You Can’t Bury God

Why try to silence, dismiss or bury Christians? If that sounds like hyperbole, compare several recent competing news narratives with a 1979 turning point that reshaped our world.

“That took guts’’ Reba McEntire declared when fellow country artist Thomas Rhett prayed with the crowd for his fallen friend. Is it so hard to pray in our secular world?

People of faith feel outnumbered (we’re not). Non-believers seem to want believers to keep quiet. McEntire told the crowd:

“Thomas Rhett, thank you for praying…you’re special. That took guts. That’s what we need right now, a little more God. We’ve got to give this world back to God.”

“A little more God’’ vs. people trying to bury God. Some other recent examples:

• “Religion is in decline as more adults check ‘None’ — less than half of American adults attend church regularly while 26 percent claim no religious affiliation,” The Wall Street Journal reports. If so, why is the rest of the world so intimidated by public expressions of faith?
• “No one is above the law,” Democrats repeat in a daily talking point. But St. Paul countered “if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.’’ (2 GAL 5:1, 13–18). Donald Trump frequently adds: “We don’t worship government, we worship God.”
• Culture means the “cult of what you worship” or place first (what you hold sacred). Beto O’Rourke calls for penalizing churches and religious nonprofits supporting the more than 4,000 year-old belief that sacramental marriage is a sacred union between a wife and husband. Christians need to be penalized for maintaining sacred traditions?
• The NBA, Hollywood and other U.S. businesses made headlines last week for stifling American free speech. China to punish any dissenters. In each case, accepting the atheistic communist policies of China (good for their bottomline) was more important than the First Amendment (protecting free speech — including the right to worship as we see fit).
• Raising the powerful cross makes rulers and laws are secondary . The chattering class erupted when they heard Christian Ralph Reed’s thesis for a new book: “Render to God and Trump.” The theme (he’s since changed the title) is a reference to Matthew 22, where Jesus said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” while putting God first.
• The Trump administration repeatedly raises religious freedom (rights the Democratic National Committee questioned in a recent resolution courting non-religious voters). Trump challenges China for “human rights violations and abuses” against more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs imprisoned in “re-education” camps.

He warned the United Nations: “Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life.”

“Far left socialists are trying to tear down the traditions and customs that made America the greatest nation on earth,’’ Trump said Saturday. “They reject the principles of our founding fathers — principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that our rights come from our Creator.’’

“We want God,” the chant that still terrifies

If religion is really in decline or “on the run’’ why are people so threatened by God and people of faith? Particularly any time God or His teachings are mentioned?

The most controversial word in the world? Jesus. Peter Kreeft argues “Jesus’’ remains the most controversial word in all human languages, that merely saying the word immediately raises or lowers the room temperature.

Perhaps the clearest example of this need to silence and bury Christians is displayed in the new film, “The Divine Plan,’’ which debuts nationwide November 6 for a special one night only nationwide release to gauge the national market for a pro-faith and freedom film.

The film builds on more than 15 years of research from historian Paul Kengor as well as other leading scholars and two Catholic bishops. “The Divine Plan” (both a book and film version) explains how communists plotted to kill St. John Paul the Great, seeing his words and his very existence as a threat to their power. It also reveals evidence Reagan and JPII believed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a “closet Christian.”

God is like Kryptonite to non-believers

God is to doubters what Kryptonite is to Superman, director Robert Orlando shows in this combination of documentary, docudrama and graphic art novel.

Superman could do anything — but he immediately buckled when a foe pulled out a piece of Kryptonite and the same thing seems to happen to non-believers when they hear some mentioning God, Jesus, prayer or their teachings.

Rather than debate or engage people of faith, the Left (then and now) rejects and tries to silence them. The story: a modern miracle set at the intersection of culture wars, faith and freedom.

Starting with “God and Ronald Reagan” in 2004, Kengor’s research. shows how Reagan and JPII both realized God was the Achilles Heal of the communists, that a Divine Plan and belief in God were the one adversary they could never answer.

The turning point arrived 40 years ago, when John Paul, nine months after ascending to the Throne of St. Peter, returned to Poland where he quickly had millions chanting “We want God, we want God, we want a God!”

While The New York Times dismissed his impact (at the time) as mere momentary symbolism and nostalgia, the communists quickly realized he had stripped their defenses bare.

Five months later, on November 13, 1979, the Secretariat of the Central Committee issued a secret edict:

“Use all possibilities available to the Soviet Union to prevent the new course of policies initiated by the Polish pope; if necessary with additional measures beyond disinformation and discreditation.”

Nine Russian leaders, including Gorbachev, signed this 1979 edict. Six months to the day later, the pope was shot by a communist-backed assassin.

“Of course they tried to assassinate him,” Anne Applebaum tells Orlando and Kengor. “They understood exactly how dangerous he was as an ideological force.”

Why the fear of religion is suddenly intense

When you seek to make new rulers and government your No. 1 priority (your people’s new “god’’ and ultimate authority) the true God (truth and love itself) is viewed as a threat to that priority.

Revolutions from the French Revolution of the 1790s to the Communist Revolution of 1917 and the National Socialist and Communist takeovers of the 1930s and 1940s and beyond made shuttering churches and arresting clergy one of their first priorities. And 2019 Democrats similarly warn the Church to be quiet and go along or face consequences.

The latest Pew data finds that 55 percent of Americans have a negative view of socialism and 42. percent have a positive view. The biggest selling point among the 42 percent? About 31 percent of that minority believes socialism “creates a fairer more generous system.” Just 4 percent of pro-socialist Americans think socialism is “better” than capitalism. But if we are all equal, doesn’t God remain at a higher level?

U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a Catholic, sees today’s secular Left using a religious-like militant fervor to stop religious traditions, telling an audience at Notre Dame:

“The campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has coincided and I believe has brought with it immense suffering and misery… Among the militant secularists are many so-called progressives. But where is the progress? Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake: social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns.”

Barr stressed: “The problem is not that religion is being forced on others, the problem is is that irreligion is being forced — secular values are being forced on people of faith.’’

Perhaps not surprisingly, “The Divine Plan’’ film was previewed at the White House earlier this summer, perhaps influencing some of the pro-God and anti-socialist messages coming out of the Trump administration.

The film was welcomed at the White House by Calista Gingrich, U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and the co-director of a powerful 2010 documentary on JPII’s 1979 visit to Poland, “Nine Days that Changed the World.”

At the UN, Trump positioned socialism and communism as the enemy of faith, calling for truth, the main goal of faith:

“We will rediscover all truths… Socialism and communism are about one thing only, power for the ruling class. Today I repeat a message for the world that I have delivered at home. America will never be a socialist country. In the last century, socialism and communism killed 100 million people… With God’s help, together we will cast off the enemies of liberty and overcome the oppressors of dignity.”

The Divine Plan shows nationwide on November 6. Reserve your seats here.