Monday, February 25, 2013

Government as the Source of Values?

Kristine Arriaga, of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, was on the Bill O’Reilly Show the other week talking about her view of the state of Christianity and the government. She said, “The secular progressives want the state to be the only place people can get their values.” I think one can see that happening in a country where we have slowly moved from a charity dominated caring system to an entrenched government system.

Her more immediate topic was to make a brief addition to the “War on Christmas” squabble that the nation has been having since 2005 (in its present form). To this point she noted that Castro banned Christmas elements as part of changing who we [they] are. While multicultural, diversity, and constitutional areas are certainly involved in changing the place of relation in American society, she points out the outcome of the liberal attack on faith. The attack is meant to diminish while at the same time bring the new god of the state to the forefront.

As debate rages over whether the destruction of faith is the liberal goal, the impact of just having such a debate is that faith is diminished. One destroys by diminishing. Anything the media casts in a negative light is diminished when that attack is continual. The same is true for the other direction. The national change in attitudes toward gay and lesbian right is an example. What had been negative is slowly turned to a positive. But the reverse is true, too. Constant negative turns the positive to the negative.

As the government and media diminish faith, the gay-lesbian change is also example of the government takeover of values. It leads at times rather than follows. So, that the government is the new source of values is not making too much of a leap.

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