Posted on 05/02/2005 10:46:25 AM PDT by Bombardier
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"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy." U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, R-CT, (New York Times, March 23, 2005)
Theocracy is derived from the two Greek words Qeo/j(Theos) meaning "God" and kra/tein (cratein) meaning "to rule." Theocracy is the civil rule of God, or the belief in government by divine guidance.
The powerful Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, Tom DeLay (R-TX) embodies government by divine guidance:
He [God] is using me, all the time, everywhere, to stand up for a biblical worldview in everything that I do and everywhere I am. He is training me.
Tom DeLay represents an ultraconservative religious movement seeking to impose a narrow theological agenda on secular society. Chip Berlet and Margaret Quigley, senior analysts at Political Research Associates, have named this movement the theocratic right:
The predominantly Christian leadership envisions a religiously-based authoritarian society; therefore we prefer to describe this movement as the "theocratic right."
Television preacher Pat Robertson sent out a memo to his political organization in 1986 calling on his followers to "Rule the world for God." That call to arms sums up the goals of the theocratic right, and explains their Congressional leadership which suspends the basic rules of Democracy: all that matters is winning, because it is for God. The ends justify the means.
This web site explores the narrow theological agenda that the theocratic right is imposing on secular society. Twenty-five years ago it targeted the Republican Party as the vehicle through which it could advance its agenda. Today it has extraordinary power in the U.S. government, with two branches solidly in its pocket and the third, the judiciary, just a couple of retirements away.
(Excerpt) Read more at theocracywatch.org ...
Yeah, all those jackboot-wearing, gun-toating Government Agents burning porno mags and forcing the masses into church on Sunday. I see it everywhere... /sarc
Among other things, this kind of Christophobia is what biblical illiteracy leads to.
I agree with all that. I just wonder from some of the posts I read, if that will be enough for some. I don't want homosexual marriage and I can't abide watching gay pride scenes, but I don't want anyone who is gay chased and forced to hide. I want kids to say the pledge with God in it and be allowed to have bible study after school, but I don't want bible study in school.
I'm just not sure where some want to draw the line.
Sorry do not know.
Oh, and I very very much agree with your description of popular culture! How coarse can we get? But it sells, so I am torn by my free-market side.
They're also getting outbred, so they are losing the future generations too.
This is Ann Coulter 101 - the "spectre" of the Religious Right whose political contributions pale in comparison to other special interest groups like, say, the American Bar Association. Let's read the article about the rise of the pagan left in the Democratic party.
For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago. The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globethe belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
Senator Shays ought to be ashamed of himself for his demagogic, unfair, unfounded, hate-filled, demonizing, anti-religious, Christian baiting.
Oh please... it's to counteract the secularism that the left is trying to push into the public domain under their misinformed opinion on the Constitutional separation of Church and State (e.g., remove all religious icons from public view). Pastors have been more vocal in telling their flocks to vote their conscience and stand up for their Bible-based convictions and many are choosing to do so, by being more actively involved. Nothing wrong with that. What's the alternative? Vote for a party that supports abortions and gay marriage? I think not. We are merely trying to bring the Republican Party back to it's basic core values. It's more like they have infiltrated our Churches and are seeking to promote "tolerance" of such issues.
They actually have a 'watch' site? For people who think the 10 Commandments and Pledge of Allegiance aren't necessarily bad things? I'ts a shame these dingbats aren't as concerned about religious fundmentalists who explode themselves and others. This article is chockful of moonbats (church-haters), a wombat (Repub. C. Shays) and dingbats, those who pander to them.
I remember a writer (Rolling Stone, I think) sarcastically describing a gathering of such religious people--criticizing their dress, `mundane conversations', haircuts/styles, carry-in dishes, et cetera and so-on--until I understood: "He's criticizing my parents. And me."
The author is a dingbat, and probably the reason RS sends me and others their magazine free-of-charge: because most people won't pay for it but RS wants to get their ads out of products that only homobats buy.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
I never said that wasn't true . . . nor, did I use the word "ifiltrated". I just said that religious conservatives have become more empowered within the Republican Party. Isn't that true?
All the early settlers believed in God, and they didn't seem to do so badly in writing the Constitution.
Oh, that's right, the left doesn't like the Constitution. I keep forgetting that.
It seems to me that most abuses stemming from the combination of State and religion were perpetrated by the State seeking religious authority to impose a secular desire. The Spanish Inquisition resulted when the Monarchy sought and received Papal authority to hold an inquisition and the the King appointed the Grand Inquisitor and set the rules for the proceedings. Communism and Fascism were attempts to replace religion with the community or Nation as the sole source for authority over the people. Has Christianity sought and succeeded in taking over a government and imposing religious objectives through State power?
Does anyone know who funds theocracywatch.org?
You can't bring logic here. Who do you think you are? [grin]
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials." - president John F. Kennedy.
But the evidence screams out in this case. Materialist dialectics has been a curse upon mankind. And we should not feel superior in the United States concerning this. Materialist dialectics' residue is all over our great nation, evidenced by abortion (which is Baal worship), cloning, homosexuality as just another lifestyle, euthanasia, and a white-hot hatred for all things religious in any public square.
None of this is new by any means. But if we look at just the modern era, the beginning of these things were founded by Marx, Darwin, and Galton.
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