Inspiration, offense and victory!
More on Columbine


To read the first article, Stolen lives, chosen people, please click here



The previous article, in which we discussed the aftermath of the Columbine school massacre, generated thousands of calls, e-mails and letters, about three-quarters of which were very appreciative and about one-quarter, mostly from those who had read the article incorrectly, were insults and accusations. Thank you for the kind wishes.

To the others, let me immediately dispel one notion: there is nothing anti-Jewish about observing the conduct of the Jewish community over a lifetime, as I have done, and making appropriate criticisms when it falls short of the human rights, religious liberties and civilized standards they unrelentingly demand from everyone else. Indeed, the second most anti-Jewish action possible would be to give them special privileges in that regard: many would see that as discriminatory and as pandering to paranoia.

The most anti-Jewish action possible is to withhold the Gospel from the Jewish people. They are entitled to the same opportunity as Gentiles to gain access to the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the Apostle Paul puts them first! "I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." (Romans 1: 16)

Let me also make it crystal clear that I will be intimidated by nobody. It is all too easy to be intimidated into silence by liberals, and above all by Jewish community leaders and rabbis. They sound credible, and in the case of the latter, they intimate that they have a viable alternative to peddle. They do not. In an article criticizing the liberal stance of the ADL, Linda Harvey, Editor of Mission America, ponders: "How a Jewish group - the chosen people of the Old Testament - can have moved so far away from the clear directives of Almighty God is hard to fathom."

Perhaps the answer is this: instead of being the people of God, ever watchful to know and to do His will, many in the Jewish community today have become the liberal cultural regulators who are carrying out their own brand of ethnic cleansing to ensure that anything spiritual, and certainly anything remotely Christian, is excluded from national life. To that end, they have hijacked and perverted the US Constitution. This is no more than a fig leaf intended to conceal their spiritual nakedness on one essential matter: whether or not Jesus is the Messiah. So if Christians obey the Great Commission, and "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:16-20), liberalism will cease to exist.

Jesus said: "I am The Way, The Truth And The Life, and nobody comes to the Father but by Me" (John: 14:6), and I believe Him. I stand firmly against those who claim otherwise, and especially the Jewish leaders who have nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer except a secular vacuum of pleasant but eventually meaningless rituals and paralyzing ignorance, a vacuum usually filled these days with every profane distraction one can imagine. Jesus said of the rabbis of His day: "Do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." (Matthew 23: 3-4). Speaking in the Temple in Jerusalem, He called them "hypocrites" (vv 14, 23, 25, 27, 29), "sons of hell" (v 15), "blind guides" (vv 16, 24), "blind fools" (v17), and "snakes, a brood of vipers" (v33). He left no room for doubt about His opinion. He added: "You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (v14) "You appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." (v28) "How will you escape being condemned to hell?" (v33).

Jesus makes it clear that light will not dawn upon the Jewish people until they recognize Him as Messiah, at which point He will return: "For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Baruch Haba B'Shem Adonai!' 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'" (v39) Nonetheless, Christians seek no war with anyone, including secular Jews. Many Jewish people make a fine contribution to national life, and enjoy and observe their religion peacefully in freedom, as they are absolutely entitled to do, along with everyone else. However, that does not appear to satisfy those who wish to infringe on the rights of the majority.

