Courts, Crosses, Christianity, Western Civilization, a Rabbi, France, and the American Identity

THE REAL NEWS ON NOVEMBER 2nd WHEN CHRISTIANS PRAY FOR THE SOULS OF THE DEPARTED IS THAT THE WEST'S FOUNDATIONS ARE CHRISTIAN. I have heard no better explanation of the role of Christianity in the modern democratic West than that of then French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a profoundly Christian conservative, who spoke about France's Christian roots in a speech at the Lateran Church of Saint John in Rome on December 20, 2007. Keeping in mind that France is a deeply Catholic Christian country, consider Sarkozy's words : "With the baptism of Clovis, France became the eldest daughter of the church. It'’s a fact. By making Clovis the first Christian sovereign, that event had important consequences for the destiny of France and for the Christianization of Europe. Following that turning point, French sovereigns repeatedly had occasion to demonstrate the deep ties which connected them to the church and the successors of Peter. Beyond the facts of history, France has had a particular relationship with the Holy See, above all because the Christian faith penetrated deeply into French society, into its culture, its towns, its mode of life, its architecture, its literature. The roots of France are essentially Christian." President Sarkozy went on to offer his view of the modern French 'laicity,' the honored and protected status enshrined in French law in which no religion is either favored or disfavored, and in which there is a daily attempt at separation of church and state, but without denying the Christian culture that created and sustains France or the other religions that exist in the country. President Sarkozy said : "Like Benedict XVI, I think a nation that ignores the ethical, spiritual and religious heritage of its history commits a crime against its culture, against the whole of its history, patrimony, art and popular traditions, which permeate living and thinking in such a deep way. To uproot is to lose meaning; it is to weaken the foundation of national identity, and to drain even more the social relationships that have such a need of memorable symbols. For this reason, we have to join the two ends of the chain : to accept the Christian roots of France -- even better, to value them, to defend the laicism that finally reaches maturity. This is the step I want to take this afternoon in St. John Lateran. I am calling for a positive laicism, that is to say, a secularism that watches over freedom of thought, of belief and unbelief, does not consider religion as a danger, but as an asset." • There is a world in Sarkozy's words for AMericans to consider in these days in which every Christian and cultural underpinning of the Repubic is being vandalized, torn down and rejected by a minority determined to erase both America's political past and its Christian cultural character. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP SENDS AID DIRECTLY TO MIDEAST CHRISTIANS AND YAZIDIS. And to persecuted Moslems. US Vice President Mike Pence will be visiting the Middle East in December to promote the safety and security of Christian minorities currently facing widespread persecution in the region. Pence made the announcement last week during his keynote remarks at the "In Defense of Christians" annual solidarity dinner : "Now is the time to bring an end the persecution of Christians and all religious minorities." Pence said President Trump asked him to go to the Middle East "to deliver the message that it is time to bring an end to the persecution of Christians." Vice President Pence will also be visiting Israel, the one place the Middle East where Christians are flourishing. It will serve as a stark contrast to how Christians are treated in neighboring Moslem nations. • What President Trump is doing is skipping over the United Nations to deliver USAID assistance to persecuted Christians and Yazidis In Iraq. Trump has issued a White House directive forcing the State Department and USAID to bypass the UN and stop its "ineffective" relief efforts aimed at helping Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, and other persecuted religious minorities, and instead to provide the assistance either directly or through "faith-based groups." • Vice President Mike Pence, in his speech at the In Defense of Christians Dinner highlighting the plight of persecuted Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere, announced the directive and lambasted the United Nations, arguing the international body has "often failed to help the most vulnerable communities, especially religious minorities. We will no longer rely on the United Nations alone to assist persecuted Christians and minorities in the wake of genocide and the atrocities of terrorist groups. The United States will work hand in hand from this day forward with faith-based groups and private organizations to help those who are persecuted for their faith. This is the moment, now is the time, and America will support these people in their hour of need." Pence said the UN has repeatedly denied funding requests from faith-based groups "with proven track records" of working most directly with Christians in Iraq to help provide basic necessities. "Those days are over," he said. "Our fellow Christians and all who are persecuted in the Middle East should not have to rely on multinational institutions when America can help them directly." • President Trump's decision was six months in the making and comes after several lawmakers and human rights activists have repeatedly argued their case to top officials at the State Department and USAID, which have resisted any change to their "religion-blind" policy of channeling most of the aid money to the UN. That policy, the two US agencies have argued, is "needs-based" and does not give priority to Christians and Yazidis and other religious minorities in Iraq, even though both the Obama and the Trump administrations have publicly declared that both groups, as