Evangelism

It’s ironic but true: the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is obsessed with religion.

The latest proof can be found in a full-page ad in Tuesday’s New York Times featuring an illustrated drawing of the Statue of Liberty holding high a cross with the word “THEOCRACY” in a wave crashing at its base.

“The State of Separation Between State and Church is Perilous,” the headline reads. “Help stem the Christian Nationalist Tidal Wave.”

Founded in 1976 by a mother and daughter upset their local Wisconsin legislators opened meetings in prayer, the FFRF has made it their mission for nearly fifty years to protest any public expression of faith.

To be sure, the group has gotten it very wrong from the beginning. Consider what they told the lawmakers back in 1976:

“It is not the business of governmental bodies to pray,” said Anne Gaylor. “When board members pray publicly, you inflict pressure, compulsion and embarrassment on those of your members and those of your audience who do not accept or share these private religious views.”

Public prayer does no such thing. The only pressure it seems to elicit stems from antagonists obsessed with eradicating it.

Even the Supreme Court has upheld legislative and other public prayers, and it’s a good thing. Its own marshal opens each session with a litany that ends with the phrase, “God save the United States and this Honorable Court!” Several friezes of Moses holding the Ten Commandments are also featured in and on the historic building.

The so-called “Christian Nationalist Tidal Wave” is a laughable farce, a concocted bogeyman that simply doesn’t exist.

Anytime someone dares mention their faith or acknowledge its impact on America’s founding, FFRF seizes on the reference. Perhaps unknowingly, the group regularly calls more attention to faith with their over-the-top campaigns protesting it than were they to remain silent.

In fact, this tried and tired tactic recalls Joseph’s words in Genesis:

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20).

For years, FFRF has put a cross in Lady Liberty’s right hand to mock Christianity and make a claim that facts fail to back up. Originally named “Liberté éclairant le monde” or “Liberty Enlightening the World,”and designed by Auguste Bartholdi, the grand statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

Mr. Bartholdi was said to choose a woman for the statue because of Europe’s long association of certain virtues (generosity, piety, good faith) with women. He wasn’t the first artist to correlate the idea of liberty with a female, but never had it been depicted on such a grand scale and stage.

The torch in Lady Liberty’s right hand is designed to symbolize enlightenment, along with a commitment to freedom and democracy.

Once more, maybe it’s fitting that FFRF has chosen to swap out the torch with the cross. As Christians, we recognize the empty cross as a symbol of triumph and salvation. It lights the way during dark times. It shows us that sin and sorrow are conquered thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice on it. 

Critics of Christianity have a long and storied history of distorting not only God’s Word, but also the intents and beliefs of His followers. It’s heartbreaking that the folks at FFRF seem to believe so much that just isn’t true. But it’s also heartening that God takes ignorance and foolishness and uses it for good.  

Lots of prayers are being lifted up across college and university campuses today as part of the annual Collegiate Day of Prayer.

Beginning over two-hundred years ago, the last Thursday in February was set aside by every major school in America to pray not just for the students but also the institution itself.

After all, Harvard motto in 1650, “In Christi Gloriam” or “For the glory of Christ,” left no question about leadership’s spiritual convictions.

Writing about these campus prayer meetings and revivals, Henry C. Fish wrote:

In the year 1823, the last Thursday of February each year was agreed upon as the day for special supplication that God would pour from on high His Spirit upon our Colleges and Seminaries. And what have been some of the results? In the years 1824 and 1825, revivals were experienced in 5 different colleges; in 1826, in 6 colleges; in 1831 … In one of the colleges it is stated that a revival started on the very day of the concert of prayer. In 1835, not less than 18 revivals were reported by different colleges.

Prayer and spiritual awakenings have been reported at numerous college campuses over the past few years. Many will remember extended time of prayer at Kentucky’s Asbury University in 2023. Other mass prayer events have taken place at the University of Arkansas, Ohio State, Auburn, University of Georgia, and Texas A&M. Thousands of students have come to Christ and been baptized.

A group called “Unite Us” has helped to spearhead many of these prayer events on college campuses.

“Gen Z is hungry for the very things the empty, desiccated temples of secularism, consumerism, and global digital media cannot provide, but which Jesus can,” says Kyle Richter of Unite Us.

The organization has scheduled prayer time this spring at Purdue, University of Kentucky, Georgetown, West Virginia and Southern Methodist University.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the “party hardy” reputation some other colleges possess. Each year the Wall Street Journal comes out with a list. In September, Tulane and the University of Dayton were ranked at the top for party atmosphere.

