It’s the Bible Belt, If We Can Keep It…

Image Credit: RawPixel / Public Domain

By Danielle Goodrich [Tennessee Stands / Tri-Cities Coaltion] –

Benjamin Franklin famously said when asked what form of government do we have in America, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Franklin meant it would take work to retain a republic and at some point, someone or another form of government might try and claim it.

Our Constitutional Republic is built on God-given rights which are protected by our constitution. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

If you want to take away God-given rights, if you want to walk people into a different form of government such as a humanist form of government like communism or socialism, where man is the highest authority instead of God, where rights are given and rescinded by man and government, then you first must write out God.

One of the reasons so many people are fleeing to the Bible Belt is because God-given rights and our Republic form of government were harder to write out here.  Because God isn’t a whisper in the Bible Belt. God is ingrained in the culture.

Rockefeller said, “I want workers, not thinkers.”

To get workers instead of thinkers you also need to write out God. You need to remove higher purpose. You need to make the highest purpose working for the state.

The American education system which used to teach the Bible replaced a Biblical worldview with a Humanist one.

Humanist Charles Potter said, “Education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?” (Charles Francis Potter, Humanism: A New Religion)

Where a Biblical worldview says serve others and be submissive to God’s will. Humanism says serve yourself and be submissive to man’s will.

Where a Biblical worldview says Absolute Truth, objective truth, morality, family values, self-sacrifice and sanctity of life. A humanist worldview says all truth is relative, all truth is subjective, to each his own, you do you, situational ethics.

Where a Biblical worldview says God made man in his image he is to have domain over the Earth, he has purpose, he has value. Humanism says man was an accident and random, Earth over man, man is disposable.

Where a Biblical worldview says man is fallen there is no utopia on Earth, only in Heaven. Humanism says man needs more information, man can create utopia.

Where a Biblical worldview says God is the highest authority. Humanism says man is the highest authority.

Voddie Baucham who gives an impressive talk on Biblical worldview is coming to Providence Academy in March. He discusses Biblical worldview statistics.

Less than 10% of professing Christians have a biblical worldview.

Less than 50% of pastors.

2/3 say there is no absolute truth that all truth is relative or subjective.

70-80% of Christian youth leave the faith, like I did, post high school.

People with a Christian worldview are 11x less likely to condone adultery

15x less likely to condone homosexuality

18x less likely to condone drunkenness

31x less likely to condone premarital cohabitation

100x less likely to condone abortion

The world tells us this is politics and Christians should stay out of it. Biblical worldview tells us this is worldview and there is a Biblical side and a humanist side.

Biblical worldview is not just attending sermons, but seeing the world through a different lens. It is the big picture that drives daily decisions. It is the way we understand and interpret the world. It will set you apart from the world.

There have been meetings locally with faith leaders because right now Johnson City has 5x the national average of those claiming biblical worldview. Higher than the rest of the country. The highest. Some think part of that is people moving here for the Bible belt who share in the world view.  The concern is how to ensure this is passed down and sustained for generations to come.

Humanist worldview is a satanist worldview. A Baphomet statue was created by the Church of Satan to stand opposing the Ten Commandments in Little Rock Arkansas. A pentagram, an upside down star signifies man governed by matter or other men. A star right-side up signifies man governed by God or Spirit.

Biblical worldview opposes a humanist worldview in this way. It is an inversion. Satan doesn’t say serve me, he says serve yourself.

Subjective truth is a dangerous thing. Teaching all truth is relative is dangerous. It means there are no rules, no laws, no truth, only what the government says. That light is red, no says the relativist, it is green. It is what Orwell warned of 2+2=5.

Who is the author of Chaos?

Governments where man is the highest authority are Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Socialism.

So many people are moving to the Bible Belt because as it turns out governments that uphold God and god-given rights remain free longer.

Running a local freedom group a lot of the freedom transplants find us. They seek us out. And one of the first concerns they express is that the Bible Belt is headed down the same path of the states they left.

My husband’s family moved here from upstate NY, his sister from OH, my parents and sister and her family from MA all in the past two years. Why? Because states where God was a whisper were easier to convince man that he made God, not that God made man.

Listen to Paul Harvey’s “If I were the devil,” broadcast from 1965. Our society has been living it.

Interestingly in a recent Barna survey an increasing number of Christians say they don’t believe in the devil.