well as Shiite Moslems and others, have suffered genocide at the hand of ISIS. • The plight of Christians in Iraq and the Middle East is dire, and Pence told his audience that they are on the verge of extinction in northern Iraq, an area where Christian communities have thrived for two thousand years : "ISIS murders and kidnappings have decimated the Christian population in Iraq, which numbered between 800,000 and 1.4 million in 2002 and is below 250,000 now, according to human rights groups." Pence repeatedly referred to ISIS and other extremist Moslem terrorist groups as "radical Islamic terrorism" and held them responsible for the genocide against Christians and other religious minorities, saying : "Let me assure you tonight, President Trump and I see these crimes for what they are : vile acts of persecution animated by hatred for Christians and the gospel of Christ. And so too does this President know who and what has perpetrated these crimes, and he calls them by name : radical Islamic terrorists." • Catholic charities and activists who have spent years urging the Obama administration and now Trump administration to better assist Christians, Yazidis, and other minority communities in Iraq cheered the move and Pence’s strong words. Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus, one of the largest Catholic charities, said : "A year ago the United States used the right word to describe what was happening to Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. That word was genocide. Tonight, those words were put into action. For almost two years, the K of C has warned that Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East have been falling through the cracks in the aid system, and has been urging the United States government to provide aid directly to genocide-targeted communities. We are pleased that tonight, the administration has promised to do just that." • Other activists who helped chronicle the genocide against religious minority communities in Iraq and who have spent years chronicling the mass slaughter of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities there cheered the move and Pence’s strong words. Former representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican who spent decades championing human rights in Congress and is now a senior fellow at the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiativen said : "This is good news and we want to thank President Trump, Vice President Pence, and all those who have been working diligently on this issue. This should impact humanitarian aid for those living as internally displaced persons and refugees and stabilization assistance for the Christians and Yazidis returning to areas seized from them by ISIS." Wolf recently returned from Iraq and testified in October before both the House and Senate about the dire situation facing Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Iraq. • The Knights of Columbus and Aid to the Church in Need, another global Catholic charity, have sent millions of dollars in donations to the Catholic archdiocese in northern Iraq, one of the few groups on the ground working to house and feed displaced Christians and Yazidis and help rebuild their homes. In an October appearance before the Hosue Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Rasche, an attorney for the Catholic archdiocese in Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, where Christians are welcome, and who is the director of internal displaced people resettlement programs, in early October accused the UN of squandering US taxpayer aid for reconstruction projects. The aid programs are so mismanaged, says Rasche, that some US dollars are going to benefit Iraqis who took over areas persecuted Christians fled from, even though the UN says the project is aimed at helping Christians. The Washington Free Beacon obtained photos of UN Development Program projects in Christian and Yazidi towns in northern Iraq, showing "completed" school-rehabilitation projects that amounted to a thin coat of paint on exterior walls with freshly stenciled UNICEF logos every 30 feet -- but inside the building, the rooms remained untouched and unusable, without running water, power or any furniture, Rasche testified. • As ISIS is driven from Iraq, US lawmakers and activists argue that it's critical to US national security that that these indigenous communities are supported to prevent Iran from gaining influence in the region. The Free Beacon provided an example of the severity of the problem, quoting a letter from engaged Congress members to the State Department and USAID : "Repatriation has a strategic advantage of heading off potential conflict between the KRG and Baghdad while barring an Iranian land bridge to the Mediterranean, which presently threats to fill the vacuum in the Nineveh Plain created by the removal of ISIS. This land bridge will be occupied by forces loyal to Teheran if security and rebuilding fails to come from other quarters." The Free Beacon also said : "Thousands of Christians in the town of Teleskof who had successfully returned home and were trying to rebuild their community after the area was freed from Islamic forces were forced to flee [recently] after Kurdish forces swarmed the town and engaged in a standoff with the Iraqi army. Sources in touch with the community said the situation in Teleskof was improving as a direct result of US intervention." • • • WHAT IS AMERICA? American Thinker asked that question on October 6 in an article by Rabbi Aryeh Spero titled "What Is America's National Identity? Rabbi Spero is one of America’s leading conservative thinkers and spokesmen. A theologian, he is also a popular and influential political and social commentator, and the author of Push Back: Reclaiming Our American Judeo-Christian Spirit. Rabbi Spero wrote : "Many were elated and approved of President Trump’s July speech in Warsaw, Poland acknowledging the central role Western civilization plays in defining who we are and what we believe. Our