Former Miami cop Marshall Frank lays it out:

I am not a Christian.

That being said, I love and support the Christian religion for adhering to a loving faith. I may not be a believer, but I have enjoyed the Christmas holidays all of my 75 years…

How despicable it is to hear and see people within myriad organizations across America — and throughout the world — who would malign and disparage a religion whose primary message is to love others and render healing and care to those afflicted with disease and poverty. Sure, some are fanatical, but fanatical Christians are not beheading anyone, nor setting off suicide bombs or swearing to their God that they will shed blood to conquer the world.

This is a wonderful piece and I urge you to take it in and to visit Frank’s own website as well. Many will find it strange that someone who is not a Christian would stand up for the faith in a country where it’s not fashionable to do so any more.

I spend a lot of time talking about the land “where the animals are tame and the people run wild”. South Florida is a transient region where people have few roots and very little feeling of community. It also tends to be the last stop of just about every criminal drifter in the hemisphere, especially the area from Boston to Washington.  (There are a few exceptions). As Frank joined the Dade County Sheriff’s Office in 1960, he had to deal with my contemporaries, which I deeply regret.

The result of this is that he has had to enforce the law on some of the surliest, rudest, and most cold-hearted people in the Western Hemisphere. Under these circumstances, being a cop for any South Florida county, city or metropolitan area (to say nothing of the state troopers who draw the short straws and get assigned there) is an especially thankless job.

My first traffic ticket was in Ocean Ridge for running a red light. I was raised to respect authority and to say “yes, sir” and “no, sir”. That so impressed the officer that pulled me over that he mentioned it to the judge when we went to court.  Evidently such manners were a rare commodity. He also overlooked the speed I was travelling at, although speeds such as that weren’t easy in a 1971 Pinto.

Although Frank talks about his growing up around Christians and Christmas, I suspect that his years on the force gave him a greater appreciation for a faith that exhorted its adherents to be at peace and reach out in charity to those around them.  Today the hippie dreamers–and Frank had to deal with those in their younger days–have declared open season on the police, which only underscores Frank’s point.

Today’s atheists and secularists bawl incessantly about how Christianity needs to be wiped from society. You’d think that people who supposedly proclaim that all you see is all there is would look around as Frank has and concentrate on the results. But today’s atheists are fundies with a new religion; such an observation is beyond most of them.

Frank ends his piece with the following:

I may not be a Christian, but I look to the Christian churches in America as the last-bastion defense from those who would overtly threaten our way of life, with deadly promises of conquest. Let’s stop denigrating the Christians.

They are a hugely significant in the foundation of our great country. I love them as much as they love me.

We love you too.  I’d like to think that someday, before he meets God, Frank will join up with us.  In the meanwhile, Marshall Frank, from one South Floridian to another, Merry Christmas.