{"id":8768,"date":"2013-06-12T14:34:35","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T21:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=8768"},"modified":"2013-06-25T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T21:37:48","slug":"opposing-god-bless-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/opposing-god-bless-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposing \u2018God Bless America\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dennis<\/a>
Dennis Prager<\/figcaption><\/figure> by Dennis Prager –
\nA Christian minister preaches the religion of leftism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you were a Christian minister who was given the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post<\/em>, what subject would you choose? War and peace? The decline in faith among America\u2019s young people? The increasingly empty pews in mainstream Protestant churches? The ethical decline in society? Or any of myriad other morally and religiously troubling issues?<\/p>\n

Well, not if you were a Methodist minister named James P. Marsh Jr.<\/p>\n

If you want to know how far much of mainline Christianity has declined, Pastor Marsh\u2019s column would be a fine place to begin. Think back to any time in American history. It is hard to imagine that a Christian minister would have any reaction to his fellow Americans standing and singing \u201cGod Bless America\u201d other than unalloyed delight. <\/p>\n

But that was when mainline Christian ministers believed in Christianity, sought to bring fellow Americans to God, celebrated America, and hoped that God would bestow His blessings on this country. <\/p>\n

Or to put it another way: That was before many mainstream Christians embraced another religion \u2014 leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years. Leftism has influenced Western societies far more deeply than Christianity has since the beginning of the 20th century. And leftism has influenced far more Christians (and Jews) than Christianity (or Judaism) has influenced leftists.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to detect a single Christian idea or belief among the reasons the minister has given for not standing for \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d All his reasons are leftist boilerplate. Had he been identified as an official of the ACLU or a professor in some social-science department, no reader would have been surprised.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cI sit to stand for my religious beliefs.\u201d
\nPresumably the minister\u2019s \u201creligious beliefs\u201d are Christian. But how exactly does standing to sing \u201cGod Bless America\u201d violate Christian beliefs? He doesn\u2019t tell us. One would think that a Christian minister would be thoroughly delighted that tens of thousands of his fellow Americans were singing \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. \u201cBeing pressured to stand at a baseball game for a song that\u2019s essentially a prayer seems, well, un-American. It feels like being pushed into the river for a baptism I didn\u2019t choose.\u201d
\nOnly a true-believing leftist would label as \u201cun-American\u201d the people who stand and sing \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. \u201cIt\u2019s an empty ritual, and one that I don\u2019t think holds much theological water.\u201d
\nTens of thousands of Americans of all races and backgrounds standing and singing \u201cGod Bless America\u201d is an empty ritual? And why doesn\u2019t asking God to bless America \u201chold much theological water?\u201d What is more theologically sound than asking God to bless America (or Canada, or the U.K., or Costa Rica, or Portugal, or any other free country)?<\/p>\n

4. \u201cI\u2019m reminded of the admonition not to pray just to be seen by others.\u201d
\nWho is James Marsh to judge the motivations of 30,000 people? And besides, when I stand at Los Angeles Kings hockey games as they honor a member of the armed forces, I do so in large measure precisely because I do want others, especially my son and other young people, to see me doing so.<\/p>\n

5. \u201cWhen we ask for blessings to be bestowed only on \u2018us,\u2019 we are in danger of seeing ourselves as set apart from the world. \u201d
\nWho but a leftist could read \u201cGod Bless America\u201d as \u201cGod Bless only America?\u201d<\/p>\n

6. \u201cWhy do we all too frequently seek to invoke rituals that undermine our common bonds?\u201d
\nMost of us think that this ritual strengthens our common bonds. Perhaps the pastor is unaware that the song was written by Irving Berlin, a Russian Jewish immigrant.<\/p>\n

7. \u201cWhat does the good secular humanist do during this song?\u201d
\nThe good secular humanist stands and sings \u201cGod Bless America.\u201d Even most liberals stand and heartily sing this song at baseball games. You have to be not only left-wing but also foolish to protest this.<\/p>\n

8. \u201cWe have the right to sit down when everyone else stands up.\u201d
\nTrue. And the rest of us have a right express contempt for your decision and for your using Christianity to defend it.<\/p>\n

HT: NRO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dennis Prager – A Christian minister preaches the religion of leftism. If you were a Christian minister who was given the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, what subject would you choose? War and peace? The decline in faith among America\u2019s young people? The increasingly empty pews in mainstream Protestant … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72,142,24,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leftism","category-leftist-tyranny","category-religion-in-america","category-religious-left"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}