As I have pointed out before, they represent 1.4% of the US population, but if that fails to affect them, let me add this: if you wish to have the right to your beliefs, no matter how false I personally know them to be, then you must allow the same rights to the other 98.6%, the majority of whom wish to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Brent Bozell writes: "Television has become a sewer of obscene messages to young people, and network executives seemingly couldn't care less." If members of the Jewish community, liberals or anyone else, individually or collectively, continue their assault on the very foundations on which this great nation is built - yes, Disney and CNN, I am talking directly to you, among others - Christians will ensure their downfall by employing against them the greatest power in the universe, prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The much revered Rabbi Gamaliel had wise words about Christians. At the time of the early church, during a similar spiritual battle to the one now raging across America, he said: "If their purpose ... is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God." (Acts 5:38-39). Liberals, Jewish or Gentile, might care to meditate on that scripture awhile. It is an irony wrought by the devil himself that today's Jewish leaders, often aided and abetted by liberals posing as Christians, are not defending the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but are fighting against Him. Is that really what they intend? I know the Jewish community intimately, and I know the emptiness, distractions, deceptions and falsehoods on which their denial of Jesus is built. They should never be taken seriously, but should be challenged and rebutted at every turn. Now we've got that clear, let me share with you two events which illustrate that many are still deceived, yet which offer us hope and inspiration.

World Magazine reports a battle scene at Dartmouth College, where Campus Crusade for Christ announced that, for the second successive year, they would be giving free copies to incoming freshmen of CS Lewis' classic work 'Mere Christianity'. Naturally, the Jewish campus ministry head objected (presumably fearing that reading the truth would switch on a light in the mind of the reader). Campus Crusade, wanting to be sensitive, agreed not to send the book to students who identified themselves as Jewish, a huge capitulation. Then two "Christian" campus ministries chimed in. The Lutheran minister said that giving the book to foreign and "multicultural" students showed disrespect for other world religions. The Catholic priest agreed.

Eventually, the Dean offered a compromise that the book would not go to students who were Jewish, Muslim, or came from a culture that was not historically Christian. The liberals were still not content. The Lutherans demanded that the book not be sent to Lutherans. The priest demanded it stay out of the hands of Catholics. What do these enemies of the Gospel and freedom fear? Meanwhile, local journalists wrote about the controversy, and Dartmouth started receiving angry calls from alumni, asking what had happened to the tradition of free speech.

Finally, the College President intervened. He had known nothing of the controversy until he read the papers and started getting calls from alumni. A wise man, he decided that everyone has the right to distribute anything, yet nobody is forced to read it. So every incoming freshman received the book as planned. Three cheers for free speech! Christians must not be intimidated! Dartmouth students were not offended; yet even if they had been, it doesn't matter. Truth matters. The Gospel is truth, and sometimes it offends. We must never, ever capitulate to fear!

The other incident took place at Northern High School, near Annapolis, Maryland. As usual these days, a single student, usually Jewish, in this case, Nick Becker, tried to hold the entire graduation ceremony hostage to his desire not to hear a prayer. As usual, he went to court with the ACLU to stifle a speech in which he feared a prayer would be included. Indeed, 17 year-old Julie Schenk planned to deliver an invocation at last Wednesday's graduation until Mr. Becker objected. He was already a client of the ACLU, having been previously disciplined for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Julie Schenk agreed to compromise and change her prayer to a "time for reflection", and when she asked for 30 seconds of silence, the audience of over 4,000 rose to their feet.

Then it happened. The Washington Post takes up the story: "It started with a loud, clear voice, a man's voice. And it spread quickly through the hall, picking up the tenors of teenage boys, whispers of young girls and throaty voices of grandmothers. With each word, it grew more determined. 'Our Father, who art in Heaven '. The defiant group, thousands strong, ignored the school ban on prayer and insisted that God be part of the graduation ceremony." It was a sweet and spontaneous moment of triumph! To make it sweeter, Nick Becker walked out in protest, and when he tried to return to the ceremony, he was detained in a State Police squad car and threatened with arrest. School officials, fearing he might disrupt the school-sponsored cruise around Baltimore Harbor, barred him from the graduation party, and refunded his money.

