Why Preaching Jesus in a Public School Can't Really Be Considered Improper for Secularists

If Franklin Graham came to PS 32 in NYC, in the middle of world history course for 8th graders and preached that Jesus died, rose again for their sins, it would be controversial, to say the least. In fact, it would be all over the news as well as blogs and several FB links. The outcry would be on the grounds of 'separation of church and state'. Pressed further, that argument would be an appeal to interpretation of the rules of the road, in this case, as they apply to speech in a publicly funded setting. But the outrage wouldn't be over the breaking of a rule. The outcry would be visceral and from the perspective that preaching Jesus in a public school, aside the prescription against mixing church and state, would be objectively wrong. Some might say that you can't force your opinions on to others, especially religious ones. Others might claim that Jesus being the only way to salvation is bigoted or that even suggesting something is wrong with us would be insulting.

In essence, Graham's preaching to a world history class in a public school would be considered a moral violation, in addition to being perceived just as rule breaking. Not only that, it would be considered normative and objective and universal moral violation. As the argument might go, preaching Jesus to kids in public school would be a real state of affairs that should never be permitted (normative). The same argument more than likely would conclude Graham's speech, or others like him, from preaching to kids in a public school should never be permissible, regardless of other opinions (objective) and that it would apply anywhere, at anytime, to anyone (universal).

Those with the outcry would come from a strict secular perspective where religion and state should not mix. Some might even be avid church goers, so it wouldn't necessarily split down the categories of religious and non-religious. The underlying and fundamental reason backing the secular idea would be that religion in general and Jesus in particular are not knowledge claims but only express cultural idioms and traditions. This isn't in the context of a school's curriculum but more behind the moral objections to bringing this sort of speech into a school to begin with. In this view, science gives knowledge. Mathematics gives knowledge. Any claims Graham has about Jesus are personal, individualized and isn't knowledge, per se. Along side science and mathematics, can there be knowledge claims about religious claims? Is knowledge purely gained from the five senses? Well, that's another topic (but a good one). I bring it up because it is related to this topic. What sort of moral arguments against Graham's speech are out there? Here's a summary of some that are popularly held.

Moral relativism believes that morals are relative to the individual or society and cannot be objective, normative or universal. Anyone who believes that Christianity is 'true for you but not for me' is subscribing to this thinking. There are several types in this category. There are those that just feel its wrong (emotivism), or that it simply expresses the desires of society (prescriptivism or imperativalism). However, if separation of church and state, in general, and someone like Graham preaching Jesus in a public school, in particular, is REALLY wrong, no matter who does it, where they do it, then there is an exception to the moral relativist, in this regard. But if there is this one exception, are there others? If pressed, it would seem that if morals are relative, then even a moral claim about moral relativism would have to also be relative. So, if the moral relativist is right, she's wrong and if she's wrong, she's still wrong, by her own rulebook. So out goes that theory. It certainly can't be used against Graham's alter call in world history class. Under moral relativism, neither Graham or those against him would have a moral argument that would apply to anyone outside of themselves or their group. There's simply no way to adjudicate between either side of that argument under moral relativism. What ends up with moral relativism is a inclination towards simple prescriptivism or imperativalism. In short, that's what you see on The View and other day time talk shows. Overpowering, rather than justification, is the game plan under those settings. If there happen to be more Graham supporters, then Graham wins. If there are more secularists, they win. Nothing more can be added. So much for that.

But then there are those that would not side with moral relativism and say what Graham did is really wrong. These folks would fall into two types: 1) ethical non-naturalists, like crazy evangelical and catholics (tongue in cheek, obviously) and 2) ethical naturalists. Ethical naturalists hold to objective moral values, so they would condemn Graham but it would be based on evolutionary biology. In other words, they would hold it as wrong because most people would hold to that value as a societal convention created for survival purposes. Most in this category are considered utilitarianists or those that believe the rules are based on maximizing outcomes, as outcomes are perceived by a species or society. You could have relativists that are utilitarians but there are also ethical naturalists that are as well. But the grounding feature of the latter folks would be evolutionary biology, more than likely. Graham, in this view, would be wrong because it goes against the tribe's rules and the tribe's rules are there for the survival of the tribe. In this case, the tribe would be America and the tribes rules would be having religion overlap in publicly funded settings.

So, do these views have any merit and how would they fare against Graham's speech? Ethical naturalism devolves, rather than evolves, into subjectivism...meaning, things aren't really right or wrong. The reason why is that they confuse an 'ought' with an 'is'. What does this mean? It means that saying something is really wrong, but then backing it up with it being attributable to biological or societal instinct is only describing behavior, rather than justifying anything or condemning anything. Describing the color of tree bark is entirely different from saying that tree bark should never be brown. Silly analogy, but you get the drift. You can't successfully go from the first description to the second prescription, without it ultimately being relative, subjective or privatized. Notwithstanding the persuasiveness of the argument, the naturalist would say that condemning Graham is how our society has chosen to protect and promulgate itself. But that isn't an argument against Graham's speech. It's just a perceived description of those that are against Graham. First, it could be an entirely different set of tribal rules are more effective at survival than those, in which case one would have to suspend judgment if cogent arguments were raised. Second, even if those were the best rules for survival, it wouldn't tell us anything regarding its rightness or wrongness. It would just be describing animal behavior. So, that's out.

