Tag Archives: Thomas Jefferson

No Politician Has the Right to Dictate, Contradict or Contravene Religious Beliefs

Posted on June 3, 2020 by David E Smith

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, (working through her city’s director of public health), declares a Romanian church a “public nuisance.” “We will shut you down, we will cite you, and if we need to, we will arrest you, and we will take you to jail,” she tells this small group of former Soviet bloc Christians who refuse to bow to her power.

Posted in Religious Liberty | Tagged Andy Beshear, Bill de Blasio, Chuck Hoskin, COVID–19, Dr. Everett Piper, George Santayana, Greg Fischer, James Madison, John F. Kennedy, Lori Lightfoot, Phil Murphy, Quinton Lucas, Roy Cooper, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

Chicago Public Schools Want to Replace Columbus Day

Posted on March 3, 2020 by David E Smith

The Chicago Board of Education voted 5-2 on Wednesday, February 26, 2020, to stop celebrating Columbus Day and replace it with “Indigenous Peoples Day.” This latest example of political correctness comes on the heels of calls for paintings in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that contain images of white people to be removed. CPS has the largest collection of early 20^th century murals in the U.S. Most of them were commissioned by the Work Projects Administration as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

CPS has created a new educational steering committee to evaluate all future artwork displayed …

Posted in Education | Tagged Bateman Elementary, Chicago Public Schools, Columbus Day, Ethel Spears, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, New Deal, Patrick Henry, Percy Julian Middle School, Sarah Dennis, Social Justice Club, Thomas Jefferson, Work Projects | Comments Off

Are Politically Engaged Conservative Christians Idolaters?

Posted on January 29, 2020 by David E Smith

In his recent Christianity Today (CT) blog post, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight defends recently retired CT president Mark Galli’s hubristic diktat about the necessity—in Galli’s view—of Trump’s removal from office:

Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

Trump’s removal from office would inarguably result in the election of a man or woman who endorses, among other things, human …

Posted in Faith, Media Watch | Tagged Anthony Esolen, Christianity Today, Donald J. Trump, Karl Barth, Mark Galli, Martin Luther King Jr., Pete Buttigieg, Randall Balmer, Scot McKnight, Thomas Jefferson, Timothy Dalrymple | Comments Off

Media Effort Distorts True History of America

Posted on August 30, 2019 by David E Smith

The New York Times has embarked on an effort to rewrite the history of the United States as a nation built upon slavery. Calling it the “1619 Project,” the opening article is a whopping 7,600-word effort to look at 18th Century history through a liberal 21^stcentury lens. Joshua Lawson has written an excellent rebuttal to this effort in The Federalist. Because much of the NYT’s ideology is already being inserted into the narrative of schools and universities, I wanted to pass along some portions of this important article for your consideration.

No, America Wasn’t Built On Slavery,

…

Posted in Media Watch | Tagged 1619 Project, Alexander Hamilton, Declaration of Independence, Founding Fathers, John Jay, Joshua Lawson, Nikole Hannah-Jones, racism, Revolutionary War, Slavery, The New York Times, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

Offending Christians: The Bladensburg Cross Case

Posted on June 4, 2019 by David E Smith

One of the major U.S. Supreme Court decisions we’ll soon hear about is the Bladensburg cross case. This is the case in which secularists are demanding the removal of a large cross that memorializes veterans in the town of Bladensburg, Maryland because the cross resides on public property.

Posted in Religious Liberty | Tagged American Legion, Bladensburg cross, Danbury Baptists, Jack Phillips, James A. Wynn Jr., Paul G. Kengor, Peace Cross, Stephanie Thacker, The American Legion v. The American Humanist Association, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

The Attempt to Tear Down Images of George Washington—a Tale of Two Revolutions

Posted on May 13, 2019 by David E Smith

Could a contrast between the American Revolution and the French Revolution be relevant to today’s conflicts? I think so. The attempt to demote historic icons, like George Washington, is a case in point.George Washington grew up as a gentleman farmer in Virginia and was a fourth generation slave-owner. But by the end of his life, he had decided slavery was immoral and so at his death, he freed his slaves and made provision for them.

Posted in Education | Tagged Cultural Marxism, Declaration of Independence, George Washington High School, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, James Madison, King George III, Notre Dame Cathedral, Peter Lillback, The American Revolution, The French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, Tyranny, U.S. Constitution, William Wilberforce | Comments Off

America’s Historical Ignorance

Posted on February 23, 2019 by David E Smith

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Ny), the darling of the new socialist Democrats in this country, recently referred to the three branches of government. She said, they are the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives. John Roberts, call your office.