According to organizers of this year’s outreach, 4,420 colleges have been adopted, meaning that prayer warriors are specifically lifting up teachers, students, and administrators at those particular institutions. The good and bad news is that there are still over 25,000 schools waiting for prayer.

Prayer is a powerful privilege for Christians, an opportunity to speak intimately with our Lord. Intercessory prayer for college students is desperately needed, especially as the evil and confusion cascade across campuses everywhere.

“Prayer is the highest activity of the human soul, and therefore it is at the same time the ultimate test of a man’s true spiritual condition,” preached Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “There is nothing that tells the truth about us, so much as our prayer life.”

Please join us in praying for America’s colleges and its students.

Image credit: College of the Ozarks.

Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, and who for decades has declared himself an agnostic and skeptic philosopher, recently announced his conversion to Christianity.

Writing on his blog, the 56-year-old said, “I spent over 35 years as a nonbeliever, I will not try to portray myself as a converted ‘enemy of the faith.’ I never was; I was merely a skeptic. I especially hope to reach those who are as I once was: rational thinkers who are perhaps open to the idea, but simply not convinced.”

Sanger once described Wikipedia, the user-edit online encyclopedia, as “part anarchy, part mob rule.” He acknowledged, “The people with the most influence in the community are the ones who have the most time on their hands – not necessarily the most knowledgeable – and who manipulate Wikipedia’s eminently gameable system.”

The internet project developer stepped away from the site way back in 2002 over conflicting philosophies, specifically his desire for a fair and open forum that wouldn’t engage in viewpoint discrimination.

Over the years, Sanger has suggested the site primarily consists of “establishment mouthpieces” and deliberately blocks alternative viewpoints.

“There’s a lot of Nobel prize winners and distinguished doctors whose views are not only not welcome on Wikipedia — they’re literally censored on YouTube and sometimes Facebook and Twitter [X} because they contradict the narrative,” he told the New York Post.

“There’s a global enforcement of a certain point of view on issues like COVID,” he insisted, calling it “amazing to me as a libertarian, or a liberty-loving conservative.”

Writing last week about his evolution from skeptic to believer, Larry shared details about his upbringing, details that can be instructive for mothers and fathers.

“I was confirmed at age 12 in the Lutheran Church, but soon after, my family stopped going to church,” he said. Sanger’s father began dabbling in New Age religions and invited skeptics of the faith and philosophers to engage Larry in conversation. By the time he was 14 or 15, he said his belief began slipping away.

Fiercely curious and inquisitive, Larry said he had all kinds of questions but was discouraged from asking them. He even called a pastor, an individual he suggested was less than helpful and even dismissive of his skepticism. In short, he wasn’t taken seriously – so he began chasing after groups and individuals who would give him attention and make him feel like his agnosticism was well placed.

He chose Reed College, a liberal arts school in Portland, Oregon, that he said “was full of liberal unbelievers.” At the time Sanger was a student there, he said their unofficial motto was “Communism, Atheism, Free Love.”

After separating from Wikipedia, Sanger taught philosophy at Ohio State for a few years, priding himself on his ability to conceal his true beliefs from students. “I wanted them, too, to seek the truth for themselves,” he wrote.

It’s clear he was on a spiritual journey, impressed with the many brilliant people who believed the Bible to be God’s Word – but still considering it to be “not much more than primitive Bronze Age myth and wisdom literature, with the miraculous bits probably based on rich imagination, misunderstood emotions, and other natural psychological experiences.”

Interestingly, around 2011, Sanger found his sympathies inching towards Christians whenever he saw believers attacked for having the temerity to publicly share their faith. He spoke out against what he considered bullying. He also began speaking out against the New Atheist arguments being popularized and propagandized online.

“I scanned books produced by New Atheists such as Dawkins and Harris and could never bring myself to actually buy one: they were just so transparently mediocre.”

For Larry Sanger, the penny has seemed to drop slowly, but he’s at last felt the freedom to acknowledge that he believes the Bible is true, there is one God in three persons, and Jesus is the Savior of the world.

For the past five years, Sanger has been writing a book that he’s titled, God Exists: A Philosophical Case for the Christian God. Perhaps it’s the philosopher in him, but at 203,484 words (and counting!) he has a penchant for being quite wordy.

While Sanger might not be expecting people to read his book, he is clear and direct when he states, “Everybody should read the Bible daily.”

Larry’s long and winding road demonstrates the power and influence of good and bad parenting, the importance of welcoming questions from skeptics, the need for humility and patience when encountering nonbelievers, and the long-suffering and merciful patience of a Heavenly Father who will never stop pursuing us even when we might stop chasing after Him.