Silencing the Church by Dilution...
Quotes from one of Americans United's most influential leaders
(CHART #5)

By: Paul Blanshard (Signatory to _Humanist Manifesto II_)
Source: _The Humanist_, March/April 1976

   "I think the most important factor moving us toward a secular
   society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach
   Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school
   until he is sixteen tends to lead toward the elimination of
   religious superstition. The average American child now acquires a
   high-school education, and this _militates_ against Adam and Eve and
   all other myths of alleged history." (emphasis ours)
 
   This quote by Paul Blanshard, AU's first Special Counsel and one of
AU's "Big Three" in their early years, reveals two very important
aspects about Americans United's agenda. While AU has argued that
religious liberty can only flourish in a "secular state," they have
always known that when the secular state owns and controls the
educational institutions and those institutions are required to be
secular, in the end they will produce a "secular society." Secondly,
such an educational system would "militate" against the Word of God as
America's standard for moral behavior and guide for social order. At the
heart of Mr. Blanshard's above quote is the recognition that the
silencing of the church will be accomplished by diluting it's theology.

Creedal Religion vs. Warmhearted Service Religion
By: Paul Blanshard
Source: _The Humanist_, March/April, 1976

   "...statistics indicate that most Americans are no longer found in
   church on Sunday, even though more than 90% of us allege that we
   believe in God. This alleged prevailing belief in God is not to be
   taken too seriously, since it still requires much courage in our
   culture to confess nonbelief to a census taker. _I am convinced
   that [the] religious belief of millions of Americans is only
   nominal. It is warmhearted service religion, not creedal religion_.
   When I was one of the editors of _The Nation_ in the twenties, I
   wrote an editorial explaining that golf and intelligence were the
   two primary reasons that men did not attend church. _Perhaps I
   would now say golf and a high-school diploma_." (emphasis ours)

   This quote by Mr. Blanshard reveals one of the fundamental aspects of
AU's agenda -- silencing the church by diluting it. "Creedal religion" is
viewed by AU and the Left as the number one problem with religion -- it
is dogmatic, intolerant and narrow-minded. Such "religion," according to
the Left, must be eradicated. Thus, creedal religion -- conservative,
Bible-believing Christianity -- must be replaced with "warmhearted
service religion," where a commitment to the Truth of God's Word is
replaced with "tolerance" and a social gospel that neither exposes our
sinfulness nor calls for our repentance.

From: St. Louis MetroVoice, May 1995, Vol. 5, No. 5.