Posted on 05/17/2024 4:42:14 AM PDT by SJackson
During the last few years, while the American left and its media minions have been presenting clueless consumers with a narrative that’s well-nigh unprecedented in the degree to which it deviates from the truth, David Horowitz, in a series of model books, has been busy setting the record straight. Was Donald Trump’s presidency an exercise in authoritarianism and a threat to our democracy? No, it was an attempt – foiled by his enemies in the deep state – to return the country to its constitutional roots. Was George Floyd a martyr in a nation founded on white supremacism? No, he was a thug who’s been deified by race hustlers out to divide Americans along racial lines. Are corporate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs a necessary measure to redress longtime prejudices and inequities? No, they’re part of a cynical Maoist attempt to compel universal acceptance of an ideology that’s utterly at odds with core American values.
I’ve compared these short volumes – which form a distinctive sequence in Horowitz’s large, storied, and wide-ranging oeuvre – to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and other pamphlets which, in the lead-up to the Declaration of Independence, played a crucial role in setting before the American public the argument for breaking from Britain. Now, in America Betrayed, Horowitz steps back from the present historical moment and from the left’s current menu of mischievous machinations in order to elucidate the origins and essence of the American project – and the long history of malevolent efforts to derail it. Those efforts, as it happens, have repeatedly centered on race, hence Horowitz’s declaration, in his preface, that he “wrote this book to provide a concise, easily digested and accurate history of race in America to serve as an antidote to the hateful lies progressives have promoted about their own country.”
To achieve this end, Horowitz first takes us back to the Protestant Reformation. His subtitle is How a Christian Monk Created America & Why the Left Is Determined to Destroy Her; the monk in question is none other than Martin Luther, whom, despite the fierce antisemitism of Luther’s later years, he has come to admire as a key figure in the back story of America’s founding. I should mention that fans of Horowitz who are also devout Catholics may find this part of the book problematic; but he’s quite simply correct when he describes the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s time as a deeply corrupt authoritarian institution that, with no biblical warrant, and in defiance of the plain fact that all human beings (even priests, pontiffs, and prophets) are capable of evil, had “elevated the priesthood and the Church to superhuman heights.”
Among other things, the Catholic clergy, in their arrogance, claimed to possess the power to sell salvation itself in the form of “indulgences” – a practice that Horowitz rightly condemns as an “unholy scam.” Taking on this nasty business, Luther “brought the Church to its knees” – an accomplishment that Horowitz compares to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s role in bringing down the Soviet Union – and, translating the Bible into German so that his followers could read the Word of God for themselves, accustomed them to the notions of freedom of conscience, the sanctity of the individual soul, and “the priesthood of all believers.” As Horowitz explains, the United States of America could never have been established – at least in the form that we know it – without a basis in these principles of Luther’s, which by the mid-18th century had come to be embraced by most Christians in northern Europe. To quote from America Betrayed: “The sanctity of the human soul: this is the foundation of all democracy and the nemesis of human tyranny.”
Of course, a generation of young Americans are now being taught – thanks in large part to more recent unholy scams like the New York Times’ mendacious 1619 Project – that their country was, uniquely, built not on the sanctity of the individual but on the evil of slavery, and that the enslavement of Africans was, from the outset, justified by its defenders entirely on the basis of racial superiority. Horowitz shoots down these falsehoods with bullets of truth. For example:
No, far from being rooted in America’s founding principles, black slavery was, from the beginning, an affront to them. Most of America’s founders recognized this, and knew that one day the slavery question would have to be decided once and for all, probably on the field of battle. Given the number of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice to end slavery, the 1619 Project’s lies are, as Horowitz puts it, “as malicious as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
To be sure, as in any society where multiple ethnic groups have lived side by side, there have always been ethnic frictions in the U.S. And yes, there has been terrible racism. But it wasn’t as prevalent in the colonial era as it was in the antebellum Republic – especially in the Southern states – in the decades leading up to the Civil War, where defenders of the “peculiar institution,” living in a country founded on freedom and equality, had no argument for their position other than that those principles didn’t apply to black slaves. And why? Because, they maintained, those slaves, by virtue of their race, were by definition unequal, and thus unentitled to freedom. Needless to say, they had a weak case – and an un-American one. What was “distinctly American,” in other words, in the prewar arguments over slavery “was the declaration of equality embraced by the American majority, not the racist defense of slavery by the soon-to-be-defeated slaveholding majority.” Alas, the notion that blacks were naturally subordinate to whites persevered in the South for a century following the Civil War, providing a justification for Jim Crow and, during the presidency of the Virginia-born Woodrow Wilson, for the introduction of Dixie-style racial segregation into the federal government – a policy that was not reversed until World War II.
If the civil-rights movement of the mid-20th century won so much support – and accomplished so much reform so quickly – it was, affirms Horowitz, because the message of freedom and equality preached by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was consistent with, and indeed firmly rooted in, America’s founding values – and, in turn, in the teachings of Martin Luther. One wonderful detail that Horowitz mentions here came as news to me: King’s father, who, like him, was a Baptist minister, was actually born Michael King, but, after he learned at a conference in Germany about the life and teachings of Martin Luther, he changed his name to Martin Luther King.
