And Now This: Cupertino Public Grade School Deems The Declaration of Independence Unconstitutiional

Yes, it's true. A principle at a Cupertino Grade School chastened one of its teachers, Stephen Williams, for daring to introduce the Declaration of Independence to his students on the grounds that the document contains impermissible references to God. See the story here: Declaration of Independence Banned.

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University + Diversity = Oxymoron

In "The Closing of the American Mind", published in 1987, University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom observed that no matter how "diverse" the backgrounds of his college students one thing was certain; virtually all of them believed truth is relative, a trademark secular belief. Of course that belief was not only shared by Bloom's colleagues, it was promoted vigorously.

Not much has changed since then, except that diversity at the university is more a misnomer than it ever was. Oh there's lots of focus on diversity when it comes to gender, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation... the things our centers of "higher" education seem perpetually fixated on. What you don't see is diversity of the thing that matters most - thought.

As George Will points out in his most recent column, at the University of Colorado, UCLA, Cornell, and Stanford, over 90% of all professors are liberal. The ratios are similar among most of the nation's public universities and ivy league colleges.

Of course the universities would argue that the reason they have so many tenured leftists is because modern liberalism is more intellectually enlightened than conservatism. It's a self perpetuating notion, especially given the way professors attain stature - by touting the liberal mantra. You have to look hard to find dissenting views. Browsing the UCLA bookstore as a new student last year, Garin Hovannisian recorded the following:

I asked a sales employee to check the database for a few conservative books that I wanted to buy. After receiving a negative answer on all three -- a result that, given the prominence of the books, was astonishing -- I inquired further.

Of the 25 political books that were on display, 21 were ideologically to the Left, 3 had no apparent political inclination, and only 1 was ideologically to the Right. But much more perturbing is the following: MIT professor Noam Chomsky (a rabidly anti-American leftist) had more books at the UCLA Store than did Aristotle, John Locke, Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden - in effect, the entire tradition of intellectual classical thought - AND David Horowitz, Dinesh D'Souza, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Larry Elder--the current day advancers of the libertarian and conservative legacies...combined. Whether these results were achieved as the result of faculty demands or the tastes of UCLA bookstore administrators they are equally degrading to the concept of diversity - the diversity of opinion. see article

On most university campuses, where group think thrives, there is little tolerance for diversity of opinion. The diversity espoused by liberal colleges is focused primarily on some aspect of sex. And the trend continues to devolve. As reported in the New York Times (see entire article) there is a growing preoccupation among university students (and public high schools) to re-examine the rituals of crowning homecoming kings and queens. "At Vanderbuilt University in Nashville this month, a gay student who ran for homecoming queen and took his place on the court in drag at a football game caused a huge stir. In October, students at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota elected their first male homecoming queen." At the University of Washington two homecoming queens were crowned, but no king. Even a few college administrators have been observed to blanch at this new development, but no action contrary to the student's whims is ever taken. Colleges are, after all, about diversity.

If higher education is to be saved it's unlikely the change will come from inside the publicly funded system. Parents of university bound children ought strongly to consider, therefore, voting their consciences in other places. There are private universities that still espouse diversity in its truest sense. Hillsdale College and Thomas Aquinas are two good examples. They may never have the cache' of a Harvard, Stanford, or even UCLA, but truth is too precious to jeopardize on the alter of economic opportunity.

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"What Are We Celebrating?"

On this Thanksgiving Holiday, it's good to be reminded what it's all about. Here's an excellent reminder: What Are We Celebrating?

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Creationism Controversy

The oft heard truism - he who controls the issue controls the debate - is presently at work in Cobb County, Georgia at a Federal District Court. At issue is whether public school text books may keep a small disclaimer that Evolution is theory, not fact, to which students are encouraged to employ critical thinking.

Plaintiffs in the case argue that the disclaimer is an impermissible violation of the Establishment Clause. It's a strategy that's proven a winner in courtrooms across the nation. Yet putting the legal merits aside, it ignores a vastly more important issue. What are public schools tasked to teach, science or truth?

They're not always one in the same. As Ed Larson points out in his Los Angeles Times op-ed (If It's Supernatural It Isn't Science)...

The norms of science call upon scientists to account for physical phenomena in terms of natural - repeatable, observable, testable - causes. Even if God specifically created the first humans in his image in a one-time event, that could not be a naturalistic explanation for our existence.It might be true, but it cannot be science.

