One of the Nine

I had some thoughts this morning regarding religious symbols and how so many people want to remove them, so as not to offend someone of a different religion. In face, I don't know how accurate it is, but I recently heard that someone wanted to ban Christmas trees because they had become a "religious symbol." 

We are all pretty familiar with people or groups demanding the removal of crosses from hills, parks, even cemeteries, as well as demanding the removal of other religious symbols from different locations, such as sculptures of the ten commandments from parks or public buildings.

Before now, I have never given much thought as to "why?"  I always just dismissed these occurrences with thoughts of disgust and frustration, chalking it up to some disgruntled person who is angry with themselves or their circumstances, or had a bad experience with religion, who wants everyone else to be as unhappy with the world as they are.

But today, I really did wonder, "why?"  I thought, "isn't the majority of our nation Christian?"  And if so, why would we put up with these occurrences?  I decided to research it a little bit.

There are 311,591,917 people in this country.  73% of those people identify themselves as Christians.  20% of the population say they have no religious affiliation.  The remaining percentages include religions that are not Christian. 

So I thought maybe I could blame the 20% of the population who have no religious affiliation.  Yes, they are the ones to blame.  They are the ones making us take down our crosses on hills, and our ten commandments from public places.

Then I thought about Congress.  A lot of the enforcement of the removal of religious symbols is the result of law-making at that level.  Yes, it's them.  They're the ones.  It is their fault.  They are the ones taking God and prayer out of schools.

But 87% of Congress is Christian.  And, even if we removed the religious affiliation from members of Congress, they still represent all of us, whose makeup is 73% Christian.  So, you would think that the majority rules, right?

I began to think that the problem is not the 20% of people who have no religious affiliation, or the .00017% of our population that makes up Congress, but the 73% of us who claim to be Christian. We ultimately are the ones responsible for the things that happen in Congress, since we are the ones that vote those members in to those positions; and we are the one that would make up any majority in a group of voting members locally who might vote for some local ordinance or regulation.

However, it turns out that even though 73% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, only 9% of Americans said religion was the most important thing in their life.  Only nine percent.  I was very saddened by this.

So, I cannot blame the 20%.  They have the right to protest.  I cannot blame the .00017% - the lawmakers.  They represent us.  I can only think to blame ourselves - the 91% of us Americans who apparently don't care. The 91% of Americans don't put their religion first in their life. 

I am not a statistician, so my interpretation of the numbers may not be perfect, but here is what this all means to me:

If there are 100 people lined up, 20 of them would step forward and say that they have no religious affiliation.  73 of them would come forward and say that they are Christian.  The other 7 people would step out and tell you they have some other religious affiliation.  Now, line them all up again, and you might think that 73 of them would come forward and say they put their religion first in their life.  But in fact, out of that line of one-hundred people, only nine of them would come forward and say that their religion is the most important thing in their life.  How can we ever think to affect the world, or stop the wave of change that is happening, with these numbers? 

So I ask, "who is to blame?"  Each and every one of us who are among the ninety-one.  Were you to be in that line of 100 people, would you be among the nine people who stepped forward?  Or would you be among the ninety-one who stayed back? 

Each day we have a choice.  We can choose to be among the ninety and one, and sit back and watch as the world changes, complaining when it doesn't change the way we would like it to, and asking "who is to blame?" and attempting to pin that blame on someone - anyone- other than ourselves; or we can choose to be among the nine, and do our duty as Christians, standing up for what we believe, and not apologizing for it. 

We live in a country where freedom of religion was among the most important thing to our Founding Fathers.  That freedom of religion was not declared to protect religious persecutors, but to be protected from them.  We have a right as Christians to put a cross on a hill, or a statue of the ten commandments in a park.  Other religions also have the right to do the same with their religious symbols.  Let us all remember that "freedom of religion" is not the same as "freedom from religion." 

That I might be among the nine is my hope for myself, and for all of those who espouse any religion- today, and always.  I hope that as I step forward from that line of one-hundred, that I will see you standing there with me, as one of the nine.