V RaptureChrist Newsletter
February 1, 2004

Our nation is experiencing difficult days- with a war abroad, and strife at home, shall we look back on a different time when the United States began?

It was in the fall of September 16, 1620 that a group of 102 pilgrims seeking religious freedom sailed from Plymouth, England to America on a tiny wooden boat called the Mayflower.

Due to a raging storm the Mayflower was blown off course from its designated landing zone in Virginia and after a two month voyage the ship made landfall at Cape Cod on November 11.

Some other groups would follow, the Puritans, Quakers, and others.  The "Great Migration" of British people was inspired by a steady deterioration of religious liberty in England.

While we are told stories of how the local Patuxets indian tribe helped the Pilgrims by giving them corn and beans, little is taught in schools about how it was constant religious persecution that forced the pilgrims to leave their country and come to the New World.

It is this issue that we wish to address.
Why is it that we are told only half the story?

Our story begins in the early 1600's when the English government began persecuting religious minorities. In 1607 about 100 members of the Scrooby separatists left their homes in England for Holland... secretly, because it was against the law to leave England.

They went to Amsterdam where laws were less strict and they could practice their religion, but they soon had trouble from other Englishmen, so they left to Leyden, Holland where they lived for ten years.

Catholic Spain was preparing to invade Holland and the Pilgrims remembered what happened during the Spanish Inquisition to Holland in the 1570's. The Catholics killed and tortured those who would not convert to their beliefs, mainly Protestants and Jews.  The Pilgrims knew they would be among the first targets, so they took a gamble and risked their lives to go to the New World.

King James I died in 1625 and was succeeded by his son, Charles I, who had married Henrietta, a Catholic. All those who did not convert to Catholicism were persecuted.  Protestants and Jews were imprisoned and tortured for their beliefs. 

The history and birth of America is based on the pursuit of religious freedom.  Many other types of freedom have since been sought. Women's rights, rights for minorities, such as blacks, along with equal representation of all groups.  Now Gays are seeking their "rights."  Rights for marriage and adoption of children. Rights to express their behaviors publicly.  And religion, with its views against these things, is discriminating against them.  God's commandments are now being perceived as discriminatory and "hateful."  It is not politically correct to express dissent or concern over children of unwed mothers, Jews marrying non-Jews, or Gay "rights."  And it is with the pursuit of these "rights" that Americans are losing their religious freedom.

Once it was legal for children to pray in school, but the government decided in the 1950's to ban public prayer and reading of the bible in school.

Later the government extended the ban to all public property, making creché displays of baby Jesus and his Mother Mary illegal. Finally, in 2003 the government made displaying the Ten Commandments in front of the Alabama Court House illegal.

Certain organizations like the ACLU have fought hard to dechristianize America.  Their goal is to create a secular country where people are not exposed to religious symbols.

But they did not stop there. They are fighting to extricate any mention of Christianity from our history books, using separation of church and state as their rationale.  They want Christ to be erased from existence.

However, devils and witches on Halloween are OK.  Harry Potter books are fine, but Christian books are not fine. And any teacher that makes mention of Christ will be fired.

Not only do schools prohibit teachers from mentioning God, Jesus, or the bible, they prohibit them the teaching of creationism.  Children are taught evolution as if it were a fact, not a theory.

Your tax money is being used to teach children lies, but no one is allowed to even  question the scientific validity of these "facts".

In 1968 the Supreme Court made it illegal to restrict the teaching of evolution:

"The United States Supreme Court has determined that it is unconstitutional to restrict an educator's right to teach evolution." Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968). 

In 1987, the Supreme Court made teaching of Creationism illegal:

"Educators may not teach, as fact, the theory that humankind was created by a divine being. In science classes, educators must present only scientific explanations for life on earth and scientific critiques of evolution. Furthermore, schools may not refuse to teach evolution in an effort to avoid offending religious individuals. The United States Supreme Court has held that it is unconstitutional to require educators who teach evolution also to teach creationism." Aguillard v. Edwards, 765 F.2d 1251 (5th Cir.), aff'd 482 U.S. 595 (1987).

We live in an age where truth cannot be spoken.

This year Mel Gibson was forced to change his film "The Passion of Christ" because it was deemed  to be anti-Semitic.  

Currently, the US government is working to censor what can be said from the pulpit with "Hate Speech" laws.  For example, any condemnation of homosexual behavior is illegal.

Not content to ban Christ from our schools, the government now censors what can be said from our pulpits.