People hemorrhaging here from states like California and New York are escaping a Godless culture that led to a Godless government. Give people clean needles so they can continue their drugs. Allow people to defecate on the streets. Be soft on crime so they can continue their crime. Teach others that they don’t need to work to earn, but can steal what they need.

So many are coming to Tennessee in search of freedom and in pursuit of truth.

I’ve met several transplants who say they felt called here. By God.

A young 23-year-old Austin, a selfless Christian young man from California spoke at one of our meetings, encouraging locals not to see the transplants as a threat, but as reinforcements from God.

However, many who grew up here see them as a threat. A threat to their way of life. To the culture.

And some moving here are. But the majority I’ve met are not. A threat to the culture was already here before they got here.

“Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.” -Nicolás Gómez Dávila

It is what we saw in China with Mao’s campaign against the 4 Olds. Destroying the values and traditions then killing those who still upheld them.

The threat to the Bible Belt, is that just like in MA, NY, CA humanists took over the school systems and have been turning out decades of secular humanists and as humanist Potter said what can the theistic Sunday school do to overwhelm this.

The Bible Belt held out longer because it was engrained in the culture. Despite the curriculum changing, they were still being taught by teachers that understood what it was like to be Christ-like and love Jesus and they weren’t afraid to teach and show that to their students.

But in the 17 years I’ve lived here, that has started to change. And with it, the culture.

It isn’t the culture changing overnight with people moving here. It has been changing as decades of youth were indoctrinated into an ideology that rejects God and a Biblical worldview and unfortunately some that grew up here can’t see it because they have no point of comparison. They haven’t seen it first hand.

Faith watered down generation to generation. Habit more than the lens in which the world is viewed.

They see people like me, an infant Christian who moved here 17 years ago but only came back to God in the last decade, now trying to make up for lost time. Understanding that God is freedom. That God is Truth. Understanding the downfalls of secular humanism. Understanding the benefit of a Biblical worldview. Understanding 2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land,” as a Pharisee.

I see myself as an example of God recruiting from the pit. In no way do I think I deserve to be running a freedom group. Do I think I deserve to understand Biblical worldview more than some people who grew up in the Bible belt who are losing their culture because they can no longer tell the difference between what’s of the world and what’s of God. And while they embrace the humanist culture they embrace the humanist policies.

A lot of the concerning agenda is coming from people who grew up here who are in elected office directing our community towards progressive policies and allowing Federal dollars and third party money to shift the culture.

They see me as a Pharisee. I was told that last night. They see those of us who are desperate to retain the Bible Belt’s culture, as Pharisees. And on a political realm they label us “far-right extremists.” Despite being closer to them in beliefs than the federal government, locals call us “far-right extremists” like the government does.

I removed my children from public school after learning what I said above. After learning Voddie Baucham saying “if you take your child to be educated by Caesar don’t be surprised when you get back a Roman.” Marxist Gramsci saying, “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

Mocked because I no longer want to shop at Target as they have an occultist, satanist designer, designing for them.

I won’t go to Taylor Swift concerts because she is so obviously of this world. Her Karma music video featuring satan and demons as her and her dancers dress like a coven doing rituals on stage and she says the audience makes her “feel powerful.” Yeah ok, Sigourney Weaver in Ghost Buster as the gate keeper comes to mind.

It’s amazing that as satanists became bolder putting actual satan imagery out there, fewer people believe he is real.

With my kids we laugh at these things that are so obvious. We say the world’s arguments like you’d get from the “Babylon Bee”, a Christian satire publication. They don’t have to try hard for satire these days because the truth is more unbelievable than fiction.

“Oh Lil’ Nas X and his satan shoes containing human blood. He’s just creative.”

“Oh Taylor Swift and her Karma music video featuring satan and demons as she does rituals on stage, that’s just art.”

“Oh yeah Target and their satanist designer, but there’s no place else to shop. ”

Making excuses for why they choose to participate with the evil of the world instead of rejecting it like we are called to “Ephesians 5:11-14 “Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.”

I cannot quote scripture like many who grew up here and I am by no means a Bible scholar, although that is a goal.

But I can tell you because I grew up somewhere where God was a whisper, and I saw what it did to the culture, and to it the government, and to that freedom and as a result my whole family moved here. And a lot of others are moving here seeing the same thing.  I’m telling you we are not being legalistic embracing the Bible Belt and a Biblical Worldview, we are doing what it takes to retain it.

After all. It’s the Bible Belt, if you can Keep It.