God is on America's side, Ashcroft tells NRB
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)--God is on America's side in the war on terrorism, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told religious broadcasters Feb. 19.
___Ashcroft filled in for President George W. Bush, who had been invited to address the Feb. 16-19 National Religious Broadcasters convention at Opryland Hotel but was traveling in Asia.
___Bush still addressed the meeting in a videotaped message, however, applauding religious broadcasters as players in his faith-based and community initiative announced last year.
___Bush described his proposal as an effort to "rally the armies of compassion and help solve the problems in our country."
___"I salute all of you for doing your part to make this a better nation," Bush said.
___Echoing themes the president has used frequently since the September terrorist attacks, Ashcroft described America's war on terrorism as a battle between good and evil.
___"As President Bush has reminded us, we know God is not neutral in the battle of good and evil," Ashcroft said.
___Governments do not grant freedom, he said; it comes from God. "The guarding of freedom that God grants is the noble cause of the Department of Justice."
___Ashcroft defined freedom as the ability to make choices, while realizing that choices carry consequences. "The purpose of government is not to crush that freedom or override that freedom but to respect it and nurture it," he said.
___"Terrorists have a different understanding of choice," he continued. "They fear that those with freedom will reject their dogma. They seek to impose their dogma rather than inspire it."
___"Our fight against terrorism is a defense of freedom in its most profound sense," he said.
___That freedom includes the right to choose how or if to worship God, Ashcroft said. "I would say it is against my religion to impose my religion. If God made us free, who would I be to supersede his judgment?"
___He added, however, that America's founders presumed morality could not be maintained apart from religion.
___"Our constitution does not call for the establishment of religion in the public square," Ashcroft said. "Just as important, it does not call for the abolition of religion in the public square. Rather, our constitution calls for the respect of religion in its indispensable role in shaping a just and moral citizenry."
___That concept is now "under assault" from enemies who define the conflict as a war between Christianity and Islam and call the United States the aggressor, Ashcroft said. These are "lies designed to exploit differences between us."
___"For people of all faiths--whether they be Christian, Jew or Muslim--it is impossible not to see the stark difference between the way of God and the way of the terrorist," he explained.
___It is "the difference between a culture of life and a culture of death," he said, between "those who would die to save the innocent and those who would die to destroy the innocent."
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