Humor me for just a bit and grant the premise that the America we are living in today is a far cry from the America of four or five decades ago. Continue to grant that much of the change has been negative. I will grant you that the standard of living for the average American has increased significantly over that period of time, but it is my contention that the quality of life has deteriorated and the role of Christianity has been greatly diminished. The fact that there are many, even in our churches, who feel such a secularization of our society is a good thing only illustrates the truth of that diminution.
Let's revisit the early years of our nation's founding. While there has been a great re-writing of history in our textbooks, there are still enough reliable sources available to show beyond any doubt that Christianity formed the foundation on which our Republic was built. It was not a perfect Christianity, and our founders were forced to compromise on a number of issues in order to secure the union of the thirteen colonies. In spite of this they gave us the greatest nation this world has ever seen.
For the first time since Israel deserted its theocratic rule for a king (like the other nations had), a people recognized the fact that individual liberties are given by God and are not privileges granted by some government. They established the American Republic on the basis of that belief, and tried to limit the powers of government by separating them into three parts. Our triune government granted legislative or law-making powers to a two-part legislature we call the Congress. It granted to the executive branch the responsibility for administering those laws, and to a judicial branch the responsibility for adjudicating disputes over interpretation of those laws.
This separation of powers was supposed to prevent the establishment of a dictatorial government. Since only the Congress was given the power to write the laws, no president could impose his will on the people unless he could coerce the Congress into going along with him. Since the members of Congress (as well as the president) must face the vote of the people at regular intervals to remain in office, it was assumed that oppressive laws would result in their eviction from office. Since the courts may only rule on the applicability of laws and may not write them, their power should be limited. And, to insure the plan worked, the Constitution restricted the scope of government open to the federal or central powers.
In theory, such a government should never be able to become an oppressor of the people, and for over a hundred years it proved to work quite well. But, as our founders warned, it will only work for an informed and responsible electorate. If the people who can vote do not, or if those who do vote are ill informed, the whole system begins to unravel. When the people begin to think the government has a responsibility to take care of them instead of to provide them the freedom to take care of themselves we are well on the way to opening the door to oppressive government. For any government strong enough to provide for welfare is strong enough to take it away, and as soon as we begin to think of liberties as coming from government we have given that government the right to revoke those liberties.
However, since we have the power of the vote, the taking of liberties could not be accomplished quickly nor with heavy handedness. The people had to be seduced into surrendering liberties. Incentives had to be provided that would entice them into giving up a portion of their liberties. Anyone who looks at the thousands of federal laws and millions of regulations stemming from them, which restrict just about every activity of the American citizenry, should be acutely aware that our liberties have been greatly curtailed.
Much of this has happened with little or no objection being raised by the churches. In fact, some churches have been at the forefront of movements to impose some of these restrictions. Federal participation in welfare, which should rightly be a church function, has been seen by churches as a good way of looking after certain segments of society. Laws restricting the right of free association and the right to dispose of personal property without government interference have been embraced as a means of enforcing non-discriminatory behavior. The goal may be good, but the means are oppressive and may actually serve to foster the very attitude they are supposed to correct. And efforts are still under way to induce the churches to support even further taking of liberties.
For years now we have been hearing all sorts of predictions about the dire things that are going to happen because of our failures to respect the environment. The automotive industry has spent millions of dollars researching and testing various filters, gasoline, etc. in efforts to clean up exhaust emissions. Other industries have had to change entire production systems to clean up various pollutants. Clean air and clean water have become rallying cries of the environmentalists.
There is an obvious need for Christians to be good stewards of the resources God has provided for our use, but there is a lot of evidence out there to indicate that the problem has been highly overstated. Certain elements in and out of government have seized upon what they perceive as a means of motivating the people to surrender more of their rights in an effort to -- as they put it -- "save the earth."
In 1993, Ronald Bailey had a book, Echo-scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse, published by St. Martin's Press, New York. In this book Mr. Bailey "explores and explodes the popular myths of global disaster from 'nuclear winter' to the depletion of nonrenewable resources." In 1994, Northfield Publishing, Chicago, issued Michael Coffman's Saviors of the Earth?, a treatise on the politics and religion of the environmental movement. Also in 1994, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, published James Bovard's Lost Rights: the Destruction of American Liberty in which Mr. Bovard chronicles how environmental laws (among others) are being used to deprive Americans of many of their liberties and property rights.
Apparently the tactics to this point have not been sufficient to convince the population to give up enough of their liberties. An article in the October 30, 1998, Birmingham News, datelined UNITED NATIONS said:
"...the world's religions must take a more active role in setting the global environmental agenda.
"That is the key conclusion of a three-year Harvard University project that drew on the ideas of more than 1,000 scholars, religious leaders and activists representing 10 major religions.
"Organizers of the Harvard project... said... the key to solving the environmental crisis may lie in redefining spiritual values and rethinking humankind's fundamental responsibility to nature.
"Religions included in the conferences and represented in the forum are Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Shinto, Janism and indigenous traditions."
Generally speaking, the newspaper article tried to remain neutral in respect to the religions involved, but outside sources provided some additional information:
Mary Evelyn Tucker, the Bucknell University religion professor who coordinated the conferences is quoted as having written, the objective is the "creative revisioning of mutually enhancing human-earth relations." She also identifies the monotheistic religions as those most culpable in devaluing nature: "For the most part, the worldviews associated with the Western Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have created a dominantly human-focused morality. Because these worldviews are largely anthropocentric [human centered], nature is viewed as being of secondary importance." In contrast, eastern religions and native traditions are praised for their more "life-affirming" outlook.
One speaker, Wangari Maathai of the Kenyan Green Belt Movement, who characterized herself as a "student" of Maurice Strong (chairman of the Earth Council and Secretary General of the UN 1992 Earth Summit), declared, "The Earth Charter is a new set of Commandments, this is like rewriting the Bible."
The Earth Charter will be formally unveiled in the year 2000 at the "Millennium People's Forum" and subsequently submitted to the UN General Assembly. But the pantheistic and anti-humanity thrust of the Charter is already plainly evident in the latest draft, which repeatedly deifies the earth and declares that "Earth itself is alive." When Christian churches are asked to participate in efforts to further this environmental agenda they should proceed with extreme caution. The ultimate aim is to dethrone God and enthrone Mother Earth. Once that is done there will no longer be any separation between church and state. If we think environmental laws are bad now, just wait until they are protecting the "living Mother-Earth" god.