Thanks to Dr. King’s approach, the transformation of race relations in America during the second half of the 20th century was nothing short of miraculous. Dr. King had called for America to “live out the full meaning of its creed” – and it did. Yet in the 1960s and afterwards, even as racial prejudice was steadily diminishing on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, race hustlers were stepping up their efforts to sow division. Jews had played an outsized role in the civil-rights movement, but hatemongers like Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture) and Louis Farrakhan depicted Jews as devils. And in the 21st century, the Democratic Party, which had been the home of the KKK, reaffirmed its role as the “party of racial divisions” (Horowitz’s apt phrase) by embracing the tribalist – and explicitly Marxist – movement known as Black Lives Matter.
It goes without saying that Barack Obama would never have been elected (and re-elected) president if America had not overcome the blight of racism. But once ensconced in the Oval Office, he spoke of racism as America’s founding sin and of black slavery as if it had been a uniquely American evil. No surprise there: Obama was a devout disciple of the pernicious political theorist Saul Alinsky, who in books like Rules for Radicals preached that mankind is divided into oppressors and oppressed, and that the radical’s job is to drag down the former and empower the latter. During Obama’s presidency, the toxic notion of America as a “white supremacist” nation in which the oppressors had always been white and the oppressed always black became nothing less than establishment orthodoxy. So it is that those of us who reject this premise are now faced with the daunting task of somehow returning America to its senses, to its values – to itself.
By turns infuriating and inspiring, America Betrayed is a masterpiece of concision, tracing the American idea – the real American idea – from its Protestant roots to the present day with remarkable precision and clarity. Horowitz’s preface alone is full of sentences that should be carved in stone somewhere:
It’s fascinating, moreover, to learn about what the author refers to as his own youthful “flirtations” with Christianity. A lifelong secular Jew, Horowitz was nonetheless, for a time, a “Christian romantic.” During his second year of college, he was permitted to deliver a sermon at a Lutheran church in which he discussed Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Happy Prince,” which, in Horowitz’s view, “captured the Christian message.” Horowitz calls Wilde’s story “poignant,” and I found this anecdote itself quite poignant, because it captures something of what makes Horowitz stand out from all other conservative intellectuals of his generation. Which of them, after all, can you imagine as a 1950s college kid, preaching from a Lutheran pulpit about a story by Oscar Wilde, of all people? This passage, along with a handful of other autobiographical references, imbue America Betrayed with an affecting personal touch that makes it seem at times less similar to one of his potent political jeremiads of recent vintage and more reminiscent of his pithy meditative volumes with titles like A Point in Time. It is, in any event, a gem of a book, and should be read by everyone who’s been swayed by the left’s loathsome lies about race in America.
No, nobody takes the whole thing LITERALLY. You need to stop repeating that lie that you've been indoctrinated with.
But how ironic that Protestants are accused of *taking the whole thing literally* when Catholics are the biggest Bible literalists going when it comes to supporting their chosen, predetermined doctrines.
The clearest example is John 6 where you all think that we have to engage in cannibalism to be saved.
From beginning to end, God forbids the consumption of blood, and yet Catholicism teaches that it must be done, thus contradicting the entire weight of revealed Scripture on the subject.
Jesus used a metaphor in John 6 and at the end of the discourse tells the disciples that He was using it.
He tells us that it is the Spirit who gives life, that the flesh is no help at all, and you Catholicism demands the eating of flesh, something Jesus said is of no use.
Nor do Protestants not recognize poetry, prophecy, metaphor, parables, similes, etc.
Not one Protestant believes that God has wings, feathers, and pinions, that Jesus is an actual lion like Aslan, that He is made of wheat flour, that He is a vine, all green and leafy, or a literal sword comes out of Jesus mouth with which to destroy His enemies.
You all need to start thinking for yourselves instead of parroting anti-Protestant talking points you have been fed.
Tilting at wind mills and building and knocking down strawmen may feel good, but it accomplishes nothing but making you look foolish and lacking discernment.
Why? What can Mary do for us?
Nothing.
Jesus told people to *Follow ME*, not *Follow my mom*.
Mary didn't die for us. Jesus did.
Jesus, to the beloved disciple: “Behold thy mother.”
If it were possible that her will was something against His will, than we should turn from her and towards Him, but how could her will be any different from his?
My problem isn’t with taking the entire bible literally. My problem is with taking so much literally, such as declaring war on science by insisting the world doesn’t seem to be billions of years old, but dismissing so much of Jesus’ actual words and the revelations made to his disciples as “merely symbolic.”
By the way, I don’t mean to say that God didn’t create the world in seven days. What’s a day mean before the Earth is even set in motion around the sun? Or maybe God made the Earth merely look 5 billion years old so we could learn science and also put our faith in him. I dunno. I do know that claims that the Earth is APPARENTLY only a few thousand years old are utter dreck.
And just for the record, the point was that you claimed that the Queen of Heaven only ever referred to idolatry; when I pounted out that no, in fact, there is a HUGE section of the New Testament where the mother of Jesus is crowned queen in the Heavens, you changed the topic to more nonsense.
