By Steve Woodward
This post is comprised of two Letters to the Editor submitted to The Pilot. To date, they have not been published despite their timely subject matter.
Written August 24, 2020
How many times an hour does mainstream media breathlessly remind us about the deadly coronavirus? Every chance it gets, with an emphasis on “cases”, any one of which might prove to be, you guessed it, deadly, and could indicate a new wave of positives. “Could” and “might” are vital armaments in virus weaponization and the war on common sense.
Perhaps if we paid serious attention to what else is actually deadly we’d recognize that Dr. Anthony Fauci would not have the market on fear mongering cornered. Have we seen these headlines very often? Ever?
Deadly Black Lives Matter Marxists fuel gun violence in Louisville, New York, Portland, Seattle.
Deadly Chicago weekend: five killed, 61 shot.
Deadly Sanctuary Cities see surge in crime, murders, disease spread.
Deadly Planned Parenthood performed record 345,000-plus abortions during 2017-18.
Attacks on police officers on the rise nationwide with often deadly outcomes.
Potentially deadly side effects of depression amid virus mounting.
A drug with 60-year record touted by President Trump, hydroxychloroquine, could be deadly. Virus vaccine expected to be approved in months, 100% safe, should be mandatory.
President Obama endures media firestorm as deadly 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic claims lives of at least 540 children in U.S.
As vice president, Biden supported Obama’s refusal to secure Benghazi compound resulting in deadly consequences on September 11, 2012.
These are just a few of the many headlines rarely written or remembered. What this year’s hysteria is rooted in is a presumption of absolute safety to which remarkably large numbers of us seemingly adhere. But the reality is this planet of ours is a killing machine both owed to nature’s fury and man’s evil. Cowering at home with layers of masks and barrels of hand sanitizer cannot protect anyone from his destiny.
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Written July 13, 2020
With my wife and mother, I worshipped inside the historic walls of The Village Chapel in Pinehurst on July 12. It is one of very few area churches exhibiting faith and courage by re-opening.
What does this say about our culture? I believe it says that religious persecution is escalating. Amid virus hysteria, clergy and church elders should denounce government-imposed bans on in-person worship. Instead, they cower and comply even while disingenuously paying lip service to divine provenance during Facebook Live “services”.
Pushing back against tyrannical government figures requires gathering on Sundays in the presence of God to call upon him to embolden Americans and fill us with the spirit of our founders. A classic hymn contains these words: “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”
If Christians are afraid to march through the doors of a church, the battles ahead will be mismatches. These battles will come. They are raging in American streets. Monuments are toppled without consequence. Businesses are looted in the name of racial inequality. Masked citizens meanwhile hide in shadows, washing their hands of responsibility.
What will believers do when religious statues and churches are targeted, as surely they will be? Why? Young Americans are emerging from universities as trained Marxists, God despising, undeterred by societal norms.
In July, a Catholic church in Ocala, Fla., was set ablaze during mass. The perpetrator, 24, drove his vehicle inside and used gasoline to fuel a fire. He said he is on a mission.
And he is not alone. Has a lifetime of worship and sermonizing prepared American believers to oppose our persecutors, both soft tyrants and violent militants? Or must we acknowledge that the freedom for which generations fought and died is defenseless against anarchists and a politicized virus?