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A civil rights group is threatening to sue the school district if they don't immediately remove a "Wise Men and star display" from the top of a school building.
The school district superintendent says the display "points toward the importance of wisdom, knowledge, and open-mindedness."
Atheists are rejecting the notion that anything having to do with Jesus---including non-Christian wise men and camels---are not acceptable.
They are "illegal" by association.
Be informed.
A Michigan civil rights group is threatening to sue the Newaygo Public School District if they do not remove a Wise Men and a star display from the top of an elementary school building.
They allege they received "a complaint."
According to the local TV news, the display has been put up there each year for the past 70 years.
TV news says people have been talking about it around town over the weekend, and most people do not support it going away.
Mitch Kahle, founder of the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists (MACRA) told the TV station, "It was pretty clear right from our seeing this, that it was going to be a violation. You certainly can't have religious symbols on top of the public elementary."
Kahle says, "The Constitution of the United States is not a document that is concerned with the majority opinion."
Neither was the Constitution created to strip Christian expression from the public marketplace. Our Founders went to great length to preserve, not eliminate religious freedom.
The atheist forefathers of Kahle and other atheists have systematically turned Thomas Jefferson's assurance to the Danbury Baptists that the government would not ---repeat, would not meddle in the affairs of the church---because the Founders, including Jefferson, had placed a wall of protection to protect freedom of religion and freedom of religious expression.
Religious oppression was the hallmark of a king they had challenged and beaten in the Revolutionary War.
In the mind of Jefferson and our other Founders--- government was the potential enemy of the church, not the other way around.
Secular Atheism is a religion of another kind.
Amy Postma told the local TV station, "It's not harming anyone, so live and let live."
Lowell Godfrey wrote on his Facebook page that he too wants the display to stay. He says it has great importance to his family.
He says, "My dad helped build those in shop class in the old school back in the 1940s."
Patheos, a widely read atheist news source, says it's a blatant violation of church/state separation.
They report that in Kahle's letter to the school district, he said, "Public schools are institutions of knowledge---not temples of religious ideology."
However, the school formally says,
"We are both upholding the community's tradition of celebrating a public holiday and attempting to point towards the importance of wisdom, knowledge, and open-mindedness. They've been described as scientists of their time. The 'wise men' are found in secular and other religious traditions outside of Christianity. Finally there is no evidence that they were Jewish or Christian before their travels and there is nothing noted in the Christian Bible to indicate anything about any religion they practiced after their travels."
They make an interesting and good case, but isn't it sad that such a defense of religious freedom, Christianity and the Bible must be made in today's culture?
The secular atheist message is: Wisdom, knowledge and open-mindedness are only virtue if sought outside the influence of Jesus Christ, the Truth Himself. We now must plead the case that the Wise Men were not proselytized by their encounter with Jesus and Mary and Joseph, but because of "association," the wise scientists and their camels must be thrown off the roof.
Ironically, Founding Father Noah Webster, the father of public education in America, didn't agree with that notion even a little bit.
Webster said, "Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political and religious duties."
And he said, "God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all the necessary rules to direct our conduct."
This thinking was not isolated. Throughout his life, he and his colleagues understood the importance of "Christian," biblical instruction.
In fact, Webster said, "Education is useless without the Bible."
"In my view," he said, "the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
Webster said,
"The brief exposition of the Constitution of the United States, will unfold to young persons the principles of Republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion."
The fact that these atheists have the freedom to attack God, the people who believe in Him and read His Word, and dare to publicly express those beliefs on publicly owned property should give them pause. But it doesn't.
The atheist driven Patheos says, "Any reasonable person should know exactly what's going on here."
Agreed.
Franklin Graham understands exactly what's going on here. So do you.
Franklin says, "I believe the display of the Three Wise Men over this town should stay up and continue to send a message for years to come."
He says, "Pray for the people of Newaygo as they battle for their religious freedom."
Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.