OCPAC Archives: February 2025

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

MID WEEK ALERT: STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING

Published Wednesday, February 26, 2025

OKLAHOMA BOARD of EDUCATION

TOMORROW MORNING

Seating for all begins 9 AM

Meeting Begins 9:30 AM

Topics:

Board will vote on both the

Social Studies and the Science Standards

If approved, the standards will go

to the legislature for final approval.

2500 N. Lincoln Boulevard

North of the State Capitol Building

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Monday, February 24, 2025

America's Civic Religion

Published Monday, February 24, 2025

NEXT MEETING MEETING 2025

March 5, 2025

Featuring:

COUNTERING GENDER IDEOLOGY

Dr. Lauren Schwartz

and special guest John O'Connor

SEE DETAILS BELOW.

Send this newsletter to a friend here.

BOB LINN

America's Civil Religion

Last week, grim news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) told the world that Islamic terrorists beheaded 70 Christians who had been rounded up and forced inside their church where they were then murdered.

Watch the story on video here.

Surveys tell us that the people of the DRC are well over 90% Christian. In spite of this, the nation has never known political stability. Its military is known for its savage treatment of women and politically active women are sent to prison where they are raped and subjected to sexual violence.

In this sense, the nation is reflective of China, a people unwillingly ruled by an elite few narcissistic sociopaths. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have no interest in the welfare of the Chinese people. The people of Congo need better government.

The moral poverty of both the DNC and the CCP governments underline the importance of a Christian conscience in matters of state. It was the Christian perspectives of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison whose religious devotions were far from the deism of which they are often accused. Their Christian perspectives continue to influence the way American government works.

American academia has sought to rewrite American

history in order to present it as a secular experiment.

The election of Donald Trump will do much damage to the revolution of the political left. However, the secularists are well entrenched in academia and will continue to push for a secular society.

If we don’t want to descend into the chaos

of the Congo or the darkness of

China, we need to push back.

We must understand and appreciate what

it is that has made America

so exceptional.

Both Jefferson and Madison were devout students of Scripture and believed that Christianity was the best model for good government. For Jefferson, Christianity was the superior of all religions.

Madison was a “new light” Presbyterian. “New light” Presbyterians believed that personal salvation and personal piety were as necessary as were the tenants of the more complex Calvinistic Reformed training James Madison received (and loved) at Princeton. (Princeton was the "new light" Presbyterian College.)

Theologically, Jefferson was a bit scattered. He was mostly a Unitarian who considered himself a devout follower of the teachings of Christ, but did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.

However, Jefferson did believe that the nation’s past was made possible by the active hand of God. He also spoke of the nation's need to look to God for guidance for the future.

Madison was thoroughly orthodox and could have been a fire-breathing Presbyterian preacher.

Both advocated for religious freedom

but also for an America based

on a religious foundation.

Martin Marty, acclaimed author of the Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, spoke of America’s Christianity as the underpinning of what he called America’s less theologically specific, less theologically detailed, “civil religion.”

Marty spoke of the role of “civil religion” as the “ordering faith” of American government and American culture. (Dr. Marty’s academic career is legendary. He was recipient of multiple prestigious awards, 80 honorary doctorates, and much more.)

Dr. Marty (a Lutheran) introduced to American religious study the “ordering faith” of the nation, society, and its culture.

He saw the “saving faith” of the individual as the work of God through the church as that which makes possible the less doctrinally specific faith of the nation who looks to God for the guidance and protection of the “ship of state”.

The purpose of the former, he writes, is to:

save souls, make sad hearts glad, give people wholeness, provide them with the kind of identity and sense of belonging they crave . . . [and so on].

God in the White House author, Richard Hutcheson, Jr, explains that the ordering faith of Marty’s civil religion depends on a society in which saving faith is a ubiquitous element of society. While the institutions of church and state are unconnected administratively, public virtue is the lifeblood of the state. It comes only through the cultural integration of religion and society.

