"People for the American Way"

Fighting God for All They're Worth

by the Editor
A. few weeks ago Bob Miller, of our church, called me to tell me a meeting was
being advertised for that next Friday in a United Church of Christ just a few miles
from my house, at which the featured speaker was to be John Buchanan, President
of People for the American Way (PAW). Knowing that PAW, the organization
started by television producer, Norman Lear, would be dispensing the anti-God,' anti-
religious swill for which they are best known, and since the meeting was open to
the public, and a question and answer period was promised, we figured it would be
good to have some of our people there to represent a godly, biblical point-of-view.
I arrived at just about the announced time for the registration to begin. When I
observed only about five cars in the parking lot, including Joe Morecraft's station
wagon, I began to suspect that this would not be the large, packed out crowd I had
envisioned. Soon Bob Miller and Dick Carlson arrived, and then Tom Unterwagner
and Hank St. Denis. As it turned out there were a total of about 24 people in
attendance, including the three speakers, the pastor of the church and the two women
who "manned" the registration table. Thus Chalcedon members made up fully
twenty-five percent of the total participating. It was encouraging, frankly, to see
that so few carne out to support PAW's ungodly agenda, even after they obviously
spent a good deal of money advertising. the meeting all over the greater Atlanta area.
John Buchanan was late, but the program finally got started. Mr. Buchanan began
by introducing and showing a video dealing with the Hawkins County, Tennessee
text book case in federal court in Greeneville, Tennessee in 1986. The video was
produced by PAW and was narrated by John Buchanan hirnself . .It characteriZed Vicki
Frost and the other plaintiffs in the case as "extremists," and made no bones about
the fact that, in the opinion of PAW, if this case were ultirnateiy won by the
plaintiffs, if would spell the ruination of quality education in the United States. I
didn't get the opportunity to tell the group that I attended the trial and knew Vicki
Frost and some of the other plaintiffs, and that they are not nearly the "extremists"
PAW would have people think they are.
It turns out that John Buchanan is an.ordained Southern Baptist minister from
Birmingham, Alabama, who spent 16 years in Congress before being defeated, in
1980, I believe he said, through the efforts of the Moral Majority and the "religious
right." We discovered, on the Sunday after this meeting, that one couple in our
church, who have been members at Chalcedon since the early years, used to live in
Birmingham and had supported the "Rev." John Buchanan when he originally went
to Congress. Back then he made something of his Christian views and appeared to
be one who intended tp apply biblical principles in his civic duties as a legislator.
Now, however, "Rev." Buchanan appears to have clearly life to fight-
ing against God. He epitomizes the truths expressed in the titles of two books by
R.J. Rushdoony. The firSt is Intellectual Schizdphrenia. "Rev." Buchanan, on the
one hand, not only professes to be a Christian but has been an ordained minister in
a [historically] Bible-believing Christian denomination, but on the other hand he is
fighting, tooth and toe-nail, to keep God out of the educational process in this
country. As a Christian, presumably, (or supposedly) he has submitted his life tb
the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the King of kings and the Lord oflords, the sovereign
creator of the universe and ruler of the nations. When one, who believes thus, then
fights to uphold an educational system in which God and His truth are deliberately
to be excluded, schizophrenia is probably the mildest of his characteristics.
"Rev." Buchanan, in his comments, mentioned more than once that public
education is the one chance most young people have for success in this country.
Page2 -----------------------------------------------------
The Counsel of Chalcedon, August, 1988 '
Rather than believing, as any Christian should [must], that there is hope, salvation,
meaning and true prosperity in Christ alone, and that it is only .Christ "in whom are
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3), John Buchanan
believes in, as the title of Rushdoony's book declares, The Messianic Character of
American Education. (See Colossians 1:13-23, etc.) One would think that, even
without regard to principle and theology, the bankruptcy of humanistic, public,
statist education in the past century, and especially today, would have caused even
ungodly pagans, much more professed Bible-believing Christians, to have dis-
possessed themselves of any notions of a messianic nature in regard to public educa-
tion.
It was interesting that, of the three speakers participating in the PAW meeting
that day a few weeks ago, the only one who made anything of his "religious" views
was "Rev." John Buchanan, the Baptist "minister," and he was by far and away the
most hostile toward Christian views in relation to public education. Of the other
speakers, one was an attorney, who, I did not know until nearly half-way through his
comments, was Jewish. But he showed no hostility toward Christianity, even
though he clearly felt it was inappropriate to force Christian views or practices on
students in public schools. The third gentleman was a man with a high position in
the Cobb County school system [Cobb is the county in which Joe Morecraft and I
do not send our children to public schools]. This man was a nice looking, soft-
spoken gentleman who informed us -rather matter-of-factly that the Cobb County
school system has a "secular" purpose. In other words, it is an inherent part of the
definition of public schools that they shall be "non-religious." They profess to make
a decided, concerted and effectual effort to exclude any religious truth from the educa-
tional process. A comment and question from Joe Morecraft pointed out that
nothing, much less education, can be neutral in terms of religion, or God. Obviously
in a universe created by God and governed by Bis wise and sovereign providence,
God may not be excluded, without significant negative consequences. From God's
point-of-view we may not ignore Him and His truth, because that displeases Him.
From man's point-of-view it is suicidal to ignore God in the educational process
because nothing can be known, truly, apart from God in Christ, and man can get
nowhere, in any meaningful sense, without God, through Christ. But the point I was
making, when I began this paragraph, is that this Cobb County Schools official,
