And it becomes truth. Especially when powerful politicians and
influential media are saying the same thing. Perception becomes reality.

When you start to change reality, however, the truth of the matter
is still self-evident, so it takes a while. Abortion advocates did that
in the early stage of forming a movement to sell America on the idea that it’s a ‘choice’ and a right, though at that time it ran counter to
the Judeo-Christian ethic that grounded American principles from its
founding.

One of the starkest descriptions of how this process
works is in the now famous September 1970 editorial in California
Medicine, the journal of the California Medical Association.

The CMA acknowledged that the traditional Western ethic has always
placed great intrinsic value and worth on every human life at all
stages, and that such ethic has always been embraced and held sacred by
the Judeo-Christian heritage, making it the basis for most laws and
social policies. But…

they interpreted new “facts and social realities” as something they
needed to control. So here’s what the California Medical Assocation
said in 1970:

“It will become necessary and acceptable to place
relative rather than absolute values on such things as human lives…
Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been
necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing,
which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious
avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that
human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or
extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics
which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a
human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under
socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic
sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being
accepted the old one has not yet been rejected”.

That’s a parallel to what’s going on now in the effort to redefine America. We’re suddenly hearing that we’re not a Christian nation any longer. From the press to the president.

Obama told an audience of Turkish Muslims that
“[Americans] do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish
nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens
who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

That’s odd. Obama speaks often about reaching out to the “Muslim
world.”  The existence of a “Muslim world” suggests there might also be
a “Christian world.”  And despite Newsweek’s declaration on this week’s
cover (title: “The Decline and Fall of Christian America”), the U.S.
remains at the center of the Christian world.  Eight in ten Americans
consider themselves Christian, and a majority prays to God and believes
in miracles.  A recent Newsweek poll found that at least 62% of
Americans do think of the United States as a Christian nation. Is
President Obama speaking for only 38% of the nation when he talks
overseas?

And where are they getting these numbers? I hosted a radio show in
the lead-up to the 2006 mid-term elections and all the reporting then
about ‘the religious vote’ placed America’s Christian population
somewhere between 82 and 86 percent. Same was true for the ‘war on
Christmas’ press reporting during the holidays of the past few years.
So did we suddenly shrink to 62 percent? Who are they polling?

Who are they kidding, some writers ask. And at least some of them are probing the coherence of the messages out there.

Obama has in effect declared to Christians in America:
either bring your understanding of Christianity into line with my
liberalism or don’t bother entering the public square. You want federal
money? Well, then perform abortions, distribute condoms, hire
homosexual activists, etc., etc. He would never dare talk to Muslims in
those terms…

If Muslims had to endure patronizing and lying secularist drivel
from him like “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated
translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific,
values,” they would riot. Cowed and secularized Christians just nod and
offer him an honorary degree.

But that’s another story…