Christian Faith in America

By Dr. Tony Beam.

The eyes of the nation are on Texas. Why? Because a group of conservatives decided it was time to demonstrate an Alamo-like do or die spirit in the battle over what’s in and what’s out in social studies, economics, and history textbooks. The shots fired at last week’s meeting of the Texas Board of Education will be heard around the world because Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. Publishers, who want to make a profit, will likely adjust their texts to meet the Texas requirements and that will affect what students study from sea to shining sea.

Liberals are livid at the thought that students might have to pick up a text book that, according to the New York Times, stresses “the superiority of American capitalism, questions the Founding Fathers commitment to a purely secular government and presents Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.” The Huffington Post refers calls the Texas Board of
Education’s decision the “Texas textbook massacre.” The article from the Associated Press that follows that provocative headline begins, “A far-right faction of the Texas State Board of Education succeeded Friday in injecting conservative ideals into social studies, history, and economics lessons that will be taught to millions of students for the next decade.” You would think by that statement that conservatism is a kind of viral infection that will poison the minds of millions.

Then there is the story from msnbc.com’s perspective. The startling headline reads “Conservatives put stamp on Texas textbooks: New social studies curriculum stresses religion over evolution.” From left-wing blogs to liberal media outlets, outrage was the order of the day. How will America survive if the next generation learns of the benefits of capitalism? How can our Republic endure if students in the public school system are taught that our Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles? How dare a group of backward thinking traditionalists suggest our form if government is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy? From the New York Times to the Huffington Post journalistic handwringing was the order of the day.

Don McLeroy, labeled by the Associated Press as “the leader of the conservative faction (I wonder if the AP has ever used the phrase “liberal faction”) dared to suggest that teaching on the civil rights movement should include the study of the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers as well as the non-violent methods of Dr. Martin Luther King. All Mr. McLeroy wanted was the whole truth about a very violent period in American history. We should all be thankful that Dr. Martin Luther King’s method of peaceful resistance and passive but powerful demonstrations won the day and won protected rights for black Americans. McLeory also led the fight to include the fact that Republicans overwhelmingly supported passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Students need to know that is was southern Democrats who fought the hardest against passage. The House vote was 152 Democrats for the bill and 96 against (61% to 39%) with Republicans voting 138 for and 34 against (80% to 20%). In the Senate, the numbers were similar. Forty-six Democrat Senators voted for the bill and twenty-one voted against it (66% to 34%). Twenty-seven Republican Senators voted for the bill and only six voted against it (82% to 18%). That information has long been excised from modern textbooks leaving the impression that Democrats were in favor of the Civil Rights Act while Republicans opposed it.

Barbara Cargill had the audacity to fight for and win passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section of a sociology textbook that deals with teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders. For liberals, everything that goes wrong in a person’s life is the fault of someone else. The teaching of the church or the influence of parents who believe in traditional morals usually receive the lions share of the blame.

Oddly enough, the left-wing bloggers and liberal journalists forget to mention changes the left wanted for the textbooks. Advocates for the left wanted to remove any mention of Independence Day, Neil Armstrong, Daniel Boone, and Christopher Columbus. They tried to replace Christmas with Diwali (a five-day Indian festival celebrated as a national holiday in India, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, and Fiji). They also removed Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison from World History and added Mary Kay (cosmetics) and Wallace Amos (of Famous Amos Cookie fame). All of these were changes were reversed by the Texas State Board of Education.

For far too long conservatives have allowed themselves to be intimidated into silence as liberals waged a very successful battle to remove all conservative and traditional references out of textbooks used in the public school system. Finally and thankfully a group of principled conservatives in Texas have said, “Enough is enough.”

America is an exceptional country. We should stop apologizing and start celebrating the genius that is America. There will be one final vote on the textbook standards in May. I pray that those who have raised a voice of reason will stand firm and continue to say, “Don’t mess with the texts in Texas!”

Dr. Tony Beam is Vice-President for Student Services and the Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina, Dr. Tony Beam received his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his Doctor of Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

By Dr. Tony Beam.

