Posted on 05/10/2006 6:28:01 AM PDT by bondjamesbond
A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda
Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.
The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women's equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them--and respecting their neighbors' choices. That doesn't threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.
And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God's real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one's beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.
I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?
Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the "party of death" because of many Democrats' view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents "godless," the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The "Christian" vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.
What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. "My kingdom is not of this world," Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?
So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.
That's what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/index.htm
I know why they'll never be found in Catholic or Orthodox Bibles: because they were not judged to be divinely inspired or authentic by an early Ecumenical Council.
I always wonder, though, why such "Lost Gospels" as those of "Judas" or "Thomas" couldn't be accepted by Christians who reject the authority of the Church as expressed through Ecumenical Councils.
I'm interested. LS? William Terrell?
>>I always wonder, though, why such "Lost Gospels" as those of "Judas" or "Thomas" couldn't be accepted by Christians who reject the authority of the Church as expressed through Ecumenical Councils.<<
Well some people are threatened by the idea that any word of the bible might be contradicted by a new gospel judged authentic. I have no such worries as the central massage that of love, Jesus' identitiy and sacrifice, forgiveness and good works is clear . The details are not so important to me.
You are quite amusing.
All this comes from the State archives historical societies:
"First of all, I...rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins." Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration.
"To my Creator I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity." John Dickinson, signer of the Constitution.
"I resign my soul into the hands of the Almighty who gave it in humble hopes of his mercy through our Savior Jesus Christ." Gabriel Duvall, US Supreme Court Justice; selected as delegate to the Constitutional Convention
"This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed. Patrick Henry
"I render sincere and humble thanks for His manifold and unmerited blessings, and especially for our redemption and salvation by his beloved Son... Blessed be His holy name. " John Jay, original Chief Justice, US Supreme Court
"I am constrained to express my adoration of the Author of my existence...for His forgiving mercy revealed to the world through Jesus Christ, through whom I hope for never ending happiness in a future state." Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration
"I think it proper here not only to subscribe to doctrines of the Christian religion...but also, in the bowels of a father affection, to exhort and charge them, my children that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, that the way of life held up in the Christian system is calculated for the most complete happiness." Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration.
I could go on and on and on and on....
Don't talk to us about our founders' intentions for this nation, when you clearly are quite ignorant on the subject.
Uh, that's not a Christian. That's an idiot.
First of all... "we"? Are you a direct descendant of a Pilgrim? Not likely since most of them died out. Second, that was 160 years before our government was formed. Nobody wanted a religious government back then, and nobody wants one now except for the Religious Right who tell their gullible followers that this nation has always been a Christian nation.
I'm sorry... our conversation is at an end. There is no way to have a rational conversation with someone so obstinately opposed to reality. May God bless you.
Did you read post# 225? Are those words so foreign to you??
Try reading the Mayflower compact.
Man... I could go on and on but what would be the point?
However I will if you like.
The argument (at least the smart argument) isn't that all the founders were not Christians - that is clearly not correct but that there were many founders who did not want a Christian government for various reasons including not being Christians and/or fearing the results of a theocracy.
What we can say is that they were accepting of public expressions of faith and thus the banning of Christmas trees or voluntary prayer is not justified.
> Don't talk to us about our founders' intentions for this nation...
We're not. We're talking about what they *actually* *achieved:* a wholly agnostic system of government; one that left religion out of the founding principles, did away with Divine Rights Of Anybody, and was, for near to two centuiries, the envy of the world.
Your quotes only bolster the point of the separation. There were amny of the Founders who would, in fact, blather forth at length about their religion... and yet, not a word of it made it into the Constitution.
"Are you a direct descendant of a Pilgrim?"
Are you ten years old??????
Keep reading.
You argue from a superficial level. If you want to understand the history behind our laws, go back to Blackmun and Locke. You will find you are terribly mistaken in your thinking. The Bible itself was the single greatest influence on our laws... more than triple the next greatest source.
> Try reading the Mayflower compact.
Try reading the Eddas.
They're both approximately equally relevant to the founding of the United States.
This is patently false! The Communists are atheists. They want no gods at all. It is the nature of man, however, that he will find his god after all. They turn to the state by default, not in defined worship.
Wrong, Bubba. They formed this nation because the King of England was all up in our face and forcing unreasonable taxes. How can an island rule a continent?
Our fundamental reasons for breaking it off with England had nothing to do with religion.
And this has to do with the Constitution, how...? I know that the Founders were able to separate their personal beliefs from their politicis... too bad you kooky modern Christians can't do the same.
CREATE the religious Left? Someone better tell Stalin's pet project, the National Council of Churches that someone's looking to move in on their turf. Someone better notify the ECUSA, ECLA, PCA, the Catholic Bishops (damned apostates that they are, most of them), the Nat'l Baptist Convention, AME Zion, UMC, ROC, etc., too!
The "religious right" doesn't want a theocracy... it wants a country not hostile to their beliefs and traditions... as it was established.
WRONG! "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..."
The Bill of Rights isn't an enumeration of rights granted by government. It is a recognition of inalienable rights the government can't infringe upon. These rights were considered Divine because they are God given, not man made.
"My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or qibble away the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and a other countenances permit His disciples in asserting that He was God"
John Quincy Adams
"Now to the triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honor and dominion, forevermore Amen."
Gunning Bedford, signer of the Constitution upon the death of Gen. Washington
"You do well to learn...above all the religion of Jesus Christ"
George Washington
"On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts.
Charles Carroll, signer of the Declaration
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ"
Thomas Jefferson
"I shall now entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for there is no salvation in any other."
John Withersoppn, signer of the Declaration
I don't know why certain documents were excluded, but I trust the early Church fathers knew their business. Moreover, just because a person was an acquaintance of Jesus, or even a disciple, didn't mean that everything he/she wrote was divinely inspired (think "Get Well Cards," tax returns, etc :)
None of this bothers me or shakes my faith one iota. They could publish 50 "Da Vinci Codes"---good book, bad history---and it wouldn't affect my faith.
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