Posted in Education | Tagged Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, American history, Bernie Sanders, George Washington, History, James Madison, John F. Kennedy, Karl Marx, Marilyn Monroe, Mel Gabler, Norma Gabler, Peter Lillback, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Constitution, Wall of Misconception, Woodrow Wilson, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation | Comments Off

The Revival of “In God We Trust” in Schools

Posted on February 5, 2019 by David E Smith

An Illinois lawmaker’s bill to publicly display the motto “In God We Trust” in public schools is the latest challenge to the secularism that is the status quo in many public schools across the country. Though displaying the motto would not be mandatory, State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) says his legislation (HB 341) would encourage a return to Christian principles: “As a God-fearing Christian, I believe that the lack of such is the problem in our country today.”

This bill has three co-sponsors in the Illinois House thus far: State Representatives Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport), Chris Miller (R-Robinson) and …

Posted in Education | Tagged Andrew Chesney, Brad Halbrook, Chris Miller, Danbury Baptist Association, Darren Bailey, Garrett Epps, George Washington, Hemant Mehta, In God We Trust, Jefferson County, Roger Williams, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

Post-Christian America Needs Radical Help STAT

Posted on February 5, 2018 by David E Smith

America’s founders believed in God and His word, and predicated our founding documents on those immutable, biblical principles.

Though Leftists love to spout revisionist nonsense about many of the Founders being deists or worse, those accusations don’t hold water when faced with the weight of those early patriots’ own words and actions.

Thomas Jefferson, often upheld as vying for the least religious spot amongst the Founders, wrote:

I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.¹

And Jefferson’s worship habits speak even louder:

Many people are surprised to learn that

…

Posted in Faith | Tagged Atheism, Barna Group, Eric Metaxas, Generation Z, George Washington, John Stonestreet, Noah Webster, Thomas Jefferson, Worldview Conference | Comments Off

The Way Back to Religious Liberty

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Benjamin D. Smith

In early January, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) overturned a longstanding policy that forbade churches from getting federal disaster relief money. The rule change by the Trump Administration affected any houses of worship that were damaged on or after August 23, just before...

Posted in Religious Liberty | Tagged David Barton, FEMA, First Amendment, G.K. Chesterton, Hugo Black., Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Maria, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Supreme Court, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery

Posted on November 2, 2016 by David E Smith

For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture. The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.

Posted in Education | Tagged A People’s History of the United States, Common Core, Duke Pesta, Howard Zinn, Slavery, The College Fix, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off

The Universal Problem

Posted on January 4, 2016 by David E Smith

How do we fix a world filled with murder, rape, betrayal, adultery, fraud, theft, sexual exploitation, pornography, bullying, abortion, terrorism, cheating, lying, child abuse, racism, assault, drugs, robbery, and countless other evils?

Posted in Faith | Tagged C.S. Lewis, Jack Nicholson, Jeremiah 17:9, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Jefferson, Truth | Comments Off

Affluence and Elected Office

Posted on September 6, 2012 by David E Smith

The Democratic Party and liberal pundits are trying to make the case that because Mitt Romney is extraordinarily wealthy, he can’t relate to the struggles of average or economically disadvantaged folk; and if he can’t relate to their struggles, he doesn’t care; and if he doesn’t care, he is unworthy of the office of president.

History demonstrates that that argument fails miserably.

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a list of the inflation-adjusted net worth of past American presidents. Some of our finest presidents and some presidents that the Left love were also men of considerable means. Some inherited …

Posted in Federal | Tagged Andrew Jackson, Ben Nelson, Bill Clinton, Carolyn Maloney, Claire McCaskill, Dianne Feinstein, Dwight Eisenhower, Frank Lautenberg, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Herb Kohl, James Madison, James Monroe, Jared Polis, Jay Rockefeller, Jeff Bingaman, John Adams, John F. Kennedy, John Kerry, John Quincy Adams, Kay Hagan, Lloyd Doggett, Mark Warner, Mitt Romney, Nancy Pelosi, Nita Lowey, Richard Blumenthal, Shelley Berkeley, Ted Kennedy, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Harkin | Comments Off

Nanny State Trolls for Homeschooled Children in Illinois

Posted on February 12, 2011 by aswillis

Recently Illinois Senator Ed Maloney (D) introduced SB136 which would require "the parents or legal guardians of children attending non-public schools, a defined term, or private or parochial schools to annually register their children with the State Board of Education, in conformance with procedures prescribed by the State Board of Education." Basically homeschoolers and anyone else who has deemed the public education system a failure would have to register their children with the State, since apparently Senator Maloney believes "that since the State was responsible for the education of our children, the State should know who was being homeschooled," according to Pastor James McDonald who met with the Senator along with several homeschooling advocates.

Posted in Education | Tagged Ed Maloney, Joseph Cabell, Laurie Higgins, Pastor James McConald, SB 136, Thomas Jefferson | Comments Off