What's left to argue against Graham's alter calls in a public school? Power. In the end, the only framework secularism can devise any moral propositions is through power. Whoever is in charge rules and whoever isn't doesn't. The only reason Graham's speech is detestable is because Graham isn't in charge. Secularism is in charge, so Graham is wrong. However, that also means that if Graham is in charge, then secularist arguments are all wet. In the end, secularist ethics devolve into king of the hill realities. I would contend the only reason why secularism's power struggle hasn't already devolved into bloodshed and tyranny is because of an old, fading Christian consensus. As that continues to fade, as it is today, there will only be the non-theistic cognitive and non-cognitive alternatives to morality and as we have seen, they can't hold any water and are really just power struggles disguised as arguments.

So, what would the Christian possibly argue against the Graham alter call? You might be surprised. Although the Hebrews in the Old Testament were a theocracy, initially (they became a monarchy before the kingdoms split), the New Testament recognizes a secular state, as was the reality in the 1st century as it increasingly has become today, and commands respect for those authorities. Romans 13 is a case in point. You can also go to Jesus' teachings about paying taxes to get the same principle. Why should the believer in Christ observe and respect secular authorities, even if they are anti-Christian? Two reasons are given in Scripture: 1) All human beings are given a moral barometer that reveals the character of God, whether they believe in God or not. This demands respect. 2) Love. Pure and simple, we are to love others and serve others. We are to show Jesus and be the salt and light He proclaimed we should be. The New Testament teaches under a setting of secular rule, not a theocracy, as some would try to incorrectly portray Scripture. So, Franklin Graham would probably not give an alter call in PS 32 world history class, out of obedience to these overarching biblical ethics. Would that mean Graham would simply not talk about Jesus? No. He would simply find a venue that would not create contention and contempt, so that he could show Jesus Christ, rather than another political power struggle. That's the Scriptural and real view of the situation at hand. We should be lovers, not fighters, because Jesus is our example. He didn't raise an army. He didn't protest the consulate. He told the truth, excepted the consequences of doing so, but never disrespected others. Quite the contrary, His entire ministry and His work on the cross is one of a servant.

So, only the evangelical, ironically, would have an argument. You may not agree with it, but the real issue at hand isn't whether you agree or disagree, but whether or not there are good reasons out there. Ironically, secularists' arguments all fail, morally speaking. Folks with an outcry against it may simply be emoting their feelings for or against, in what ultimately is only a power drama, rather than an argument about real right and wrong....or they are confusing a state of affairs with a moral argument and are skirting the issue altogether while claiming to be providing an answer to it. Only the believer's adherence to a moral sense that is inherent in all people, reflecting the character of God, rather than biology, sociology or relativist musings, is the only argument that stands. Again, you may not agree with it and there are arguments that can be taken. I will say that it can be sufficiently defended, but the point in this article is to put the cards on the table, given a specific situation and see how secularism fares. And it is a non-starter, despite itself.

Lost Wages

$12.4 Trillion is the amount of debt outstanding for the USA. The federal government brings in $2.1 Trillion in tax revenue and spends $3.5 Trillion, year after year.

Gross Domestic Product is around $14.3 Trillion now. So, tax receipts are about 14.7% of GDP. Got it?

Now, in order to balance the budget (remember, can't begin to reduce debt till that happens first), we would need to either raise taxes $1.4 Trillion raising it to 25% of GDP or slash government spending by $1.4 Trillion. Perhaps we split the difference. Just raise taxes $700Billion and slash spending $700Billion.

First, you would probably see GDP go down because it costs more to do business with higher taxes and you will never get the coveted $700Billion. Second, if you slash spending, where would you do it? Defense spending is about $660Billion, Social Security is around $759Billion, pensions are $190Billion....interest on the debt, alone, is $558Billion. Everywhere you look is a goiter the size of Canada.

But assume you were able, somehow, to accomplish it and balance the budget. Ok, now we can start to look at reducing debt. But wait, we just discovered that, in addition to owing $12.4 Trillion in bonds, we apparently have robbed all the payroll tax revenue, year after year, from social security, medicare, medicaid, prescription drug benefits, to the tune of $107 Trillion in "IOU's". Once more, it appears we also forgot to mention that the FHA and GSE losses on mortgages is about $6 Trillion. Total real debt owed is not $12.4 Trillion but more to the tune of $125.4 Trillion. We only make around $14.3 Trillion a year in income. If we taxed 100% of GDP, we would be able to pay off the debt in 8.77 years. Of course, that's insane. It's sort of like asking someone to not eat for 12 years in order to pay off a VISA card.