freedom and survival depend on defending it, he said. Beyond that, he celebrated Western civilization as something extraordinary: 'What we’ve inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before.' A vocal few, popular in left-wing opinion circles, condemned Mr. Trump’s remarks as an affront to multiculturalism, labeling his linkage of us with Western civilization, and our pride in it, as 'tribalism, white nationalism, and racism,' claiming that references to Western civilization and ancestors are code words for the above-mentioned vices. For some, even the broad term 'Western civilization' is offensive and prejudicial since, as with all definitions, it necessarily conveys something distinctive and thus circumscribed." Rabbi Spero said : "The question we should answer is : does a country or nation need an identity, a unique identity with salient features that distinguish it from other countries and nations? In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville gave a resounding affirmation to the need for a specific identity....as long as it operates by the principles upon which it was founded. When it changes those principles, it becomes something entirely different, and the success it had, based on its original formula, becomes uncertain and imperiled. It atrophies and declines. He spoke not against periodic tinkering but warned against fundamental transformation." • America's identity, states the Rabbi, "lies in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which delineate the liberties that enshrine our peoplehood and, on a functional level, make possible a daily life open to achievement, aspirations, and human potential. Our way of life and the blessings that have come to us depend on everyone living within this Constitutional framework and by precluding its replacement or abridgement with another set of laws claiming to be a 'higher morality' or temporarily more important, or by enacting waivers or special accommodation in the name of multiculturalism." But, Rabbi Spero sees those today who want to "sideline the Constitution and our historic way of life by invalidating the men, and thus the ideas, behind it. Using charges of racism as the singular and only important lens in which to judge a person’s value, they nullify the totality, the overwhelming contributions, and extraordinary sacrifices of great men and women of a different era. Meanwhile, they grant themselves unassailable superiority and rigid final judgment simply because of their claims to victimhood or for espousing one of the many isms in today’s pantheon for self-righteous virtue signaling. A nation’s historic identity is being replaced by identity politics, culminating frequently in automatic indictment of historical figures simply because their race or moral values are now out of fashion." • The key point Rabbi Spero makes is that American "tolerance and inclusivity....often, as in Europe, in tolerating the intolerable and including everyone and everything to the point of endangering those in society....thinking the best identity is no identity....this vacuum and void, as witnessed in Europe, allows for other assertive or aggressive identities and mores to creep within and replace, zone by zone; for surely, strong and energized identities will replace the mushy identity of No Identity." • Can we not help but agree with Rabbi Spero when he says : "Though tolerance is a laudable theme, it is found elsewhere and is not an exclusive element of Americanism. The President was correct in underscoring the importance of Western civilization and how it connects and ties America and Europe. But, America moved Western civilization beyond its previous European contours. It fashioned something more grand, a majestic idea, something that not only preceded the Constitution, but from the time of Plymouth Rock distinguished America from other Western polities, unfolding into the American civilization. It is the Judeo-Christian ethos. Though its roots began in a religious and idealistic outlook, this ethos shortly developed into a civic attitude and philosophy, shaping the themes and civic perspective that were America’s foundation and key to our freedom and prosperity. It supplies a set of moral and philosophic principles regarding economic, social, personal, and political life. Among its distinguishing features are: personal responsibility, liberty, seeing man as an individual, a work ethic, rights from God, meritocracy, rights to property and how one makes his living, and freedom of religion and conscience. Together with these principles were the uniquely American ideals of fair play, rugged individualism, innovation, volunteerism, speaking one’s mind, and demarcating between right and wrong." The Judeo-Christian ethos has made America unique among the nations. As Rabbi Spero points out, it "does not demand adherence to the details of religion or to a particular form of worship or religious creed, nor loyalty to a particular religion. The ethos is open to all, just as is Western civilization. That its founders and ancestors were mostly white is not a structural roadblock to all sharing in its outlook, except in the mind of racialists eager to impute racism in anything distinctive or weaponize against those with whom they disagree." • • • THE MARYLAND PEACE CROSS. As President Sarkozy said of Christinaity in France, Rabbi Spero says of the Judeo-Christian ethos in America -- it is a "treasure, a morality, to be defended and preserved, a gift and legacy to pass on to future generations." • But, America's liberal, morphing into Progressive, judicial system has corrupted the American Judeo-Christian ethos. I have been thinkging particularly about this pervasive corruption of the American Republic and its Constitution since I read a New York Times article published on October 29 about the Peace Cross, a World War I memorial on state land in Bladensburg, Maryland. The Peace Cross stands five miles from the United States Supreme Court. It is a 40-foot-tall World War I memorial in the