Letter: Have we lost our religion?

Is it any different from Hitler’s Germany? Sure it is, but one could look at the similarities. Hitler was being shot at by the advancing forces, but he still managed to kill millions of innocent people who marched to their doom.

Today Israelis are fending off missiles while indiscriminately killing the defenseless. America is debating where to rescue refugees fleeing war-torn areas fearing death from rebels and crazed drug gangs. Yes, the innocent — mostly women and children — have been sacrificed since the beginning of time, and religion has been at the forefront in most situations. It pressures us to determine our own religion and whether in fact we do possess the belief and willpower it takes to follow its teachings. The U.S. is a Christian country founded on Christianity that shares its wealth and all that America offers with other religions throughout the world. Christianity has shown us the way of forgiveness, gratitude and giving.

Above all, it has shown us the way to love and help those in need, to provide and protect those in harm’s way. Our country was founded on religion, and our government was based on its laws but separated not to be influenced by it. That has been a hard pill to swallow, and many have not swallowed the pill. There is no doubt that religion plays a part in our government today. It is hard to determine, however, if religion has had more influence on government or government has had more influence on religion.

The government takes sides, and certainly the logjam we are currently in has shed a great light on that fact. Religion, however, cannot take sides because it has only one side, and that is its religious teachings. True believers live by those teachings, fighting every day to walk the straight and narrow road that will take them home.

So where are the preachers? Where are the religious leaders? Where are those who will speak up for those in desperate need? Why is the silence so deafening? We claim to be a Christian nation and teach Christianity through a loving, forgiving and caring Jesus. All religions more or less teach through these same basic guidelines. Where are they? Have we lost sight of the shining star that guides us?

The giving hearts of those who do walk the line and reach out to serve are becoming the few among us. Self has become the ruler of our destiny as the masses fade in the mist of religious confusion. Searching for the truth and identity, we slowly sink into the shadows of our own survival. Those who have reached that goal of independent security and control their lives seem to have sunk even farther into religious obscurity. Yet they have become the golden idol of many who have forsaken religion. America is on a great adventure of redefining itself and its being. Time will only tell if it remains a religious power for good, or will it become something else, and if so what?

Jim Childers

New Castle