Inmates Running the Asylum.....Again

I've been saving this news item in my email since last Thanksgiving. No doubt it is happening again this year somewhere:

GOD BANNED FROM THANKSGIVING Maryland public school teachers are free to explain the history ofthe Mayflower and the Pilgrims and their three-day feast with NativeAmericans, but they are not allowed to explain that the Pilgrimsthanked not only the Native Americans, but God as well. "We teach about Thanksgiving from a purely historical perspective,not from a religious perspective," said Charles Ridgell, curriculumand instruction director for St. Mary's County Public Schools."Schools don't want to do anything that would influence or act againstthe religious preferences of their students," said Lissa Brown of theMaryland State Teachers Association. But others see this omission of religious material from lessonplans as a form of censorship. "School administrators need to get abackbone," said Joel Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute."We are in real danger of throwing out cultural heritage in ourcountry if we don't know what Thanksgiving is really about." Harry Hornblower points out on his Web site (www.plimoth.org) thata secular Thanksgiving ignores the holiday's original premise asstated by George Washington in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation: "Itis the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of AlmightyGod ... and to be grateful for his benefits."

Long ago and far away, in graduate school, I learned first hand how biased the education community is (even the sciences). That things like this go on is glaring proof of an orthodoxoy of anti-theistic thinking at almost all levels of some educational communites. America's heritage is so obviously infused with Christian thinking and influence, only an ignorant or willfully blind fool would try to deny it.

I would love to invite such people to visit the US Capitol in Washington DC. When I was there a few years ago, I marveled at the huge paintings on the rotunda ceiling. One is entitled "Embarkation of the Pilgrims" and depicts their pastor, kneeling in prayer as they prepare to leave Holland. It was commissioned by the US Government in 1836.

Some have suggested that one day we could see workers all over DC sandblasting all references to God from all the monuments, etc. in our nation's capitol. If that day comes, perhaps we will find ourselves pilgrims once again, searching for a place to worship.... freely.