Once upon a time atheism was a personal skepticism primarily kept to one’s self out of fear for being shamed as unbelieving residents of a “Christian nation.” It was never used to impose on the rights of others for fear of retribution and being ostracized by family, friends, and neighbors. Atheism has progressed far beyond anything it has been in the past and is now used in a veiled attempt to shift the culture in which we live and to rewrite the very history of our nation.
An example of such is found in an interview Fox Business Channel’s Eric Bolling had with prominent denominational preacher turned atheist and president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation Dan Barker. A little background is necessary to understand the context of this interview. For decades the small east Texas town of Athens has displayed a nativity scene on the lawn of their county courthouse but recently they received a letter from the above mentioned atheist group from over 1,000 miles away demanding that the nativity scene be taken down. The foundation’s co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor claims that a single resident out of the 12,000 plus population of the town sent a complaint to them claiming that it appeared the town was endorsing Christianity therefore excluding any non-Christian and non-believer. The town has vowed to fight the group’s efforts.
With that story in mind Dan Barker, the president of that foundation, appeared on the above mentioned show to discuss the case only to be kicked off after two or three minutes for, in the words of Bolling, denigrating the name of Jesus. Barker’s exact words were: “The nativity scene basically is an insult to human nature, that we are all doomed and damned…” and “By the way, why was Jesus even born? To save us from our sin. What an insult to say we are degraded and depraved human beings.”
My point of mentioning all of the above is to illustrate just how militant atheism has become in our country. It is no longer considered a social shame to be an atheist but it has become a social shame to be a Christian! How has our society fallen prey to such victimization? Is it because atheism, agnosticism, and non-Christian religions are more prevalent than “Christianity”? No, even the Freedom from Religion Foundation admits non-Christians and non-believers only make up about 17% of the country’s population. The problem is that atheists have become more evangelistic. They are simply making more noise than we are! Its obvious they don’t have truth on their side because the Bible proclaims “the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psalm 53:1). However, their noise is causing the inherent right to freely express and practice religion in this country to wither and wilt. If we are not careful, one day we’ll wake up and not even have the right to assemble and worship.
For too long we have kept our mouths shut for two reasons. (1) We have never looked at the atheistic crowd with any respect and therefore did not count them as a sufficient threat to believers and (2) many have been afraid of any type of confrontation and thus have just gone along to get along. But the time for keeping our mouths shut is over. Now it is time to stand up and “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). It is time to shut the mouths of the skeptics. It is time to make a lack of faith a shame once more. Evangelistic atheism will be the death nail to our nation if we allow it…brethren it is time to stand!