioneered the concept of religious freedom at the American founding.

Michael Farris is the co-founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and is author of “The History of Religious Liberty.”  The book details the fierce fight for the religious freedom provisions that eventually emerged in the first amendment to the Constitution.

Farris says that history is critical to understand in the wake of the marriage decision and the brand new threats to liberty being advocated on the political left.

The day after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision was handed down, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., told MSNBC that she believed religious liberty was a much narrower concept than has been understood for centuries.

“Certainly the first amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. But I don’t think it extends far beyond that. We’ve seen the set of arguments play out in issues such as access to contraception,” said Baldwin.

“Should it be the individual pharmacist whose religious beliefs guides whether a prescription is filled, or in this context, they’re talking about expanding this far beyond our churches and synagogues to businesses and individuals across this country. I think there are clear limits that have been set in other contexts and we ought to abide by those in this new context across America.” she added.

Farris is dumbfounded at Baldwin’s read on the first amendment.

“The ignorance of members of Congress and the U.S. Senate never ceases to baffle me.  How did they get there in the first place without taking a basic civics course?  Or maybe they have and they just don’t believe it,” said Farris.  “This senator has just simply walked away from not only the text of the Constitution and the meaning of the Constitution but our great American traditions.”

In fact, Farris believes Baldwin’s concept of religious liberty is almost completely backwards.

“It is an institutional right.  Churches have religious freedom, but it’s primarily an individual right.  The Supreme Court, back in the day when it used to think straight. would say things like it’s not up to the government or the courts to determine which individual within a faith has correctly understood the demands of that faith.  You’re allowed to go your own way,” said Farris.

In response to the court decision, Govs. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, and Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, have announced their states will vigorously protect the religious liberty of the people.  Farris applauds the efforts but warns those policies won’t stop all government intrusion into our lives or the practices of religious institutions.

“That’s a good thing.  It limits the areas where a church or a school can expect, but a Christian college residing in one of those states can still expect an attack from the IRS or from the accrediting association or from the U.S. Department of Education if they don’t go along with the federal edicts on this,” said Farris, who says schools and churches would be wise to protect themselves legally now given the dire warnings offered in the dissents to the Obergefell decision.

“We have four justices on the Supreme Court effectively warning all the religious institutions, ‘You better do something about this because trouble’s coming.’  I don’t think that’s an idle speculation.  That’s about as strong of a warning from about as high a source as you can possibly get,” he said.

Farris expects the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to provide federal protection for Christian individuals and organizations, but only to the extent that Justice Anthony Kennedy acknowledges it.

In “The History of Religious Freedom,” Farris details the long, unlikely triumph of religious freedom in America’s founding.  Just as in Europe, colonial America witnesses various denominations cracking down on others.

Modern history textbooks credit enlightenment thinking for the emergence of religious liberty in America.  Farris that’s academic fantasy and true scholars have actually debunked that notion.

“It’s simply not true.  I lay out the historical evidence in great detail.  One Harvard historian around the 1920’s said that the evidence that people that are indifferent to religion, that basically is the enlightenment crowd, were the cause of religious liberty is an unsustainable argument.  There is simply no evidence for that point,” said Farris.

“It was people who cared very deeply.  It was grassroots kinds of Christians fighting establishment kind of Christians that gave us religious liberty for everybody,” he said.  “The battle for religious liberty wasn’t settled on the Mayflower.”

Protections for the free exercise of religion were anything but guaranteed in America.  Farris says the colonial government of Virginia teamed with the Anglican Church to punish dissenters as late as the 1770’s.  In 1776, Virginia’s Declaration of Rights became the first declaration of religious liberty anywhere in the world.

In 1789, Congress approved the Bill of Rights and sent them to the states for approval.  That same year, the French Revolution unfolded.  The upheaval in the two countries has long been compared, especially as the U.S. moved forward with stability and France subsequently endured the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic era.

Farris says there are key reasons for the very different results of revolutions rooted in freedom, including America’s much deeper respect for personal religious liberty and vastly different views about the nature of man.