shape of a cross that has been there for nearly a century. Now, it is at the center of a battle over the separation of church and state that may end up at the Supreme Court -- because the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declared in October that the Peace Cross is unconstitutional, a ruling that supporters of the monument warned could result in a “cleansing” of memorials on public grounds across the country. • The New York Times says an appeal to the Supreme Court "would provide the justices an opportunity to weigh in on increasingly common disputes over religious symbols on government property. Scholars hope the case will further distill what is and is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion." • The Peace Cross, writes the NYT, commemorates 49 fallen soldiers from Prince George’s County. It looks over a highway in Bladensburg, "an old port town of 10,000 people. When the sun rises, the cross casts a shadow toward the bank of the Anacostia River, and when it sets, toward an industrial lot housing a King Pawn shop and a boarded-up Kelley’s Muffler. The monument was erected in 1925 with funding from local families and the American Legion, but the state obtained title to the cross and land in 1961, and has spent at least $117,000 to maintain them." • In a 2-to-1 ruling, the three-judge 4th Circuit panel declared that the Peace Cross violated the First Amendment by having “a primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government and religion.” Douglas Laycock, a religious liberties scholar and professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, praised the decision, saying the cross : “asserts the truth of one religion and, implicitly but necessarily, the falsehood of all other religions. Its secondary meanings, as in honoring war dead, are entirely derivative of its primary meaning as a symbol of the Resurrection.” If the 4th Circuit denies a request for the full court to reconsider the panel’s decision, defenders of the monument vow to take the case to the Supreme Court. They argue that the ruling sets a dangerous precedent, threatening national treasures such as the 24-foot Canadian Cross of Sacrifice and 13-foot Argonne Cross in Arlington National Cemetery -- both within the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction and thus subject to its ruling -- as well as the ground zero “cross,” the steel beams discovered among World Trade Center debris now on display in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. • Kelly Shackelford, the president of First Liberty Institute, one of the legal groups aiding the American Legion in defending the cross, says : “It is brooding hostility toward religion, a sort of cleansing. We would immediately need to begin massive bulldozing and sandblasting of veterans memorials across the country in a way that most people would find inconceivable.” In his 4th Circuit dissent, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory, first appointed by President Bill Clinton, argued that the Establishment Clause “does not require the government ‘to purge from the public sphere’ any reference to religion.” Supporters of the cross also argue that context is vital : The Peace Cross is displayed alongside an American flag, amid a park of memorials for veterans of various wars. Its four sides, they say, are marked prominently with patriotic, not religious, virtues : valor, endurance, courage and devotion. The fallen soldiers are listed on a tablet with a quote from President Woodrow Wilson. But opponents say it is hardly integrated : No other monument in the area is taller than 10 feet, and there are no other religious symbols in the park. They note that its fallen soldiers’ names are rusted away and obscured by bushes. And the cross has been the site of prayer gatherings as well as Veterans Day vigils -- and even such vigils are often opened in prayer. • Two past Supreme Court cases, decided the same day in 2005, may reveal the factors that would control the outcome in the Supreme Court, says the NYT. In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, officials had authorized the display of framed copies of the Ten Commandments in courthouses. After pushback, they had modified the exhibits to include Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence and other historical documents, arguing that the Ten Commandments were similarly influential in the development of Western legal thought. The Supreme Court ruled the displays unconstitutional, finding that they had no evident secular purpose. Michael W. McConnell, a constitutional law scholar at Stanford, calls such displays “triumphalism -- a flavor of who is top dog.” In a second case, Thomas Van Orden v. Rick Perry, the Supreme Court allowed carvings of the Ten Commandments in a Texas State Capitol monument that had been donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a primarily secular group, in 1961. The Court cited the donor’s lack of religious intent. In his Van Orden opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer, who cast the swing vote in both cases, called the historical factor alone “determinative” : The monument had stood since 1961 without controversy. • The Times points out that the Peace Cross, also donated by a secular group, is almost twice as old as the monument in the Van Orden case, and has been on public property for a comparable period. If the Supreme Court reviews this case, Mr. McConnell believes it will be squarely governed by Justice Breyer’s opinion : “I think they thought they were putting this kind of case to rest with Van Orden. Somehow, the Fourth Circuit didn’t get the memo. I think this is a pretty easy case, and I found the Fourth Circuit’s decision quite surprising. If the Supreme Court were to grant review, the likelihood is very high that it would be reversed.” • But, maybe not -- Peace Cross opponents argue that there is a stark difference between the Ten Commandments and a cross -- namely, the figures each represents. Monica Miller, senior