Church in America

The Betrayal of the Intelligentsia [Part I: A Society Abandoned]

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Rev. R. J. Rooney
Senior Pastor, Verona (MS) UMC
August 3, 2001

From our nation's founding, the pursuit of academic and intellectual excellence has been intertwined with religious and moral education. Nearly all of the famous and highly esteemed Ivy League colleges and universities were founded by religious people to educate religious people for the purpose of guiding society by reason and with virtue. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth only begin a list of schools founded to prepare Christians to shape and govern America. This is confirmed by an address in 1881 on the anniversary of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard when Wendell Phillips said, "We all agree in the duty of scholars to help those less favored in life, and that this duty of scholars to educate the masses is still more imperative in a republic, since a republic trusts the State wholly to the intelligence and moral sense of the people."

In the minds of those who founded this country (contrary to the humanistic historical revisionists of the day) the goal of education was to stamp the heart with Christian morality and prepare the mind for governing. The Continental Congress of 1778 wrote:

Whereas true religion and good morals are the only foundations of public liberty and happiness...it is hereby earnestly recommended to the several States to take the most effectual measures for the encouragement thereof.

John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Noah Webster put it this way:

...the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

It is, therefore, a relatively new concept perpetuated by a small but vocal minority of anti-religious people who have fostered and propagated the idea that education and religion, and government and religion are not only incompatible but antithetical. These few have turned the goal of American education inside out, turned the government into an ecclesiastical icon by convincing the public that it, rather than God, is the provider of their needs, and secularized religion by convincing its adherents to go into their closets to practice their faith.

We are talking about wholesale betrayal by the Intelligentsia. The seeds of this rebellion against the intent of the Founding Fathers to create "One nation under God" was present even at the birth of our nation but blossomed under the theorizing of Darwin and began to bear fruit under the sexual fantasies of Freud. Where and when was the fullest and most bitter expression of this harvest of naturalism and humanism first expressed but during the decade of the sixties and on the University campuses? The University campus which once was the purveyor of academic excellence and Christian wisdom has become the incubator of discontent, malcontent, and anti-Christian sentiment.

Darwin, Freud, and Einstein (although Einstein was never appreciative or comfortable with the fact that his theory of relativity which had only to do with mathematics and physics was hijacked by left-wing extremists who applied his theory to ethics) turned the academic community away from its prior commitment to preparing an intellectually sound and morally virtuous person from serving both God and country to deconstructing religion and creating amoral robots who readily subjugate themselves to the selfish and despotic desires of an increasingly elitist Intelligentsia. Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis saw it coming as early as 1947 when he wrote The Abolition of Man and noted, "The power of Man to make himself what he pleases means...the power of some men to make other men what they please." Intellectuals and academicians became lustful for accolades and greedy for power thereby abandoning the "less favored in life" and betraying the republic which had depended upon them to guide "the moral sense of the people."

This, despite the fact that Darwinian evolution has had more than a century to fill in the fossil record and answer the glaring inconsistencies truly objective scientists have been pointing out. In Darwin's Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe adroitly points out,

Molecular evolution is not based on scientific authority. There is no publication in the scientific literature...that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred,but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations. (p. 185)

All we have been told by the evolutionists is that fish became reptiles and reptiles became dinosaurs and dinosaurs became birds, etc. There is not one scintilla of evidence to suggest how these broad changes occurred on a microscopic level (which would have to happen first). Behe concludes that the reason evolution has been so passionately embraced by the Intelligentsia is because, "Many people...just don't want there to be anything beyond nature.

Darwin deified mankind. Freud destroyed his inhibitions. And the misuse of Einstein's theory of relativity delivered the much needed justification and legitimization of both Darwin and Freud. The intellectuals and academicians bought it all hook, line, and sinker. The past forty years have witnessed the Intelligentsia spew forth untenable
theories as fact, proclaim the gospel of humanism, and sow the seeds of violence and confusion by touting its unintelligible and contradictory moral and cultural relativism. We are just now beginning to reap their
bitter harvest.

Professors routinely ridicule Christianity and politicians enjoy phenomenal approval ratings despite using their status and influence to sexually exploit women while in office. If a student dares to point out a professor's inconsistencies he or she can expect academic retaliation. If a President commits perjury he is excused on the grounds that his personal life is no one's business. The very group that a free society expected to lead them in wisdom and virtue sold them out for increased status and sexual favors. They became the hypocrites they protested against in the sixties.

Generally speaking, the Intelligentsia has betrayed America. Because of their betrayal we must all learn to live with school shootings, immoral and unethical lawmakers, and the vilification of such honorable traditions as the Boy Scouts of America. Because they sold their students and constituents out human life has been devalued. We now live with such inconsistencies as abortion on demand and laws that will put a man in prison for two or three years for throwing a dog into oncoming traffic. Condoms can be passed out at school but not Bible tracts. Because of their influence on society we now have gay days at Disneyland and college professors shamelessly revising history by teaching that none of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians.

Without a doubt, C.S. Lewis hit the nail on the head when he said, "We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful..."