And, most importantly, it is something

that every U.S. President has acknowledged.

Harvard summa cum laude graduate, Robert Bellah has earned an international reputation for his work related to the sociology of religion. In his famed 1967 article titled, Civil religion in America, he writes that America’s identity has been always a Biblical one.

Even our founding Presidents, writes Bellah, have considered Europe was their Egypt and America their promised land. All with a vision to be a light to the nations.

Referring to the second inaugural speech of Thomas Jefferson, he reasons:

The idea of the “American Israel” is not infrequent. What was implicit in the words of George Washington becomes explicit in Jefferson’s second inaugural when he said, “I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life.”

The Continental Congress named Benjamin Franklin and two future Presidents (John Adams & Thomas Jefferson) to form a committee to design the nation’s seal.

In his book Emblems of American Community in the Revolutionary Era, author Lester Olson includes a handwritten note from Benjamin Franklin describing his proposed design:

Moses standing on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head and a sword in his hand . . .

Even one of America’s lesser spiritually devout Presidents, John F. Kennedy (JFK), in his inaugural address on January 20, 1961, spoke as if America’s mission was linked to God’s mission on the earth. When Kennedy said, “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God,” he is stressing that men have rights from a divine authority which transcends human governments.

Returning to Robert Bellah, he states in his 1967 article:

The religious dimension in political life as recognized by Kennedy provides a transcendent goal for the political process. This is implied in his final words that “here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

The whole address can be understood as restating a theme deep in the American tradition: the obligation, both collective and individual, to carry out God’s will on earth. This was the motivating spirit of those who founded America, and it has been present in every generation since. Just below the surface throughout Kennedy’s inaugural address, it becomes explicit in the closing statement that God’s work must be our own.

We must learn to see the world through the eyes of God if we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Providing a clear path for America’s youth is dependent of our own clarity of thought. The role of God’s people in the development of cultures, societies, and governments is not optional.

Isaiah promised God’s people a Son upon whose shoulders government would rest. His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the extent of His kingdom and His peace there will be no end. (Isaiah Chapter 2)

Governmental involvement is embedded in the DNA of the people of God.

_______________________

Thank you all for being a part of the

preservation of truth in our Oklahoma culture!

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LAST MEETING . . .

NATHAN DAHM

TRUMP INAUGURATION

THE FREEDOM CAUCUS

Watch the presentation here.

Watch the entire meeting here.

GLORIA BANISTER INTRODUCES VIPS

OUR PRESIDENT SPEAKS

COMING MARCH 5, 2025

ON THE CUTTING EDGE

MODERN SCIENCE

DEBUNKING GENDER IDEOLOGY

DR. LAUREN SCHWARTZ

Dr. Schwartz has been playing a key role nationally in the work being done to expose the false claims of the gender movement.

_________________

SPECIAL GUEST

JOHN O'CONNOR

St. Isadore Schools and the U.S. Supreme Court

52 Days of Prayer

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Monday, February 17, 2025

Stitt v Walters mirrors the nation's political squabble of 1798

Published Monday, February 17, 2025

NEXT MEETING MEETING 2025

March 5, 2025

Featuring:

COUNTERING GENDER IDEOLOGY

Dr. Lauren Schwartz

SEE DETAILS BELOW.

Send this newsletter to a friend here.

BOB LINN

The Political Course Correction of 1798

State Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, and the rest of the political left in Oklahoma, are using the rift between the Governor and State Education Superintendent as a political heyday.

High-profile and very public

political rifts are not new.

When President John Adams lent his support to the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, a tsunami of not-so-nice things were said in a very public way. The acts of 1798 expanded the executive powers of John Adams and limited free speech.

Adams used the act to silence his political detractors. Adams’s outspoken critics, including Vermont's U.S. Congressman, Matthew Lyon, were sent to prison. For expressing their political opinion! In America!

Find a few of these stories here.

