Don Wildmon
AFA/AFR founder
Editor’s Note: AFA founder Don Wildmon wrote this column in February 2008 as we were gearing up for a presidential election. His words seem even more appropriate now than they did then. We have updated the illustrations of the culture’s bias against Christianity.
Also, AFA recently brought Rev. Bert Harper, a 37-year pastor, on staff to minister to pastors and to manage the Repairing the Foundations project first mentioned in this original column. Watch for the March issue of AFA Journal, which will carry a feature introducing Harper and plans for this new arm of AFA’s outreach.
February 2012 – According to a recent study by the Barna Research Group, young people (ages 16-29) today are eight times less likely to say they have positive feelings toward evangelicals than the comparable age group just a decade ago. Moreover, today’s young people view Christianity in a very negative light, with more than 75% saying present-day Christianity is “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” “old-fashioned” and “too involved in politics.”
When will Christian pastors and leaders finally say “enough is enough” and get involved? Consider the following:
• Secular organizations opposed to religious liberty have been successfully pressuring high schools all across the South to abandon long-standing traditions of prayer before school events.
• Christian graduate students are being thrown out of counseling programs if they will not embrace the normalcy of homosexual behavior.
• Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been told they cannot say “Merry Christmas” in official mailings, even though Congress created Christmas as a national holiday.
• Mom-and-Pop bed-and-breakfast facilities all across the United States have been sued because they believe that sexual intimacy should be reserved for a man and woman in marriage
• Christian agencies in one state after another have been forced out of the adoption business because they believe that children should be raised by a mother and a father.
• A federal judge threatened a high school superintendent with jail time if the word “benediction” was so much as mentioned at a high school graduation ceremony.
• Saturday Night Live recently aired a blasphemous sketch including Jesus making a joke of sin, forgiving himself and telling NFL quarterback Tim Tebow to take his public display of faith down a notch.
• An internal memo at Walter Reed Military Hospital banned visitors from bringing Bibles or praying with family members.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled many pro-family organizations as hate groups. Mainstream media has followed suite every time those organizations make the news.
• According to a study by the National Religious Broadcasting and American Center for Law and Justice, social networking sites are actively censoring Christian viewpoints.
I could fill pages with similar examples.
I don’t have to tell you what effect this unrelenting attack on the Christian faith, coupled with the bias and bigotry of the news and entertainment media, is having on our youth. Unfortunately, much of the reason for the success of this attack falls at the feet of Christian leaders who refuse to take their faith beyond the walls of the church building.
With our Repairing the Foundations project, AFA is trying to rally 100,000 pastors to come together to confront this bias and bigotry. We must join hands and take a stand. We currently have more than 25,000 pastors and leaders who have agreed to do exactly that.
If you are willing to join in taking a stand for the future of our children, please register today at www.repairingthefoundations.net.
Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” They can do what God’s people have always done. They can come together to rebuild the foundations.
Would you be willing to become part of Repairing the Foundations? From time to time, we will send you information on what is happening and how you and your church members can join with others to confront those who seek to destroy our foundations. Unless we Christian pastors and leaders get involved, our nation may soon have no foundation left to repair. 