Never have so many done so much to accomplish something that so few want. That about sums up the Obama Administration obsession to ram the so-called healthcare reform package through a reluctant Congress. Republicans are united in their opposition and the President’s own party has to be bought off, roughed up, or talked down to in order to bring them in line. The limits of reconciliation in the Senate is forcing the Obama Administration to go for broke in the House. If somehow, Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel can get enough democrat representatives to agree to fall on their swords and vote for passage of the Senate bill, reconciliation will be a moot point. All that has to happen is for the House to pass the Senate bill without amendments. It would then go straight to the President’s desk where he would sign into law the largest, most bitterly partisan bill in history…a bill that has been soundly rejected by majority after majority in poll after poll.

How did an Administration that promised to move “beyond politics” and “unite the county” end up being so partisan with a bitterly divided country? It’s really not that hard to understand. For nine months leading up to the mid-term elections of 2006 I tried to get as many people as I could to realize we were about to turn the county over to hardcore leftwing ideologues. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Steny Hoyer, and the rest of the democrat leadership are all committed to as much government control as the country will tolerate. Candidate Obama ran as a moderate, a centrist, who promised to avoid the partisan divides of the past and bring the country to a place of broad consensus on a host of issues. The rhetoric of the campaign quickly gave way to the reality of governing. President Obama bore almost no resemblance to candidate Obama. He began governing from the Left from day one, promising to fix our broken economy by mortgaging the prosperity of future generations by piling up an unprecedented mountain of debt, all while increasing the size and scope of the federal government.

Americans were shocked by the $767 billion price tag of the stimulus package but the administration was young so many people were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Then came the takeover of General Motors and the bailout of Chrysler. Then President Obama presented and democrats passed a $3.53 trillion budget that is guaranteed to add $1.2 trillion to the national debt by the end of this fiscal year.

By the summer, the grassroots response to the Obama Administration’s runaway spending had blossomed into a serious rebellion among the electorate. Congress went home in August to face overwhelming opposition to the President’s healthcare plan. Town hall meetings, that were supposed to be opportunities for democrats to tout the President’s healthcare plan turned into raucous roasts as Americans sent a clear message that they believed their government was out of touch and out of control.

(Editor’s Note: The photo above shows only a tiny fraction of the large crowd that attended this event. At the time this photo was taken, around 1:00 p.m., Pennsylvania Avenue was still jammed completely, and the mall was packed from the Capitol Building past the Washington Monument. See aerial photos here.)

On September 12, hundreds of thousands of protestors showed up in Washington calling for an end to healthcare reform but the President and his majority party were not in the mood to listen. First, they tried to ignore the Tea Party protestors hoping the mainstream media would follow their lead and leave the Tea Party with no place to go. When that didn’t work, the administration tried to vilify the movement by calling it an “Astroturf” movement funded by special interests like “big Pharmaceuticals” and “big insurance companies.” Last summer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Tea Party movement “un-American” and accused them of using Nazi symbols. But in a recent interview with Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s This Week, Pelosi, speaking about the Tea Party movement said, “Some of it is hijacking the good intentions of lots of people who share some of our concerns that we have about the role of special interests.” I must assume Pelosi’s strategy now is if you can’t beat the Tea Party movement just hijack it and make is sound like your idea.

The latest shoe to drop in the healthcare or highway effort by the White House comes from Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY), who is being investigated by the House ethics committee for allegedly making inappropriate comments to a staffer on New Year’s Eve. Massa announced his resignation on Friday saying, “This administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this heath care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me, and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

On Sunday, Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of slowing trying to block healthcare reform. Yet it was fellow democrats Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana who demanded the “cornhusker kickback’ and the Louisiana Purchase” in order to secure their votes.

The question is why? Why is the President and the Democrat leadership so determined to have healthcare or the highway? The answer is simple. They really believe they know what is best for the American people. And they are willing to go to any lengths and to walk over the will of the people to get their way.

Dr. Tony Beam is Vice-President for Student Services and the Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina, Dr. Tony Beam received his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his Doctor of Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

By Dr. Tony Beam

I am blessed with many vivid memories of my childhood. I remember the first time I looked through a pair of binoculars. It was a cheap, pop-up pair that my dad bought me at what used to be called the Ice Capades, which was an older version of the traveling ice-skating programs we see today. I was fascinated that just by looking through the lens it appeared that I could reach out and touch the skaters. I literally spent hours gazing through those binoculars until my dad would make me put them away for a while.

Another memory is not so pleasant. I remember I hated being sent to my room for misbehaving. My parents called it “being grounded”.  It meant I couldn’t leave my room until they were convinced I had learned my lesson.