In the opinion of both Vice President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State, James Madison, these acts violated the U.S. Constitution. In Madison’s mind, they reflected the arrogance and sin of President John Adams.

Syracuse University’s professor Ralph Ketcham wrote that the act was passed by the U.S. Senate and House after an editorial by Benjamin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora (aka the Aurora General Advisor), criticized the administration and spoke of Adams as old, querulous, bald, blind, crippled, toothless . . .

Find it in his book James Madison here.

Dr. Garrett Ward Sheldon of Princeton fame lets us know that the verbal fireworks of 1798 were launched not just from the Philadelphia newspaper, but from Secretary of State (and future President) James Madison himself.

Sheldon writes:

President John Adams was the quintessential sinner, in Madison’s eyes. He was proud, vain, overly sensitive to slights, constantly seeking praise, and harsh toward his critics. Madison observed Adams’s “pompous vanity,” which soon displayed itself in “a sense of ambition” and “violent passions,” and he found the president’s speeches “abominable and degrading,” leading to “artful and wicked” schemes.

When compared to the rhetoric of these three men, all of whom would serve as U.S. Presidents, the political sparks we heard last week in Oklahoma are quite tame.

In response to the Alien and Sedition acts, Jefferson and Madison crafted the Resolutions of Kentucky (Jefferson) and the Resolutions of Virginia (Madison).

Madison represented, with Jefferson, the classical republican (states rights) end of the political spectrum. Adams, a Federalist, represented the opposition party, the party currently in power in 1798.

Madison’s arguments were central not only to the defeat of the Alien and Sedition Acts, but to a sea change in American politics. Adams and the Federalist party lost to the Democrat-Republican (states rights) party giving Thomas Jefferson the presidency in 1800.

Madison’s Virginia Resolutions (December 21, 1798) stated:

The alien and sedition acts exercise a power nowhere delegated to the federal government, power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary expressly and positively forbidden.

Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions were adopted the previous month (November 01, 1798). Jefferson used even stronger language, stating that the Alien and Seduction Acts were:

An undisguised declaration that the Central Government will bind the states by laws made, not with their consent, but against their consent.

Madison’s rhetorical skills were employed to articulate the concept of classical republican ideals, their support of states rights, and their opposition to a heavy-handed federal government.

All of this resonated with the American people. As a result, the Federal Party with its top-down ideals faded away. In 1800, the American people elected Thomas Jefferson as the third President of the United States.

___________

While the personal jabs which have been a part of the fight to restore education in Oklahoma have been regretful, the “anti-Federalist sentiment” which has defined Ryan Walters and The Oklahoma Board of Education is a trait Oklahoma’s parents have found admirable.

EDUCATIONAL CHOICE

The anti-tyranny sentiment of both Jefferson and Madison resonated with Americans in 1798. It has resonated strongly in Oklahoma with parents who want complete authority over the education of their children and resent anyone who would step between them and their child.

FUNDING THE EDUCATION

OF ILLEGALS

Ryan Walters believes that we, the people, are the funding source of all Government expense accounts. We should therefore have the final say as to whether we want the government to use our fiduciary education dollars to pay to educate the children of illegal aliens.

The accounting authority over tax dollars rests with the wage earner and not the government.

Both Walters and Governor Stitt agree that parents should be the only voice as to where their education dollars are sent. Only in a tyranny would a parent be denied using his educational dollars in the school of his choice, as the Oklahoma’s Attorney General contends in his lawsuit against the best interests of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, its children, and their families.

We were headed toward a tyranny in 1798. Tyrants abound in 2025. May God raise up men like Jefferson and Madison who will help us find our way back to freedom and the Godly respect for the citizen and their families.

________________

I hope many of you will make plans to attend the Oklahoma State Board of Education meeting a week from this Thursday (February 27). It begins at 9:30 AM and the doors open at 8 AM. You may sign up to speak between 8 AM and 9:30 AM. The board will be discussing and voting on standards in social studies and science.