Can we be good without God?

• Author: Colson, Charles W.

In December, 1992, newspapers ran a photograph of a group of people held at bay by armed guards. They were not rioters or protesters, but Christmas carolers. The town of Vienna, Va., had outlawed the singing of religious songs on public property. These men, women, and children were forced to sing "Silent Night" behind barricades, as if it were Eastern Europe under communist rule instead of Christmas in the U.S.

Americans have spent the past 30 years determined to secularize the nation's society. Some months before the incident in Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lee v. Weisman that a rabbi who delivered a very politically correct "To Whom It May Concern" prayer at a Rhode Island junior high school commencement had violated the constitutional rights of a 15-year-old student in the audience. In effect, the Court said that the girl must be protected legally against listening to views she disagreed with. There was a time when it was a mark of civility to listen respectfully to different views; now, individuals have a constitutional right to demand that those views are not expressed in their presence.

In another case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, visual religious symbols have been banned. Zion, Ill., was forced to eliminate the cross featured in its city seal because the Justices ruled it was a breach of the First Amendment.

In education, as a result of court-enforced secularism, teachers may hand out condoms in school, but are forbidden to display a copy of the Ten Commandments on a bulletin board. Students, meanwhile, may indulge in almost any kind of activity in school, but they are forbidden to pray.

The Supreme Court is not the only institution out to protect Americans from the "threat" faith poses. The media assault upon religious believers has been fierce. John Cardinal O'Connor has been excoriated by The New York Times for even suggesting that he might deny the sacraments to a pro-choice legislator.

In February, 1993, the Washington Post featured a front-page article that characterized evangelical Christians as "largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command." If a journalist said that about any other group in America, he would be fired on the spot, but the Post didn't fire anyone. It merely expressed surprise that many readers found the description offensive. A few days later, one of the editors explained that they felt they were simply printing something that is universally accepted."

In 1962, polls revealed that approximately 65% of all Americans believed the Bible to be true. In 1992, 32% did, while 50% indicated that they feared fundamentalists. If the polls are right, the nation's Judeo-Christian heritage no longer is the foundation of its values. The U.S. has become a post-Christian society.

The process of "shedding" religion had begun with the 1960s cultural revolution, which exalted existentialism and a "live-for-the-moment-God-is-dead-or-irrelevant "...