Americans United just don't "get it" - still
Posted in response to the comments made on the article “Thou shalt drop it already” in the Washington Post on June 1, 2006:
J. Crozier on Jesus and Church/State separation: Jesus' comments were not to separate religion (church is a misapplied word) and the state.
Judaism throughout Early and Middle Judaism (Third to Fourth Century CE - depending on whom you ask, and then back in time) is a theocratic system. The king is to operate under Scriptural guidelines. The Tanakh is replete with injunctions against the king disregarding the Torah.
A Herodian (akin to today's Americans United for Separation of Church and State-types; see Mark 12:13 for the specific reference to the individual's sect) asked Jesus a question to undermine His Pharisaic doctrine (Jesus was a puritan, not a revolutionary). Jesus answered that you give back to the Roman occupiers their own coins. The answer reinforced the theocratic model by confirming the Halacha to remain separate from the ungodly by expelling their money from your possessions, while remaining true to God by continuing to make Temple sacrifices.
The people who heard the answer at the time got it; today's Americans United-types don't.
Moving on to the conversation about America and Christianity, anyone who continues to believe America up to the 19-teens and twenties is anything but a Christian-oriented nation is living in self-imposed ignorance.
It is impossible to read the writings and speeches of America's civic and business leaders and not read relentless citations of the intervention of Jesus, God's Word, Scripture, and Christianity in America's history and fate.
Perhaps most recognizable in history was the duel between positions taken to either defend or attack slavery by using the Christian Bible as the moral justification for the position taken.
In a less volatile, secularized instance (such as it is for the time-period involved), you could also include the messages sent between the mayors of New York and San Francisco with the nation's first transcontinental telegraph transmission as an example of the openness displayed by elected officials to citing Christianity as the spiritual force behind America's progress. I suggest referring to the Washington Post or the New York Times published the next day for the text.
When you read their transmissions, those things if said today would send the Americans United-types into cardiac arrest. It's unbelievable to them their rendition of American history is so far from the truth.
I could make a near endless list, so don't take the mere citation of only one or two here as the complete list available - that would merely put you into the self-imposed ignorance group.
The above referenced Americans United-types come up with a sentence or two from Jefferson, toss in the word Deist, and try to create a history of America as some secular state threatened with hijack by Christianity.
That is pure foolishness, and an insult to the intelligence of anyone who reads the actual speeches and letters written at the time. Anything said about God, even through the administration of FDR, when said today, evokes the mindless hysteria we continuously see from those types.
Their hysteria comes from their own disconnected fantasies about America's past, combined with senseless Biblical interpretations and their deluded interpretation of America's present religious convictions.
Kenneth E. Lamb
Blog index: http://www.blogger.com/profile/14444338
Web: http://www.kennethelamb.com
J. Crozier on Jesus and Church/State separation: Jesus' comments were not to separate religion (church is a misapplied word) and the state.
Judaism throughout Early and Middle Judaism (Third to Fourth Century CE - depending on whom you ask, and then back in time) is a theocratic system. The king is to operate under Scriptural guidelines. The Tanakh is replete with injunctions against the king disregarding the Torah.
A Herodian (akin to today's Americans United for Separation of Church and State-types; see Mark 12:13 for the specific reference to the individual's sect) asked Jesus a question to undermine His Pharisaic doctrine (Jesus was a puritan, not a revolutionary). Jesus answered that you give back to the Roman occupiers their own coins. The answer reinforced the theocratic model by confirming the Halacha to remain separate from the ungodly by expelling their money from your possessions, while remaining true to God by continuing to make Temple sacrifices.
The people who heard the answer at the time got it; today's Americans United-types don't.
Moving on to the conversation about America and Christianity, anyone who continues to believe America up to the 19-teens and twenties is anything but a Christian-oriented nation is living in self-imposed ignorance.
It is impossible to read the writings and speeches of America's civic and business leaders and not read relentless citations of the intervention of Jesus, God's Word, Scripture, and Christianity in America's history and fate.
Perhaps most recognizable in history was the duel between positions taken to either defend or attack slavery by using the Christian Bible as the moral justification for the position taken.
In a less volatile, secularized instance (such as it is for the time-period involved), you could also include the messages sent between the mayors of New York and San Francisco with the nation's first transcontinental telegraph transmission as an example of the openness displayed by elected officials to citing Christianity as the spiritual force behind America's progress. I suggest referring to the Washington Post or the New York Times published the next day for the text.
When you read their transmissions, those things if said today would send the Americans United-types into cardiac arrest. It's unbelievable to them their rendition of American history is so far from the truth.
I could make a near endless list, so don't take the mere citation of only one or two here as the complete list available - that would merely put you into the self-imposed ignorance group.
The above referenced Americans United-types come up with a sentence or two from Jefferson, toss in the word Deist, and try to create a history of America as some secular state threatened with hijack by Christianity.
That is pure foolishness, and an insult to the intelligence of anyone who reads the actual speeches and letters written at the time. Anything said about God, even through the administration of FDR, when said today, evokes the mindless hysteria we continuously see from those types.
Their hysteria comes from their own disconnected fantasies about America's past, combined with senseless Biblical interpretations and their deluded interpretation of America's present religious convictions.
Kenneth E. Lamb
Blog index: http://www.blogger.com/profile/14444338
Web: http://www.kennethelamb.com
posted by Kenneth E. Lamb | 9:40 AM
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