Posted on 06/29/2010 1:45:00 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Words matter. Words often hold great meaning. That is especially true when it comes to the words of our founding documents like the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. Those words are especially cherished. Yet in the past year it appears the Obama administration has been changing one key word in that sacred scroll.
Last month the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2010 report revealed grave concern about both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejecting the term “freedom of religion” for the term “freedom of worship” in public pronouncements. Why the change when the First Amendment talks specifically about our freedom of religion and not simply worship?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… – US Constitution
Last November Obama used the term “freedom of worship” at the memorial service for the victims of the Ft. Hood shooting. A few days later he did it again in speeches in both Japan and China. In December Hillary Clinton also used that terminology three times in a speech at Georgetown University and never once used the phrase “freedom of religion”. In January of this year Clinton used the “freedom of worship” term four times while addressing senators.
This change in phraseology could well be viewed by human rights defenders and officials in other countries as having concrete policy implications.” – U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2010 report
The response by many religious freedom advocates is fear of what this all means. Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom and member of the Religious Freedom commission believes freedom of worship is limited to private beliefs and prayer but not public activity.
It excludes the right to raise your children in your faith; the right to have religious literature; the right to meet with co-religionists; the right to raise funds; the right to appoint or elect your religious leaders, and to carry out charitable activities, to evangelize, [and] to have religious education or seminary training. – Nina Shea
Some Christian based publications are also worried.
That’s not an inconsequential change: Freedom of worship means the ability to have church services, which is crucial, but leaves out protection for Christian schools, publications, and Christian compassionate ministries…’Freedom of religion’ means that ministries designed to help prisoners change their lives, or to help the poor enter the workforce, can teach what the Bible teaches. Under ‘freedom of worship,’ these ministries could become illegal, as they are in many parts of the world. This is a development to watch warily. – World Magazine
Some in the State Department argue the words “religion” and “worship” can be used interchangeably and there is nothing to worry about. Others aren’t so sure and see this change in terminology as a major shift by the Obama administration.
Those of us in the business of sniffing out rats know that this is a rhetorical shift to watch. – Tom Farr, Professor of Religion and World Affairs at Georgetown University and the former head of the State Department’s International Religious Freedom Office
This President clearly sees religion as a key part of foreign affairs when the Muslim world is involved especially. He is ultra-careful to not want to offend followers of Islam. We already know that the administration has rejected the term “radical Islam” or any similar language and refuses to admit religion plays a major roll in terrorism.
This new terminology of “freedom of worship” might be given as a sign to Muslim nations and places with Christian persecution like China that they are not going to crack down on religious persecution for minority religions in those countries. That could explain why Obama first used the term after a radical Muslim killed Americans at Ft. Hood. And it could also explain why he used the term in speeches in China and Japan.
I’m very fearful that by building bridges, we’re actually stepping away from this fundamental principle of religious freedom. … It is so critical for Western, especially American, leaders to articulate strong defense for religious freedom and explain what that means and how it undergirds our entire civilization. – Nina Shea
Shea has it right. I’m not sure who all the Obama administration is trying to build bridges with by a shift in terminology, but it it a dangerous shift. When Obama’s folk shift terminology that always means there has been a shift in policy. They (with the exception of Vice President Biden) choose their words very carefully. The administration needs to publicly proclaim what this new policy means for Americans and for religious freedom around the world.
Mac daddy chokes less when saying the word “worship than “religion, seeing how much time he spend in church.
Oh wait forget the term church, mac daddy and church don’t belong at the same time unlike mac daddy and say:
Golfing ( on sunday of course)
Parties
Vacations
Nose Candy
or
any other thing he can think of to avoid “Church”.
Mac daddy chokes less when saying the word “worship than “religion, seeing how much time he spend in church.
Oh wait forget the term church, mac daddy and church don’t belong at the same time unlike mac daddy and say:
Golfing ( on sunday of course)
Parties
Vacations
Nose Candy
or
any other thing he can think of to avoid “Church”.
Zero is attracted to Biblical terminology (remember "Where is Armageddon?").
Revelation 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
ping
INDEED.
If you have not read the quotes of our leaders over the last 110 years, then you are missing some solid proof of their goals, strategies and hatred of Christianity:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2
Thanks for the ping!
Baptist Ping
Religion is the FIRST freedom mentioned. No accident.
Perhaps it has something to do with Obama’s true religion, Islam?
"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -- John Adams, October 11, 1798
NB: I'm not clear on what was the 1798 meaning of gallantry. Maybe it meant what today would be considered a fake or a poser.
^^^^^
And from Washington's Farewell Address: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
Why? Because freedom of religion is incompatible with a Turkish-style secularist wall of separation between church (or more generally religion) and state, moveable at will by the state until the only freedom is that of private worship and privately held belief: religion completely driven from the public square, no exceptions from laws based on freedom of conscience, parade permits required for processions around the outside of churches, zoning laws applied to Bible studies (which aren’t worship), etc.
I gotta ping this out later. And read it all first!
bump
Thanks, I know some people I really want to share this message with.
Probably most folks think it's George Soros or perhaps some international cabal of godless, one-world, elite nabobs.
Probably none of the above.
Are there any knowledgeable people of faith who have ANY doubt as to who is the ACTUAL evil, crafty puppet master of Barack Hussein Obama?
Leni
Indeed.
Thanks much for the ping; post; thread. Very interesting. BTTT!
placemarker
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