Young Christians Fighting for America

YCFA members may now join the yahoo email discussion group located at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ycfa/.  To become a registered user, you must create a yahoo account and join the group.  When that is done, you will be able to send messages to the group and reply through the web form.

Enjoy!

A new blog, www.ycfa.blogspot.com, keeps you informed about the latest happenings in Congress that concern you.  In addition, the YCFA Executives post the letters sent to senators and representatives, and invites your comments and discussion.

 Young Christians Fighting for America (YCFA) is an organization dedicated to helping involve young home educated people in preserving our nation's Christian heritage, and encouraging them to use their influence towards changing laws for the better. The founders, Cole Adema, SD, Zach Engelhart, SD, Jessica Raymond, VA and Jonathan Bartlett, ND, discovered that young Christians are not having the impact on this country that they could have. YCFA hopes to change that. "After all," states Bartlett, "It's our future."

YCFA is composed of students ages 12 through 21. The executives, as the founders are called, oversee the efforts of the writers to find a topic worthy of notice. Once a letter to legislators is drafted and approved, signatures are gathered from the signers. This level constitutes the majority of the group's membership.

  The Report, YCFA’s quarterly update, is published to inform members about what has been accomplished as well as to identify new issues that need addressing.   Submissions about current events from a Christian perspective are welcome, as long as they are no more than 250 words in length.

Many important topics will be addressed, including the National Animal Identification System, illegal immigration, and various gun control laws throughout the country.

Young people are encouraged to join YCFA by printing out the form linked to on the left and sending it to the Executive Administrator along with a $5 check or money order.  This minor fee is used to help cover the cost of letters distributed to various political leaders as well as the cost of the newsletter. 

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

- II Chronicles 7:14

Some may inquire why a group of young individuals would come together and commence an organization dedicated to the future prosperity of our constitutional system and, most importantly, the Biblical Laws of government that once powerfully governed our society.  As an organization, we hope to revitalize Christian principles all across America.

            When the U.S. Constitution was signed on Sept. 7, 1787, the founding fathers provided and instituted a unique form of government.  One of these unique characteristics of the new constitutional government was its limitations imposed on the federal government.  If the Constitution does not clearly express a particular power, then the federal government cannot perform it.  The founders understood that a federal system with delegated powers, along with curtain checks and balances to check proposed legislation in Congress, was an essential component to limited constitutional government because it ensures to the people that the government will not usurp its authority and abuse our fundamental right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.  Under this system, the principles of liberty and self-government could thrive and continue for future generations.    

            Maintaining this form of government that the founders gave us is a civil duty and responsibility that all Christians must take seriously.  If our country forgets those essential components that originally bound our government, America will fall.  In order to maintain our constitutional system that the founders gave us to maintain, the people must act and take responsibility to guarantee its prosperity in the future.  And as an organization of young people, we hope to do just that.

            Yet, things have changed.  Since the founding of this great republic to the present, America has experienced numerous modern changes which have significantly impacted the political philosophies and ideals of constitutional republicanism.  Many of these transformations, however, have not been for the wellbeing of the nation. 

            In the middle of the 19^th century, and continuing through the 21^st century, American has experienced dramatic changes in federal power, civil liberties, and protection of religious liberties under our Constitution.  Instead, a philosophy contrary to the principles enshrined in the text is gripping our nation, polluting our original government: secular humanism.

              The founders established federal power in a very limited matter.  But as secular humanist philosophies of law and government increasingly influence our respective political branches established under the Constitution, the original limitations imposed on federal power began to diminish.  Under biblical principles of liberty and self-government, which the founders believed essential to the framework of the new nation, government itself is to perform a very minute role over the people:  to protect its people and punish evildoers.  However, because secular humanists believe that God does not exist and that man can perfect himself through governmental means, its principles will flow quite contrary to the Bible.  Thus, instead of a governmental system with diminutive powers, secular humanists will champion the ideas of strong and tyrannical government.  The founding fathers, however, never wanted our constitutional system to reach such a point of corruption.  That is why they where very specific in providing limited control to Congress.

            Since the New Deal Era, America experienced a gross expansion of federal power that has continued to this day.  Federal power has become so extremely centralized that it now has more authority and political control in areas which the Constitution is silent.  Consequently, our once decentralized federal system has conceived for itself more power then constitutionally granted.  I believe that a large extent of this damage can be contributed to secular humanism and its significant impact on American constitutional law. 

