Tag Archive for 'faith'

“Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America”

Published
by
Wilson
on June 11, 2008
in Podcast
. 0 Comments

I thoroughly enjoy history. I remember the first time someone tried to convince me that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were “born again Christians.” That phrase has a fairly specific meaning in today’s America, and I knew that neither Jefferson, nor Washington were “born again” as I understood the term 20 years ago. People can believe what they will or what they want, but when you screw with history, you are no friend of mine. I remember when all the church schools started teaching kids (mine included) that our “Founders” were all Bible toting Christians who made sure America was founded as a Christian nation based on Christian principles. I didn’t have the time, nor the desire, to refute this malarky.

Finally, someone has written the book that I needed back then, “Founding Faith”, by Steve Waldman. Waldman is the Founder of beliefnet.com, the largest spiritual web site, dedicated to helping people in their spiritual walk whether it be Christian, Islam, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever. In this interview Steve explains the impossibility of referring to the faith of our Founding Fathers as if they were one homogenous group who believed just alike. They were anything but. Just as people today cannot agree on matters of religion and faith, our Founding Fathers, and the colonies from which they came, were all over the place. Don’t you remember? Puritans had their state, while Quakers had theirs, Catholics theirs, and they sent all the debtors to Georgia.

So what does this have to do with today? As Steve points out, there are those today who invoke the “faith of our fathers” to argue that these ancestors never intended for their to be a separation of church and state. If you repeat this a thousand times, it still will not be true.

Steve’s purpose in writing the book is probably a little more altruistic than my purpose in interviewing him. His desire is for each of us to have a better understanding, historically and practically, about the relationship between religion and government, separation of church and state. My purpose is much more sinister: to squish underfoot the idea that church and state should not be separated.

Actually, if there were a consensus among the Washingtons, Jeffersons, etc., it was that the federal government should stay the heck away from religion, while the states could put you in jail if you didn’t attend church on Sunday. You have to remember the guys that came up with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended it to apply to the federal government, only. So back in those days if the State wanted everyone to attend church, nothing in the constitution prohibited them from passing such a law. They had some pretty weird laws back then. By today’s standards they were harsh, cruel laws which would shock most of us by today’s standards. Things change! Thank the Lord!

It took the Civil War and the Fourteenth Amendment for the “freedom of religion” of the First Amendment to apply to the States. Of course, the States didn’t give up their monopoly on religion just because the Fourteenth Amendment was passed and that is why ever since 1868 the courts have had to deal with a progression of cases which emphasize the tension between the original intent of the First Amendment and the restrictive intent of the Fourteenth Amendmant.

Maybe this explains why all (at least as far as I can recall right now) the laws that try to make us do religious things (like pray in school and at graduation) are state laws, not federal. It’s that old state power trying to exert dominance over the freedom granted to the individual under the First Amendment. If we could understand and appreciate that this supposed controversy over separation of church and state, is really a battle between us (as free individuals) and the state (that stupid entity that can’t get the garbage picked up on Monday), we might realize that this is a battle I (us) (we) (the individual) am supposed to win!

I think our Founding Fathers understood this, much, much better than we do. They prized individual freedom over everything else. They fought a losing battle and won against all odds because they preferred freedom to tyranny.

Tell me again. Why do you want to pass a law that makes me listen to you pray?

If you want to have some fun and find out more about the religion of Jefferson or Washington or Madison, just go to Steve’s archive about our Founding Fathers. You will be amazed at what those crazy guys were thinking!

 
 Steven Waldman, Founder BeliefNet.com [32:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (403)

What Romney Should Have Said!

Published
by
Wilson
on December 7, 2007
in Blog
. 0 Comments

If Romney’s apology for being a Mormon impressed anyone, I can only assume they don’t live in America. If they do live in America, they need remedial education in Constitution 101. I don’t know if I am more embarrassed for Romney having to make the speech or for America for needing the assurrance.

I think Obama should do the same. I want to make sure that because he is black he doesn’t let some deep-seated resentment about slavery cause him to murder me in my sleep if he becomes Commander-in-Chief.

And I sure as hell want Hillary to swear to heaven that I don’t have to worry about an executive order requiring all first born sons to be castrated. (BTW, I was not a first born.)

Since Romney is running as a Republican, maybe I should direct my disgust at a party whose support for a candidate is apparently influenced by his religious orientation. However, I have little reason to believe that a Mormon candidate would not have to do the same thing had he been born a Democrat.

My sympathy, if any, for Romney is tempered by the fact that he asked for it. I don’t recall when it was or exactly what he said, but I seem to remember some months ago he made a reference to his faith. Well, open the door and let the morons come in. Say hello to all those non-judgmental people that are going to judge what that means. Frankly, when a candidate affirms his faith, I know two things: (1) He is being handled by someone, and (2) I am being manipulated.

I want an honest man, a guy who hasn’t been indicted for taking money under the table. I would probably hold wealth against someone (because I wonder about their ability to understand what “We the People” need), before their religious orientation.

Anyone that can look at a Romney and worry about the extent to which a good, moral man would ask his church what he should do about NAFTA certainly needs to be checked for alien implants.

I am much more concerned about the quiet egomaniac who had a religious experience and now is amazed that God has chosen him to be President. That kind of guy is likely to start a war with God’s enemies. He scares me to death regardless of whether he is a Mormon, a Methodist, a Baptist or whatever.

I sincerely hope that the need for candidates to disclaim undue influence by their church or their faith is a Republican perversion, because I want to vote for a candidate who will tell some folks to go to hell. That is why I won’t vote for a preacher for president or dog catcher. If any of this offends you, …………………………….

God Doesn’t Want to be President!

Published
by
Wilson
on July 21, 2007
in Blog
. 2 Comments

I see everyone is getting ready for the Democratic Presidential debate Monday night in the great State of South Carolina. SC seems to be just as “Red” as GA is and I cannot help but note that the morons in their legislature passed a ridiculous law last year (or maybe the year before, I forget) that said only experts that were licensed to practice in the State of South Carolina could testify in the courts of SC. What does this mean? Simply, that the most knowledgeable doctor in the world on heart disease or cancer could not testify in the courts of SC unless he applied to the SC medical board for a SC license. The law was so ridiculous (not to mention unconstitutional) that the Supreme Court of SC immediately issued an order essentially suspending the law. So much for SC, but that is not my purpose.

I just happened to be watching CNN and saw some of the video questions that were submitted for the debate. The discussion was about questions of faith and to what extent a candidate would rely on his faith in making decisions. J. C. Watts made a comment something to the effect that a candidate (and thus an elected official) should certainly rely on his faith for guidance in making decisions for the people. I have no idea what that means other than someone prays, gets an answer and acts upon it. That kind of talk is just plain nuts.

I am scared to death of people of faith making political decisions. I don’t even want someone praying and getting an answer as to what I should do. Why would I want to trust them to get the “right” answer on something as important as the federal budget or health care. I can hear it now: “I vetoed universal health care because God told me he would take care of everyone.” Come on J. C., give me a break.

Sorry, J. C., you just need to mind your church business and leave politics alone. People who think faith/religion has a place in American politics has no understanding of where America came from or what it is about.

I cannot say it better than one of our most philosophical Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. We would all do well to read it, memorize it and live it. Jefferson wrote:

[Sec. 1] Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

[Sec. 2] Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

[Sec. 3] And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.