Seasons of Grace
No doubt about it: Todd Starnes has a nose for news. His cutting-edge reports on Fox News expose religious discrimination in all its forms—in schools, in business, and in the public square. Starnes reveals the not-infrequent failure of our society to protect freedom of religion as guaranteed by our Constitution.
But those daily news reports are embedded in other news of the day: happy stories of everyday citizens engaged in works of charity; weather alerts; political intrigue; movies and cultural events. Lined up beside the minutiae of daily living, Starnes’ recap of the latest insult to faith seems less foreboding.
It’s different (and much more difficult) reading an entire book of these reports one after another, consecutive horror stories about the loss of American freedoms and the degradation of American morals.
God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values
In it, I read stories I’d heard before:
- the Obama Administration’s refusal to permit evangelical pastor Louie Giglio to deliver the benediction at Obama’s 2012 inauguration, after it was learned that he had delivered a sermon in the 1990s calling homosexuality a sin.
- a police chaplain in Charlotte, North Carolina, ordered to stop invoking the name of Jesus.
- owners of a bed and breakfast ordered to pay thousands in fines after they refused to give a lesbian couple a room.
- Hallmark Cards’ rewrite of the lyrics to “Deck the Halls” because the traditional lyrics, which refer to “gay apparel,” might offend certain people.
- the refusal by a Louisiana library to grant a church youth group permission to perform a living Nativity scene on their property.
and plenty of new ones:
- the refusal of a Colorado cemetery owner to permit the name “Jesus” to be engraved on the tombstone of a pastor’s wife because it “might offend someone.”
- Stockton, California’s ban on poinsettia plants in schools because someone might be offended by the plant’s relation to Christmas.
- the refusal by Florida’s Rollins College to permit four students, members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, to hold a Bible study in the privacy of a dorm room because it violated college rules.
- a family-owned bakery in Indianapolis was subjected to a city investigation after it declined to make cupcakes for National Coming Out Day.
Think of these performers and public figures, and the controversies they’ve unleashed upon the American public: Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, drag queens from the hit Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” who performed before unsuspecting families with children at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
And think of the public figures who have stood firm, and who have suffered for their resistance to cultural degradation: Tim Tebow, the Robinson family of Duck Dynasty, the owner of Chick-fil-A.
Todd Starnes gives voice to the fear that we’ve gone too far, that America, in the rush to avoid offending anyone, has lost sight of the precious freedoms and ideals which made this nation great.
I hate to say it, but God Less America
- It’s often painful to read, because it showcases a failure on the part of government and citizens alike to preserve and protect the liberties upon which this country was built.
- It’s important to read, for the same reason: the case histories of anti-religious sentiment are a call to return to our Christian roots, and to defend the American promise of liberty and justice for all.
The Irish political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke famously quipped, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” The assaults on personal freedom and religious rights which Todd Starnes unveils in God Less America
God Less America
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