Posted on 07/05/2004 2:21:13 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
So are you going to affirm that you believe only Tom Paine was a deist, and no framers were? Because you're wrong, you know.
That is not really correct. The "most Christian" thing to do is to follow what we have always called the Great Commission by doing everything we can to convert people from other faiths in order to save them from Hell.
Jim Crow was not in the Constitution and so no amendment was required to get rid of it.
While I agree the amendment process is the way to resolve the issue, I would dis-agree that the amendment be worded in the negative.
It should be worded in the positive, after the style of the 14th Amendment. Only in this way will the homosexual community have no grounds for complaint when the proposed amendment fails to pass.
I say let the homosexual community create a name other than the word 'marriage' to define their sexual contracts the same way congress created a new word to categorize and define the civil rights of former slaves and non-citizens.
Congress knew it couldn't re-define the word, 'Citizen,' so it selected a new, but sound-alike word,'citizen' as a substitute word in the 14th Amendment.
The same logic and principle should apply to homosexuals who believe they are entitled to the protection of the Civil Rights Act. Let them come up with their own word, and leave the pre-defined word, 'marriage' pure and un-defiled.
I propose the words, 'smerge,' 'smerged,' and 'smerriage' as examples.
Yes, I'm serious.
You are the one who want to restrict the free people of America from proclaiming their own religious ideals. I don't demand anyone practice my religion but I demand the right to proclaim it.
How about Thomas Jefferson?
Asked about the divinity of Christ, Benjamin Franklin admitted, "It is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect so soon [he wrote this as a very old man] an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." He would have agreed with Thomas Jefferson that "he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ." Jefferson even produced a special edition of the New Testament, which included Jesus' teachings but left out all the miracles.
OUR CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION
Limited Authority
Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution knowing that rulers are ministers (table-servers!). They believed that they should not only serve those over whom they were to exercise authority, but that the ruler is a servant of God! They wrote the Constitution knowing that rulers are God's ministers serving, not only God, but those over whom they were to exercise authority.
For rulers are...ministers of God to thee for good, Romans 13:3-4
They knew that all authority resides in God for Jesus said, "All power/ authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth," (Matt.28:18). No one has any authority unless it’s given by God. All authority is delegated to men by the highest authority, God. Rulers have their authority from God.
The centurion in Matthew 8:9 stated, Written into the Constitution is the only delegated authority our civil servants in the federal government have. Our Founders wrote "We the people," in the Preamble to the Constitution and designated the powers they would allow those in the offices we (the rulers!) created. Limited powers were given the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of our federal government. They are clearly expressed in the Constitution.
This delegated authority may not be re-delegated without the consent, tacit or expressed, of the one who gave it.
Our Founders knew the Scriptures well. That’s where they got their ideas. The example of King Saul in I Samuel 13:8 is a case in point: Samuel had told Saul to wait for him to offer a sacrifice to God. Saul becoming anxious because Samuel "came not at the set time appointed" offered the sacrifice. Samuel had not been given the consent of God to re-delegate his authority; Saul usurped authority not given him, therefore God rejected Saul from being king.
Did our Founding Fathers know the Scriptures? They knew it well. They knew the laws governing the use of authority. There are three:
Those who wrote our Constitution knew, as illustrated by the example of Saul and Samuel above, it is sin to usurp (steal) the authority of another. This is one more example of the fact that ours is a Christian form of government and ours is a Christian nation: our Founders found these ideas in the Scriptures and wove them into the Constitution.
A good rule to help understand authority comes from Scripture:
Authority is for the benefit of those over whom it is exercised (Romans 13:4 [So they are called civil servants, Matt. 20:25: minister or servants; not lords I Peter 5:2-4 ); On the other hand, dominion is for the benefit of those who exercise it, (Genesis 1: 29)
Please tell me which Framers of the Constitution were deist.
If they had all been Christians, they might have done something foolish like declare this country to be a "Christian nation." And that would have been a bad thing. It would have been bad for democracy (who would be allowed free speech? Only Christians? Who would be allowed to run for office? Only Christians? Would we have a national church with official prayers? etc.)
likewise, the opinion calling America a "Christian Nation" is not in the Constitution, and requires no amendment to do away with it.
Both considered themselves Christians.
Ahhh the power of the NEA, your humanist education is showing.
While they didn't set one religion of the land, religion was protected from government intervention(the exact opposite of what is going on now). Hell, the letter the liberals misinterpret to attack Christianity actual was supportive of Christianity's place in American society.
To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
Just get rid of the First Amendment and you'll be able legally to ban prayers, smash the crosses off of war memorials and declare the US a "secular" nation like the Godless Soviet Union.
While I have no problem with that, I do have a problem with those who believe that America has rulers. Our governors only govern within the limits of the powers we gave them, and those powers are delineated in their contract with us -- the Constitution. We are under self-rule.
To a certain extent. Christians could probably claim some sort of group protections under other laws, or whatnot. And they could claim protection under state laws. Just abolishing the first amendment wouldn't automatically lead to tyranny (but it probably would).
And if we got rid of laws against murder, murder would become legal. What is your point?
If we want to find something, we have to go back to the exact place we lost it.
That place, my friends, is found in the year 1947 in the halls of the Supreme
Court in a decision you should all know—the Everson decision (Everson v.
Board of Education of Ewing Township).
In that decision, the very liberal Justice Hugo Black gave a decision which was
actually written by an ACLU lawyer and thrown down on Hugo Black's desk for
passage.
In that decision, for the first time ever, Hugo Black uses the phrase "a wall of
separation between Church and State."
-D James Kennedy
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