Posted on 06/22/2005 10:21:10 AM PDT by LowCountryJoe
Former Senator and U.N. Ambassador John Danforth has performed a valuable service between elections by writing about a Christian's role in contemporary American society. In an op-ed for The New York Times last Friday, Danforth, an ordained minister, observed: "Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action."
He writes that the "only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves." One can quibble over where Danforth's "absolutist" position may lead politically (and I do, given the position of religious moderates and liberals when it comes to a host of other issues in which they are engaged - from anti-war activism and the environment, to civil rights and same-sex "marriage"), but his central thesis is correct: Christians are limited in what government can do for them and for an earthly agenda.
That does not mean government can't do some things. It simply means it cannot advance a moral and spiritual agenda, because it is the church, not the state, that is commissioned to preach and observe God's message.
That much of the country is preoccupied with materialism and pleasure further limits the state's capabilities in this area. Conservative Christians, while seeking to enact legislation that reflects their moral views, increasingly have found it difficult to impose their morality on themselves.
The pollster George Barna, who regularly checks the spiritual temperature of the Christian church, has chronicled important facts conservative Christians should consider before demanding government act to repair the "moral slide."
Barna has noted that as many conservative Christians are divorcing as those who are of different religious persuasions, or of no religion, and as many of the children of conservative Christians are having sex as non-Christian children.
But the ordained and self-appointed conservative Christian leaders do not seem to preach as much to their own about these shortcomings (or, if they do, they are not heeded) as they do to the rest of the country about theirs.
Wouldn't these conservative Christians have greater moral power if they put their own houses in order before trying to cure the disorder in other houses? Isn't that the principle behind Jesus' story about noticing a speck in the other fellow's eye, while ignoring the beam in one's own eye?
In a week when evangelist Billy Graham is visiting New York for what may be the last mass meeting of a long and noble ministry, Richard Ostling of the Associated Press asked him about social issues. Graham replied, "I don't give advice. I'm going to stay off these hot-button issues."
Graham hasn't always shied away from those topics, but he learned where the greater power comes from and it isn't government. The 86-year-old Graham "now seeks to shun all public controversies - preferring a simple message of love and unity through Jesus," writes Ostling.
John Danforth seems to flirt with universalism when he says that he and his fellow religious moderates believe "religion should be inclusive." Not exactly. Different religions make competing claims and the Christian faith separates "sheep from goats," the saved from the lost, and heaven from hell.
Jesus said he came to bring a sword. A sword divides. The primary objective for the Christian should be to seek and to point others toward Jesus, not to political parties and agendas.
The social ills confronting us have not produced our collective indifference to a moral code. They reflect that indifference. Fixing social ills does not begin in the halls of Congress or Supreme Court, but in individual human hearts.
Government can't go there. God can. But if God's servants prefer government to God, or seek to attach God to political parties and earthly agendas, they are doomed to futility.
Danforth notes that Jesus sat with "tax collectors and sinners" and sees these acts as part of Jesus' "tolerance" and inclusiveness. But his purpose was not to justify their often corrupt tax-collecting practices and other sins. It was to lead them to repentance and faith in himself. He told the woman taken in adultery that while he did not condemn her, she was to "go and sin no more." To a moderate, I guess that was intolerant.
These concerns were never raised when religious moderates and liberals had the public square to themselves. They're upset because they have been marginalized. Still, Danforth is right about where true power to change people comes from, and it isn't from the state.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Fishback, September 1809 ~ "Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree, (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness,) and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality. In all of them we see good men, and as many in one as another. The varieties in the structure and action of the human mind as in those of the body, are the work of our Creator, against which it cannot be a religious duty to erect the standard of uniformity. The practice of morality being necessary for the well-being of society, he has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus, and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses. It is, then, a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquillity of others by the expression of any opinion on the innocent questions on which we schismatize."
Thomas Jefferson from his note for his autobigraphy ~ "The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word 'Jesus Christ,' so that it should read, 'a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion'; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination."
"Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action."
It's funny because it's so untrue!
In what way have religious conservatives done this? Protecting traditional marriage? Allowing prayer in schools? Give me one example!
