PeteTackett.com

This week, you may have been amused to learn that the sky really was falling and we owe Chicken Little an apology. NASA’s admission that a satellite was falling back to the earth and they had no idea where it would land did not say much for the billions we spend on technology. Less noticeable in the news this week but more more serious to people of faith was an article in the Nashville Tennessean indicating that what we have feared and predicted for a long time is at hand. Turns out that spiritually and politically, for people of faith, the sky really is falling.

For some time, we have raised concerns in our pulpits that our nation’s worship of tolerance would lead one step at a time to the place where churches, synagogues, and religious organizations would be required to accept into membership and leadership people whose lifestyle and belief systems were polar opposites of the organization. I have often said there will come a day when it will be illegal for a Baptist minister or church to refuse to host or officiate at a wedding between gay partners based on religious conviction. This week, we took one giant step closer to that reality.

Vanderbilt University, located in the heart of the Bible Belt, has decided that the Christian Legal Society cannot require its president to lead a Bible study, presumably because that would require the officer to be a Christian and believe the Bible to be a leader in the CHRISTIAN Legal Society. The bottom line is this. In the name of diversity, a dozen faith groups are being told re-write their constitutions and bylaws to allow for complete openness and diversity or risk losing their provisional status on campus. In other words, a faith based organization can have no moral or lifestyle code for leadership or membership. You can read about it here.

Lest you think this is isolated and I am overreacting, the Supreme Court by a vote of 5-4 last year held that the University of California did not violate the rights of the Christian Legal Society chapter on their campus when they required them to admit anyone, regardless of belief. I suppose I really am Chicken Little. In the area of tolerance, common sense is dead, and the sky is falling. I think it is just a matter of time until a judge somewhere rules that because the city paved the street in front of the church and TVA provides us power and is partially funded by the government, they can tell us what membership and leadership requirements we can have.

To be absolutely clear, I do not believe the government should tell anyone they have to believe anything. I believe if God gives us free moral choice, so should the government. People should have a right to make bad choices so long as it doesn’t infringe on my liberty or rights. However, I believe I should have the right to choose my faith and belief system, equally free from the government so long as I don’t impose that on others that don’t freely choose it. It has become the norm to move beyond prohibiting citizens from imposing their faith on others to a place of suppressing faith as a legitimate voice in the community. If that faith doesn’t agree with the religion of tolerance and the faith of diversity, it must be stopped! God help us. This practice bears no resemblance to the freedom of religion established by moral men in the 1st amendment.

Truthfully, it is probably too little, too late, but as people of faith, we better ask some tough questions of the people we vote for in this next election cycle.

Just call me Chicken Little!

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