After eight long years of secular governmental policy and the prioritizing of minority religious groups over Christians, 2017 was a banner year of recovering America’s moral ground.
As good Christians, the faithful naturally want peace and love for all community members. But, Christians were viewed as second-class citizens for many years as they watched football coaches lose their jobs for joining high school athletes in prayer, gay rights take precedent over religious freedom, and Christians in foreign lands suffer merciless persecution.
But in 2016, American Christians stood their ground and voted. Led by Evangelicals, Washington, DC, began a 2017 leadership under devoted Christians to lead the Senate, House of Representatives and most importantly the White House.
Oh, the times they are a changin’ — let’s take a look at some of the biggest wins for American Christians in 2017.
Evangelicals Elect a President
According to the Pew Research Center, Christian voters overwhelmingly supported now Pres. Donald Trump and Vice Pres. Mike Pence.
Both men are born-again Evangelicals and ardent supporters of traditional Christian values. The pair garnered massive support from denominations across the board, including Protestants (58 percent), Catholics (52 percent), Mormons (61 percent) and among Evangelicals, a whopping 81 percent. These are the folks Democrat Hillary Clinton dubbed the “Basket of Deplorables.”
The public policy 180 and signing of the “Religious Liberty” executive order has helped restore Christian values to America. The president also set a record for appointing like-minded federal judges in 2017.
Renewed Respect from the Supreme Court
Electing born-again Christians president and vice president led to filling of the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy with a conservative jurist of faith. Justice Neil Gorsuch considers himself a Catholic, although he attends a Colorado Episcopal church called the Holy Comforter.
The new Supreme Court judge has a lengthy body of work that points to protecting religious freedoms. Most notably, it was Gorsuch that protected the Hobby Lobby owners, the Green family, from government fines and intrusion.
The Greens, a devout Christian family, pay high wages, close on Sundays and provide employees with health care. In the case, they simply did not want the health insurance policy to cover life-taking treatment and practices that ran contrary to their faith. Gorsuch had their back and now he has America’s.
The Gay Wedding Cakemaker
Commonly known as the “Gay Wedding Cake” case, an Evangelical Christian in Colorado declined to make a cake for a gay union. His beliefs are that gay marriage is contrary to Christianity. Similar to the Hobby Lobby case, the government imposed hefty fines that would effectively bankrupt the master baker and his family business. The liberal, secular courts ruled against the baker and the case has been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court with a ruling expected in June 2018.
At its core, the case demonstrates that secular institutions would force Christians to do things that run contrary to their religion. In effect, secular forces would like nothing better to place man’s law above God’s.
With the conservative-Christian SCOTUS majority restored, this landmark case is expected to be one of the history’s greatest wins for Christians and people of faith.
Funding For Religious Schools Restored
The State of Missouri had ruled against Trinity Lutheran Church gaining access to public money to build a playscape for children.
In what had grown to be a secular rejection of all things Christian, the courts turned a blind eye to the community interests of everyday people in an effort to kick Christianity to the curb. The case rose through the courts and Trinity Lutheran won at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg vehemently dissented, the ban on Christianity came to a close in 2017 thanks, in part, to Neil Gorsuch.
Christian Radio Rocks
When the California-based Educational Media Foundation bought Providence, Rhode Island’s secular alternative rock station 95.5 FM in 2017, it was clear Christianity was taking over the airwaves. The mostly secular Blue State’s profitable college radio station is now all-Christian, all the time. Many major markets are now seeing Christian radio growth, and 27 percent of people who attend church listen.
Across the country, Christian organizations have taken advantage to changes in FCC regulations regarding Low-Range FM stations. These 3.5-mile range, community based outlets are now 70 percent Christian format in nature and are ministering to communities.
The Return of “Merry Christmas”
It may seem like a small thing to some folks, but after eight years of the White House advocating for the secular “happy Holidays” greeting, supermarkets, departments stores, banks and many other businesses brought back “Merry Christmas” in 2017.
With a twinkle in their eye, cashiers and greeters were overjoyed to utter the traditional message and many even added, “Have a Blessed New Year.”
~ 1776 Christian
