‘Missing the Mark With Religion’ Archives
The NEA and God: A Partnership in Denial — Steve Farrell
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 13 A little secret is out. Maybe you’ve heard? The enter stage left, ‘let’s kick God and morality out of the classroom,’ National Education Association, was once a ‘wee’ bit more in God’s camp then they’d ever admit today. Witness the NEA’s 406 page, 1941, American [...]
God and Country in 1941: An NEA Coming Out Party — Farrell
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 12 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) When I think of organizations that have worked long and hard to undermine the religious heritage of this great nation of ours – especially in the minds of our children – few can match the records of the National Education Association and [...]
Is Grief an Evil?
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 11 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) Is grief an evil? More to the point, is there something fundamentally wrong with you or me, or a family member, or the neighbor down the road, or the poor fellow across the ocean having an absolutely devastating day, week, month, year, decade or, [...]
Farrell: Tough Love
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 10 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) A close friend of mine suffers from a common human malady – the inability to give tough love. Tough love, as most of us understand it, is having wisdom enough to withhold expected or demanded help from a friend or family member not because you fail [...]
Farrell: The High and Holy Right Not to Be Offended
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 9 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) If you want to watch human reason descend to its lowest form, tune in and observe the finger-wagging parade of ‘experts' on the evening news who, with straight faces and the utmost dignity, mouth such nonsense as the belief that atheists, agnostics and [...]
Men or Cattle?
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 8 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) There are basically two takes on homosexuality which have become the ruling dogma of the national political 'churches' left and right; they are: 1. We must have freedom of choice in matters of human sexuality, and 2. They (homosexuals) have no choice -- [...]
Red Eye on Marriage
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 7 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) As a child growing up in New York, I was attracted to the opposite sex. When I saw a pretty little girl flash a smile, my heart fluttered, my cheeks blushed, I shuffled my feet and shyly looked the other way. I always liked girls. No one had to tell me that I [...]
License: Liberty’s Friend or Foe?
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 6 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Liberty and license are not synonymous. Parents know better. Too many of them have had the unfortunate dilemma of dealing with the "I am free to do as I please" child who routinely, or upon occasion, exercises that egocentric proclamation to reckless extremes. [...]
Self-worship: The God of Democracy
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 5 (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4) Not far removed from Marx's elitist man-as-God theory (meaning, more particularly, Marx or the ruling class or the state as God), of all the popular takes on religion in law in America that miss the mark, none is more pervasive, none strike closer to the root, than [...]
Marx and the Worship of Man
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 4 (Read parts 1, 2, 3) Again I pose the same question, but with slight variation: Do religion and morality have a place in public policy, public law, and public education – or are they to be scorned, shunned, and silenced? Finding the answer to that question in lieu of the hot battle [...]
Not So Compassionate, Not So Conservative, Compassionate Conservatism
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 3 (Read Part 1, & 2) Things are not always as they seem. Marxism's war on religion presents evidence-a-plenty that this notion is true. From both the left, in the name of Social Democracy, and from the right, in the name of Secular Government, Marx's Atheistic teammates have pushed, [...]
Libertarianism: The Oxymoronic Faith
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 2 Essay one addressed Modern Liberalism as the religion, albeit the false religion, that it is. Next, enter stage right, Libertarianism. Libertarianism, or at least that mainstream brand of Libertarianism which zealously waves that oxymoronic political banner "Political Conservative, Social [...]
Modern Liberalism
by Steve Farrell Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 1 One of the most controversial and confusing of all issues for many is, just what is the proper role of religion and morality in public life? In search of the right answer, today, we are compelled to conclude that there "is a famine in the land," with nearly all sides of the debate muddled [...]
Enemies of Tyranny: Faith, Reason, and the First Amendment, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 21, Series Finale One of the great changes in thinking spawned by the American Revolution was that reason and revelation could and should work together to produce men and women of sufficient moral character for an experiment in self-government to succeed. Founder and second U.S. president John Adams wrote: [...]
Apologizing for the Right to Life, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 20 Seven years ago, in a presidential debate, one of the candidates was handed a heaven-sent moment to testify before millions of Americans that defending the life of an unborn child is both morally right and constitutionally sound. The candidate, who frequently referred to himself as a Christian, failed to [...]
Thou Shalt Not Kill … a Convicted Murderer? by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 19 Since the dawn of creation the law of God to man has been "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." (1) Today, we refer to this biblical principle in public law as capital punishment. Interestingly, regardless of the fact that the death penalty's origin is found in the Bible - nearly [...]
Moral Anarchy: Seedbed of Tyranny, by Steve Montgomery
Ok, so it's a bad movie. But even bad movies can have great lessons. I speak of the 1999 theatrical flop, "Wild Wild West." In this movie, set in post Civil War America, President Grant (Kevin Cline), has a great line, which as it turns out, bears great application to our modern American culture. Upon learning to his surprise that the arch-villain [...]
Private Property: Right From God, Friend of Republics, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 18 To possess a memory is to be blessed with a priceless good. It is our link to the past, our guidepost to the present and our passport to the future. It is who we are, what we believe and how we fit in. It is that fixed vantage point in a world of confusion that gives us a degree of security, stability and [...]
‘Thou Shalt Not Profane God:’ A Public or Private Principle of Law? by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 17 “One man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric,” indicated a Supreme Court justice over three decades ago. (1) The justice said it, and many have parroted it ever since under the supposition that something very clever, very liberating, very American had been said. Building on this ‘maxim,’ the [...]
Why ‘One Nation Under God’ Matters, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 16 "One nation under God" was the nasty little phrase that aroused the righteous indignation of the infamous 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional, and still inspires secularists of various stripes to oppose it today. That the voluntary recitation of [...]