In the late 60’s we didn’t have T.V., computers, cell phones, video games, or any of the other “in room” entertainment devices of today. So, being grounded meant staying put with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

When I read Acts 1:6-11, I see the beginnings of the early church being tempted toward being grounded or gazing. Verse 6 says, “So when they had come together, they were asking Him, (the risen Christ) Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” That is a grounded question asked by disciples with a grounded mindset. It has been forty days since Jesus rose from the grave. He spent His time appearing to His followers, speaking to them about the glories of a kingdom that would reside in each one of them once the Holy Spirit came.

But here they are thinking in physical rather than spiritual terms. They were seeking what amounted to a political solution to their plight. They wanted Jesus to remove the iron boot of Roman rule and establish an earthly kingdom where He would rule on the throne of David and restore the glory of Solomon. They longed for the good old days when Israel had conquered its neighbors and the whole world came to Jerusalem to pay homage and to seek wisdom from Solomon.

Many in the church today have the same grounded mentality. They spend much time talking about and longing for the good old days when the church was the center of the community and ministers were considered to be wise community leaders. The church had a tremendous amount of influence from Hollywood to Hoboken. People lined up on Sunday to go to church as the whole town shut down in honor of the Lord’s Day. During the week, people lined up to see Charlton Heston bring Moses and Ben Hur to life on the silver screen. Movies with titles like, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Robe, and Quo Vadis won hearts in the theaters and Oscars at the Academy Awards. It was a time when the Gospel was, as Paul told Timothy, “in season.”

But now the Church is no longer the most powerful influence in the community. Ministers are often suspect and Hollywood has turned organized religion into the “the devil with the blue dress on.” What are we to do? If we sit in our pews and long for the good old days we will be a grounded church. We will lose what little influence we have left in the world. We must follow the advice of a t-shirt I saw last week. Its message was as simple as it was profound. It said, “The Church has left the building.”

If the 21st century church is going to transform the culture we have to leave the building. We must go where the people are, build a bridge of fellowship, and demonstrate the love of Christ even as we gently warn that to reject His love is to eventually feel His wrath.
Later in Acts 1, the disciples are caught gazing up into the sky where they saw Jesus ascend. Verse 10 says, “And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky?” The disciples had been given their instructions. They were to go to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was not a time for gazing, being spellbound by the glorious sight of Jesus. It was time for action. It was time to go to the place where the power from Heaven would be poured out in abundant supply. Verse 8 carries the promise, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, ad in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” As I heard one old country preacher say, “They needed to go to the spout where the glory comes out!”  Gazing into heaven can be a good thing if we make sure it doesn’t become the only thing.

There was nothing wrong with me being fascinated with the binoculars to the point of wanting to spend some of my time gazing. The problem arose when gazing was all I wanted to do. There is nothing wrong with a church that gazes longingly into heaven, falling before a holy God, asking as Moses asked to see just “a glimpse of His glory.” But it is easy to give in to the temptation to do nothing but gaze. We lose our touch with the people God has called us to reach if we become so enraptured by His glory we forget to reflect His glory to the world.

While believers should always be informed about the issues facing our society in the political arena and we should be good citizens by voting according to the standards of God’s Word, we must never trust in a political solution for our spiritual condition. While we should revere the past we should see it as a signpost and not a hitching post. The 21st Century Church must be found neither grounded nor gazing but rather greatly empowered by the Holy Spirit, fulfilling the call to be His witnesses “even to the remotest part of the earth.”

You can hear Dr. Beam live on Christian Talk 660 weekday mornings from 7:00-9:00 AM (EST) as he is the host of Christian Worldview Today. You can also listen to recorded broadcasts in the Christian Worldview Today Archive.

Dr. Tony Beam is Vice-President for Student Services and the Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina, Dr. Tony Beam received his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his Doctor of Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

As we near President Obama’s outright snub against the American people in his so-called “bi-partisan” health-SCARE summit, I thought  it right and proper to recall just how popular this Socialist takeover is with ordinary citizens.  Last year grass roots activism reached a boiling point in the TEA Party movement.  Here are some home videos of real SC heroes of Conservatism adding spice to the TEA.

