Two very disturbing decisions have occurred over the last couple of weeks. They may in fact be further indications of the shape of things to come. In Wisconsin a federal judge ruled that the long-standing National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional saying that it amounts to a governmental call to religion. The day was established in 1952 by congress and in 1988 congress set the first Thursday in May of each year to be a day when the President called on all Americans to pray. The suit that enacted the judge’s ruling was brought by the atheistic Freedom From Religion Foundation. In ruling on their behalf, Judge Barbara Crabb stated, “In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual’s decision whether or when to pray.” She’s right about one thing, prayer is powerful. And wait a minute, if you’re an atheist and don’t believe in God or the practices, i.e. prayer, associated with Him, why bother trying to prevent the nation from praying? It won’t make any difference anyway right? As the Bible says, “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” But it does reflect a growing hostility toward anything associated with the God of the Bible and our need to look to Him for help or to acknowledge that there might just be a better way than the way we’re doing things.
The second decision came last week when the Pentagon rescinded an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to be the lead speaker at a May 6 Pentagon service in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer. Explaining the reason for uninviting Graham a Pentagon spokesman identified earlier comments that Graham had made about the Muslim faith which were deemed “not appropriate.” The action was only taken after the Council on American-Islamic Relations complained about Graham being the speaker. In response to the matter, Graham indicated that it is difficult for people to voice their beliefs today without being accused of hate speech. “I’m not targeting the Muslims out of hate. I love them,” he said “but I don’t agree with them. Of course they disagree with me, but no one says anything about that.”
Isn’t it all ironic? I mean the whole premise used to deny prayer or deny Christian “speakers” a platform today is predicated on being politically correct and tolerating everyone’s views or beliefs in a pluralistic society. But isn’t that the same reasoning that should allow them to pray or speak? What has really happened is that we’ve become a nation ruled by small activistic groups who abuse the intent and obscure the meaning of the constitution in order to advance a godless and self-centered agenda. The end product is “every man does what is right in his own eyes” and fools himself into believing that because he has removed God from the “public square,” he has alleviated his responsibility to God and the laws of God. It reminds me of when our daughter was young and we would play hide and seek. She would put her hands over her eyes and then proceed to call me to find her… she assumed that because she could not see me that I could not see her and therefore she was hidden. And so today, our culture and nation has covered its eyes to God and assumed that He can’t see us because we can’t see Him. Don’t be surprised if one day soon God says… “I’ve had enough America!”
So is there any hope? Yes, there is hope and prayer is a vital part of that… regardless of whether there is a National Day of Prayer or not… pray and keep praying!
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