Larson may hold open the possibility that God created humanity, but he's not willing to mix scientific and religious explanations in the classroom. It's "apples and oranges" he says and violates the "separation of church and state".

I agree that the scientific process is best served when it limits itself to drawing conclusions from natural phenomena. For indeed, it can go no further. Science is, by definition, bounded by the observable. Unless one is willing to deny any truth claims apart from what we can see and repetitively measure, than science is necessarily constrained in its ability to reveal truth. No miracle, for instance, could be accepted as true becuase they are beyond the scope of controlled measurement.

To artificially defend Evolution against all other truth claims because only explanations from science are considered cannot be said to serve the truth. This is actually a not too subtle form of imperial - we know better than you - indoctrination. For when science, no matter how flawed, is accepted as the truth, there is no tolerance for alternate claims even when, as Mr. Larson admits, those claims "might be true".

Such is the state of government education today. Ironically, and despite decades of this blindfolded approach, most Americans don't buy it. A CBS poll revealed that 55% still believe God created humans in their present form and that 65% want Evolution and Creationism taught side-by-side (see Opinion Polls). Even Kerry voters favor giving Creationism a voice in the classroom by a margin of 55%.

There are serious scientific challenges to Evolution. Indeed, the cracks in the facade are much wider today than they were a decade ago. But these are facts which determined Evolutionists appear desperate to keep the public, and especially those tutored in the public schools, from knowing. Why? Beliefs about origins are fundamental to people's world-view. And world-views, ultimately, are what drive legal policies effecting how we live, including the lightning rod issues of abortion, stem cell research, human cloning, same sex marriage, even laws as mundane as proscribing public indecent.

So the controversy in Georgia is about much more than a simple disclaimer in textbooks. It's about truth and how we honor it.

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Fear: It Can Cripple Or Save Your Life

In 1990 a friend and I were prematurely snowed off a back country hiking trip from a freak September storm. Drying out, we found ourselves in Yosemite Valley with a week to kill. The next day we stumbled upon the Yosemite Mountaineering School and decided to risk a one day beginners' rock climbing course. Our instructor, a soft spoken lion faced man in his mid-thirties, Peter Croft, I learned later was a climbing legend.

As it happened one day of lessons turned into five, and by the end of the week my life had changed forever. Climbing became a passion, one I pursued with the fervor of a new romance. That was nearly fifteen years ago. Today I don't climb nearly as much or quite as well as I used to. Life's weightier responsibilities tend to encroach. But the fire still burns. I felt it again this last weekend out at Joshua Tree.

I have to confess, though, that my love of the vertical world did not come easy. Fear, more to the point, fear of heights, did its best to defeat me. But what was once a source of emotional paralysis in time become one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Fear was transformed into joy! More importantly, climbing has taught me lessons that transcend the vertical world.

A number of years ago I wrote a story that was first published in Indoor Climber that relates to all this. It's mostely a climber's tale, but you might find it interesting: Click here for the whole story.

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"Supporting Our Troops?"

By Thomas Sowell

During the recent election campaign, it has been a liberal mantra that they "support the troops" while opposing the war in Iraq. Just what does supporting the troops mean -- other than just a throwaway line to escape the political consequences of a long history of being anti-military?

It certainly does not mean making the slightest effort to understand the pressures and dangers of combat, so as to avoid the obscenity of sitting in peace and comfort while second-guessing at leisure some life-and-death decisions that had to be made in a split second by men 10,000 miles away...click here for entire Townhall.com article

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Scientist's Defend Challenge to Evolution

R. Robin McDonald and Greg Bluestein
Fulton County Daily Report
11-12-2004

Calling evolution "a theory in crisis," more than two-dozen scientists have come to the defense of the Cobb County, Ga., Board of Education. The scientists, all Ph.D.'s, portray evolution as "a live and growing scientific controversy."

Among them are professors of microbiology, biochemistry and biophysics, who have filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with the school board's 2002 decision to place a disclaimer about evolution in the front of its high-school biology textbooks. At the board's direction, a sticker placed in every Cobb biology textbook warns students that evolution is "a theory, not a fact," and should be "critically considered." Read the entire article here: Law.Com

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You Came From My Heart

As time allows I hope to be able to provide readers of this site with writing projects I have completed and feel are ready for publishing. I intend to make these available in the "Other Works..." column to the right. This is one of those occasions.

