Richard Wolfe: Ottawa Impact’s objective nothing less than forced religious injection
The Chicxulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula was formed some 65 million years ago by the impact of an asteroid. That cataclysm was believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and countless other species.
This mass extinction event was first theorized by scientists in 1980 and confirmed in the early 1990s. Beginning in December 1995, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program, surveying the sky for near-Earth objects. No one was sure what we could have done about any adverse information NEAT might have provided but it nevertheless seemed prudent to keep an "eye on the sky."
Journalism as a study and a profession is the "program," so to speak, that surveys societies for potential calamities. Currently, Christian Nationalism is the societal asteroid many journalists are tracking. It’s prudent to do so because Christian Nationalism is a cataclysm in the making.
The extinction of democracy is well within the realm of the possible.
Ottawa Impact is an analog to space dust, sucked along in the wake of the Christian Nationalism movement as it hurtles forth. Ottawa Impact is limited in scope, but it’s absolutely part and parcel to the larger theocratic plan.
In our Constitution, "freedom of religion" is the given shorthand for a right bestowed by secular authority. The founding fathers as a group were not a church conceived or comprised deliberative assemblage. Mortal men conferred rights unto other men (non-male and non-whites excepted).
Not a part of the original Constitution — which focused solely on secular matters relating to the organization and execution of governing the new nation — that right is ensconced in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
The relevant text reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This was designed as a prohibition, forbidding prescriptive action contemplated by the secular government. It was not meant as license to presume a preference for any one religion, indeed any one belief over another, Christianity among them.
While certain invocations of "God" or "the year of Our Lord" or "creator" appear elsewhere in the text of the Constitution those references reflect only any given writer’s personal inclinations toward faith. They are not an endorsement of the Christian creed. In fact, among the Constitution’s scribes many, including Thomas Jefferson, were Deists, holding beliefs regarding God that were not in line with Christian doctrine.
Not surprisingly, secular primacy is inconsistent with the ethos advocated by Ottawa Impact. Their self-styled "contract" is rife with Christian Nationalist undertones. Vagueness is its hallmark and ignorance of county commission authority its defining attribute.
Non-existent is any notion of or respect for those who, like Jefferson, don’t adhere to Christian dogma. For parents who greatly value a public education for their children that hews to science and history, and not Christian sensitivities. Who believe biological realities, constructive criticism and broadly diverse points of view are essential to understanding the real world in which their children must live.
Parents who shun the notion that such an education is in any way "grooming" or "indoctrination."
Parents who, despite their own personal inconvenience, support public responses to a health pandemic that has, to date, killed more than a million Americans. Who greatly value preventative steps — such as mask mandates — that protect their children from infection, particularly those carried by other, unvaccinated children.
Parents who support the tireless, unsung (but all too often maligned) efforts of public servants who are charged with implementing and maintaining health guidelines never before envisioned. Or at least not since the Spanish Flu decimated world populations at the turn of the last century.
Take note, fellow citizens, Ottawa Impact’s objective, like that of Christian Nationalism, is nothing less than the forced injection of their preferred deity into secular governance. Which, by definition, means the exclusion of all other deities.
As of the Aug. 2, 2022, election there were 230,881 registered voters in Ottawa County. In that election only one Ottawa Impact candidate for county commissioner garnered more than 5,200 votes. Primaries for midterms are marked by very low turnout.
Let’s see how Christian Nationalists fare in November — when many more voters are surveying the political firmament.
— Community Columnist Richard Wolfe is a resident of Park Township. Contact him at wolf86681346@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Richard Wolfe: Ottawa Impact’s objective nothing less than forced religious injection
