[Author’s note: Originally, this was a response to Mike Huckabee’s “Where was God?” video he posted on Facebook, but since then many others—James Dobson and Newt Gingrich, for two—have voiced the same remarks, directly or indirectly blaming the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on our secular society. Although, it is a response to Mr. Huckabee, it is also a response to the general claim that secularism causes these killings perpetrated by mentally disturbed individuals.]

Even though you state that you did not say that if there was prayer in school that the shooting would have been averted, you do however say that the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy was related to no prayer in school as well as secularism, in general. By this, you imply that secularism creates people, who have no morals and therefore why should we be surprised when these tragedies happen.

We’ve escorted him right out of our culture, marched him off the public square and then we express our surprise that our culture without him actually reflects what it has become.

First of all, God has by no means been escorted out of American culture. Is there not Christian rock? Aren’t there Christian and religious themed movies? Are there not Christian books sold in the bookstore and available at the library. Don’t our politicians make reference to him? If you are religious, isn’t God filling your life? Are there not churches, temples and synagogues? Is Facebook not full of Christian memes? God is everywhere in our culture. Stating that God has been removed from our culture, may be what your fellow Christians want to believe and hear, but it simply is not true.

Second, I think you are short-changing schools. My son has gone to Montessori schools from pre-school up until high school. They have always fostered an atmosphere of respect and caring. I would also say that even though, the symbols of Christianity may not be visible in the school, the basic principles of Jesus Christ, to love your fellow humans, are there in the schools and in the hearts of the teachers and those who run the schools. Each new year, the students of each class would come up with rules for the class. It is amazing, but not surprising, at how early students know to treat others with respect and want to be treated with respect, which is the Golden Rule, “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.”

I think that what you intended to hit upon was that secularism is the root of all the problems in America. Mr. Huckabee, secularism really protects your right to worship in any manner you desire. I know that you and other like-minded Christians feel that you are the only ones who know what is moral and right, therefore, your concepts of morality and God should be forced on others. The Founding Fathers warned the Protestants, of their time, that even if they were right, there may come a time when they would be in the minority. It is for freedom and fairness that we have a secularist society. It protects the rights of not only the religious, but the non-religious, too. It was for this reason that the Founding Father’s fought for secularism, in which they were only partially successful.

How would you feel, if the tables were turned? How would you feel about public school prayer, if your children were forced to participate in prayers to Allah, at the appointed times during the day? Or, forced to read passages from the Koran? I don’t think many Christians would be very happy with that, but somehow you feel that it is OK to force others to pray to a Christian god and read from Christian scriptures. This is hypocrisy and illustrates why we must have secular public schools and societies to protect everyone’s rights and not just those with Christian beliefs.

Worship of God is a private matter between the worshipper and their God—the Kingdom of God is within each of us. When I was a student in school, nothing prevented me from praying. I routinely prayed before tests. I simply do not see why you need public school prayer. To be fair to all religious students, do we have to have multiple prayers to each of their gods? And what about the non-religious, should they be forced to pray, when they do not believe there is a god? Schools are not a churches. There are however private religious schools, which do have religious studies and prayer. I attended BYU and attended classes that taught Mormon doctrine and had class prayer. So, if you desire to have class prayer in school, perhaps you should attend a private school, instead of trying to force your religion on others in the public school system.

The main premise of your tirade against secularism is that secularism somehow produces immorality. Secularism ensures that no one person’s religious beliefs are forced upon another. It is the society, as a whole, that decides what is moral. Some may use their religion as a basis and others will not. Mr. Huckabee, if you stop and think about it Christianity has not always had the same morals and Christianity today does not follow exactly the morals of the Bible, not even the morals during Christ’s or Paul’s time, when Christianity began. A case in point is slavery.

Although many Christians led the fight to abolish slavery, it was not Christianity, nor the word of God that abolished slavery. It was humans, Christian and non-Christian, outside of the word of God that abolished slavery. In fact, there were many Christians, who used the word of God as evidence to continue slavery. If slavery was never intended to be part of Christian morality, it would have been abolished, during Paul’s time, when Christianity was first established. Jesus would have spoken out against slavery. It would not have taken until the 19th century for it to be forced out of American Christian morality, by abolishing it. Deist Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and Age of Reason, was a religious man, also a very vocal critic of Christianity and Christian morals, and was among the earliest Americans to speak out against slavery. So, by deriding secularism and independent thought, you are only impeding the progress of humanity, by clinging to outdated ideas of morality. Do we really want to go back to biblical morality? It may be what you want to believe, but it really is not what you want. Time again, throughout history, we have seen Christianity resist change from outside to morals and beliefs, but it was for the betterment of humankind that the changes came.

History has shown that it is not Christian morals that has ensured equality for all, but social pressures from within the society. This struggle for equality, in spite of Christian morality, is still happening today. You eluded, very obviously, that giving respect and equal rights to homosexuals as being part of the immorality that contributes to violence.

We carefully and intentionally stop saying things are sinful. We call them disorders and sometimes we even say they are normal. And to get to where we have to abandon bedrock moral truths, then we ask, “Well, where was God?”