"Barna has noted that as many conservative Christians are divorcing as those who are of different religious persuasions, or of no religion, and as many of the children of conservative Christians are having sex as non-Christian children."
Neither of those are true. This guy conducted a "poll" after already deciding what he wanted to make it say. Their are all kinds of ways to manipulate such a survey if you have a pre-determined agenda. I wonder what his criteria to determine who is a "conservative Christian" was.
I'll give you two:
Forcing display of the (sectarian) Ten Commandments in public buildings and schools. Keep your god's rules out of my courthouse.
Changing science curricula to dilute the teaching of evolution. If your religion is so fragile that you need to prop it up in public schools with my tax dollars, and harm my kid's education in the process, you need a new religion.
"display of the (sectarian) Ten Commandments in public buildings and schools. Keep your god's rules out of my courthouse."
They are not sectarian. I am not even a Christian and I believe in them. By the way, he's your God too (I know that drives you nuts).
"Changing science curricula to dilute the teaching of evolution."
I don't know of a case in which education has been "diluted", and if you think that evolution is the end all explanation of creation then you are far more dogmatic and supersitious than any Christian.
Danforth wanted to pass a law making all motorcycles have the power to weight ratio of a Honda Civic. He also supervised the second Waco whitewash. The Ûber Nation (UN) is the perfect place for Danforth. The UN should have no place in a constitutional republic.
We wouldn't be in this predictament if we: RENDERED UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR'S...AND UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD'S.
Our Declararion of Independence and our motto," One Nation Under God come to mind ...
So happy that the men who drafted the First amendment did not mention the muslim-nor the Infidel. And that Jefferson was in France. For as Joseph Story wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,1833 Edition, Section 1877 The Real object of the first amendment wa snot to countenance much less to advance ,Mohammedanism, or Judaism,or infidelity,by prostrating Christianity ;bu tto exclude all rivalry among Christian sects.. . "And while Story- like JEfferson was not on the committee that drafted the First Amendment I find easy to reconcile Story to what was declared by Mr.
Huntington Aug.15,1789 Who hoped it would be constructed in such a way that it "would not patronize those who professed no religion at all."
These are very small potatoes in a country unsurpassed in protecting religious liberty and promoting scientific advancement.
Someone so utterly Ignorant of the history of public education and the history of American Law ought NOT be spouting crap like you have done. Human law if it is to be valid must not contradict any general law of nature dictated by God Himself, nor violate Revealed/Divine Law of
Scripture. Is consistant with Blacksotne and what was taught of American Law by James Wilson. (who signed our
fundamental documents) OF the naitons oldest public schools
the vast majority were legally and rightly under the domain of the local church.Only when they became corrupted after the War between th eStates did they begin removing the Bible, and Christian moral principles from the classroom.
While I continue to hit my students with my lecture "Bibles & Gunpowder and the American Revolution" I have a newer lecture..."Darwin meets Jesus in America's Public Schools: Why The Atheist want our Children to learn Natural Selection but quietly Need them to behave like Good Tolerant Christians.
I'll post it soon here on FR...
later pingout.
Danforth, BTW, is an ordained EPISCOPALIAN minister. So therefore he can say, believe and endorse anything (except the traditional moral absolutes as taught be every monotheist religion in the world).
Colson's ghostwriter should also note that there is also a diabolic twist to this phrase from Scripture in contemporary culture whereby only the perfect may make moral judgements, and hence no moral judgements are accepted.
A liberal's view of scripture. Unfortunately, it's wrong. In 1 Thess 4:1-8, a command is written for sexual purity. It ends by saysing that those who reject the command have rejected God.
Prohibition
"Prohibition"
Ok you're not serious. Nobody is proposing prohibition of alcohol, and to the extent that we do have prohibitionists(on everything from cigarettes to fatty foods), they are on the left.
"Well that was an example of what happens when Christian's get their way with government."
You just ignored my point. The prohibitionists of our time are on the left.
"Christians are out to use the force of government to censor what adults watch or listen to on T.V. & Radio which includes satellite & cable."
I've never heard such a proposal. There should be no censorship of Satellite or Cable, but I don't think anybody's disagreeing with you there.
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