If you were a Christian minister who was given the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, what subject would you choose? War and peace? The decline in faith among Americas young people? The increasingly empty pews in mainstream Protestant churches? The ethical decline in society? Or any of the myriad other morally and religiously troubling issues?
Well, not if you were a Methodist minister named James P. Marsh, Jr.
For this man of the cloth, the issue troubling him so much that he had to write about in the Washington Post was . . . people standing and singing G-d Bless America at Washington National baseball games.
If you want to know how far much of mainline Christianity has declined, Pastor Marshs column would be a fine place to begin.
Think back to any time in American history. It is hard to imagine that a Christian minister would have any reaction to his fellow Americans standing and singing G-d Bless America other than unalloyed delight.
But that was when mainline Christian ministers believed in Christianity, sought to bring fellow Americans to G-d, celebrated America and hoped that G-d would bestow His blessings on this country.
Or to put it another way, that was before many mainstream Christians embraced another religion leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last 100 years.
Leftism has influenced Western societies far more deeply than Christianity has since the beginning of the 20th century. And leftism has influenced far more Christians (and Jews) than Christianity (or Judaism) has influenced leftists.
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