Yesterday on NPR's radio show "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross interviewed Michael Farris, president of the fundamentalist Christian school Patrick Henry College. This regrettably named institution seeks to train home-schooled Christians to be tomorrow's leaders, "ready to reclaim the biblical principles upon which our land was founded." The interview with Farris, who also teaches Constitutional Law at the school, shows the dangerous results of two misunderstandings regarding the nature of our government.
Gross questioned Farris about a passage from his book, The Joshua Generation, in which he proclaims his desire that Christian students "engage wholeheartedly in the battle to take the land." His reply:
Everyone who engages in politics, everyone who engages in public discussions wants their philosophy to succeed, that's the nature of democracy. People who believe the kinds of things that I describe in that book, and that we teach at Patrick Henry College, we want to be successful, just like everybody else. And in a democracy, people listen, and they decide which candidates, which ideas are the better ideas. And if they like the ideas of one, they vote for them. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about winning the war of ideas by having a better way of articulating our principles than the principles of people who are on the other philosophical camp.
This is indeed the nature of democracy, and being "successful" or "taking the land" in this context means that you've convinced a majority to vote to advance your philosophy with government force. With a legion of college students trained to spread Christian ideology in the public sector Farris hopes to use the democratic process to one day force his agenda on America—including restrictions on abortion, extramarital sex, and homosexual activity.
Democracy places an individual's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness at the mercy of his countrymen, . . .
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