My wife has a fascination with candles, especially when we invite company to our house for the evening. After conversing for hours in the ambience of our homey and mildly romantic inferno, we eventually share goodbyes with the last of our guests and then make our rounds to extinguish the flames. Some of the smaller candles, we find, have already burned out. As we spent the evening talking, the limited supply of wax dissipated, the wick shortened, and unbeknownst to us, the flame flickered and died.
I fear that the flame of our religious freedom will soon experience a similar demise. While we spend our days focusing on the many cares of life, our freedoms face an all-out attack as they collide with the LGBT agenda. If we fail to rekindle the flame, the light of religious liberty will soon flicker and die.
I believe that one of the primary threats to religious liberty is ignorance. Because freedom is so deeply engrained in our American culture, we have taken our liberties for granted without realizing how precious and rare they are. In America, we can go to church when we please, stay home when we please, give much or little money to the church, and we can even preach on street corners or canvass whole neighborhoods with the gospel message if we so desire. We can freely discuss anything we believe, and while we might make some enemies in the process, our Constitution protects all of these activities. However, because so many of us do not know how we acquired this freedom, we are quickly approaching the day we may lose it. Our naivety will inevitably result in the stripping of our freedoms by those who are hostile to anything that resembles God, religion, faith, or freedom. Therefore, it is crucial that we understand the history of America and how our forefathers originally ignited the flame of freedom that we enjoy today.
If we do not understand our past, we will inadvertently allow those who deliberately misshape history to steal away our freedoms. When we wake up some morning in oppressive darkness, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
In day days ahead, I will post some interesting facts about the history of America as it relates to religious liberty. Specifically, I will attempt to answer two questions. First, is America a “Christian” or a “secular” nation? Second, exactly which freedoms are guaranteed in the First Amendment?
I hope you’ll stay with me. This is not only fascinating information, but it is crucial to the future of religious liberty.
Next article: The Pilgrims: “Advance the Christian Faith!”
