I thought that just this once, the religious right would keep its collective trap shut about a national tragedy. No such luck. In the space of 24 hours, three major religious right figures have blamed the shooting in Aurora, Colorado on the librul war on God-fearing Christians.
First up was Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries--the former media ministry of longtime religious right poohbah D. James Kennedy, which broke off from Kennedy's church after his death and is now based in Minnesota. In a column for OneNewsNow, Newcombe suggested the shooting may have happened because Americans no longer fear hell.
Tens of millions of young people in this culture seem to have no fear of God. It's becoming too commonplace that some frustrated person will go on a killing spree of random people. If they kill themselves, they think it's all over. But that's like going from the frying pan into the fire. Where's the fear of God in our society? I don't think people would do those sorts of things if they truly understood the reality of Hell.
I'll never forget what an Alabama black pastor said to me one time when I interviewed him about Judge Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments judge. He said: "All across America people should stand with Judge Moore about the Ten Commandments. Why? Because when they took prayer out of school, you didn't hear about kids killing each other, about them bringing dope to school, shooting the teachers, you didn't hear about that. You see what I'm saying? That's what's wrong. We need more God-fearing."
Newcombe doubled down a few hours later when he appeared on
AFA Today, telling American Family Association news director Fred Jackson that
the shooting is proof God has removed his hand of protection from this nation. Jackson himself claimed that the librul media and libruls in the pulpits have eroded our morals and created an environment for these shootings.
Bryan Fischer got into the act, saying that this was yet another reason why we need to reinstitute mandatory prayer in public schools.
The quote that serves as the title of this column was spoken by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who had witnessed the horrible and devastating consequences in the life of a nation that had turned its back on God.
What will it take for us as a nation to heed Solzhenitsyn's counsel and turn back to God? How many more mindless massacres like the one that took place last night in Aurora, Colorado will it take before we tell the ACLU and the Supreme Court to take a hike and we get back to unapologetically and publicly trusting in God?
Fischer then went on to quote David Barton's book, "To Pray or Not to Pray," which spouts the standard religious right line that the lack of prayer in schools directly led to a spike in school violence and a drop in SAT scores.
But by far the looniest statement I've seen so far comes from Operation Save America leader and convicted stalker Flip Benham, who blames the shooting on the Democratic Party.
This is what has happened to our country when we remove God from the equation. We have stolen the fear of God from our children, Violence always fills the void. This is the spawn of the ideology of the Democratic Party and now we look at each other in awkward amazement, wondering "what in the world just happened?" The answer is we have stolen God from the hearts of our children.
On a day when virtually everyone agreed that politics needed to be on the backburner, the religious right sees fit to stir the pot. I know they have a right to be wrong--but do they have to be wrong now?