Fall, Faith, and Politics

I love the fall season of the year.  Soon the hillsides will be alive with color.  The crops are beginning to show signs of maturity - can combining be far behind.  The apple trees hang heavy with fruit this year.  Reports say it will be one of the best apple harvests that Minnesota has had in recent years.  Marlys and I had fun with a couple of our grandkids going to the orchard to pick apples and raspberries.  What a great morning!  The Friday night skies are brightened with the lights from football fields that dot many a small community.  In those communities, high school football becomes a premier social event for the community.  Ah, the majesty of fall.


Another fall scene is of yellow buses carrying eager young minds to our many schools.  As parents we gladly send our children off to school trusting that they will receive, not only a quality education, but also cultivate skills that will enable them to celebrate life.  Now I must admit that I loved school.  In fact, I would have enjoyed going to school year round.  I was the kid who enrolled into the summer school program.  I was the kid who kept his nose in a book over the summer.  I loved learning - in fact, I still do. 


But, alas, all is not well in our schools.  Bob Unruh posted this article on the WND website: www.wnd.com/2015/09/students-forced-to-recite-allah-is-the-only-god.  He writes, "Amid a new report of Islamic indoctrination in public schools, the American Center for Law and Justice is fighting back with a petition drive that already has garnered 120,000 signatures.  Earlier this year, public-school students in Madison, Wisconsin, were given an assignment to 'pretend you are Muslim,' while students in Florida were instructed to 'recite the Five Pillars of Islam as a prayer, make Islamic prayer-rugs and perform other Muslim rituals,' ACLJ said Monday.  Now, parents of public-school students in Tennessee are protesting assignments that include writing a declaration that Allah is supreme and textbooks that recount Islamic doctrines as facts instead of beliefs."  


Does this pose a problem for you?  What would the response be if students were asked to memorize the Lord's Prayer or the Ten Commandments?  What would the response be if students were asked to write a paper on the life of Jesus and to understand and then state that He is the Son of God?  The ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation get into an uproar when a teacher merely has a Bible on his/her desk.  They cry, "First Amendment," and "separation of church and state."  Yet their voice is silent when it is the Koran that is studied; when it is the life of Mohammed that is studied; when it is the tenants of Islamic faith that are not just taught but memorized. 


Friends, if I were living in a Muslim country, I would expect that, when my children went to the public schools, that they would be taught the facts and beliefs behind Islam, for after all, the Islamic faith is the foundation of that country.  If I wanted my children to understand their Christian beliefs, I would do so in the confines of my own home.  Now we live in a nation that has as its foundational roots, not the Koran and Islam, but the Bible and Judeo-Christian faith.  The Supreme Court ruled that the Bible and Judeo-Christian faith cannot be taught in our public schools, except as referenced in a history or literature class and then only as how that faith impacted a culture or civilization.  And, as much as I have never liked that ruling, I have accepted it.  My children learned those foundational principles of faith at home and while attending church.  I did not expect the public schools to teach my children a Christian faith.  However, I also did not expect the public schools to tear down those faith principles that I was teaching my children.  I did not want that institution to belittle my children because of their beliefs. 


Now I know that God has filled many a public school classroom with godly teachers who are committed to biblical truth.  We have some amazing Christian teachers who attend our church and who work within the local public school system.  I know their heart and that, in their own ways, they seek to be an encouragement and blessing to their students.  When I have the occasion to share with such teachers, I remind them that they are on the front lines of one of the most important mission fields today.  And I pray for them.  And I am grateful for godly men and women who still are willing to be part of the local community school board.  Theirs is a difficult and often thankless task, but they see their roles as one to guard the interests of the children. 


But what is happening in the public schools is accelerating those home-schooling their children.  It is advancing the creation of Christian school - based both on a traditional learning style and the Classical learning style.  Because of what is happening in the public-school arena, it becomes more critically important that moms and dads truly become engaged with their sons and daughters and teach them or disciple them into the heritage of their faith.  Faith at home does matter today, perhaps more so than at any time in our recent past.  Those principles shared by God through Moses in Deuteronomy 6 are as important today as they were when they were written down some 3500 years ago. 


I also want to share with you one other article that greatly interested me.  It was written by David Limbaugh and focuses upon the phenomenon of Donald Trump.  You can find the article at: www.wnd.com/2015/09/the-establishment-birthed-trump.  I am not going to quote from the article.  I will let you read it for yourself.  Now I am not a Trump-fan or supporter.  However, I do believe that he is striking a cord with grass-roots America.  It is almost as if he has looked into America's soul and is articulating what is there.  He understands America's growing distrust of professional governmental leaders.  He understands America's growing distrust of promises to gain an election but then are never fulfilled following that election.  What I find very interesting is the silent rise of Ben Carson in the polls.  He, too, is speaking to the heart of main-stream America but in a quieter, gentler way.  One views Dr. Carson as a person you could have absolute confidence in to tell you the absolute truth, just as you would want your family physician to do.  We are a long way from those early caucuses and primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.  But, for this political-junkie, these are amazing days. 


Friends, I want to wish you all a "shana tova" on this Rosh Hashana week.  Yom Kippur is a week from today, followed by the Feast of Tabernacles.  Many believe that Jesus Christ will return during the Jewish celebration of the fall feasts.  Perhaps they are right.  But, as I look out over a world that is teetering on the edge, I draw hope from the fact that Jesus Christ will return.  Perhaps it might be this fall.  Wouldn't that be great?  Are you ready for the trumpet to blow?