Alan Keyes commented: "When the tyrants who seek to oppress you tell you that you cannot even appeal to God for His aid, you know that they have in mind a tyranny without limit. I applaud this crowd. I hope their example will spread like wildfire throughout America. God bless these folks; God bless what they did. I want to cite it as an example of exactly what we should do as a people. When they tell us that we can't pray, we should pray anyway. When they tell us we can't call upon the name of God, we should call upon His name right in their faces, in defiance of their absolutely, fundamentally unconstitutional and unlawful effort to interfere with our most important God-given and natural freedom." So, the unfortunate Mr. Becker and his ACLU cronies thought they could outsmart and exclude God, did they? What can these ignoramuses be thinking? Here's what the Hebrew Scripture says: "The Lord works out everything for His own ends - even the wicked for a day of disaster. The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: they will not go unpunished." (Proverbs 16: 4-5)

Columnist Cal Thomas wrote: "For decades we have been told that the price we all must pay for a healthy First Amendment is the toleration of the most disgusting filth oozing through every pore of our society and culture. Creeps, louts, pornographers, blasphemers, alternative lifestylers, fornicators, adulterers, liars, slanderers, and others enjoy the full protection of the law. But those who believe in God and order their lives accordingly, and who wish to participate in the pluralism and diversity that they hear so much about (but which never seems to apply to them) are increasingly losing their rights to be heard in the same public places occupied by those dedicated to tearing down, not building up, society. As their forebears did with immoral and tyrannical British rule, they stood up and spoke out for, and to, an Authority higher than the state. When those Marylanders were told they had no right to speak of God publicly, they chose to speak to God." In fact, their consciences left them with no choice. Jesus reminds us of the alternative: "I tell you if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." (Luke 19:40).

Finally, permit me to share with you the words of Darrell Scott, whose daughter, Rachel, was killed in the Columbine High School massacre, and whose son, Craig, narrowly escaped death by pretending to be dead beneath a library table, as his friends were killed next to him. Mr. Scott has been in Washington to testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Here is part of his courageous testimony:

"The death of my wonderful daughter and the deaths of that heroic teacher and the other children must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers. The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart. I am not here to represent or defend the National Rifle Association - because I don't believe they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe they need to be defended."

"Columbine was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Men and women all consist of body, soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our makeup, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual influences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historic fact. What has happened to us as a nation?"

"We have refused to honor God and in doing so, we open the doors to hatred and violence. When something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs, politicians seek to pass restrictive laws that continue to erode our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. The real villain lies within our own hearts. The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual awakening taking place that will not be squelched!"

"We need a change of heart and a humble acknowledgment that this nation was founded on the principle of simple trust in God. As my son, Craig, lay under that table in the library and saw his friends murdered before his eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America and around the world to realize that on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School, prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your conscience and denies your God-given right to communicate with Him."

Mr. Scott is a brave man. Like him, I believe we have the liberal relativists on the run. Francis Schaeffer, writing in "A Christian Manifesto" noted: "Along with the decline of the Judeo-Christian consensus we have come to a new definition and connotation of 'pluralism' a sharp increase in viewpoints not shaped by Reformation Christianity." This is the 'multicultural' America we now have, struggling to retain its identity and moral foundation. Culture is negotiable. Truth and freedom are not. Schaeffer also noted a two-part civic duty for Christians; first to embrace religious freedom, "not just freedom for those who are Christians". And secondly, "it is then up to Christians to show that Christianity is the Truth of total reality in the open marketplace of freedom." Can Christians stand that test? I absolutely know we can.

If we can be inspired by these stories, as indeed we should, this era may become known as the Picketts Charge of America's spiritual, cultural war. These represent victories for a people-group noticeably short of victories recently. This land is still ours for the taking both in this war, and in the forthcoming battles to wrest governance back from the Council on Foreign Relations and the other New World Order bodies, to the legitimate representatives of the people.

I believe these days will be remembered as a time when ordinary Christian folks proclaimed 'Enough!' and resolved deep within to reclaim the nation they love. If so, this will be a historic turning point, the prelude to a lasting victory, for America and for the Kingdom of God. We cannot sincerely say "God bless America" yet sit idly by as God is wrenched away from America! No, let us take possession of the land! God commands nothing less! Steve Myers © 1999, 2006