From http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/columns/forum/wb/93119
A Christian separation is coming in America
New River Forum
By Wayne D. Carlson
Two thousand years ago, the historian Polybius voiced the traditional wisdom, "Every state relies for its preservation on two fundamental qualities, namely bravery in the face of the enemy and harmony among its citizens."
In reflecting on Christian Trejbal's Nov. 12 column, "Southwest Virginia is for haters," it occurred to me that Trejbal's views -- offensive and untrue as they are -- represent a profound crisis in America today that is very little understood or discussed.
His editorial decries what he says are "justified" perceptions of the people living in Southwest Virginia as "stuck in the past, resistant to change and new ideas" who are "willing to overlook racism and discrimination to promote an exclusionary, right-wing agenda."
Apparent proofs of these allegations stem from this region's support for George Allen in the recent Senate race and the "hateful gay marriage ban," as he terms it. To further confirm -- and apparently offend -- this recent Oregonian's perceptions of our native people, he has been visually assaulted by Civil War monuments, gun racks and the Confederate flag. When outsiders see Southwest Virginians, he bemoans, they see Christian conservatives.
Now, some Southwest Virginians, in offering their rebuttal, might point out that Trejbal appears to embody the same discriminatory, prejudicial attitudes that he accuses the people of Southwest Virginia of having, thus leaving himself open to the charge of hypocrisy.
Others might simply point out the overt arrogance and self-righteousness of someone so new to our region passing judgment upon its people as "haters."
Still others, quickly picking up on the innuendo he meant to imply by pointing to the monuments to our Confederate dead and the flag they proudly bore as representative of hate toward nonwhite people, could point out that according to the FBI's latest statistics on hate crimes, there were more crimes of this nature committed in Oregon's left coast neighbor, California, than all the states of the old Confederacy combined.
Trejbal has no doubt received many such letters from angry readers in recent days embodying these and other conclusions; yet, none of the aforementioned really goes to the heart of the problem.
What underlies the perception of people such as Trejbal and others who sincerely believe what they say and who think of themselves as progressive and liberal, and those of us who typically think of ourselves as conservatives, is our religious faith.
The fundamental problem in America today stems from the irreconcilable conflict between those people, called Christians, who recognize God's laws as clearly denoted in the Bible as the final authority on what is right and what is wrong, and those other people who place their faith in their own sense of right and wrong.
A study of American history will teach us that for the vast majority of the Founding Fathers and the people inhabiting this land, there was no conflict between the laws of God and those of the state. Their writings plainly express their reliance upon God, and they expected that all of their leaders would be professing Christians, though we know that in practice many were not.
The people at that time had not been deluded into believing that there was an inherent separation between their religious faith in God and the laws under which the state was granted authority to rule over the people. That lie, and that deception, came much later.
Polybius spoke about what it takes for a state to survive. History teaches us that he was right.
With that understanding, it becomes clear that America's rejection of its historic faith, the faith that brought it into existence, coupled with its embracing of the secular religion of political correctness and radical multiculturalism, will inevitably lead either to its breakup into various autonomous states, as the old Soviet Union did, or to a police state where we are held together against our will.
Either way, we are well on the way toward national suicide. We simply cannot coexist as one people under two conflicting sets of laws. The anti-Christians accuse us of hate when we resist acceptance of their faith. Likewise, we see as hate, persecution and tyranny those who seek to force us to accept their secular faith and to violate God's laws.
Compromise is out of the question. Separation at some point must come if we are to remain free. Once again, in the history of the world, we must stand as the Pilgrims did at Plymouth Rock, seeking our religious freedom from tyrants.
Wayne D. Carlson of Dublin is a veteran public school teacher and chairman of the Virginia League of the South.
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