The Confessing Seventh-day Adventist

The Founding Fathers fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they were not restrained by legal measures, Puritans--the fundamentalists of their day--would "whip and crop, and pillory and roast."

The historical epoch had afforded these men ample opportunity to observe the corruption to which established religions were liable, as well as "the impious presumption of legislators and rulers," as Jefferson wrote, "civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time."

But it seems that now they have used the "wall of separation between church and state..." as a springboard to block any values or morals in the teaching of our schools, colleges and universities. I dont think teaching them about it was what the founding fathers wanted to stop, just the abuse by lgislators, rulers and governments.

Requiring public schools to endorse certain values and morals is tantamount to "setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others."

We do want to protect our children from adopting licentious behavior, but we do that by first protecting their hearts and minds, and that must be done at home. Only a regenerate heart has the power to obey God's commands. Without help from God we would rebel against His law, in mind and spirit if not in actual practice.

We should not be promoting values, the outward appearance of faith, but rather faith in God itself. We should promote freedom of choice rather than enforcement of values, since God's justice never forces the will of another. And we should publicly attack the barriers to faith, those pervasive ideas that challenge the authority of God and the Scriptures, including that there is no rational basis for faith and evolution as a theory of origins.