Every parent of children that God has brought them through adoption must, at some point, face the task of explaining it. Even under the best of circumstances it can be a difficult undertaking and filled with emotion for all involved. In thinking about this I searched out most of the children's stories that attempt to address this issue. While some of these do an admirable job none met my particular need. I felt they were either too simple, too complex, age inappropriate, were not sufficiently sensitive, affirming, or left God's sovereign participation out of the picture.

You Came From My Heart sprung, therefore, out of my own need.

It is made available under the Creative Commons license, which allows copying and distribution so long as attribution is given and the use is not for a commercial purpose. In other words, you can give it away but you cannot sell it.

It is my hope and prayer that many adoptive families will benefit from this work. For...

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Ephesians 1:5-6

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Shared Values - Prager Fights for the Cross

Why would Dennis Prager*, a Jew, lead a movement to stop the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors from deleting an image on the county seal, especially when that image is a Christian cross? Answer: shared values.

Here’s the background. A number of months ago someone at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) got a microscope and discovered a very small cross on the LA county seal. According to county records the cross was meant to represent “the influence of the (Christian) church and the missions of California.” Aghast, the ACLU immediately contacted the Board of Supervisors who, in turn, summarily voted to expunge the offending symbol. Prager acted, mobilizing listeners of his radio program Dennis Prager to protest what he called, “the rewriting of Los Angeles County history.” Some 2000 people showed up to demonstrate.

I’ll let Mr. Prager tell you in his own words why this issue animated him so.

I am asked why, as a Jew, I have led this fight to keep the cross on the county seal.

I have three responses.

First, I fear those who rewrite history.

As a graduate student at Columbia University’s Russian Institute, I learned that a major characteristic of totalitarian regimes is their frequent rewriting of history. As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: “In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it’s the past which is always changing.” Given the relationship between changing the past and totalitarianism, those who love liberty ought to be frightened by the action of the ACLU and the Board of Supervisors.

Second, I fear intolerance. And the move to expunge the singular Christian contribution to Los Angeles County is intolerant to the point of bigotry. No religious Christians, despite their deep opposition to paganism, ever objected to the pagan goddess that is many times larger than the cross. I have found over and over that most Christians are more tolerant than most leftists who preach tolerance.

Third, and most important, I fear the removal of the Judeo-Christian foundation of our society. This is the real battle of our time, indeed the civil war of our time. The left wants the United States to become secular like Western Europe, not remain the Judeo-Christian country it has always been. But unlike the left, I do not admire France, Belgium and Sweden. And that is what the battle over the seal of Los Angeles County is ultimately about. It is not about separation of church and state. It is about separation of Los Angeles from its history. And it is about separation of the nation from its moral foundations.

That is what this American, this Jew, and millions of others believe is at stake in the left’s attempt to impose a redesign of the Los Angeles County seal and thereby redesign America.

My thoughts exactly.


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For the entire article see “A Jew Fights for the Cross”, Los Angeles Times – Opinion Section (November 14, 2004)

* Dennis Prager hosts a radio talk show heard in the Los Angeles area on 870 KRLA. He is a columnist, author of four books and teaches the Torah at the University of Judaism.

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To America's Veterans So Great A Debt We Owe

By Mark R. Schneider

Driving home today I listened to a debate over whether the FCC should allow the prime time airing of Steven Spielbergs' WWII epic: Saving Private Ryan. It's a gritty, harrowing, depiction of war as it actually exists, with its attendant violence and raw visceral emotion on vivid display. There's little that's gratuitous here. The language is indeed strong, but Spielberg was striving for maximum authenticity in honor of the men who served during those dark days. My point is not to provide a movie review, though the film is certainly not suitable for children, but a more effective instrument for conveying the true cost of freedom is hard to find.

On this Veteran's Day, while our young men and women are spilling their blood on the bleak streets of Iraq and frigid mountain passes of Afghanistan, I happen to believe most adults should see the film, especially those like me who aren't veterans themselves. It is too easy in our comfortable homes, sipping our lattes, to not contemplate the price of liberty. Freedom is an historical anomaly. Brutality is much more the norm. And it never tires, never slumbers. It always seeks to assert itself, to enslave or kill the vulnerable. 911 is America's most recent reminder, when over 3000 innocent people were slaughtered by a force whose only motive was ideological hate and destruction. The protection of two oceans, which insulated our shores for two hundred years, is no more.