counsel at the American Humanist Association, who argued the case in the 4th Circuit, says : “The Court pointed out that Moses was a lawmaker as well as a religious leader. There were connections to the nation’s history of lawmakers that made the Ten Commandments overall less religious than an enormous, free-standing Latin cross that unequivocally represents Christianity.” And, says the NYT, the Supreme Court’s thinking on displays of the cross is "murky" -- in Salazar v. Buono, a 2010 decision regarding a cross-shaped war memorial in a remote part of the Mojave Desert, six justices wrote individual opinions. In 2011, when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal regarding a series of highway memorial crosses for fallen police officers in Utah, Justice Clarence Thomas’s 19-page dissent argued that the court had rejected “an opportunity to provide clarity to an Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles.” • Elizave Mordan, the King Pawn manager, can see the Peace Cross from her shop. She told the Times : “We heard they may be taking it down, and I disagree with that. It just doesn’t bother anybody around here. I worry nobody is going to remember them, the 49 fallen soldiers. You can’t remember something you cannot see.” • • • DEAR READERS, isn't that exactly the point that Progressive judges, egged on by anti-Christian, anti-Western civilization anti-American activists, are indirectly making. If Christian symbols are all erased from America, then Christianity itself, along with its moral codes and ethos, will disappear, and America will have lost its reason to exist. George Soros and his foot soldiers will have won. • But, let's consider another cross -- thousands of crosses. The BBC published a story by Egle Gerulaityte on October 28 about a Hill of Crosses 11km outside the city of Siauliai in Lithuania. The Hill is an old, earthen mound hunched "under the weight of thousands of crosses. As the wind blows across the fields of rural Siauliai County, ornate rosaries clink against metal and wooden crucifixes, filling the air with eerie chimes. Known as the Hill of Crosses, the mound’s history is a complex narrative of wars and uprisings. Ancient legends, mysterious visions and accounts of haunting surround the hill, and its exact origins remain a mystery to this day." Vilius Puronas, a local artist and historian, told BBC : “According to folklore, there was once a church where the hill now stands. During a terrible storm, lightning struck the church and the tempest buried it under sand and rock with everyone still inside. Locals say that you can glimpse a ghost procession of monks at the foot of the hill at sunrise. Throughout the ages, magical appearances, visions of saints and sightings of ghosts have been a part of the hill’s history.” Another legend says that in the early 1300s, the hill served as a platform for a wooden castle manned by the pagan barons of Samogitia, once a state in the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1348, the castle was destroyed by the Order of the Brothers of the Sword, German warrior-monks tasked with the Christianization of Livonia (what is now Latvia and Estonia). Many believe the Samogitians who survived the battle piled their slain comrades’ bodies together and buried them, thus forming the mound. Like those of the monks, the souls of the fallen pagan warriors are said to still haunt the hill at night. However, says the BBC, the most renowned story of the hill’s creation is the tale of a desperate father whose daughter suddenly fell gravely ill. As the girl lay dying, the father had a vision of a woman who told him to make a wooden cross and place it on a nearby hill; if he did so, she said, his daughter would recover. In the morning, the despairing man hurriedly carved a wooden cross and rushed to the hill. When he returned home, his daughter greeted him at the doorway, perfectly well again. Ever since, people have been leaving crosses in hope their prayers will be answered. • Yet, not every cross has been left by an optimistic pilgrim -- some are instead reminders of quiet rebellion. After surviving medieval sieges by invading German crusaders and 19th-Century uprisings by Lithuanians against Russian Tsar Alexander II, the Hill of Crosses faced its most aggressive threat -- the Soviet Union. In an effort to stamp out Christianity in the Eastern bloc, the Soviet government attempted to level the hill numerous times during the 1960s and 70s. They bulldozed it, burned the wooden crosses and removed the metal and stone ones for scrap. People who brought crosses to the hill were fined and jailed. But, the crosses on the mound just kept multiplying, left in the dead of night as an act of defiance against religious oppression. Now, more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union, the crosses still stand, and the site has become a magnet for pilgrims of all denominations -- Christian crosses stand beside carvings bearing Jewish inscriptions and words from the Koran. • Puronas says : "The Hill of Crosses doesn’t really belong to anyone, and thus belongs to all. Neither church nor government has any claim to it, and people bring crosses here not because they are told to, but because they feel inspired to.” The Hill of Crosses, minimally maintained by the city of Siauliai and local Franciscan monks, is now covered in more than 100,000 crucifixes and other religious icons -- and the number is constantly increasing. Puronas says : “For some people, the Hill of Crosses is a place of contemplation and prayer. For others, it symbolizes defiance and resistance in the darker times. And for others still, it’s an extraordinary occurrence in the humdrum of ordinary life. None of them are wrong.” • Dear friends, sometimes people vote with their feet to get away from tyranny. But, people also vote with crosses to preserve what is key to their lives -- freedom, culture, faith, hope, and God, Who loves all His children. Don't let the crosses be erased -- in America or anywhere.