while secular in his thinking, never made so much as a comment that could be
construed as hostile toward biblical Christianity. In fact, we never learned one thing
about his personal views, whether atheist or Reformed Presbyterian, or anything in
between. The only hostility came from the one who is, even now, interim pastor at
some Baptist church in Alabama.
Something of the ridiculous situation one gets into when one suffers from schizo-
phrenia in this area, was seen when this man from Cobb County Schools inadvertent-
ly began a sentence with, "Thank God ..... " and caught himself mid-sentence. He
quickly said, as an aside, "Don't take that in a religious sense!" When things get to
where there is a place in this world where God's highest creation, man, made in His
image, cannot thank God, or where thanking God is not a religious act, then I hardly
need point out the seriously low level to which we have sunk.
It is a shame, to say the least, that one can enter a building, outside of which is a
sign with the word "Church" on it, and even the word "Christ" on it, and inside the
building an ostensibly Bible-believing Christian minister is dedicating his life and
his very breath to fighting to keep God out of the classroom in America. At one
point Buchanan said, "You can't really keep God out of the classroom. My God is
omniscient . . . . . . What is it? Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He's
everywhere." I suppose he feels the same way about Church, when he is preaching.
<Since God is there anyway, why mention his Name, or speak of His truth, or
.Proclaim His Word?! It is amazing the lengths to which people will go, and the
logic they will employ, to prevent God's truth from influencing the minds of men
and women, boys and girls. (Continued on the next page)
The Counsel of Chalcedon, August, 1988 ------------------------------------------------------Page3
The question I woold like to have
asked "Rev." Buchanan, had the time
not run out before I overcame my shy-
ness, wa$; "Why do we really need pub-
lic education in this country, except to
inaintain jobs for a large number of
teachers and olber employees?" The
trulb is th.at God did not prdain edqca-
tion as a function of civil government.
Moreover, we do not need statist edUca-
tion, as private schools in a free-JTIJ11ket
system would, based on supPly and de-
mand, not only provide an education for
anyone wanting to avail hiinself of
such, but it would, no be of
much bigher quality than the bankrupt
humanistic system we now have.
There is a son of messianic character
to socialistic thinking, which leads its
adherents to believe that only "the gov-
enuneot" can guarantee !bat anything
necessary or significant will effectually
take place. They would doubtless be-
lieve that if public education were dis-
banded altogether, there would be thou-
sands, yea, millions, in this country
who would not get an educatiOD. Well,
first of all, there are millions who are
notreally getting ah education now,.so
that alone should dispel the myth of the
messianic character of socialism. And it
should be obvious to any observer with
good sense !hat this government hasn't
the abiliti to effectually provide a real
or quality education, cenainly not wider
the philosophy wliicb has been fol-
lowed since the beginning of statist pub-
lic education in this country.
Secondly, this iiigument fails in
other realms. Surely, under this kind of
thinking, only the government can effec-
tually guarantee that all citizens of the
nation have adequate food supplies avail-
able to them. Yet our supermarlrets and
restaurants operate in a free-mar.lret sys-
tem, wii)Jou.t government control, and
Americans today eat better than any
society in bistory. If thar which is ab-
solutely essential to keep each of us
alive from day to day can be operated
other than by complete governmem con-
trol, then what reason is there to be-
lieve that education, and a quality one at
that, would not be provided apan from
government control?
People for the American. Way
(PAW), and others in this country, ate .
fighting against God, but we know that
they are fighting a losing battle. Their
fighting shall not last into eternity,
and, we know, because we have reason
to believe it from God's Word, that
their fighting wiil not last even In this
age in which we now live. One day "the
knowledge of the Lord shall cover lbe
eartb as the waters cover the sea," and ,it
shall deflnitely not be helped along by
humanistic pulilic education. That sys-
tem will have long sense been extir-
pated from the face of the earth, to the
ignol)liniOils oblivion it deserves, to
the glory of Almighty God arid to the
ptaise of His glorious Son, Jesus
oar Lord
[In connection with this whole sub-
ject of public education, there are sev-
eral imponant books which you ought
to read, if you haveo't done so already.
Two books by Samuel L. Blwnenfeld
give a brilliant expose of public educa-
tion in this country. These books :are
must reading fpr anyone interested in
learning the truth i:n this area. Js
Public EduCIUWn NeceSSIU)I? and
N .E.A. Trojan Horse in Ameri-
can Education, both available from
us for a $30.00 donation, tal:h. You
should also have three books by R.J.
Rushdoony, and these are also available
for donations to The Counsel of Chalce-
don. The Messianic of
AmeriCan Education is available
for a $25.00 donation; lnteUecltull
Schizophrenia, available for a
$15.00 donation <ilm including a sub-
scription or renewal); and The Philo-
sophy of the Christian Cunicu-
lwn, available for a $30.00 donatiOD.]
. Important notice!
Annual subscription fee for
The Counsel ojChalcedon
increased to $25.00
Old rille still good tbrougb AuguSt for readers of tbis notice
Readers will notice from tbe cover as well as from the information in tbe
left hand coliuno of page 2 of this issue, ihat the annual subscription fee for
The CoUIISel of Chalcedon has been increased to $25.00. We have not increased
the rate for a number of years, but our present needs, increases in ptinting cos!S
and postage rates, as as the size lllld quality of the JTIJlgaz.ine have
necessitated this increase. The new rate is still low when compared to the rate
required by many magazines and newsletters today.

you may still subscribe 0r renew, for one or two years, at $15.00 per year,
if your check is received by August 31, 1988. If you recenf.ly renewed,
you may send $30.00, far example, before September lsi, and extend your
subscription for two yem, thus beating the increase for nearly three years.
(Foreign subscriptions go up inunediately to $25.00 for surface mail
plus $2S.OO if air mail is desired.)
The Counsel of Chalcedon
3032 Hacienda Court
Marietta, Georgia 30066

The CounS<l of Chotcedon, August, 1988 _)