The Battle Over the Bible
A cultural clash is ripping at the fabric of Western societies. It’s most pronounced in the United States, where history is being rewritten and culture reshaped in a battle over the Bible.
by Scott Ashley
Rob was a terrific young man—bright, good-looking and polite—the kind of person anyone would want for a son. His parents were proud of him, as they should've been. I'd known him since childhood and can't remember ever seeing a more pleasant, mature and trusting youngster. Brought up in a Christian home, he had everything going for him.
And then he went away to college.
Neither he nor his family was prepared for what would happen to him there. In one of his classes, Rob ran into an atheist professor who soon undermined and ultimately destroyed his belief in the Bible. It wasn't long before Rob abandoned his Christian convictions and threw away everything he'd been taught and believed about the Bible.
Rob (not his real name) wasn't the first casualty—nor will he be the last—in an ongoing war.
The United States, and indeed much of the Western world, is engaged in a war. No, not the war on terror, which is very real—but a war every bit as serious and with equally far-reaching consequences. Like the war on terror, it's a battle for survival between two starkly different visions of the future.
Some have labeled it "the culture war." That's a fitting description, though not entirely accurate. The issues run much deeper. At its core we're involved in a battle over the Bible.
The battle affects much more than religion. It spills over into politics, education, entertainment, the courts and many other aspects of life. Regrettably, the battle has already been lost in much of Western Europe, where religion and the Bible have been so denigrated that they play little role in public or private life.
There, belief in God is often viewed as a quaint notion—comforting to some, but judged irrelevant to the issues of today. Taking the Bible seriously is often dismissed casually and contemptuously. A century and a half of indoctrination with evolution, deconstruction of the Bible and two ruinous world wars have largely erased belief in God and the Bible.
Holding out—at least for now—against this rising tide of disbelief in God and the Bible are many people in the United States and a handful of other countries in the democratic West. Yet efforts to acknowledge and uphold belief in God and the Bible appear to be an increasingly uphill struggle. Many forces seem determined to take the United States on a course far astray from the one set during its first two centuries.
High stakes in the battle over the Bible
Is the Bible true? Is it what it claims to be—the Word of God? The stakes are high. U.S. court decisions increasingly reject longstanding laws rooted in the Bible. Some laws, like those prohibiting abortion, pornography and sex outside of marriage, were thrown out so long ago that they're seldom raised as legal issues anymore. Other laws, such as those banning homosexual activity, have been overturned only in recent times.
In many recent cases, courts and judges have shown outright hostility to such religious freedoms as prayer, display of the Ten Commandments and mention of God and the Bible in public life. Canada has even passed laws under which people can be fined or sent to prison for "inciting hatred" by simply quoting what the Bible says about particular acts of immorality! And make no mistake, the groundwork is already being laid for similar laws in the United States.
Consider some of the issues the conflict over the Bible touches:
• Abortion.
• Premarital and extramarital sex.
• Sex education and distribution of condoms and other forms of birth control in public schools.
• The role of government at all levels.
• International relations.
• Crime and punishment—what kinds of activities are classified as criminal.
• Illegal drug use.
• Religious freedom.
• Public expression of religious belief such as prayer and display of the Ten Commandments.
• Gay marriage.
• Legalization of intimate same-sex relationships.
• The direction and approach of public education from kindergarten through college.
• Teaching of evolution (and banning discussion of creation) in schools.
• Lawsuits over issues of personal responsibility.
• Obscenity, profanity and pornography.
• Entertainment—what we read, watch and listen to.
Of course, this is only a partial list.
If the Bible is not true, these are really non-issues, because there is no standard other than human reason for defining right and wrong. And this is exactly why many people want to undermine belief in the Bible.
But if the Bible is true, political and cultural leaders are increasingly defying its instructions—and drawing millions of unsuspecting followers with them along a dangerous and destructive path.
Built on a biblical foundation
It takes no great understanding of history to realize that America's founding fathers used principles and directives from Scripture as the basis for many U.S. laws.
Many prohibitions, such as those outlawing murder, stealing, lying and adultery in their various forms, obviously originated in and can be traced back to the Ten Commandments. It's only been in recent decades that laws banning blasphemy, swearing and working on the "Sabbath" (with Sunday assumed, incorrectly, to be the biblical Sabbath) have been wiped off the books in many states.
How did some of America's founding fathers view the nation's moral and legal foundation? They made their views quite clear in their own words.
George Washington, first president of the United States, said, "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible" (quoted by William Federer, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, 1996, p. 660, emphasis added throughout quotes).
In his farewell speech (Sept. 19, 1796), he stated: "Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports ... Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion" (ibid., p. 661).
John Adams, the nation's second president, stated: "We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and true religion ... Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" (ibid., p. 10).
James Madison, fourth president of the United States and primary framer of the U.S. Constitution, said: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God" (ibid., p. 411).
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States and son of the second president, said in 1821 that "the highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity" (ibid., p. 18).
John Jay, first chief justice of the United States, stated that to best preserve the nation, citizens should select Christians as their leaders. "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers" (ibid., p. 318).
In fact, in an 1892 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly acknowledged that the nation was Christian: "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian ..." (ibid., p. 599).
Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, affirmed this when he wrote: "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country" (ibid., p. 181).
Ronald Reagan, 40th president, stated in a 1984 speech: "Those who created our country —the Founding Fathers and Mothers—understood that there is a divine order which transcends the human order. They saw the state, in fact, as a form of moral order and felt that the bedrock of moral order is religion ...