“France believed that man was perfectable and that we could create our own utopia, whereas the American Revolution followed the Christian biblical idea that all men are sinners and that’s why you needed limited government, because you can’t trust any man in government to rule faithfully forever,” said Farris.

According to Farris, the greatest parallel between the colonial struggle for religious freedom and today’s cultural battles is where the battle lines are drawn.  Religious freedom, he says, was not championed by the ruling class.

“It was a monumental battle.  It was the common people, who believed in Jesus, who believed the bible was the authority for their faith and their life, who really fought the war and won.  Many of them paid with their lives,” he said.

Farris says that founding generation should serve as inspiration for the religious freedom fights of this century.

“Common people armed with bravery and faith in God can turn anything around.  I’ve seen it in my own life through the home schooling movement.  We were outnumbered and outgunned by the teachers’ unions day after day after day.  We won battle after battle after battle because (we were) common people armed with the Constitution of the United States and belief in the Word of God,” said Farris.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review enjoy watching Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats distance themselves from the idea of sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants.  They also groan as the United States sets a third deadline to finish an increasingly bad deal over the Iranian nuclear program.  And they slam Mrs. Clinton for saying that “dissing” the government is really “dissing” ourselves and our democracy.

A conservative congressman says the murder of a San Francisco woman by an illegal immigrant deported five times is a microcosm of the border security dereliction of the Obama administration and liberal city leaders choosing to reward criminal behavior.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, also addressed the fierce debate within the Republican presidential field, taking care to avoid characterizing any candidate but leaving no doubt what he thinks the GOP’s policy position ought to be.

The immigration debate took on a more personal dimension over Independence Day weekend, as 32-year-old Kate Steinle was randomly murdered by 45-year-old Juan Francisco Lopex-Sanchez.  The killer, who has since confessed, has been convicted of seven felonies and deported five separate times.

Gohmert says similar stories have played out far too often as the Obama administration effectively waves illegals across the border.

“It’s very easy to explain when you have a president who does not believe in the rule of law, who has pandered to people who are illegally in the country.  All we can figure is he thinks that if they can just get people who are illegally the right to vote before they understand the responsibilities of trying to keep a democratic republic, then it will give the Democrats all power for all time,” said Gohmert.

According to Gohmert, the Steinle murder is hardly an isolated incident.  He says the House Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, received very disturbing numbers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the extent of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Fiscal Year 2014 alone.

“These individuals have been convicted of 79,059 crimes, including 175 homicides, 373 sexual assaults, 186, kidnappings (and) 14,014 impaired driving offenses.  It just goes on and on.  This is making America less safe,” he said, noting both the federal government and city governments need to stop rewarding criminals.

“If the president’s going to protect America, if our city leaders are going to protect America, the cities can’t be this haven for people who broke the law and would kill a beautiful young lady like we had in San Francisco.  And the federal government has got to stop encouraging illegal immigration,” said Gohmert.

The congressman says the Steinle murder struck close to home for him and he says the policy of San Francisco and other “sanctuary cities” needs to be revisited right away.

“Having three daughters, I’m particularly sensitive to these things, but to have her shot so senselessly, randomly, right there in front of her parents would never have happened if San Francisco were not a city that just welcomed people who violated our immigration laws.  It is a sanctuary city,” said Gohmert, meaning San Francisco and other cities have laws refusing to hold people whose only known offense is coming to the U.S. illegally.

Lopez-Sanchez has seven felonies on his record.  San Francisco and the federal government are now engaged in a blame game over which is responsible for the killer being loose in the first place.  The federal government asserts Lopez-Sanchez was in custody and about to be deported for a sixth time when he was handed over to the city to face a drug charge and should never have been released when those charges were dropped.  San Francisco officials say it was the federal government’s job to have a warrant ready to go when the drug case concluded.

Gohmert says illegal aliens create trouble for law-abiding citizens, even when there is no violent crime involved and he contends a recent account from a teenage constituent is a perfect example.

