My Take: The real problem is Ottawa Impact’s battle is hopeless.
Eight of 11 elected Ottawa County commissioners align with the new Republican political initiative Ottawa Impact. Their website states, “We defend ... our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage.” The eight ground their political agenda on traditional Christian values.
Ottawa Impact is an extreme reaction against decades-long developments in society diminishing the power and influence of America’s dominant religion. A famous example concerns the Supreme Court banning prayer in public schools.
Ottawa Impact statements clarify a key grievance. The government forced some Christian schools, which chose to reject mandates to combat COVID-19, to comply anyway. Instead of viewing COVID as a valid health concern shared equally by Americans, some Christians chose to view government restrictions on private school activities as another attack on the personal expression of their religion. Ottawa Impact does not seem to care about good public relations. Its supporters cared more about rejecting inconvenient rules on religious grounds, blaming local health officials for overreach, than public health measures designed to protect the common good of all.
Undoubtedly, some Christians feel beleaguered, paranoid about threats to their faith from trends outside the Church. In fact, Christians are indoctrinated to think there is nothing wrong with core biblical teachings; instead, the depravity of the world in which the Church exists is the problem. The bible can easily be read as scapegoating haters of God for messing up the world. Similarly, Ottawa Impact declares, “In the absence of truthful and unbiased local media, we provide [accurate] coverage of local government.” Sound familiar? This echoes the Big Lie Donald Trump still continues to promote about “the stolen election.” I doubt the political violence he triggered is over.
I am thankful that Sentinel staff present facts about The Eight within professional journalist ethics, without an ideological agenda. The Sentinel deserves an award for excellence in covering and defending local government for the common good. Fortunately, I am not bound by journalist ethics and can uncover what is really going on. I ask: Is the problem for Christians primarily a hostile world and government overreach in regulating their religion?
I am sorry — it pains me — to point out once again that nonideological scientific facts of nature rule out the God of the prescientific bible. Please. I do not conclude Christian religious experiences are therefore meaningless, only that the theological framework automatically used to interpret them is, in key part, wrong.
Ottawa Impact declares it promotes true history and rejects revisionist history. Really? Long ago, during the Scientific Revolution in Europe, it was learned that biblical cosmology, God residing in infinite Heaven surrounding finite Earth, is false, destroying key doctrines dependent thereon. It blows my mind that the Christian church has managed to revise, successfully for 400 hundred years, history for the motive of self-preservation. Similarly, Ottawa Impact revises history for self-serving ends. COVID restrictions had nothing to do with attacking private Christian schools; restrictions applied to all schools equally for the sake of the common good. Mandates had nothing to do with unjustly restricting religious freedom.
The real problem for fundamentalists is the bible lost its infallible credibility long ago, the underlying reason why Christianity in the West wanes. I commend Sentinel journalists for professional restraint regarding legitimate criticism of Ottawa Impact’s religious worldview. Its supporters are an extreme reaction to an unacknowledged and embarrassing — indeed, horrifying! — problem with their own religion. Ottawa Impact speaks only for a beleaguered group of Christians desperate for self-validation. Plenty of local Christians, rightly concerned about damaging trends in society, deplore the attitudes and tactics of The Eight. Still, Christians in general brought about their election.
Sadly, when it comes to the church, many Christians are incapable of looking inward in an honest, self-critical manner and fail to learn the lesson of chastened humility. For what story does true history tell about how religious liberty came to be enshrined in the Constitution as a fundamental value in the first place? The story concerns many centuries of Europeans being traumatized by the Christian church’s abuse of power over society, including violently crushing the religious freedom of those who dared criticize her, even other Christians. The wicked horrors of church history run wide and deep. Tyranny justified by appeal to the God of Jesus, clearly a pacifist, took off after Christianity became the dominant power religion in the Roman Empire.
Today, much of the bad press the church gets is still its own scandalous fault. Who did it serve for some Christian schools to resist government rules combating COVID? It certainly was not the common good. When a Christian group’s public relations take a hit, sometimes they have only themselves to blame.
Ottawa Impact’s view that America was specifically founded as a Christian nation, especially blessed by God, is another instance of revisionist history. America is going to die as it has been known, like the God of the bible has and all other tyrannical empires have. Ottawa Impact’s battle is hopeless.
— Kurt Volbeda, torn apart — crucified — because of love for Jesus.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: The real problem is Ottawa Impact’s battle is hopeless.
