Compelled by Love of God and Neighbor

Excerpts from Chuck Colson writing at CT:  We Must Not Despair

The evidence is clear: Many Christians have grown weary of the culture wars. Compared with prior years, Christians have little visible presence in this season's election campaign, and certainly younger evangelicals see the conservative religious agenda as strident and often offensive. What's more, prominent Christian leaders are telling us to take a sabbatical from politics—a seductively appealing message for so many fatigued by our 30-year-long uphill struggle.

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There was a time when Christianity's positive influence on society was applauded. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a strong civil libertarian, stated in the 1952 Zorach v. Clauson case: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being …. When the state encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities … it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs."

Scarcely a decade later, the Supreme Court, in an astonishing reversal, declared in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) that prayer and Bible reading in public schools were to be outlawed—and thus opened Pandora's Box. In case after case, justices decided against the traditional values of our country, culminating in 1973 with Roe v. Wade, when the Court ruled that killing human life at its earliest stages was now a constitutionally protected practice—leading to an unbroken string of such cases since.

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Today is no different. As other Christian leaders and I wrote in the Manhattan Declaration, "Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense."

On each of these fronts, the forces of secularism have assaulted foundational principles necessary for true human flourishing and the preservation of moral order.We defend them not for parochial interests but for the good of society.

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