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Written by Tennessean reporter Bob Smietana, the article delved into the issue of prayer and other religious activities in Middle Tennessee Schools and how secular humanists and Christian advocates square up on the issues. Indeed, where does God fit in the framework of our nation’s educational institutions … in any of our public facilities and institutions?

Until 1947, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a mythical “wall of separation” exists between church and state, there wasn’t much question at all about prayer and Bible reading in schools. In fact, reading the Bible in schools was an important part of each student’s education.

Practically all the universities established in America’s infancy – both before and after the U.S. Constitution – strived to instruct students in Christian principles so they could become good leaders and citizens, even ministers. The largest church services held in Washington, D.C., were held at the Capital building during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency.

So, how did we get to where we are today in America, living under the shadow of Saul, and having to do battle in the courts and public arena in an attempt to answer the question posed in The Tennessean?

Call it the domino effect

The shadow of Saul didn’t fall across America overnight. It has etched its way across the nation little by little, in a kind of domino effect. Larry Crain, a Brentwood (Tenn.) lawyer and senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group, put his finger on the first domino in the process.

In the Tennessean article, Crain says, “The school is always going to be the battleground … That’s where the reality of these competing views occurs – between those who espouse an airtight, hermetically sealed, separation of church and state and those who believe there should be some toleration or accommodation of students’ religious views.”

In essence, the first domino in our time is education, because if all references to Christianity can be removed from the schools, the vacuum is filled with secular humanist ideologies. After leaving school, those students are already preprogrammed to view Christian values with skepticism. This process is already 40-plus years in the making.

Students become adults, adults become voters, and voters elect people to state and federal offices. The mindset students take with them into adulthood tends to guide their actions within America’s culture and political system. That is why it is so vital to the goals of secular humanists, homosexual activists, and pro-abortion advocates to control the public schools and universities in America.

We are responsible for our leaders

Unfortunately many Christians have been able to divorce their Christian beliefs from their political actions. In my book, “Lessons in the Rearview Mirror,” I recount a phone poll conducted by a Birmingham, Ala., Christian radio station on presidential Election Day in 1996. Bill Clinton beat Bob Dole that year. One woman caller said she was a pro-life Christian but was going to vote for pro-choice Clinton because ‘he’s going to save Social Security.’”

I was shocked at the time, but I’ve since learned that hers was an attitude that is all too prevalent in the Church today. I personally know men and women who say they are Christians but continue vote for candidates who openly support abortion rights, homosexual marriage and efforts to purge America of its Christian heritage.

It’s a dangerous game they play, because the Bible is clear that we are responsible for the actions of our leaders. Even in the theocracy that was Israel, God put the responsibility of keeping leaders in check on the people.

Deuteronomy 16:18-20 says, “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not pervert justice; you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

In America, it works like this: The people reveal their hearts through their votes, through their actions to monitor leaders and through their opposition to government officials who are ungodly in the way they live and lead. God puts men and women into public office according to our desires. In our political system, the President, whom we elect, is the chief executive officer. The president appoints federal judges who serve for a lifetime or until they retire or are removed from office for criminal offenses. The Senate affirms judicial appointments. We elect the senators.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate make the laws of this nation, and these elected leaders can in most cases limit the issues on which federal courts can rule, according to the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 2).

Many dominoes have fallen over the past four or five decades because Christians in America have failed to monitor leaders and to apply biblical principles to voting decisions. Resetting the board at this point in history will require us to diligently seek out and elect the Davids in the United States.

When Christians establish righteousness and constitutional understanding as the basis for our votes, then righteousness and true constitutional law will once again become the signature of our government, and our Christian heritage will be restored.

It’s simple, really, but getting our hearts right with God means aligning our desires and allegiance with Him and rejecting those earthly political alliances that so easily ensnare us. That is the sticking point with too many Christians today. Until we as the Body of Christ are willing to make that change, America will continue living under the ever-darkening, ever-lengthening shadow of Saul.

Don’t be decieved, God is watching to see where our hearts really are. Our liberties are from Him, something our founders knew well. Aligning ourselves with God is by definition the only way to secure those liberties, and how we vote is a sure indicator of where our loyalties lie. Consider this founder’s quote:

“[H]e is the best friend to American liberty who is the most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country” – John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, ratifier of the U.S. Constitution, president of Princeton University, from The Works of the Reverend John Witherspoon (Philadelphia: William W. Woodward, 1802), Vol. III, p. 42., as quoted on Wallbuilders.com.

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