Dear President-Elect Trump:
The prohibition against religion is its own religion.
The Soviets prohibited religious expression, imprisoning or otherwise punishing those who expressed a belief in a supreme creator. Parents hid Bibles under floorboards, baptized children in secret, all while publicly disavowing any belief in a being higher than government for fear of government reprisal.
Atheism was the state religion. In fact, the Soviets razed approximately 40,000 churches which competed with its Atheism throughout the Soviet Union.
The attempted Soviet conversion from Christianity to Atheism took place swiftly. In Ukraine, St. Michael’s Cathedral got destroyed in a matter of days. Such destruction was a common fate for religious structures in the Soviet Union.
That’s not happening in America. In America, those who wish to root out public expressions of belief leave the most powerful among us alone while attacking the weakest and most vulnerable.
For example, the Army-Navy football game began with an opening prayer—on national television. Presidential cabinet meetings begin with prayer. The U.S. Senate opens its sessions with prayer. It is not surprising that no one files suit seeking to prevent the U.S. Army or U.S. Navy from saying prayers, or the President, or the U.S. Senate.
Instead, they focus their efforts on the young. They are forbidding religious expression in grade schools and high schools, all but guarantees that within a generation, the dominant religious expression will be no religious expression at all.
America is one generation away from losing freedoms, rights, and our way of life. All that must occur for this to happen is for the governing generation to fail to teach and raise proper leadership in the rising generation. This is also true regarding questions of faith.
We ought to celebrate religious diversity. Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Atheists all should be encouraged to express their beliefs publicly.
A belief in God is not simply a critical expression of our freedom; it is the source of our freedom.
The Soviets took this away from their people, almost overnight. If we’re not careful, we will do it over the course of a generation.
Sincerely,
David O. Leavitt
