Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed official guest host Grant Henry in the studio for another edition of Grant’s Rants.
GRANT HENRY:
Where are you placing your faith? With everything going on in Ukraine right now, with all the political volatility in America right now, we must stop and ask ourselves, is your worldview rooted in something objective?
Are you ready for society to become even more tumultuous than it is right now? Where are you placing your faith? Spoiler alert: It should not be in government. This country was founded upon a common set of virtues, values, and principles that are rooted in Judeo-Christian philosophy designed to create the most prosperous society possible.
However, as Jesus pointed out in Matthew 13:25, when the good men go to sleep, the enemy comes in and wreaks havoc. And I’m here to tell you today we must do as much as we possibly can to understand our founding precepts and to get back to them.
This is not the first time in history, nor will it be the last time in our very young country’s history that we will be led astray. It certainly happened previously. Even during our founding era, people were expressing hostility towards Christianity and the role that it played in the forming of our nation.
This is exactly what Thomas Paine did in his book The Age of Reason. The difference is, when Thomas Paine expressed hostility towards Christianity two centuries ago, the people rose up to ensure that his sentiments remained the exception rather than the rule.
For example, when Paine sent a copy of The Age of Reason to Benjamin Franklin, Franklin’s thoughts on this were forceful. He said, “The consequence of printing this piece will be a great deal of hate drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others.
“But were you to succeed, do you imagine any good would be done by it? Think of how great a portion of mankind have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice and to support their virtue. I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining this tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.”
You see, Franklin recognized the positivity and progression that comes from motivating an entire populace through altruistic behavior. He understood that a commonly held set of objective beliefs based on Christianity helped to restrain bad behavior and help to inspire good behavior.
Essentially, he was telling Thomas Paine, you may not believe in this Christianity stuff, but for goodness sakes, don’t take it away from the rest of us! Are you a madman?
Samuel Adams had a similar sentiment when he wrote Paine a letter saying, “do you not think that you will be led astray? Do you think your pin or the pin of any other man can un-Christianize the mast of our citizens? Or have you the hopes of converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?” Declaration signer Benjamin Rush called Paine’s work absurd and impious.
Jonathan Witherspoon announced that Paine was “ignorant of human nature.” And John Quincy Adams declared, “That Mr. Paine has departed altogether from the principles of the revolution.” Put simply, our Founding Fathers knew that there was a place for faith in our society.
And where we placed our faith in society was of the utmost importance. Getting this factor correct then and always will be paramount in our society. You see, Judeo-Christian philosophy instilled in society primarily through the Church is inherent in the American experiment and inherent in the American spirit, even.
It’s one that says that people have value and purpose. It’s one that says that you are strong. You are capable. You are empowered to accomplish your goals. You are chosen. We literally believe that the Creator of the universe has specifically chosen you for a task that only you are capable of accomplishing.
It’s a message of empowerment and purpose that our Founding Fathers were only grasping at. It’s the message of the body of believers. One is the head, one is the foot, one is the hand, and we all need each other to be functioning properly.
It’s a message of communal support and alliance. Again, it is a purpose-driven message we have as conservatives; a message that compels an individual by faith to get out into their communities and start producing works for the betterment of all people.
It’s a message that wins hearts and minds for the Kingdom while helping to enact societal change that physically improves our lives and our environment.
This is the winning message of conservatism. This is the message the Church needs to infuse back into. So I ask one final time, Michael – where are we placing our faith?
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
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