Wishful thinking and naive appeasement will not overcome evil. Only goodness overcomes evil. There is no contradiction here, for goodness includes the exercise of forceful arms in the cause of righteousness (Rom. 13:1-4 ). Governments are instituted by God, in large measure to protect the innocent and combat evil. Our veterans are the vangard in this dangerous business.

One particularly moving scene in Saving Private Ryan shows a room full of army staffers sorting through death notices of soldiers killed in combat. A woman notices that three out of the four Ryan brothers have all been killed. One survives, somewhere in France. When General George C. Marshall is notified of this it reminds him of another mother, Lydia Bixby, who lost all her sons during the Civil War, and he quotes, verbatim, President's Lincoln actual letter of solace.

To Mrs. Lydia Bixby

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.


Dear Madam,---I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, A. LINCOLN. (provided by the Abraham Lincoln Association)

On this Veterans Day, let us pray for and honor our men and women in arms. To them we owe a priceless debt.

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Objective Truth Still Wins Elections

By Mark R. Schneider

David Klinghoffer got it exactly right (What We Bush Voters Share: In God We Trust) in a piece published in the Los Angeles Times. What tipped the election in Bushs' favor was less about Christian values versus Pagan, or even about Republican values versus Democratic. The election turned on the concept of truth, or more accurately, what defines it.

Now I admit most people who rejected John Kerry would not say truth was the decisive factor. They would instead talk about their discomfort with same sex marriage, abortion on demand, and what seems a relentless downward slide of the nation’s moral pulse.

Actually, it is still probably true that most U.S. voters prefer to vote Democratic. It’s almost instinctual. While not merited, the Democratic Party has historically benefited from the impression that it’s concerned about the underdog more than Republicans. That’s a strong appeal for those in the undecided category of the political spectrum.

But many of these same people were rightly put off by Kerry’s now legendary flip-flops to pander votes, his affinity for organizations like MoveOn.org and Hollywood celebrities including propagandist Michael Moore, his off record but liberal use of expletives, and his last minute and obviously disingenuous appeal to the religious electorate. The Democratic Party finds itself too closely associated with MTV and its epicurean – “edit, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die” – philosophy. So the voters, wisely, rejected it.

Indeed, the election result was not so much a vote for Bush as it was against Kerry. Evangelicals voted for Bush in roughly the same proportion in 2004 as they did four years earlier. But Kerry lacks a moral center, and it unsettled a large number of undecided voters no matter how well he trounced Bush in the debates (which he did).

Most Americans still want leaders who judge right from wrong based on more than the latest opinion poll or focus group. As Mr. Klinghoffer observes, the people who voted for Bush, Christian and Jew, believe moral truth is both knowable and objective, becomes it comes from God. Those who voted for Kerry tend to view moral truth subjectively. They look to feelings as their guide rather than any objective standard, like the Torah or the New Testemant. Fortunately truth still matters in America, and it’s the reason Kerry lost.

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Tone it down...Please.

By Mark R. Schneider


Like most Republicans, I breathed a long sigh of relief when it became clear, very late on election night, that George W. Bush had wrested Ohio from the Democrats securing him a second term. As a Christian, the Presidents' values and world view align with my own much more than the Democratic Parties' and Mr. Kerrys'.

But the terms Christian and Republican are not synonyms. And the shrill tone heard increasingly on conservative talk radio and network TV disturbes me. The fact that evangelicals helped Bush win is true; but the loud gloating over the ascendency of "Christian values" only further ingrains deep seated prejudices and alienates the very people God calls us to try and reach. Even on Christian talk radio, one gets the sense that evangelicals form a adjunct political wing of the Republican party. May it never be!

We are Christs' Ambassadors, called to represent the King in a foreign land. Just because the King's interests happen to align, temporarily, more with one group than another does not mean we ignore, let alone deliberately alienate, people in need of Truth. This is fools play, and will undoubtedly work against our greater mission.

We must never lose our salt, yet our aim should always be to win over the lost with humility and love. Jesus avoided entrusting Himself to men, even those who praised him. For as the Scriptures record: "He knew all men (John 2:24)". We ought, therefore, to be wary about aligning ourselves too much with one political party. Christians are not called to be Republicans, but servants.

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