Guest Blogger, David Orr Patterson, has a relevant question and a penetrating conclusion.

ARE THERE NO MORE DRAGONS?
By David Orr Patterson

Have you noticed that our fairytales no longer have dangerous, evil or even unpleasant creatures? Stories do talk a lot about dragons, trolls, ogres and such, but they are usually misunderstood creatures who would never harm anyone.
I need to say from the outset that I enjoy some of these reluctant dragon stories. But I think we also need stories that warn our children about dangers, enemies and evils to be overcome.

A seminal event in recent American history was the attack on September 11, 2001. But our society is having some difficulty responding to the threat, especially since it is linked to a religion. We have been trying to tell ourselves that all religions are equally loving, good and true. And we have convinced ourselves that tolerance means not disagreeing with anyone. After all, isn't it intolerant to disagree with a tenant of someone’s religion? To do that would require us to form our own convictions. And that would be narrow minded I believe another generation, from the future, the past or the corridors of eternity would look on these days as the decline of a great culture.

You might well ask if Muslims are the only dragons on the scene. What about naturalists or atheists? Sam Harris and other modern atheists cast all religions in the same mold saying they are dangerous because all wars are begun by religions. Of course Harris adds, that religious are undesirable because they restrict sexual freedom. That seems to be a great concern of his.

A friend of mine asked me to read one of Harris' books alarmed at the seemingly reasonable charge that religions cause all wars. In answer I recounted the wars that America has been involved in. While there has always been a religious flavor in American thinking and moral concerns played a part, none of our wars, with the possible exception of the Civil War, was primarily religious. I should have pointed out that naturalism was a foundation for the NAZI regime, and it could never have led to the conclusion that all men are created equal. Similar atheism drove the thinking of Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot.

Such anti-christian thinking in these days radically departs from positions taken by our forefathers as they established this great country. And it frightens me that most school children or even university students are unaware of things they spoke and wrote and stood for.

Benjamin Rush:
• “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism.” “By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.”

John Adams:
• “The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
• "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Benjamin Franklin:
• In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."
• In 1787 when Franklin helped found Benjamin Franklin University, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning, built on Christ, the Cornerstone."

This discussion of what our founding fathers really believed may lead us to another reason we are reluctant to look for dragons. We may find them closer to home than we wish. Radical Islam did not motivate the school massacres in the past 20 years in America. Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the Enron debacle or massive stock market swindles. Such serpents slither beneath our own rocks. These trolls lurk beneath the bridges of our own souls. To be on the alert for them we would have to teach our children that we are all sinners in desperate need for repentance and redemption. We might be forced to admit that such changes of heart cannot be brought about by human science or psychology. We might even have to admit, as some of our founding fathers did, that such heart change could only come from God through Jesus Christ.