The first is Dr. Tony Beam speaking at Greenville SC TEA Party

The second is Senator Jim DeMint speaking at the Greenville SC TEA Party

As you listen to President Obama speaking about healthcare reform, remember he is talking about a TRILLION DOLLAR entitlement program that is more about increasing Government control over our lives and limiting our freedoms than about solving the perceived and conceived “healthcare crisis.”  The audacity and arrogance of this presidential regime staggers the imagination.

By Dr. Tony Beam

I love computers, gadgets, PDA’s, cell phones with GPS capability and cars with voice activated phones and MP3 players. I’m hooked on satellite radio and I never go anywhere without my IPOD. In short, I am a bonafide, southern fried techno junkie. I cried for three days when I found out AT&T would be the exclusive provider of the Iphone because I am locked into a long term contract with another mobile phone service provider.

But alas, the affection I have for all things high-tech is not returned to me by my beloved gadgets. Every technological marvel I touch instantly becomes dysfunctional. I was told that I need to switch from a PC to a Mac because Apple computers were foolproof. The Computer Services people at North Greenville University told me once I made the switch they would be able to reassign the lone Computer Services technician they hired just to look after me. In turn, they assured me I would be able to delete the Computer Services extension from my speed dial.

I am now known as the only person in the known universe who had to send two bad apples back to the Mac tree. Tim, the campus computer guru tells me in the world of computers that is a record comparable to Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles.

But all my face time with Computer Services has taught me a lesson or two about troubleshooting. I was talking to Tim about my latest crisis and he told me what my computer needed was to return to its default settings. It seems a big part of my problem with computers is I like to add lots of programs. Sometimes, Tim says, the best thing to do is just wipe the slate clean of all the added programs and take the computer back to its original settings. So Tim whips out something called the restore program and faster than you can say, “what happened to all my downloads,” my computer is back to its original programming, humming along at warp speed without a single glitch.

Wouldn’t it be nice if political candidates worked like computers? It seems to me a lot of the confusion associated with the current political climate finds its source in what some conservative politicians are trying to add to the original idea of conservatism. Republicans are divided because no one has fully captured the imagination of the majority. Many of the front line leaders in the Republican Party have plenty of impressive ideas they have offered as alternatives to the Obama agenda. But the question many Evangelical conservatives are asking is, when you strip away all the pat answers and the red meat rhetoric, where is the leader whose core values will anchor them to something solid in this stormy time in which we live? The first leader who answers that question will win the support of everyone who longs for ethical leadership and a clear path back to a constitutionally run America.

There is a scene in the movie Braveheart where William Wallace gets in the face of Robert the Bruce (the accepted leader of Scotland) and says “the people will follow you if you will just lead them.” In modern day terms we need a leader who will lead by stepping up to the plate, acknowledging the source of our national distress (progressivism) and lead us back to limited, constitutional government.

America is ready for a leader whose default setting is the Word of God. A leader whose fall back position is to fall back to the idea of a smaller government that protects its weakest citizens and defends all of its citizens against the threat of annihilation from radical Islamic militants. We are ready for a leader who defends our borders and defies those who would transform our culture into a politically correct caricature of itself. Conservative Evangelicals are looking for a leader who will be a stand up straight shooter depending on core values that are rooted in absolute truth and grounded in a true understanding of compassion.

Ronald Reagan’s name has been raised more than once by both Democrats and Republicans during these confusing and dangerous times. What is it about Reagan’s legacy that makes leaders of both parties invoke his name? It’s simple really….Reagan’s core values, his “default setting” captured the hearts of all Americans. All anyone has to do to understand why Reagan was so wildly popular is read a few excerpts from his diary. Reagan would bend over backwards to work with anyone who was willing to recognize he couldn’t be budged off of his default setting. Smaller government, the protection of life, the defense of the family, victory over our enemies, the greatness of the American people, and the unlimited potential of the American dream were all programs that made up Reagan’s default setting.

Its time for true conservative leaders to arise who are willing to remove the latest add on programs to fix America and return to the default settings that will make America great.

You can hear Dr. Beam live on Christian Talk 660 weekday mornings from 7:00-9:00 AM (EST) as he is the host of Christian Worldview Today. You can also listen to recorded broadcasts in the Christian Worldview Today Archive.

Dr. Tony Beam is Vice-President for Student Services and the Director of the Christian Worldview Center at North Greenville College in Tigerville, South Carolina, Dr. Tony Beam received his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and his Doctor of Ministry from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.