“She and her single mom were trying to make ends meet.  An illegal alien hit her car.  He had no driver’s license, no insurance.  He was allowed to drive off in his car.  Hers was totaled.  It just made things crazy for these poor girls.  It’s just outrageous that this president would not be more sympathetic to the plight of Americans dealing with crime in America,” he said.

Just as maddening to Gohmert as what he sees as the Obama administration refusing to enforce immigration law is the president’s insistence that border security is operating at record efficiency.

“It may just be because out president doesn’t know enough about our history.  I’m sure they didn’t teach it in Indonesia, but the fact is when he says nobody has done more to secure the border than I have, or words to that effect, it’s simply not true,” said Gohmert.

The congressman says the border was far more secure after Woodrow Wilson (not a favorite of Gohmert’s) effectively sealed the border after Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa conducted numerous murderous raids into the United States.  On Wilson’s orders, thousands of forces clamped down on the southern border.

“The border was secure.  Nobody came in unless we wanted them to,” said Gohmert.

“This president could do more.  Of course, you remember (former Homeland Security Secretary) Janet Napolitano just announced one day, ‘Hey, the four billion dollars or so that was appropriated by Congress for virtual fence?  I’m not going to do that.  I’m going to spend the money elsewhere.’  This administration not only encourages people to violate our immigration law but it violates the laws regularly themselves,” he said.

The killing of Kate Steinle poured rhetorical gasoline onto an already combustible debate within the 2016 Republican presidential field over the issue of illegal immigration.

Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump immediate stirred the pot in announcing his White House bid.

“[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us.  They’re bringing drugs.  They’re bringing crime.  They’re rapists, and some I assume are good people,” said Trump on June 16.

Several other GOP hopefuls have denounced Trump both for his language and for his alleged inaccuracy.

“He’s doing this to inflame and to incite and to draw attention, which seems to be his organizing principle of his campaign,” said former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.).  “He doesn’t represent the Republican Party or its values.”

Gohmert is not wading into the back and forth between candidates but he says he trusts the assessment of the U.S. Border Patrol and its assessment is sobering.

“Many of them have told me there is not a single mile of the U.S.-Mexico border that is not under the auspices of some drug lord.  And you don’t cross that border into the United States without permission from that drug lord.  If you do, they’ll find you in the United States and kill you,” said Gohmert, who adds that many illegals come across and claim they are refugees from deadly gang violence in their home countries.

After a brief interrogation, it is usually discovered that gangs are not the reason for their illegal migration but the means for shuttling them across the border.

The congressman says the proper approach for Republicans should be obvious.  First, he says there should be nothing but admiration for Hispanic families who come here legally, since they value the intact family as high as this country did in the past.

“It’s a generalization but it’s a pretty good generalization that Hispanics love God, are devoted to God, love family, are devoted to family and they have a hard work ethic.  Those are the kind of things that made America great.  We need more of that.  We need more of what the Hispanic can bring before we co-opt it and teach them other ways,” said Gohmert.

However, he says that admiration has to be tempered by a strict adherence to the law.

“They have to come in legally.  To just disregard the rule of the law makes us like the countries in central America or Mexico that they’re fleeing,” he said.

Opposition to legal status or even a pathway to citizenship for those illegally in the U.S. has long been described as unrealistic and now Republicans and Democrats accuse that position of being hateful or even racist.  Gohmert flatly rejects the label.

“It’s ridiculous to say it’s racist if you want people who commit crimes to be punished for those crimes.  Having been a former felony judge, many times people accused me of being mean, but I followed the law.  I was fair across the board, and that’s what we have to do.  It’s part of the price of maintaining this democratic republic, as (Benjamin) Franklin said, if we want to keep it,” said Gohmert.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged that Rep. Joe Heck could win the Nevada senate seat held by the retiring Harry Reid.  They also groan as the Republican presidential debate is consumed by Donald Trump’s immigration comments, both over Trump’s cartoonish behavior and his rivals refusing to address border security and immigration policy.  And they slam President Obama for saying the fight against ISIS will last a long time and will not be won with guns but with ideas.

