Mother Teresa: the Worst of the Bunch

[A shorter version of this letter ran in The Clarion-Ledger on September 13, 2002. It's a response to the August 15 letter from William E. Wallace of Hattiesburg, Miss., "Religion belongs in church, not in our national government."]

William Wallace rails at the mean, nasty, scary Religious Right and invokes the "separation of church and state." This phrase came from an 1802 letter that President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of Connecticut Baptists. This was the same Thomas Jefferson who earlier had written "that all men are ...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

Concerning religion, the First Amendment had only two purposes. There would be no established, national church, and government should not interfere with the free practice of religion. Sadly, in 1947, the Supreme Court started reshaping this original intent. [The majority (5-4) opinion in Everson v. Board of Education was written by Justice Hugo Black, a former U. S. senator from Alabama and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.]

In A Christian Manifesto (1981), Francis Schaeffer reminded us that American society was founded on the Judeo-Christian world view, with the Creator God as the final reality. As the 20th century progressed, a different world view gained increasing momentum and now threatens to totally replace our true foundation. This false view argues that energy or material, shaped by pure chance, is the final reality.

Our legal system is based on the English Common Law, which came from... the Bible.

Wallace contends, "Religion promotes hatred, racism, male superiority..." Right-- and Mother Teresa was the worst of the bunch!

Wallace proposes a massive undertaking: "Government and religion... completely separate... religion does not belong in public places, gatherings, laws, documents, or the money..." Thus, we would need to

-- Repeal most of our laws, including the ones against murder and robbery.

-- Remove the Ten Commandments from the wall of the Supreme Court.

-- Fire the chaplains from Congress and all branches of the military.

-- Ban Bibles from all government buildings, including courthouses, and change the oaths that are sworn.

-- Eliminate Thanksgiving and Christmas as legal holidays.

-- Expel the religion of secular humanism from the public schools and all other government institutions. (One out of seven ain't bad!!)

-- Adopt a new calendar, since each of the last 2000-plus years has been called the "Year of our Lord."

"Free thinker" Wallace should read Don Feder's book, Who's Afraid of the Religious Right? He should also peruse the books and videos of David Barton and Peter Marshall.

Our Judeo-Christian heritage empowered that California screwball to file his lawsuit against the Pledge of Allegiance.

This precious heritage also enables people like Wallace to write ludicrous letters to the editor.

[The March 29, 2005 post on this blog relates to this topic.]