c. 1996 Religion News Service
(Charles W. Colson, former special counsel to Richard Nixon, served a prison term for his role in the Watergate scandal. He now heads Prison Fellowship International, an evangelical Christian ministry to the imprisoned and their families. Contact Colson via e-mail at 71421.1551(at)compuserve.com.)
(UNDATED) Well, it’s clear that neither President Clinton nor Bob Dole watch the History Channel. Both were also apparently absent from school those days when the subject was America’s religious roots.
How else to explain both candidates’ incredible slighting of Christianity’s role in American history during their final debate? Moe, Larry and Curly could have presented a more thorough discourse on quantum physics than the history lesson we got from our candidates, one of whom is a Rhodes Scholar.
The dunce caps came out in San Diego soon after Ron Hite, who introduced himself as a minister, asked the candidates this question:”This great nation has been established by the founding fathers who possessed very strong Christian beliefs and godly principles. If elected president of the United States what would you do to return this nation to those basic principles?” This, of course, is the sort of question that Bob Dole might plant at one of his folksy Rotarian gatherings, and that President Clinton would knock out of the sanctuary during a visit to a rebuilt church. But on national television, both men responded in much the same way parents might when their young children ask where babies come from:”I believe, dear, it was a cabbage patch.” In short, they dodged the question.
Dole, the underdog who not long ago sidled into a Christian Coalition conference to present his bona fides, opined,”Well, no doubt about it, our founding fathers had a great deal of wisdom.”He then lurched into an attack on big government and mentioned that he keeps a copy the 10th Amendment close to his heart. If he had announced that he personally changes the oil in his cars the aura of incoherence would not have been more profound.
President Clinton did at least mention religion in his response, though he tried to simultaneously cover so many bases that even for this versatile politician it was a major stretch.”This is the most religious, great country in history,”he began,”and yet, interestingly enough, we have the most religious freedom of any country in the world, including the freedom not to believe.”He not only ignored the Christian roots of America but seemed downright proud that we are a nation that protects atheists.
But then Clinton added an incredible statement for a professing Christian to make:”The fundamental tenets of virtually every religion are the same.”Perhaps forgetting such practices as widow-burning in Hindu nations, removing the hands of thieves and heads of apostates in the Muslim world, and, of course, the core dispute between Christianity, which teaches that Jesus is God, and all the other religions, which by definition believe that such a belief is utter nonsense.
All of us understand, of course, that presidents serve all people, and therefore do not want to make people of any faith _ and certainly not atheists, God forbid _ feel unwanted. But to deny Christianity’s bedrock role in our history is to deny reality itself.
It would not have hurt either of these candidates to mention that, yes, the adherents to the Mayflower Compact came to this country”for the advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country,”as their charter put it, and that Jamestown settlers did not call upon Buddha in their time of need. Similarly, either candidate could have made the non-controversial observation that, yes, that is a likeness of Moses staring down from the fresco above the Speaker’s chair in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Instead of an arcane reference to the 10th Amendment, Dole might have passed on the undisputed fact that most of the founders were profoundly religious men _ Christian and Deist alike _ as reflected in a certain declaration they signed, at some risk to their personal safety, which held that”all men are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights.”Or he might have quoted second president John Adams:”Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” Some of our historical revisionists might argue that Christianity was the furthest thing from Adams’ mind; perhaps they would have us believe that Adams somehow foresaw the arrival of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon on these happy shores. Most will know better.
In fact, these men could have said something so innocuous as to point out that when either takes the oath of office, it is highly unlikely that his hand will rest upon a copy of the Humanist Manifesto.
There are many people who are busy writing America’s Christian heritage out of the history books, all the better to cut Americans off from their past. This is not merely politically correct silliness; it is removing the fundamental building block of American culture.
George Orwell was right: Whoever controls history controls the present. People without historic grounding are easy pickings for tyrants.
That’s why the history lesson taught to us by the two candidates for the highest office does such a disservice. To deny the basic role played by Christianity in the history of the United States is a much greater lapse than, say, misspelling the word potato.
MJP END COLSON
