Adapted from the book ‘The Three C’s That Made America Great: Christianity, Capitalism and the Constitution’ by Mike Huckabee and Steve Feazel.

3. The Left attacks Christianity

Adapted from the book ‘The Three C’s That Made America Great: Christianity, Capitalism and the Constitution’ by Mike Huckabee and Steve Feazel.

Christianity is under attack in the United States. The amount of evidence proving that this nation was founded as a Christian nation is astounding, but it has not deterred those who oppose this faith from unleashing their illogical and sinister attacks. The liberal Left has put the Christian faith in its crosshairs in order to decrease its influence on the life and culture of the nation.

Why would anyone pursue such a course? The answer is easy: votes and political power. The Left knows that people who strongly embrace Christian values and seek to follow the Christian faith vote overwhelmingly for conservative candidates. The Left’s thinking is, “Fewer Christians, fewer votes for conservatives.”

The liberal Left, which now controls the Democratic Party, seemingly cares about only one thing: power. Power is obtained by winning elections and controlling voting groups. When a voting group aligns with the opposition, then it is targeted by the Democrats. They seek to diminish and deplete the voting group’s numbers. The Left went into full battle mode to this end in the 1960s and has carried the fight ever since. It took control of public education and secondary education systems where liberal professors far outnumber conservative ones. It gained more and more control of the culture as it dominated the entertainment industry and the news media. It is a shame that their strategies are working.

The growth of Evangelicals is not keeping up with the nation’s population growth. The liberal influence in public schools and on the college level has lured many Evangelicals from the faith. In 2003, 19 percent of people below thirty years of age professed “no religion.” This number increased to 35 percent in 2017 when only 22 percent identified with any brand of Protestantism. Evangelicals packed a strong political force back in the 1980s when Reagan won the White House twice by substantial margins. Many credit the Evangelical vote as the difference that reelected George W. Bush in 2004, when many Christian voters took to the polls in Ohio to also vote to uphold Biblical marriage instead of same-sex marriage.

The liberals in the Democratic Party have taken note of these political realities and have deepened their commitment to diminish the influence of Christianity throughout the nation. One tactic in their assault is the “separation of church and state” concept. It is as foundational to them as the founding documents are to the Republic.

And, like much of what the Left firmly believes, it is a myth.

The modern Left makes the case that the original intent of the Founders was that we would be a purely secular nation where Christianity was to be expelled from the classroom, chased from the halls of government on all levels, and vanquished from the public square. The evidence clearly reveals that this was not the intent of the Founders. But the historical facts have not intimidated the Left one iota from launching their assaults and proclaiming their bogus doctrine of separation of church and state.

The Left has used slick marketing, the educational system and a biased media to gain much ground for their cause. But their favorite weapon is the courts, where judges are appointed for life and never have to face the electorate. They believe they have found a loophole in our form of government to usurp the will of the people. Supreme Court decisions are almost impossible to change. What better way to advance your minority political views than to have activist judges render decisions in line with their liberal positions rather than by precedent and the rule of law based on the Constitution?

The use of the courts to substitute as a “super-legislature” is unconstitutional and has led to the dangerous doctrine of “judicial supremacy” by which Congress and the Executive Branch cower away from hard political decisions by allowing a liberal court to issue a ruling that is accepted as “THE LAW OF THE LAND!”

But the courts can’t make a law. They can only interpret those laws that Congress makes and the President signs. One would think that everyone who passed ninth grade civics would know that, but it’s now accepted by most as the norm.

There are those who believe “separation of church and state” is in the Constitution. These words do NOT appear in the Constitution, nor is there a place where a case can easily be made for this concept. Where, then, does the Left obtain the basis for their doctrine of separation of church and state? They like to point to the “wall” between church and state, which they claim was set by the Founders to prevent the church from having any influence in government or any place where government is in authority.

This “wall” is also not mentioned in the Constitution. But it is found in a letter by President Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut. When Jefferson assumed office, he received a letter from the Danbury Baptists, asking for clarification because they feared the “free exercise” clause might be interpreted that the federal government could change this free exercise of religion if it decided that this liberty was a right based on governmental policy.

It is understandable why they felt this way, because Connecticut did have a state-supported church clear into the 1830s. In essence, this Christian group was asking, “Can the government intrude in our religious activity in the future?” They also had the concern that, as a minority denomination, they could be at a disadvantage if another denomination was chosen by the government as the national church.

Clearly they were asking, “What reach does the government have into religion?” and not, “What restrictions are on religion regarding its involvement in public life and government activity?” They wanted to know what actions government could enact in their affairs, not how they were prevented from voicing their concerns in the political arena.

This distinction is significant, because today’s liberals advocate for a strict separation of church and state and have used Jefferson’s response to the Danbury Baptists’ letter as the all-important document proving their belief, even though they actually flip-flop the concern of the letter.

Jefferson’s response to the Baptists contains a phrase that stated his understanding of why the Constitution declared that Congress could not make a law that would establish a national religion, or any law that would prohibit the free exercise of religion. That phrase was “thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

This one phrase, from a response to an inquiry letter—by itself hardly a heralded document on the scale of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution—is what the Left hangs its mythical doctrine of “separation of church and state” on. They point to the “wall” Jefferson referred to as what must ever stand to prevent religion from touching any part of government and public policy.

They have it all wrong! The “wall” in Jefferson’s mind was not to prevent religion from touching government, but to prevent government from encroaching into a religion’s activity!

The liberal Left chose one phrase from Jefferson’s response and used it to launch a fabricated national policy. They discount the context in which the phrase appears. This is common practice for those of the Left; if something goes against their cause or even proves it wrong, they just ignore it.

Jefferson also used the phrase, “natural rights.” The Founding Fathers used that phrase to refer to unalienable rights, meaning rights that came from God and not from the State. This shows that Jefferson understood the Baptists’ concern that government could one day pass a law that would infringe on their religious liberty. Jefferson was assuring them that this would not take place, because the Constitution prohibited the government from doing this.

His wall protected religion from the State, not the other way around.

It must be noted in his response that Jefferson paid tribute to “the common Father and Creator of man.” This is evidence that he believed in God, who created man and the world, not that life came about by chance.

Jefferson also designated space in the rotunda of the University of Virginia for chapel services. He welcomed religious organizations to locate adjacent to, and on the property of, the University of Virginia so that students could be involved in religious activities. He supported the use of the Charlottesville courthouse for church services. In real-life practice, it does not appear that the Left’s champion verifies their interpretation of his so-called separation clause. All these actions by Jefferson would be condemned by the liberal activists of today and outlawed by their willing black-robed accomplices. No president today could do what Jefferson did without the ACLU taking action and liberal politicians complaining on CNN.

Somehow the Left fails to point all this out as it fervently misuses his words. Some of them are now trying to tear down Jefferson’s statues and erase him from history, even as they continue to erroneously cite him as the only evidence for their “separation of church and state” doctrine!

History provides clear proof that the original intent of the Founders in the establishment clause was to prevent any one denomination from gaining official state church status, not preventing Christianity from having a public voice and a moral influence on the culture of the nation. As with so many of their policies and philosophies, the Left has it exactly backwards.