Terrorism expert Harvey Kushner says the most sensitive U.S. assets are at the mercy of any “hacker or cracker” and the next major attack against our country will likely come through cyberspace, but he is also also cautiously optimistic that America’s best minds will be able to thwart the sinister intentions of our enemies.

During a recent appearance on WNYW Fox 5 in New York City, Kushner offered a blunt diagnosis of the cyber threat facing the American people and our most sensitive national data.

“Any hacker or cracker from his or her basement can get into our national grid and get into our military hardware,” said Kushner in the Fox 5 interview.

Kushner, who is also director of the Homeland Security and Terrorism Institute at Long Island University, says this level of vulnerability is the price of rapidly advancing technology.

“The advances occur almost on a daily basis.  So just when you have something up and you have it somewhat protected, somebody is able to compromise the system and get into whatever it is you’re trying to protect,” said Kushner, who fears the next major attack that succeeds against the U.S. will come from hackers.

“I do think that the next Pearl Harbor, so to speak, when it comes to a terrorist event here in the United States, certainly will be in cyberspace,” he said.

However, Kushner is quick to add the private sector in the U.S. is at the cutting edge of keeping pace with hackers.

“I’m quite confident that the private sector, because of its interest in the process, will try to develop better techniques to protect their infrastructure, whether it be Amazon or whether it be Google or whether it be any number of players out there,” said Kushner.

The private sector needs to be ahead of the curve, because businesses are a much softer target for hackers and their failure to protect sensitive consumer information can bring misery to millions of Americans.

“The first line of defense when it comes to cyberspace actually is the private sector, whether it’s Home Depot or it’s Target or whether it’s your local hospital or your own database.  You’re going to have to be responsible for putting up firewalls and other types of protections, so others can’t get in and do you damage,” said Kushner, who says leaning on the private sector for solutions is critical for anyone trying to keep the government from assuming a larger role in overseeing the internet.

“We do not want it regulated.  There’s a lot of people who don’t want to regulate the internet.  They want to keep it as a free base of operation and so that makes it vulnerable,” he said.

But while private companies are expected to play a critical role in developing defenses against cyber attacks that can also be employed by the government, corporate vigilance is also responsible for alerting the Iranians to the most significant threat to the progress of it’s nuclear program, namely the Stuxnet worm.

“You know who blew the whistle on that was Symantec and  few of these other companies here in the west that protect the cyber industry.  They noticed that was happening and they put out the report, so it exposed our intelligence agencies who were working very hard to disturb the Iranian nuclear system,” said Kushner.

The most extensive compromising of government data came through an attack on the Office of Personnel Management that the government announced in June.  The attack compromised sensitive information for as many as 18 million government employees, applicants and retirees.  Most experts believe the Chinese are to blame.

Kushner says a lot more than personal information is at risk if hackers can access government systems.

“From traffic lights to medical records to water to power grids to your automobile and then again to our satellites and our military and to our government records, all of this is at risk,” he said, noting several adversaries have the ability to do us great harm.

“There are individuals as well as governments.  You can’t rule out a Chinese cyber attack or a Russian cyber attack or an ISIS cyber attack,” said Kushner.

Kushner doesn’t believe U.S. officials made cyber security less of a priority, but he says our efforts at the federal level fell behind nonetheless.

“I think it’s been a priority, certainly after 9/11 and the realization of what could happen.  But not enough was done.  As you see, they were able to get in and get compromised records,” said Kushner, who says cyber security needs to be a higher national priority in the budget as well.

“Our representatives in Washington need to allocate much more money to cyber defense, especially when it comes to our military and to our power grids and to our services that keep our country running on a 24/7 basis,” said Kushner.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are relieved by the lack of terrorist attacks on the Fourth of July.  They wonder what’s next after Greece rejects the latest debt offer. And they are discouraged by Hillary’s roping off of the press during a Fourth of July parade in New Hampshire.

In the face of a U.S. Supreme Court decision finding a constitutional right to gay marriage and the Oklahoma State Supreme ruling a Ten Commandments monument unconstitutional, many Christians are experiencing increased intolerance in the public square.  But does the increasingly secular culture mean believers need to adjust how they share the gospel?

