(Here is one we can throw at our opposition!)
Who is Guarding the San Bernardino Strait?
Let me tell you of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Though largely forgotten it was the greatest naval battle in U.S. history. It started as a high stakes gamble by the Japanese, one that almost succeeded, due to the temporary diversions of two of the US Navy’s best fighting admirals. A military disaster of great magnitude was prevented only by the heroism of a handful of U.S. skippers who saw the sudden danger and knew what had to be done, even though it meant confronting and being totally outnumbered and outgunned by the might of the Japanese navy. They sailed into the fray with little hope of surviving because they knew the price of inaction or retreat was far greater than losing their own lives and their ships.
In October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur began to fulfill his promise of “I shall return,” to the people of Philippines. The campaign to liberate the Philippines opened with the successful invasion of the island of Leyte by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps.
The Japanese then sent a small fleet to the north near Luzon, luring Admiral “Bull” Halsey’s main task force away from his responsibility of guarding the northern entrance to Leyte Gulf, a passage called the San Bernardino Strait. Admiral Thomas Kinkaid was responsible for protecting the Americans who had landed on Leyte Islanf by guarding Suriago Strait, the southern entrance to Leyte Gulf. Each thought the other was guarding the vital northern entrance to Leyte Gulf and the vulnerable landing beaches. This confusion led to Kinkaid’s famous message to Halsey, “Who is guarding the San Bernardino Strait?”
On the morning of October 25, 1944, the main Japanese fleet under Admiral Kurita suddenly emerged in Leyte Gulf from the San Bernardino Strait and found no significant American opposition covering the exposed landing beaches. Thousands of American soldiers and marines, along with unarmed transport and supply vessels, now lay unguarded. The only thing between the Japanese and the landing area was a surprised and considerably weaker screen of American destroyers, destroyer escorts, and small carriers, now suddenly facing the superior might of a Japanese fleet of battleships and cruisers.
It should have been no contest. But realizing the gravity of the moment and heedless of their own peril, the smaller American force immediately went into a full scale attack against the vastly superior Japanese. Their unexpected heroism fooled the Japanese into thinking they faced a greater force and had blundered into a trap. The battle inflicted severe losses on the weak American screen, but the Japanese veered off, sparing the landing forces from destruction.
Admirals Kinkaid and Halsey were by no means military incompetents. Halsey in fact is rightly regarded as one of America’s outstanding leaders in World War II. Yet their combined strategic errors and failure to coordinate their actions almost led to a serious defeat.
So it is with many of our larger Christian ministries. They seldom talk to one another or coordinate their efforts. Sometimes they act as competitors rather than allies. Frequently they fight battles they cannot win and even if won, would not be of significant impact. Our ministries concentrate on remediation, not prevention. Even the struggle against abortion and homosexuality, important as they may be, are struggles against the symptoms of a Christ-rejecting culture.
Our best ministries are chasing diversions, leaving the San Bernardino Strait unguarded; that is, Christian children by the thousands are totally naked and exposed to the rabidly secular, anti-Christian teaching in the public schools. Just as Kinkaid and Halsey misjudged the intentions of their enemies and were tricked into making serious strategic errors, so today many Christian leaders are off in pursuit of lesser enemies while a major enemy force, the secular humanist left, is allowed free access to our children six hours a day, five days a week, nine months a year. What’s worse is that we Christians are paying our worst enemies to inculcate our own children with nonChristian propaganda through our taxes. And who is left to guard the children? Only a few Christian school and home schooling organisations, and a handful of teachers and parents. This is all that is left to face the leviathan government school system, the liberal educational establishment and their allies in most political parties.
These brave few are charging into the teeth of the enemy while many of our best Christian ministries and denominations either remain unaware of what’s going on in the schools or are unwilling to face the problem. They are pursing diversions and leaving the most vital battle areas unprotected: the future soldiers of Christ, whose minds are already being trained by the enemy.
It is difficult to convince Christian leaders and pastors of the imminent danger. Some will not take the time to study this issue and become informed, for to do so might compel them to leave their comfort zone. Too many pastors seem content to allow the secular humanists to indoctrinate their children during the week while they urge their members to engage in peripheral battles on Sundays.
Those who understand the absolute necessity of the Christian community’s recommitting itself to Christian education have no choice but to take on the battleships and heavy cruisers of the humanist establishment on the one hand and simultaneously cope with the flak from our own people on the other. Unbelievably our own church leaders are telling us to go ahead and let our children enter the enemy’s training ground, the schools, for there our children can witness for the truth. The church leaders won’t do intellectual, moral and spiritual battle with the humanist education establishment themselves, but they expect our seven and eight year olds to do so! At best this is ignorance. At worst it is irresponsible cowardice.
Folks, it is simply not possible to save the public school system. We must come out of that corrupt system, just as the children of Israel left Egypt for the Promised Land, and establish Christian schools that are thoroughly Christian, not just cheap copies of the state system with a few Bible verses sprinkled around. Far better still is to bring them home (an institution the Lord definitely established, something I can’t say about schools) and teach them ourselves. Jesus Christ did not sacrifice Himself so that we could copy the world’s systems, but to be a peculiar people of His own possession, thinking His thoughts after Him. You can know for sure that God did not pour out His wrath upon Egypt and part the Red Sea and lead the people out of there with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day so that the Israelites could have the fun of packing a lunch for their little ones each day to send them back down that same road to Egypt to go to school! Neither should we render unto Caesar our children who belong to Christ.
(This is a re-write by Craig Smith of a 1997 article by E. Ray Moore, Jr., Th.M., Executive Director of Exodus 2000 found at http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID21938|CHID122759|CII D364225,00.html)
From Keystone Magazine
July 2002 , Vol. VIII No. 4
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