"The Mayflower Compact began with the words, 'In the name of God, amen.' The Declaration of Independence appeals to 'Nature's God' and the 'Creator' and 'the Supreme Judge of the world.' Congress was given a chaplain, and the oaths of office are oaths before God'" (speech transcript at www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/ 1984/82384a.htm).
How the battle began
How did the United States come to stray so far from its religious and moral foundation?
As happened in Europe and much of the rest of the world, the theory of evolution and supposedly scientific explanations for the existence of a creation without a Creator gained wide acceptance. Starting in the educational establishment, these ideas quickly dominated the field and soon spread to all levels of society. (To learn more, request the free booklets Creation or Evolution: Does It Really Matter What You Believe? and Life's Ultimate Question: Does God Exist?)
As we might expect, it wasn't long before the Bible itself was put under the microscope and found wanting. But in reality, as time would prove, it wasn't wanting at all. Many critics, acting with woefully incomplete information, simply rushed to judgment, not knowing that hundreds of later historical and archaeological discoveries would confirm the Bible's astounding accuracy in great detail. (For more information, see "Can You Prove the Bible Is True?," beginning on page 7.)
When we fast-forward to the 20th century, we find some startling admissions from leading Western intellectuals as to why they so readily accepted the theory of evolution and rejected biblically based standards.
For example, writer Aldous Huxley, a fervent advocate of evolution, admitted: "I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning ... The liberation we desired was ... from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom" (Ends and Means, 1946, p. 270).
Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous and also a writer and leading proponent of evolution, wrote that "the sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a super-human being is enormous" (Essays of a Humanist, 1966, p. 223).
Little did they know they were simply paraphrasing a profound truth about human nature and human reasoning that the apostle Paul expressed some 19 centuries earlier: "... The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law—indeed it cannot" (Romans 8:7, New Revised Standard Version, emphasis added throughout).
Humanity's hostility to God
Man's relationship with the Bible has never been very good. Ever since Adam and Eve, people have resisted others telling them how to live. So we shouldn't be surprised when intellectuals and self-appointed "wise" men come up with all kinds of arguments against God and the Bible.
As Paul wrote, people are naturally hostile toward God and His laws. Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, God noted that we human beings have a great capacity for self-deception when it comes to seeing ourselves realistically: "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, New American Standard Bible).
Jesus Christ Himself said that "it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these
evil things come from within, and they defile a person" (Mark 7:21-23, NRSV).
Because of our greedy, self-seeking nature, it's no wonder the majority of mankind rejects God and His instructions. It's far more comfortable to make up reasons for thinking He doesn't exist or the Bible can't be His Word than it is to accept that reality—and to then acknowledge that we must start living by it.
Regrettably, this refusal to accept reality has tragic consequences. As God says through the prophet Hosea: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you ...; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children" (Hosea 4:6).
It never ceases to amaze me that people will turn their backs on God, disobey His Word and ignore His warnings—and then wonder why He doesn't intervene when they get in trouble and need His help.
"... Because you have rejected knowledge," He says, "I also will reject you."
The conflict continues
What are the results of this battle over the Bible? Recent studies reveal a surprising—and depressing—story. In a little more than a decade, from 1991 to 2004, the number of adult Americans who do not attend church has almost doubled, growing from 39 to 75 million.
Meanwhile, research shows that a majority —6 in 10 Americans—believe that living together with someone of the opposite sex before marriage, having sexual fantasies about others and gambling can be "morally acceptable" behaviors. More than 4 in 10 think that having an abortion and engaging in a sexual relationship with a person other than one's spouse is similarly acceptable.
Approximately a third see no moral problem with profanity, pornography, drunkenness and homosexual sex (The Barna Group, "Spiritual Progress Hard to Find in 2003" and "Morality Continues to Decay," www.barna.org).
It would be convenient to blame unelected lawyers and judges for America's moral slide. But such research shows that in reality they only reflect the moral mindset of a great number of its citizens and their desire to remove any stigma from their shameful actions.
Regrettably, many view such developments as "progress" and those who hold such opinions as "enlightened," while men and women who argue for biblical standards of morality are labeled as bigoted, judgmental, homophobic or worse.
God warns us in Isaiah 5:20 about this kind of perverted thinking: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
He adds in verse 25: "Therefore the anger of the LORD is aroused against His people; He has stretched out His hand against them and stricken them, and the hills trembled. Their carcasses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still."
How you can win
Only God can change the heart of a nation, and if history is any guide, once a nation rejects Him and His laws, it will seldom repent and turn again to Him. Once a nation loses its moral foundation, it has nowhere to go but down. Our problems have grown so great that ultimately only Jesus Christ Himself can straighten them out—which is exactly why He must return to earth to establish the Kingdom of God (Matthew 24:21-22).
You may not be able to change your country, but you can allow God to change you. You can choose to turn to God and, with His help, live by the standards and values He reveals in His Word. You can prove to yourself that the Bible is indeed God's Word, then begin living it.
Follow God's admonition in Isaiah 55:6-7: "Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
We would all do well to heed the warning of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, when he wrote: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are of the gift of God? . . . Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever" (Federer, p. 323). GN
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Recommended Reading
What's behind America's startling moral decline? Does the Bible give us any indication and tell us where these trends will lead? You need to understand the remarkable story revealed in our free booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy. Also be sure to request your free copies of The Ten Commandments and Is the Bible True? Download or request your free copies today
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