ACU 1651 Glenn Beck Radio The Fight for Religious Freedom in America

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• published: 23 Nov 2016
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Freedom of religion is the first right mentioned in the Bill of Rights. The Founders knew how integral this would be to the United States of America. Without religious freedom, we cease to be free. Religion and the free exercise thereof is slipping through our fingers little by little, every day. But most people don’t even even notice it, and they also don’t understand why it’s important. In this four-part series, Glenn examines our religious rights as Americans — where they come from, why they’re essential and how the progressive left has slowly eroded them away. The four-part series is compiled here for your convenience. Part I: The Beginning In 2009, the president of the United States made this announcement at a press conference in Turkey: “One of the great strengths of the United States is — although as I mentioned — you know, we have a very large Christian population. We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens,” President Obama said. That statement would no doubt come as quite a surprise to Founders like John Adams who declared the general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. These founding principles were stated over and over again by most of America’s founders and reaffirmed in 1854 by Congress. From the Journal of the House of Representatives: “The great, vital, and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and the define truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Progressives have worked hard over the past century to secularize America and turn the country toward a European style of government. But even Woodrow Wilson, father of the progressive movement, said America was ‘Born a Christian Nation.’ Part II: War on Christianity America was founded in large part because of the desire for religious freedom. But it’s been 225 years since ratification of the United States Constitution, and now, with the passage of centuries, Americans sometimes take the freedoms they’ve enjoyed for granted. Most of the world, however, can only dream of being able to take such a right for granted. Right now, the biggest threat to Christianity comes from ISIS. In Iraq, where in 2003 there were some 2 million Christians, there are now only an estimated 180,000. Over 90 percent of the entire Christian population gone. With so much going wrong that needs to be righted, with Christians being displaced by the millions, murdered by the thousands, abused, crucified and used as sex slaves, what has the president of the United States said? “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ,” Obama chastised at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2015. Clearly, based on the president’s comments, the war on Christianity is alive and well in the United States. Part III: Today’s Battles Since the ratification of its founding document, Americans have always been able to count on their number one God-given freedom. It is the first of all rights, spelled out at the very beginning of the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that praying in school was unconstitutional, setting the stage that began the assault on America’s religious freedom. Interestingly, children saying prayers in school does not and cannot qualify as Congress making a law to establish religion. But it certainly could be interpreted as prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Yet, that somehow was not the determination made by the Earl Warren-led Supreme Court. For religious freedom in America, the ruling was a significant turning point. Another blow came in 2008 with the presidential election of Barack Obama. He brought a new attitude to the executive branch of the government in the United States. Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. It was an attitude that stunned many Americans who knew that America, in fact, was founded on Christian-Judeo principles. Part IV: The Easter Story They say time itself does not exist as we know and understand it. Time is a way for us to find out where we have been, where we are now and where we are headed. Today, we’re going on a journey, back in time to the most important moment in human history. We travel back to a time before radio and TV. It’s approximately 29 of the common era, and we stop at a small walled city in the Middle East, just a few of days before Passover.  Visit The American Conservative University Podcast for over 1660 advertisement free audio shows from the best Conservative Talent in the world! Visit - http://acu.libsyn.com