            The growth and expansion of secular humanist philosophies has not only damaged our originally limited form of government, but has also transformed civil liberties under the Constitution.  These civil liberties include liberties like abortion and homosexual sodomy legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court.

            In its landmark decision Roe v. Wade, the Court considered an appeal challenging a Texas statute criminalizing the abortion procedure.  The Court determined that the Texas criminal abortion statute violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it prohibited a woman wanting an abortion from exercising her right to choose.  The Court stated that “this right of privacy, whether it be found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”  This decision is unconstitutional for many reasons.  First, the Court failed to analyze our Christian roots of morality.  If the Court would have done so, it would not have concluded as it did.  Second, the Court exercised a power not vested to it by the Constitution: legislation.  The judicial branch has not been delegated the power to legislate from the bench according the Article III.  Because the Court lacked such authorization, it should not have legalized abortion as a constitutional right.

            Another infamous case decided by the Court is Lawrence v. Texas.  This decision essentially found a constitutional right for homosexual individuals to engage in consensual sexual sodomy, overturning the challenged Texas statute criminalizing such immoral conduct.  This decision also overturned a previous precedent, Bowers v. Hardwick, which found that the language of the Constitution does not render any constitutional right for individuals to engage in such conduct.  The Bowers Court analyzed historical precedent and concluded that the Constitution does not protect such acts.  In Lawrence, however, the Court failed to perform the same analysis and accepted the views of the dissent express in Bowers as authoritative.

            Obviously, civil liberties have been grossly expended thanks to the work of liberal judges on the Supreme Court.  Not only do these decision fail to properly uphold the principles enshrined in our Constitution, they also violate God’s moral law.  This is a very serious matter that we must not ignore.    

            Since the beginning of its history, America has been a country of religious freedom founded on the Puritan virtue of self-government.  But this has changed.  After the so-called “separation of church and state” phrase was declared constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the judiciary has radically destroyed religious freedom.  From cases like McCollum v. Board of Education, Engle v. Vital, and School District of Abington Township .v Schempp, the Supreme Court has effortlessly, and without hesitation, declared the religious freedoms and tradition such as voluntary prayer and Bible reading in public schools unconstitutional.  The Court has even had the audacity to declare the Tem Commandments unconstitutional in several cases. (See Stone v. Graham; McCreary Co. v. ACLU of Kentucky).

            The question remains: Should Christians act and stop these events from happening?  Most Christians, if not all, would say that we should do something to impede growth of secularism.  Reluctantly, however, most people who answer this question positively fail to breach there own individual expressions.  The point I am trying to make is this:  Far too few Christians are doing there part to impede secularism from further consuming America’s Christian heritage.  This must be stopped before further danger persists.  Not only must we impede the expansion of secularism, but we must also impede the slow and reluctant way Christians are reacting to secularism itself.  Secularism is a dangerous road which this country cannot afford to traverse, and in order to impede America’s further traverse upon this road, we must pray, have faith, and act. 

            In James 2:14-17, The Bible describes Christians without works as unless.  The passage begins in verse 14 by asking a simple question:

                        What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works?  Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?  Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

            I believe that this same passage can be applied to Christians who have faith but fail to act and combat secularism.  Just as faith without works is dead, so shall faith without action.  We are engaged in a spiritual warfare in America.  A war between two opposing world-views:  Christianity and secular humanism.  But how can we win this fight without first removing ourselves from the sidelines?  Now is not the time for Christians to sit on the sidelines and observe the secular state of our country without rendering any effort to curtail such a dangerous and fatal direction.  Unless Christians take the stand for liberty, freedom and self-government according to the Bible, the Constitution and its principles, America will eventually crumble on the path of self-destruction as Ancient Rome did so long ago.  But will Christians actually take that stand and start a reformation for Christ?

            The YCFA is an organization dedicated to revitalize and invigorate this reformation across American.  We will constantly watch and observe important political developments and issue letters, which are sent to congressional leaders, expressing our concern over whether a particular bill proposed in Congress should be either validated or invalidated.  Issues and controversies dealing with God’s moral law, the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution deserve our unremitting concentration.    Defeating secularism will be a tough and challenging road that every Christian must take.  We can do this, and as the vice-president of this organization, I believe that the Lord can use us to change America for the better.  I will close with a particular verse that I believe, as well as every other member, is paramount to our nation’s future prosperity: “My people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Cor. 7:14).                                   

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Emblem designed by Rebekah Raymond