POINTS TO PONDER: Does the Progressive Agenda Violate the ‘Separations Clause?’

Have you seen this story?

California High School Teacher On Leave After Questioning School Shooting Walkout

First, let’s agree to something: let’s set aside the fact that there is no ‘separations clause’ in the U.S. Constitution (not with regard to Church and State, anyway).  Let’s also set aside the argument over whether or not abortion is a ‘Constitutional right.’  Let’s agree to set all of this aside so we can focus on the blatant contradiction that has crept into all levels of our national and State governments (as well as a large part of our other social institutions).

The first thing we have to do is understand that it is usually easier to just take things on face value rather than to expend the time and energy necessary to dig down deep enough into an issue to discover what is actually at its foundation.  Unfortunately, taking the easy path is a failing of human nature.  This means the majority of people are going to be prone to accept things on face value.  This is especially true when those things are as complicated as the debates over political and social issues.  Rather than spend a large part of their life learning to understand what drives these debates, it is easier to just accept what they are told and live their lives as though that appearance is reality.  This is why so few people see the contradiction in our public institutions  This contradiction reveals itself in so many different ways, the average person who takes things on face value cannot see the connection between them.  To these people, the appearance of being separate issues is enough to convince them that there is no connection.  Once this becomes their reality, getting them to see the contradiction is nearly impossible.

So, what is the contradiction?  Well, I’ll be honest: this is not easy to define in one or two sentences.  It requires a great deal of knowledge and understanding of political philosophy.  However, if I were to put it in rough terms, I would describe the contradiction as a ‘Left-wing’ claim that the Framers of this nation intentionally constructed our system of government so as to separate Church and State, not only in government, but in the public square, as well. While, at the same time, the ‘Left’ has taken over the government and public square and are now using them to push their religion.

OK, now, I am well aware that my last statement will meet with a great deal of objection.  I understand why someone might object to my statement, as well.  Unless we are open to seeing things from a different or better informed position, then we will seldom find the Truth.  All I am asking is that the reader stay with me a little longer and, please, keep an open mind while I try to make my case.

Today, most Americans — at least those Americans who are politically aware — understand that the American Left supports a ‘Progressive’ agenda.  However, what most Americans do not realize is that, for the Progressives, their agenda is religiously driven.  We do not understand this because we do not know the history of the Progressive movement, which means we are unaware of the explicitly religious language they once used.  And today, because this Progressive religion has morphed into something that appears to be anything but a religion, those people who do know the history of the Progressive movement do not see that they are still pushing their religion today.  They may know the foundation in one area, but they accept a different appearance of the Progressive religion on face value, therefore preventing them from seeing the connection.

At this point, let me share a few words from two of the most prominent founders of the American Progressive movement:

“Our cause is based on the eternal principles of righteousness; and even though we who now lead many for a time fail, in the end the cause itself triumph…. We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”

— Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive Party convention, 1912

“You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

— William Jennings Bryan, Democratic convention, 1896

This type of religious speech runs throughout the writings of the Progressive founding fathers.  You merely have to start reading it to run into it.  However, in many cases, you will also need to have a sound knowledge of the Bible and the Judaeo/Christian faith, as well, because the early Progressives — like the nation’s Founders — often quoted Scripture without citing it specifically.  For example:

“…each must be his brother’s keeper…. If the fathers cause others to eat bitter bread, the teeth of their own sons shall be set on edge.”

— Theodore Roosevelt, “Who is a Progressive?” 1912

As Ronald Pestritto explains it in the introduction of his book, “American Progressivism“, for most early Progressives, the idea behind their agenda was that:

”…it had become possible, through an empowered central state, to realize the Christian hope that “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Social Gospel adherents considered it to be their mission to fulfill in this life the New Testament’s call to bring about the perfect kingdom of God.”

Now, here is where the foundation of this driving desire behind the Progressive movement to create the kingdom of God on earth, in this life starts to change.  The ‘Social Gospel’ is now known as ‘Social Justice.’  And the notion of the God of the Bible has been changed to the State being god.  Again, if one reads enough of the early Progressive founders, one will see that all of this is true.  One will even find that they state this goal openly.  It’s just a matter of learning to understand their language.  Once one learns the way they are speaking, the Progressive declaration that they see man as his own god jumps from their writings.  But more than that, one finds that the Progressives saw the schools and universities as the mechanism through which they could affect the changes they sought in the way society thinks and behaves.  That this is true can be demonstrated through the words of another pillar of the American Progressive movement and father of the modern American public education system:

“The teacher is engaged not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life…. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.”

–– John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed“

When one realizes that Dewey rejected the God of the Bible and that he was also admired Russia and the Communist system, one quickly realizes that the “God” Dewey is speaking of here is not the God in which our Founders believed — or the God in which the majority of Americans still believe.  For Dewey, man was his own god, and, therefore, he could direct his own evolution to create the humanity of his own desires.  Again, Dewey says this, and again, he sees the teacher as the ‘prophet’ of this new religion:

“I believe that the community’s duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.”

–– John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed”

“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”

–– John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed”

 “I believe that the teacher’s place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.” 

–– John Dewey, “My Pedagogic Creed”

Now, here is where we need even more knowledge of the Progressive agenda, the Progressive ‘religion.’  The Progressives advocate for ‘social justice.’  This is their ‘gospel.’  Their ‘god‘ is man (more specifically, the government).  Therefore, everything the ‘government‘ decides is important becomes a decree from ‘god.’  And anything which opposes these ‘decrees‘ represents an attack on their ‘god.’  If and when one comes to understand this, and starts to consider current events in this light, things will start to take on a different appearance and the connections between things that once seemed to have no connection suddenly become crystal clear.  Now, back to the story I posted at the start of this post:

If one understands that the Progressive agenda is actually their religion, then it becomes easy to understand why the schools would support the anti-gun agenda while punishing one of their ‘prophets‘ (i.e. teachers) who dares to blaspheme their ‘god‘ by asking her students to question whether or not students should also have a right to protest abortion, which amounts to a Progressive ‘sacrament.’  The heresy this teacher committed was in trying to get her students to think for themselves:

“Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming where everyone is interdependent.”

“Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.”

— John Dewey

You see, this teacher was upsetting the Progressive religion by trying to spoil the ‘harmony of the collective society.’  In other words, she was trying to teach the students to be individuals rather than indoctrinating them into accepting their assigned place in the collective.  If the reader can even imagine the relationship I am trying to show them, let alone see it, I would ask that they try to learn more about the early Progressive movement and how it has changed over time.  Then try to see American politics and society from the perspective I have tried to describe: as a war between the Progressive religion and all other interests, both religious and secular.  Which brings us back to the contradiction I mentioned earlier in this post:

If Progressives honestly believe that government should be divorced from religion, then why have they seized it for the sole purpose of pushing theirs?  And how can the government do anything in support of the Progressive agenda without implicitly choosing the Progressive religion over all others?  Which is a clear violation of the original intention of the Constitution and First Amendment?  If one looks at our political and social arenas in this light, the contradictions are everywhere, and they are everywhere connected back to the Progressive religion.

ADDENDUM, 16 March 2018

More evidence to support my questioning:

Ohio student suspended for staying in class during walkouts

Principle drives off student opposing anti-gun demonstration: