Many would argue that an understanding of Christian doctrine has no place in a free democratic society.   But those who founded this nation would almost unanimously disagree.President John Adams stated very clearly that, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

President George Washington said that, “religion and morality are indispensable supports” of our government.

We live in a culture that is becoming increasingly immoral.  But our form of government was designed to function only if the majority of the people have strong moral standards.  As immorality increases, freedom must decrease.  A people can only be as free as their common moral consensus allows them to maintain.

A recent example of this can be seen in the history of the Soviet Union .  The communist government conquered and controlled a variety of ethnic and religious groups such as Bosnia and Chechnya .  These people hated each other and wished to kill the other.  But the communist regime took away their weapons and their freedom so that they were not allowed to act upon the evil in their hearts.  After the fall of communism in Russia , these ethnic groups armed themselves and went to war.  The United Nations, and primarily the United States , then intervened and re-imposed control.  Since there is no moral base for civility, self-government is not possible.

If men do not choose to control their own evil desires, or ask God to help control them, then government is forced to eliminate freedom for the safety of the populace.

I taught political science at the college level for a number of years.  One of the lessons I used with my students was to find out what freedoms they would give up to obtain safety.  For example, if terrorists took a school building full of children hostage would you give up the right to vote in the next election in order to get your child back?  Of course you would.

Would you give up your freedom to work and live wherever you wish in order to get your child back?  Certainly.  Would you give up freedom of speech or freedom of assembly?  The answer to all of these is obviously yes.

The point of the lesson was that these freedoms are only available to a society that has a strong moral base.  If anarchy and lawlessness are commonplace, such as we are now seeing in Iraq , it is impossible to have a truly free society.

The ramifications of this truth for the United States are sobering.  Can we maintain the right to bear arms if the people who have guns can’t be trusted?  Can we maintain the right to privacy if large numbers of terrorists are using that freedom to plot mass murder?

As President Adams said, our freedoms only work when the people are a moral people.  Absent a widespread revival and return to God, these freedoms will have to be gradually curtailed in order to maintain public safety.

Tragedies such as the shooting at Virginia Tech are sobering.  There is something about the senselessness of the event that our minds cannot reconcile.Images of wounded teenagers and shocked, mourning relatives become engraved upon our consciousness.  Why?  How?  Could it have been prevented?  Is there someone to blame?  These are the questions that we struggle with.

Within hours of the shooting, gun control advocates were calling for stricter gun laws and gun owner lobbyists were proclaiming that gun laws don’t work.  Teachers were talking about the obvious emotional problems of the gunman and college officials were subjected to extreme public scrutiny for every decision they had made about security.

Many were reminded of September 11, 2001, the last time our nation was shocked by a mass killing.  Though this event is smaller in terms of lives lost, the emotions and fears can be very similar.

The root cause of the Virginia Tech tragedy was not lax security or gun control laws.  The Bible teaches us that all evil behavior is caused by man’s penchant for evil.  “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).”

British author G.K. Chesterton noted that, in terms of empirical evidence, “the doctrine of original sin is the only one that can be proved.”  He continued in his classic work Orthodoxy that the hope of mankind lies in the fact that we have sinned but we can be forgiven.

But European and American societies have invented creative new ways to explain away the evidence of sin and evil.  The most common is modern psychology.   Psychology in its many forms can explain away even the most heinous events as a mental illness or disorder.

Norway is already treating all criminals as mentally ill.  The ramifications of this worldview upon our society are devastating.  No one is held truly responsible for their actions when this mis-belief is taken to its logical conclusion.

The shooter of the Virginia Tech massacre was known to be a dark and despondent individual.  No doubt he was depressed and suffered from severe mental and emotional anguish.  But does that excuse the act of murdering 33 people?  Are we going to re-evaluate history and declare Hitler and Genghis Khan innocent because they needed anti-depressants?

Admittedly, psychology has helped ease the suffering of many people and for that we are thankful.  But it cannot be allowed to explain away the obvious existence of sin and evil in our world.  The scripture is clear that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).”

Next week this column will quote some of the statements of America ’s founding fathers.  They understood the importance of holding men accountable for their actions.

The Virginia Tech shooting was a horrible tragedy.  It was perpetrated by a young man filled with sin and bent to do evil.

Most of us have double standards in our lives.  We don’t try to be hypocrites, but life is so complex that it’s virtually impossible to be consistently right in every situation all the time.

As a country, America has many double standards.  One of those glaring inconsistencies has been in the news this week.  Radio shock jock Don Imus used racial epitaphs in a comedy routine.  The reaction to an older white man calling young black girls “hoes” was immediate and strong.  Good.  It’s past time that Americans stood up and said “enough!”

