Posted on 04/26/2006 8:33:23 AM PDT by presidio9
“The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant - baptism and holy communion - must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.”
Gary North A leader in the Reconstructionist Movement
The Christian reconstructionist movement seeks to gain total control of the United States and to rule under Old Testament law. Under such law, adulterers, gays and Sunday workers would be stoned to death. Anybody who did not publically take communion or be baptized would be denied citizenship under a reconstructionist theocracy. Even then, you had better be the right type of Christian.
All of this means the first 22 presidents of the United States would be denied citizenship in a right-wing theocracy. Number 23, Benjamin Harrison, was the first president to unquestionably be a communicant in a mainstream church at the time he was elected in 1888, according to Franklin Steiner, in his book “The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents.”
Harrison’s predecessor 100 years earlier, George Washington, is not known to have ever been a communicant. Washington was known to regularly leave church before communion at the same time with the non-communicants. When an Episcopalian minister preached during a sermon that it set a bad example for role models to leave before communion, Washington responded by ceasing to attend church services on communion Sunday. Washington did not ask for any clergy even on his deathbed. Washington appears to have been a Deist, or someone who believes that God can only be known by reason and not through revelation or organized religion. Deists believed in the strict unity of God and not in the trinity; that Jesus was subordinate to God; and that salvation was earned by character.
Of the first six presidents, all were either deists or unitarians, or both. Unitarians do not believe in the trinity and have come to be associated with Universalists, who believe that all religions are vital pieces of the puzzle.
Then there were the presidents who did not have any formal association with any church or denomination:
Martin Van Buren
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
When critics accused Johnson of being an infidel, he said: "As for my religion, it is the doctrine of the Bible, as taught and practiced by Jesus Christ."
Hayes said "I am not a subscriber to any creed. I belong to no Church. But in a sense satisfactory to myself, and believed by me to be important, I try to be a Christian and to help do Christian work."
Lincoln was said to have not believed in the deity of Christ. Washington reportedly never publically or privately in correspondence ever once invoked the name of Jesus. Washington and Lincoln couldn’t be citizens in reconstructionist America.
Nor could the disciples and apostles be. None of them were ever baptized by Jesus. There’s not a single recorded incident of Jesus ever baptizing anyone. Then there is the matter of Jesus himself. Jesus would be violating God’s law if he tried to stop someone from casting the first stone to kill a wayward woman or gay. As such, not even Jesus could be an American citizen if the reconstructionists get their way. But at least it will all be done in the name of Jesus, patriotism and freedom.
And, of course, any scientist espousing evolutionary theory would be beheaded.
The threat of this actually happening is not even worth the electrons that make up this dumb op ed.
Frankly, I'm much more concerned about the person of Richard Mathis than I am about who he writes about.
"Christian Reconstructionism" is the boogeyman of the DU'ers. As for me, I'm far more afraid of the boogeyman living under my bed than I am this sort of tinfoil hat stuff.
I'm not sure whether I'm dumber for having read the North quote or the rest of the essay. Maybe it's 50/50.
Please. Washington was an Anglican, not a Deist, despite what those ever-so-enlightened historical revisionists would otherwise tell you.
Libs can't stand the fact that the great men that created the greatest country on the face of the earth were humble enough to admit our rights are God given and not government given.
Is Richard Mathis a complete idiot, or what? Ooh, watch out for those bad Christians beheadings and blowing up people! Look out for those who want decency and honest living! They are horrible!
Gary North? He sure does. He's the grifter that made so much money off the survivalist books and products he sold during the Y2K scare. Google his name with Y2K and you'll see what I mean.
Of course, the Framers made sure that as long as our Constitution is in place it will stand in the way of all tyrannical mentalities, professing "Christians", included.
I have a feeling that I wouldn't be allowed citizenship under a Reconstructionist theocracy either; but I'm not going to lose a wink of sleep over it because I know that the Reconstructionists don't have a snowball's chance in hell of ever taking over.
Note to Richard Mathis: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there aren't people out to get you.
Besides... living under the rule of the first covenant negates the need for Jesus, communion, and baptism.
Mathis is all over the place, accusing God being a merciles diety, capable of only approval or disapproval and lacking any "common sense".
Talk about living on the edge.
Wait....none of that is true? What's that you say? No one has ever even heard of Gary North?
Oh well, nevermind.
Richard Mathis is obviously a democrat.. only a Moonbat could give/sacrifice enough time to propose such a thing..
That's it in a nutshell.
I guarantee the vast majority of traditional Christian believers in this country have never heard of, let alone would agree with, this "Christian Reconstructionism" bogeyman constructed by the anti-Christian left in this country, who want to impose religious tests barring traditional Christian believers public office (e.g., the judiciary) and destroy our long tradition of religious tolerance under the First Amendment of our Constitution by the constant public demonization of traditional Christian believers. The attempt is always to equate traditional Christian believers with Islamic fundamentalists despite the fact that there is no violent movement or attempt to impose an established religion from Christians (witness anti-Christian propagandist Andrew Sullivan's term "Christianists" -- like "Islamists," get it?). There will always be a few kooks, but they are irrelevant as far as the vast majority of traditional Christian believers in this country, who support our constititional government, have a right to speak out in the public square and participate as full citizens and not second class citizens in our government.
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