Mr. Huckabee, it sounds like you are joining the ranks of people like Pat Robertson, who have stated that God has removed his protection from America, because America allows homosexuality. Every time there is a calamity that strikes America, he is ready to blame homosexuals and liberals for protecting the rights of homosexuals. How do you or Pat Robertson know the mind of God and whether he has indeed taken away his protection. What we do know is quite the opposite Christian demonizing homosexuals has caused acts of violence against homosexuals.

In the incidents where Christians quote anti-homosexuality verses, they should read a little further. Lot offered his daughters to the men to do with them as they wished. If Lot’s actions were wrong, why was Lot’s wife punished by God for simply looking back, but Lot was not punished for his greater crime of offering his daughters to be raped? In another incident, the man turned over his concubine (secondary companion that acts as a wife, but they are not married), who was gang raped and killed. In both cases, neither the community, nor God condemned these actions. Christian morality of anti-homosexual and mistreatment of women are side-by-side in the same events. If you chose one and not the other, then you are not following the word of God. Again, do we really want to digress as a civilization and go backwards to the morals of an ancient people?

What you are really saying is that God is angry that we stand in defiance and dare to say that we know more than he does about what is moral. Well, my answer to that is let history speak for itself. As I have mentioned already, humans knew more than God that slavery was immoral and should be abolished. Something God did not do. You can spin it as much as you want, but the Bible is at best complacent about slavery and never speaks outright against it. Something is wrong, if your morality does not afford everyone the same rights.

How do we even know what is the God’s will and what are his morals? Has anyone today heard his voice and tell them his moral law? We only have a collection of incongruent texts that people claim to have been written by people who did hear God. If that happened today, we would all say that the person was fraud or crazy. There are other scriptures, both Christian and non-Christian, that claim to be the word of God, but Christians reject those. The texts that weren’t included in the collection that we call the Bible. So, why believe in only this one case; this one collection formed millennia ago? There have been countless text that have been found, such as the Nag Hammadi library of texts. Why reject them? Why not the Koran or any of the countless other writings that claim to be the word of God?

By evoking God as the highest authority, against which there can be no voice dissent is an arrogant and totalitarian view in its own right. It gives you the means to say that anything you wish is moral or immoral and no one would be able to argue. It is good that the abolitionists were successful at tearing down outdated notions of Christian morality. We can obviously see that Christian morality is merely a hodgepodge of morals written by men at different times in history. Why must be we not evolve and be stuck with their outdated morals.

Demonizing homosexuals as immoral and evil allows you to dehumanize them to the point where we don’t have to treat them with fairness and civility. There has been plenty of hate crimes against homosexuals and one could just as easily ask, “When Christian morals demonize homosexuals, why are we surprised by the violent acts against homosexuals?” Here is a true, direct correlation between violence and preached morals. When Christians demonize Democrats and liberals, why are surprised, when people like Jim David Adkisson enter a congregation that included children and start shooting, because he believed that the members of the church were not true Christians, having been corrupted by the evil ideas of Democrats and liberals? His library of books, clearly, showed that he was influenced by Christian hate spewers, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. It is no wonder that equally shortsighted people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens state that all religion is evil.

You have ignored the atrocities of Christian morality and put the blame entirely on secularism, which somehow you feel is devoid entirely of values and morals. You and other like minded Christians feel that we are so devoid of any moral sense that unless we teach “Thou shalt not kill,” we will all become killers. That to me is the height of ignorance and missing the point entirely. Mental abnormalities and disorders are factors that lead to senseless violence, like those of Rev. Paul Hill, or Adkisson. It is not that they were taught not to kill. Hill and Adkisson were religious people, who were taught the Ten Commandment, but they obviously had a screw loose and used Christianity as a vehicle to channel their violent urges. We are not in the Dark Ages, we are enlightened and we do know what causes violent behavior. We know about mental illness and it is not caused by lack of religion or some unseen evil force.

If you want to do something constructive to stop senseless violence, help stop the Religious Right from spewing words of demonizing hatred. Displaying the Ten Commandments or a manger scene is not going to stop senseless violence. Perhaps, even doing something to help the mentally ill. Ah, but would involve science and we know how unacceptable that would be to Christians. [Author’s note: Normally, I would never say such a blanketed remark like this in this tone. Here, I am utilizing the same tactics and tone that Mike Huckabee used.]

The Bible, and hence your idea of the word of God, is not the final word on morality. It is we humans that decide what is moral. Even if we use the Bible, as a starting point, we decide which morals are acceptable and which are not. It is a good thing that we do this or we would still have slavery.

I could end with flippancy, as you have Mr. Huckabee, but I would like to end on a more positive note of common ground. Where I thought you were most reasonable was when you stayed on topic and actually answered the question of “Where was God,” instead of your tirade against secularism. You responded very well in showing where I think religion could help most and that is within the individual. As Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is within everyone of us. It is there, where God comes to visit us, giving us comfort, hope and strength. This is the true value of religion and not in judgement of others or in laying down dogma to be imposed on society. It is immaterial whether God is just a fabrication or if he really exists, as long as it gives us hope for the future and strength to meet it.

More Reading:

A PTA Mom’s Very Thoughtful Response to Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee: Schools are a ‘Place of Carnage’ because We Removed God from Them