Mr. Imus has been suspended from his job for a couple of weeks.   If this were representative of a shift in cultural thinking it would indeed be a very bright day for our nation.  But the double standard screams at us through our radios and music channels because rap and hip hop artists have been saying these things and much worse for decades.

Why is it acceptable for young black men to degrade and insult young black women but totally unacceptable for older white men to say the same thing?  The answer is that it’s totally wrong for anyone to speak evil and degrading things of this nature.  If this controversy grows into a backlash against the shameful messages in rap music, it will be a great blessing to the young people of our culture.

But that probably won’t happen.  This will likely fade away with the next news cycle and our culture will go back to its steady downward spiral into amorality.

There are several biblical truths that come into play here.  Jesus said “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  When words such as this come out of a person’s mouth, it is indicative of sin in the heart.   Racism is simply pride projected upon someone we feel superior to.  Pride was the original sin of Lucifer (Isaiah 14:13-14) and we humans have struggled with it ever since.

Jesus also told us we would give account in the Day of Judgment for every idle, or careless, word that we speak (Matthew 12:36).  On the one hand that gives me some comfort when I think of rap artists and shock jocks who seem to be able to demean and belittle others with impunity.  But on the other hand, it makes me tremble because I know that I am not without sin.

That last thought causes many Christians to keep silent about evil around us.  “Who am I to judge?” they say, “I have my own struggles to deal with.”  That sounds very noble but the result is a world with no moral voice to guide it.

It is possible to condemn sin, but do it in an attitude of humility.  It is equally possible to hate the sin but love the sinner; which means that we Christians should condemn what Don Imus and the rap artists say, but we should not condemn them as persons.  Ultimate judgment belongs only to God.

Yes, in some ways all of us are guilty of double standards.  But that does not relieve us of the responsibility of being salt and light in the world.  To paraphrase Jesus words, if we stop doing that, this world will be in even bigger trouble than it already is.

Pastor Steven G. Dyer

There will be a very large celebration this Sunday. One billion Christians around the world will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Chinese Christians will meet secretly and quietly thank God for His son. African Christians will dance in brightly colored costumes accompanied by loud drums, Catholics will observe elaborate Masses with great pageantry, South American Pentecostals will shout and speak in tongues, European Protestants will sing century’s old hymns, and American churches will re-enact Passion Plays and sing contemporary choruses about new life in Christ.

Though the celebrations will be very different in nature, they will all be celebrating the same event, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on an April Sunday morning about the year 30 A. D.

Christianity is the only religion in the world based solely upon a miraculous event. Many other religions contain stories of miracles; Muhammad is said to have been taken up into heaven from the temple mound in Jerusalem , Judaism speaks of the parting of the Red Sea and manna from heaven, and almost all tribal religious beliefs contain miraculous stories and belief in the supernatural.

But these religious systems would continue to stand if the miracles were removed because the heart of their teaching is a moral code and a worldview. Christianity contains a moral code and a worldview but they are secondary to the founding fact of our faith; Jesus Christ rose from the dead on His own power to prove He was the Son of God.

If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is ever proven untrue, Christianity will cease to exist.

The opponents of Christianity have understood this from the first morning the tomb was found empty. That began a 2000 year campaign to disprove the resurrection of Christ. The Pharisees bribed the Roman soldiers to say Jesus’ body was stolen while the soldiers slept (Matthew 28:11-15).

The succeeding centuries have produced numerous other theories claiming to refute the resurrection of Christ. There was the Swoon Theory that said Jesus only appeared dead but had really just fainted. The Theft Theory begun by the Pharisees actually remained popular among Jews in Palestine for several hundred years. Then there was the Hallucination Theory that said all of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were hallucinations.

Perhaps most amusing of all was the Wrong Tomb Theory that postulated Mary Magdalene and the other women were so dingy they went to the wrong tomb on Sunday morning. A detailed explanation and refutation of each of these can be found in Josh McDowell’s classic book Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

In recent years, as America has become more secularized, we have developed a new holiday tradition. Each Christmas and Easter, the press publishes a new theory or discovery that claims to refute Christianity.

This year it came from James Cameron, the director of the movie Titanic. Cameron began appearing on the talk shows and cable news programs about a month before Easter claiming his new documentary entitled “The Lost Tomb of Christ” would “blow the lid off Christianity.” The documentary showed small caskets unearthed in Jerusalem a few years ago and claimed they belonged to Jesus and his family. The show aired last week and landed with a dull thud.

It was no coincidence that the resurrection of Christ occurred at the beginning of spring when trees and flowers are springing back to life. When the birds begin to sing and the baby calves are bouncing through the meadows, we Christians see God’s reminders of new life all around us.

I close with the traditional Russian Orthodox chant; “He is risen. He is risen indeed!”