Maybe we just scratch all future social security, medicare, medicaid and prescription drug benefits for everyone....say "I'm sorry" and start over? Assuming that was palatable, it would mean losing $107 Trillion in payroll taxes from employed, legal workers for a lengthy period of time. If we are willing to part with all that money and forgo all the benefits, then we'd be able to eliminate the $107 Trillion. We could also eliminate the bond debt too...since $7.5 Trillion is owed to other countries, we'd tell them to take a hike. Since $1.5 Trillion is owed to people who invested in bonds through an IRA or mutual fund, they'd have to write off all that money as a loss, since it won't ever be redeemed. The Fed owns the rest, which is sort of like Fantasy Land and so we will leave that alone for now. Could we get away with that? Hardly.

So, what do we do? Maybe we play games with our currency. Get the dollar to tank so that our debt is worth far less tomorrow than it is today, then we could pay it off easier. But in order to do that, we'd cause prices of all goods and services imported to us...cars, toys, picture frames, watches, etc, to go way up in price. Wages would have to go up to in order to keep up, but in the mix, we end up getting back into serious deficits because taxable income would keep going down and although we'd have cheaper debt, we'd have a bigger hole to jump out of due to inflation.

Maybe we elect all Republicans in the fall and then take the White House in 2012. Ok, fine, but we already did that and spending, deficits and debt, along with robbing from social security, medicare, medicaid, etc., still happened, even if on a smaller scale than with Democrats...so, history shows that Republicans won't answer this problem.

Yeah, but maybe there could be a reformation and we could send a new breed of people to DC in order to fix this mess, unlike all the other times before. Well, if the USA had no stomach to finish Iraq, and that was far away, brought to us by 24 news channel reporting, how much of a stomach will the USA have to do what I mentioned above? We expect climate control, water you don't have to boil in order to drink, plenty of staples at the grocery stores, lots of pharmacies, doctor's offices, hospitals with machines that go 'ping' and lots of entertainment.

What we are seeing in Greece, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Ukraine, Japan are all the same stories...governments that have continually spend FAR beyond the means of both tax revenue and borrowing capacity. This whole cycle began about 100 years ago as a means to move onward and upward, improving the lives of citizens around the world, and has ended up with global insolvency.

The fact is...as distasteful as it is....we have no answers to our problems. All the capital has been spent and leveraged, far beyond the remaining capital's value. The way I see it, hitting a 'reset' button is about the only avenue left. But that will rock the world in ways we've probably never read about throughout recorded history. All government bonds, derivatives would just have to get written off. Balance sheets all over the world would tank, barring more squirrely accounting FASB rules. It would catapult governments and economies into chaos and world stability would go away for a while. The 'reset' button's bright side would be betting on something good happening once the dust settles.

What I am getting at is that the world you were born into and grew up in is passing away rather quickly. It still looks the same and seems to keep humming like it always has. But just like ENRON, GM or any other business that is in serious trouble, there comes a time when you are out of cards and run to the authorities to seek protection. The difference here being, the authorities themselves are in need of protection, when none exist.

My guess is when the 'reset' button is pressed, the other side of it will probably require a third Humanist Manifesto, since the first two were dismally Pollyannish, if we're fortunate to be thinking about, let alone, writing any kind of manifesto on the other side of this. "The ways of man seem right to him, but the Lord sees the heart." Everything will be alright. However, it won't be because of economic stability, a new provisional government or another computer revolution.

Although I am a screw up, with plenty of mistakes littered through out my life, I have one thing going for me. I am beloved by Jesus Christ, saved by Him and promised to never be abandoned and also promised to inherit an unmovable Kingdom. That may sound Pollyannish to many of you, and I can understand that. I just would hope you would consider the fact that there's no way anyone could read this note and call me Pollyannish, without impugning their sanity :-) I believe I am a realist, and the Kingdom is as real as you can get. If I look back in time, from the time Christ started His church until now, I see kings and kingdoms come and go, with His Kingdom growing and growing. I have His Word and that history to help me stand on something firm in a world where very little, if anything, is firm these days. He suffered and died so that idiots like me could approach God with confidence and simply be loved into the type of person I was always intended to be. Hard pressed to find another alternative to that, to be honest.

In a world about to get shook like a can of paint, I implore you to get on the Rock and stand firm on His unmovable Kingdom. The only thing required is to accept the way Jesus provided, with empty hands. He's done all the rest. I know, many of you think this is nuts. But I've just about tried and thought about every other way. And as for reputation, I have little to lose and everything to gain. Take that for whatever its worth. If I didn't give a rip, I wouldn't bother.