“Yes, I mean, and no,” said Dr. Tim Keller, founding pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.  “No in that you don’t change the good news, but yes, it does I think change the way you share it.”

Keller is the author of several well-known Christian books, including “Counterfeit Gods” and “The Reason for God.”  His new book is “Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism.”  Keller says we frequently alter our method of communicating with people based on what we know about them, and sharing Christ is no different.

“If I’m talking to somebody who’s skeptical or somebody who’s sympathetic, I change the way I talk.  We’re that way with everyone.  Hopefully, if you know how to communicate, you instinctively say things differently when you’re trying to bridge a barrier.  Now that we live in a more secular society, we’re going to have to change the way we communicate the gospel,” said Keller.

According to Keller, a key step to engaging this generation is to be able to explain your personal relationship with Christ through His word.

“The gospel has to be real to you.  It has to have really changed your life.  It can’t just be something you’ve adopted because you inherited it.  If you simply say, ‘Well, this is the truth,’ people aren’t going to listen.  Instead, you have to say, ‘Here’s how it works.  Here’s how it functions in my heart, how it functions in my life.’  There’s got to be authenticity and you’ve got to make it life-related.  Otherwise, people won’t listen,” said Keller.

Keller says authenticity is critical to the millennial generation, although he says young people are often quite hypocritical on this issue.

“Millennials are very high on authenticity.  They’re often self-righteous about it.  I’m not sure that they’re any less self-righteous or any more tolerant than their grandparents, or parents or great-grandparents.  What’s funny about the millennials is, like every other generation, whatever they value they’re self-righteous about it.  ‘We have it and nobody else does.’  And then they look down their noses and so they’re no better,” said Keller.

That being said, Keller says authenticity needs to be at the core of our witness.

“Paul says, ‘We didn’t just preach the gospel, but we shared our very hearts with you (1 Thessalonians 2:8).’  Therefore, you really do have to do that and it’s never been more important,” said Keller.

Keller is very quick to assert that engagement is meaningless unless the truth and significance of Christ’s life, death and resurrection is conveyed.  He says many clergy fail to be clear and it leads people down a road of false assurance of their salvation.

“If you don’t do that people just assume in their heart what you might call moralism,” said Keller.

“So if you’re preaching on Malachi, where it talks about tithing and giving your money away and not spending it all on yourself.  Jesus is not in the book of Malachi.  It’s an Old Testament book.  If you just explain that and then you end the sermon, the impression will be that I’d better give my money away or God’s not going to take me to heaven,” said Keller, calling that thinking “deadly.”

“You don’t want to encourage people to think that it’s their moral efforts that can get them to heaven.  That creates pride and discouragement,” he said.

Keller says every Bible passage can be logically connected to the gospel, and he says the Malachi example is no exception.

“You have to go to the gospel.  You say Jesus Christ was infinitely rich.  He was in heaven with all the spiritual riches.  But He became poor so that through His poverty, we might become rich.  He came to earth, became a mortal, He died on the cross.  And He didn’t just tithe.  He didn’t just give ten percent.  He gave everything,” said Keller.

“When you do that, you’re not only giving people an inspiring motivation, but you’re reminding people that you’re not saved through your giving of money.  You’re saved through Jesus,” he said.

Keller says all preachers, ordained or not, need to keep the gospel at the center of their messages.

“It’s not something a lot of preachers do, but it’s something they need to learn to do,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged by the news that Vice President Biden is likely to launch a 2016 White House bid and make life even tougher for Hillary.  We also cringe at revelations the Obama administration never even bothered to debrief the man released by Cuba last year.  And we lash out at the left’s crackdown on the Dukes, Trump and it’s efforts to banish and punish anything it disagrees with.

 

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America take on the Hillary Clinton email scandal. First they laugh when Hillary is unaware of a cabinet meeting. They also poke at the fact that a few people lied about knowing whether or not the email account existed. Finally they are shocked to hear a magazine, asking to do a day in the life of Hillary article, is letting her control the content.