Parade treads on religious liberties

It was Sunday morning, July 4, at about 11 a.m. I had picked up my wife and son from a place of worship to take her to her place of employment.

Driving through Wasilla I was very surprised to see the town’s streets blocked to allow for the Independence Day parade happening on a Sunday morning — very surprised, indeed. I was not surprised that Wasilla, or any other community in America, would host an Independence Day parade, but that Wasilla would do it on a Sunday morning knowing full well that a large percentage of its residents would be of both habit and conviction attending worship services.

As I drove that morning I asked myself, “How could this be?”

To Wasilla public and parade officials:

How could Wasilla public and parade officials not have realized that a great portion of your residents could not attend this parade, and thus honor their nation, in that it was held on a Sunday morning, because Sunday has been held as a chief day of worship since this nation’s beginning? It is not for myself, in that I have been instructed from the commandments of God that the Sabbath is the day chiefly consecrated by God as the day of both rest and worship.

Nonetheless, it is common knowledge that the chief tradition of most people of faith is to worship on Sunday. I would suggest to you, and to all, that the reasoning for such an action is that you regard neither the faith of God nor the people’s right to such a faith. You proved by your actions that you are very willing to exclude them from this civic event, for you know full well that both by tradition and conviction, people of faith attend religious services on Sunday mornings.

Do you think that the very founders of this nation, who first signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were irreligious men? I tell you they were not, but that the greater portion of them were devoted Christians, and that it was because of their faith they had both wisdom and resolve to bring forth such a society as America has proven itself to be. It was their intention to bring forth a nation ruled by the gospel and law of the everlasting God.

Therefore, for you to exclude the people of faith in your parade is to say that you believe America is better served by a humanistic form of thought, where God and his law are excluded and the wisdom of men rules the day. You openly insulted the people of faith in Wasilla by excluding them by hosting your parade at a time that is impossible for the greatest portion of them to attend.

I believe that George Washington, who is revered as the father of America, could never have agreed with your actions and the obvious abiding attitude you display. In his farewell address, Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports … and let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. … Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

I warn you, America and Wasilla. Do not think that humanistic thought and ideals can maintain this nation, its prosperity or its freedoms. For humanistic thought is always man-centered, which is always self-centered, which attitude and practice always leads downward to immorality and thus always leads to loss of honor, health, prosperity, freedom and eventually, life itself.

People of faith, this is possible in America because “our salt is not salty.” In other words, it is recognized by unbelievers that, by and large, those known as Christians are true neither to the gospel nor God’s commandments. Therefore, the unbelievers are more and more bold to discount any and everything associated with the name of God in order to tread them under their feet.

This is according to the wisdom that Jesus offered in Matthew 5:13 KJV: “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savior, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men.”

Let us not play the fool. No people will prosper outside of the fear and the knowledge of God.

Greg DeHart is a Wasilla resident.