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By William Jasper
Our Lady of Fatima warned us that Russia "would spread its errors
throughout the world raising up wars and persecutions against the
Church." The chief error of Communist Russia is atheism in theory and
practice. Russia for 73 years has proclaimed and is still proclaiming in
words (its official propaganda) in practice and in laws (which indeed
are not laws at all, but have the appearance of law) that God the
Father, and Jesus Christ, His only Begotten Son are forbidden to be the
primary goal and the chief inspiration of all public and private life.
To those who have eyes to see, the same error has been craftily
brought into our countries so as to already raise up persecution against
the Church in the United States and Canada. This persecution is masked
under the false doctrine of "secularism" or "separation of Church and
state" which claims the right of the government, local, state and
national to "neutrality" regarding the King of kings and the Lord of
lords, Jesus Christ.
This doctrine, in practice, is against Jesus Christ, His Church and the
individual members of His Church because they are excluded from
expressing their faith in action through their good works in the public
domain, allowing only private exercise of Christian religion behind a
"wall of separation". This totally goes against the intention of the
founding fathers of both our nations as well as against the law of God.
This article originally published in the New American on July 16, 1990,
illustrates how far this error of Russia has been spread in our midst
whereby North America is falling away from Christ and is on the road to
Communism.
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Audrey Pearson
Karen Mitchell
Law student Karen Mitchell and six of her girlfriends stood recently on the steps
of the U.S. Supreme Court and, joining hands in a small circle, prayed silently
for the nine justices. "Immediately, a police officer came from nowhere to tell us
to stop praying," says Mitchell. The shocked coeds were told that it was against
the law to pray on the steps of the Supreme Court, that it was considered
"demonstrating."
And, of course, every year around Christmas and Easter it has become a regular
ritual for the ACLU or some atheist organization to file suit against cities or
counties for allowing the display of a nativity scene or cross on public grounds,
even though the displays may be provided by private groups at no cost to the
taxpayer.
The radical secularists cannot tolerate any public expression of Christian belief.
This was made abundantly clear by the extraordinary measures taken by the
officials of RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. to censor the biblical messages on
banners displayed by fans at Washington Redskins games.
No other banners were singled out for censorship: only those specifically
Christian. Happily, after a protracted court battle, the stadium censors conceded
defeat and allowed the fans' offending banner which said, simply, "John 3:16"
to fly again.
Roberts to remove from his desk a copy of the Bible he sometimes read during
the silent reading time. He was forbidden to read it in the classroom because
students might see him with the Bible, want to read it themselves, and be
influenced by it. The principal went even further then, removing the copy of the
Bible from the school library, even though books concerning other religions were
allowed to remain.
"Such policies," warns John W. Whitehead, "send an unmistakable message to
religious students: Your deepest convictions are inappropriate sometimes
illegal you are different from your peers, you are second class citizens." It
tells them religion is something to be "relegated to 'private' areas where it can't
'infect' public policy."
Fortunately, many of the cases we have mentioned have been resolved in favor
of religious liberty. Some have been won in the courts, some are still working
their way through the court system, while others have been settled out of court
or are presently in negotiation.
Audrey Pearson was allowed to read her Bible on the bus after school officials
were contacted by attorneys from the Rutherford Institute, a legal defense
organization specializing in protection of First Amendment rights. After receiving
a letter from Rutherford attorneys, school authorities in Hartford, Wisconsin,
also backed down and allowed Jennifer Backhous' valentines to go on display
with the other childrens'. Roberts' Bible case, which is being handled by
attorneys of Concerned Women for America, is still being adjudicated. Angela
Guidry's suit remains tied up in the courts.
A major victory for religious liberty was scored with the June 4, U.S. Supreme
Court decision in Mergens v. Westside Community Schools. By a vote of 8 to 1,
the court upheld the constitutionality of the federal Equal Access Act of 1984,
which allows religious groups to meet in public schools.
The suit had been filed in 1985 by attorneys of the Atlanta-based Christian
Advocates Serving Evangelism on behalf of a group of students in Omaha,
Nebraska, whose request to form a Bible study group had been denied by
school officials. The Court ruled that public high schools that accept federal aid
and that maintain a "limited open forum" allowing "noncurricular related student
groups to meet on school premises during non-instructional time 'cannot deny'
equal access to any other student group on the basis of the content of the
group's speech." This ruling is expected to have beneficial impact on similar
cases pending in other states.
The Mergens decision may also encourage many other victims of religious
censorship to stand up for their rights. Attorneys for the legal defense
organizations that handle most of these religious liberty cases all agree that
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they see only a tiny fraction of the many violations of the First Amendment
rights.
For every Kenny Green, Angela Guidry, or Audrey Pearson who doesn't cave in
to official acts of religious intolerance, there are hundreds more who meekly go
along without a fight. This is especially tragic, since many of these cases could
be won without ever going to court. Sadly, most students don't even know when
their rights are being violated. According to the Williamburg Charter Survey
(1988), only 40 percent of American youth aged 15 to 18 know that freedom of
religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Note: This very interesting article was abbreviated due to lack of space. For the
complete article please phone or write The Fatima Crusader.
*Editor's Note: Dungeons and Dragons is spiritually and physically dangerous.
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