Listen to this articleToday is the 63rd anniversary of the taking of Omaha Beach, the day in which allied forces took back Europe from Hitler. Today’s Focus on the Family had a nice remembrance by playing the prayer of Roosevelt, and the 40th anniversary speeches of President Reagan.
To me, the ideological significance of Roosevelt’s speech, and the battle of D-Day are critical things to observe, in light of the threats of our own day.
1. The president prayed publicly.
This flies in the face of the fundamentalist secularist idea that separation of church and state prohibits such actions by the president. We are a religious people, with a country founded on Judeo-Christian principles. I think that, despite the healthy limits that our laws put on the merging of faith and government, there is room for limited special pleading on behalf of the Judeo-Christian god, both due to the history of this country and the plain truth of the scriptures. Presidents can and should pray to Almighty God, even publicly (notice that Roosevelt did not mention Jesus, just almighty God).
2. Pacifism is not only impractical, but unChristian
I must maintain the stance that, while pacifism and non-violent resistance have their place in our arsenal against unrighteousness, there is, as the bible says, "a time for war." When you face malignant, immediate lethal threats on a societal level, pacifism is foolish. As Reagan so rightly said:
there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest
I again must highly recommend the eight part series Jesus, Pacifism, and the Sword, which gives a very complete biblical theology regarding pacifism and turning the other cheek, etc.
3. Islam is the Nazism of our Day, and we need to treat it such
Just like there were many Germans who went along with Nazism unknowingly, there are millions of well-meaning and nice Muslims who are part of the malignant ideology of Islam, which has been violent and anti-semitic from it’s inception and throughout history. Because Islam is bent on world conquest and subjugation, as Nazism was, eventually, we will need to take up force of arms, as has happened during the previous two historic waves of Islamic expansion, to liberate ourselves and others. Might as well prepare our minds for that eventuality.
The lesson of WWII and D-Day is that if you ignore a cancer long enough, hoping it will go away, it eventually will grow right up to your doorstep. We should work hard to resist this evil ideology now so that we can, if possible, prevent an armed conflict like D-day, which took so many lives.
