What Is the Source of Your Rights?

It’s a pleasant respite from society’s recent bias to be reminded that some folks who came before us were pretty smart.

There’s a tendency from some who walk among us to think that our age is all that and a bag of chips. Through God’s grace, we’ve lived through some neat technological advancements.

Cell phones are pretty sweet. I remember earlier newspaper days of placing a call to a coach’s office with great confidence that the call would be returned when I was no longer at the office. Less likely was the chance that the call would be returned at home, though I’d leave my home number too. When people are home, they want to pretend they’re at home and not at work. I get it.

I remember the first time a coach returned a call to my cell phone. I was on aisle six at Walmart. I whipped out a notebook, took down a few comments, and got all that I needed to complete the next day’s story.

This internet thing’s pretty cool too. I think it’s going to last.

Sometimes when the whistle blows, and I’m leaving work I think back to the pyramids, the temple, or the fact that London introduced an underground railway while Americans were fighting the Civil War, and I’m impressed by the accomplishments of earlier societies. We don’t give these folks enough credit.

George Orwell had it going on when he penned 1984 back in the ’40s. Sadly, his ‘thought police’ are now a thing. Better not be praying outside that abortion clinic like Isabel Vaughan Spruce was in the UK in 2021.

What happens in the UK typically finds its way to the States. It’s inevitable, I reckon. I’m not specifically aware of an arrest for praying outside a U.S. abortion clinic, but it’s probably been pondered.

Brian Burch, the president of Catholic Vote, a conservative nonprofit political advocacy group, believes many on the Left would like to discourage Christians from voting. The new buzzphrase “Christian Nationalism” seems to support that, but Burch believes there’s a whole lot more in play.

It was late February when Heidi Przybyla, who co-authored a Politico piece expressing great concern that a second administration for former President Donald Trump would be one with great “Christian Nationalism” influence, appeared on MSNBC to discuss her work.

“The one thing that unites all of them, because there are many different groups orbiting Trump, the thing that unites them as Christian Nationalists, not Christians by the way, because Christian Nationalists is very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God. The problem with that is they are determining … men, it is men … that they are determining what God is telling them.”

It was unintended, perhaps, but Przybyla’s dismissal of faith was joined in the news cycle by the FBI’s arrest of Blaze Media journalist Steve Baker on charges of four misdemeanors for alleged violations during the Jan. 6 demonstration. Blaze and other conservative outlets say Baker’s arrest is purely political.

Burch and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote Politico demanding an apology for Przybyla’s smearing the Christian faith. What followed was not an apology but an explanation as Przybyla sought to clear the air on her MSNBC appearance.

“Due to some clumsy words, I was interpreted by some people as making arguments that are quite different from what I believe,” she wrote. She blamed conservatives for cherry-picking her words to fit their narrative. She apologized not for her content but for what she described as a lack of clarity.

“Reporters have a responsibility to use words and convey meaning with precision, and I am sorry I fell short of this in my appearance.”

Burch scoffs at the alleged apology but within it sees something far more dangerous: Przybyla’s initial failed understanding of the country’s past. It’s the Left’s desire for the future.

“There’s no doubt there’s a growing effort to intimidate and to silence us, particularly in an election year where the Christian and faith vote will be decisive, as it always is, but there’s something more dangerous here, and it’s this growing sort of philosophical commitment on the part of the Left. You see those other two hosts sitting there nodding their heads as though she’s not saying something that’s absolutely crazy. The real message here is, ‘Our religion, is the true religion, and the Christian religion is phony and false and no longer should be advanced in this country.’

“Don’t tell me that climate change or gender theology is not a different kind of religion. What they’re really saying is, ‘We need to move America in the direction of our new woke religion and displace Christianity.’”

If that is indeed the plan it could take a while to fully implement, less time, though, if we don’t think out loud. We have to vote and attempt to persuade.

The philosophical argument – marginalizing Christianity to the point of extinction – is one I didn’t see coming, but George Orwell did.

There’s really nothing in the current climate that suggests Burch is off the mark. Maybe there’s a return to centrist governing in the future, taking the best ideas from two parties and combining them to serve the greater good of the country.

It’s just really hard to see that right now.

With that dire outlook, you can also take comfort in this: Przybyla is wrong.

Our rights do come from a Creator. There’s a higher power at work here, one whom Jesus points out sets the rise and fall of earthly governments. In accordance with His plan, He grants authority and takes it away.

No matter how advanced the society.

(Editor's Note: Click HERE for an article Parrish wrote for AFN about Politico writer Heidi Przybyla.)