Juneteenth Event Published Monday, May 29, 2023 A note from OCPAC FOUNDATION PRESIDENT BOB LINN REMEMBERING THE IDEALS FOR WHICH OUR HEROES DIED One hundred years ago, in his Memorial Day Address on May 31, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge said: Settlers came here from mixed motives ... Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom. They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government ... It has been said that "God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness." It is that Christian commonwealth and the principles of self-government that our fallen heroes died to preserve. When President Coolidge spoke of God sifting the nations, he was quoting a line from a Boston, MA sermon preached two hundred and fifty years earlier in 1669. The 1600s represents an era of national cultural formation. Then, America’s national identity linked principles of both government and education to our nation’s Christian etymology. The posture of historic Christianity, that nations rise and fall by the hand of God (Acts 17), was a presumption in pulpits of all denominations which gave birth to our nation. American Christian roots were so vibrant and healthy, they continued to shape the American frame of mind as the 20th century dawned. In 1923, the American President was reminding an aging nation of its very special place in the history of Divine Providence. Then, the reminder would have been thought quite natural and would have been both understood and welcomed. Today, American "pride" points to the celebration of quite a different destiny. Americans have allowed a fraction of a percent of the population to bully, intimidate, and pollute the nation's character. That is not the cause for which our soldiers charged the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, a June 6, 1944 event we will remember next week. Many fine political leaders in America today are both fiscal and social conservatives. They speak boldly about Marxism and the accompanying moral decline it has ushered into the nation's institutions. However, gone are the American political leaders who speak about the Christianity on which all else rests. There are two men in Europe, however, who have been clear that if we do not return to our Christian foundation, civilization will be lost. They are former President of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera and Hungarian President, Victor Orban. I will come back to Memorial Day in closing, but I want to communicate the devastation which has overcome this nation which was bequeathed to us by a handful of European Christians who sought to extend the Kingdom of Christ to American soil. The clearest trumpet sounds available today have come from Europe itself. Thought leaders who are very clear that America's Christian foundations are not an option for any nation's political health. The 20th century classic, The Drama of Atheist Humanism, was written by the devout Christian and French intellectual leader, Henri De Lubac. The book begins: Beneath the numerous surface-currents which carry contemporary thoughts in every direction, it seems possible to detect a deep undercurrent, an immense drift. Forged by the action of a large portion of its foremost thinkers, the peoples of the West are denying their Christian past, and turning away from God. De Lubac then seeks to dismantle the arguments of Europe’s intellectual “elite.” Emile Saisset comments on two of the men he had in mind when he stated that: Herr Feuerbach of Berlin, like Monsieur Compte in Paris, offers Christian Europe a new God to worship – the human race. He devotes more than a third of the book to one of Europe's greatest thought leaders; the profoundly devout Christian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Bible was his constant companion and, on his deathbed, he asked his wife to read Scripture to him. Dostoevsky is considered by many the greatest novelist of all time. He had a vision for the union of the identity of all nation with God Himself. He had a calling like that of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who came after him. A calling to ward off atheism and its corollary, socialism from the Russian people. When, forty years ago, Solzhenitsyn stated in his May 10, 1983 Templeton Lecture that “Men have forgotten God,” he might have also said, “The Russian people have forgotten their Dostoevsky.” Dostoevsky’s argument against socialism is found in his book, The Devils (also published with the titles Demons/The Possessed). It is the story of the destruction of the “old society” through a socialist revolution. This pernicious offspring of atheism is what he sought to warn his countrymen about. It is a message that Dostoevsky would, as Solzhenitsyn after him did, bring to the American public today. For Dostoevsky, atheism is the destruction of everything on earth that owes its origin to faith in God. In Henri De Lubac’s words, the socialist revolution of Dostoevsky’s The Devils means that: Not only is heaven emptied but man is secularized. Nothing about man will be connected to either a transcendent origin or a sacred destiny. Shigalev, one of Dostoevsky’s spokesmen in the novel, in time learns that the hopes of the revolution are an illusion. Shigalev states: Having set out from unlimited freedom, I have ended up with unlimited despotism. The voice of Dostoevsky is desperately needed in America today if we are to preserve a government so many sacrificially died to preserve. Dostoevsky believed Russia, as a nation, was God’s people. In his private letters, he expressed his firm belief that Russia’s Orthodox Christian thinkers were on a mission to regenerate the world. America needs its own Dostoevsky today. Dostoevsky devoted his life to discipling the minds of the Russian people. French philosopher, Paul Evdokimoff, sees clearly that in The Devils, Dostoevsky means to state that: Social systems which have no Christian basis (the only one capable of transforming man) inevitably become systems of violence and slavery. Reflecting on the impact of the abolishment of society through an atheistic revolution, Dostoevsky makes a clear and bold statement in his Journal of an Author. He said: The result would be such darkness, such chaos, something so clumsy, blind and inhuman that the whole structure would collapse under the curses of mankind before the building had been completed. Today we are memorializing the soldiers who gave their lives to sustain what our founders built. America is a nation our European forefathers began as the extension of the Kingdom of God. Last week, “America’s Pastime” (Major League Baseball) welcomed the performance of a half-naked, transvestite stripper. The exhibition was a filthy, erotic display on a cross. It took place in an MLB stadium as a part of a Los Angeles Dodger game last week. Our dead did not offer their lives for a society floundering in the moral and intellectual morass of atheism on display today in American entertainment, media, commerce, and academia. From Benjamin Franklin Morris’ 1864 classic The Christian Life and Character of The Civil Institutions of The United States: Our fathers’, says Webster, ‘had that religious sentiment, that trust in Providence, that determination to do right, and to seek, through every degree of toil and suffering, the honor of God, and the preservation of their liberties, which we shall do well to cherish, to imitate, to equal, to the upmost of our ability. Concluding in his Memorial Day Address on May 31, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge stated America's Republic is worth preserving : They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law ... Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence? Most are shocked at the depths of cultural corruption in America today. It is well past time to employ our voices to American academia, commerce, entertainment, media, and especially, the church. On this Memorial Day, we may honor the dead only by engaging in the civic life of the nation. Otherwise, they will have died for a cause which appears to have meant nothing to the living. In his day, Dostoevsky believed that Europe would one day return to Christ. Let’s us join the great master of the literary world and ask God for a return to Christ of our American Republic and, in the spirit of the prophet Micah, for a Christian renewal in Russia, China, and all the other nations of the world as well! CONTENTS NEA EXPOSED Ryan Walters JUNETEENTH Frederick Douglass Republican Women HERITAGE ACTION Conservative Training LAST WEEK Lt. Col. Matt Lohmeier and Heritage Action NEA/OEA EXPOSED Video of 2022 National Convention in Chicago Last week's State Department of Education (SDE) meeting premiered a shocking video of the NEA/OEA agenda. It was presented as a part of Ryan Walter's State Superintendent of Public Instruction report. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE The reporting of Oklahoma's Orwellian news media was slanted and inaccurate. Ryan Walters spoke only kind words to the teachers of Oklahoma. The video would have frightened and shaken supporters of the NEA/OEA as the light exposed the true essence of their evil objectives. It angered salt of the earth Oklahomans. Immediately following the convention last year, our newsletter exposed some of the content. July 18, 2022 edition available here We followed up on that in the months to follow. Some of those editions are available below: August 8 edition available here August 29 edition available here Pray for the devout Christian leadership God has graced Oklahoma with. Ryan Walters and each member of the SBE are devoted to insuring that Oklahoma families are allowed to nurture their children without governmental interference in the form of economic mandates dictating the government's narrow educational ideology. With the passage last week of educational choice with tax rebates, this is now available to all Oklahoma families. Ryan Walters and the ODE played a part in that and they continue to represent Oklahoma's families. Commemorating the June 19, 1865 emancipation of Texas slaves. FREDERICK DOUGLASS REPUBLICAN WOMEN TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2023 7 pm The Frederick Douglass Republican Women are reclaiming a bit of America's language from the Marxist left. This month, they will celebrate one of many bright moments in American culture. June 19, 1865, is the day Texas slaves were emancipated. This is the actual "Juneteenth!" Speaking at the event is National Director of Black Engagement for the Republican Central Committee, Cecilia Johnson. She brings updates of the growing trend of black Americans who are switching to the Republican party. Buy Tickets here Tickets are $20 each View Event flyer here Complete information about FDRWC here Click here to become an event sponsor CONSERVATIVE POLICY TRAINING MAIN SESSION: RCV: Not an OK Voting System OPENING SESSION: Stopping ESG Social Credit Scores THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 2023 Doors open 5:30 PM SESSIONS: 6 PM to 8 PM Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) 1401 N. Lincoln Blvd OKC, OK 73104 RSVP: HeritageAction.quorum.us/event/ok-event/ LAST WEEK Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier Matthew Lohmeier is working with Heritage Action and a number of other groups and individuals to develop a movie about the intrusion of Marxist ideology into the U.S. Military. Watch Matthew here Watch the entire program here HERITAGE ACTION Rebekah Warwick Rebekah is an excellent speaker and covered many of the issues Heritage Action is working on in Washington, D.C. They also are involved in state issues. Watch Rebekah here Watch the entire program here OCPAC FOUNDATION FUND RAISING OCPAC | P.O. Box 2021, Edmond, OK 73083 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected] powered by Try email marketing for free today!