So Jesus gave John charge to take care of Mary because Jesus wouldn’t be around to do it.
What of it?
Did it occur to you that Jesus picked John because He knew John was going to live long enough to fulfill that responsibility?
You may find this interesting.
The Age of the Universe: One Reality Viewed from Two Different Perspectives
https://aish.com/the-age-of-the-universe-one-reality-viewed-from-two-different-perspectives/
Age of the Universe: 6 bil. yrs. = 6 Days?
https://freerepublic.com/focus/religion/844089/posts
Schroeder addresses the issue from the position that both are correct, it’s a matter of relativity and observer location. I understand he’s Jewish and knows Hebrew and he does a great job of going into detail about the Hebrew text and what can be gleaned from that.
Considering what we’ve become aware of recently concerning *science* and the fraud rife within the scientific community, and that science is only as good as the latest discovery, it’s best to not use it as the standard by which to measure anything, much less the veracity of Scripture.
I think it’s less about *religion* declaring war on science, than science declaring war on religion.
I’m familiar with the passage in Revelation and it by no means supports Catholic dogma about Mary being the queen of heaven.
This is another perfect example of Catholicism creating a doctrine and then trying to find Scripture verses that *support* it.
Problem is, the woman is never identified as Mary, Mary’s name never comes up in Revelation at all, the term *queen of heaven* is not used in the passage, and the scene does not contain any account of a coronation.
All those conclusions are based on assumptions made about who the woman is and what was going on. There is an awful lot being read into the passage in order to make it fit Catholic teaching about Mary.
“Why? What can Mary do for us? Nothing.”
She can pray - just like every other saint in Heaven. Read Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4 and ask yourself exactly whose prayers are being offered up in Heaven.
Funny thing.... the gospel doesn’t SAY that Jesus told JOHN to behold his mother. What the gospel actually said was Jesus told the beloved disciple to love his mother. Since this is actually an historical event, it’s reasonable to presume that historically he said this to John, but the evangelist deliberately chose NOT to express it this way, didn’t he? Do you think that as the gospel says “THE disciple whom Jesus loved,” Jesus loved only one disciple? Rather, John used an actual event to tell us that the beloved disciple shall behold Mary as his mother. Why do YOU think he did that?
>>> The woman is never identified as Mary<<<
Nuh... she’s just identified as the woman who gave birth to Jesus.
>>> the term *queen of heaven* is not used in the passage,<<<
A better translation of “Queen of Heaven” would have been “Queen of the Skies,” which would be recognized as a material realm, rather than that of the Father. I’m not criticizing the translation as “wrong,” per se. Ironically, the account in Revelation DOES use “Ouranos” (sky), but the Catholic Church is careful to use “Heaven.” But since you’re trying to say, “A-ha! Because these words match, they must reference the same entity!” the fact that they’re not the same language and don’t (really) mean the same thing kinda kills your argument.
(I should note that Catholics read this passage as using Mary to embody the Church, using the hermeneutic that prophets describe something that has happened in ways to reveal a future or universal truth. In such double meanings, the eternal or metaphysical meaning does not negate the obvious, historical meaning.)
>>>> and the scene does not contain any account of a coronation. <<<<
“And she was clothed with the sun, ... and on her head a crown of stars.”
>>>> This is another perfect example of Catholicism creating a doctrine and then trying to find Scripture verses that *support* it. <<<<
Since the Bible predated the Church, and the Church discerned which books were of the bible after some period of relatively more ambiguity, it’s positively absurd to claim that the Church had some doctrine independent of the Bible, and only then found justification in the bible for its belief, as if the Bible were only something discovered by the Church at some late point in the development of Church doctrine.
Indeed, the reformers broke from the Church and only over centuries drifted further and further from the Church, inventing more and more reasons to place emnity between their flock and the Church’s flock. It seems strange that if “Queen of Heaven” constituted idolatry, Luther would embrace this idolatry rather than condemning it.
(There is a recent book which claims he eventually changed his view, but it is not available on line and costs an astonishing $260 to so much as peek at it; I can find no older source. Given the plethora of times he referred to her as “Queen of Heaven,” it would seem if he believed he had committed idolatry, he might do more to repent of it and correct his flock than mention it once in an apparently long-lost sermon.)
>> Since the Bible predated the Church, and the Church discerned which books were of the bible after some period of relatively more ambiguity, <<
Lest I be accused of siding with the idiots who claim that the gospel of Judas was once considered part of the Bible, allow me to clarify:
Martin Luther removed 14 books from the bible, on the claim (fairly well since refuted) that they weren’t clearly part of the bible. He did this by pointing out the fact that early canons of the bible varied significantly. As a result, he specifically and emphatically rejected the canonicity of the Book of Revelation. Later Lutherans eventually sided with other Protestant movements and included it despite Luther’s rejection.
And insisting that J*sus was conceived seedlessly, born to a virgin, and passed through her side so as to avoid bursting her hymen isn't "declaring war on science?"
A dead man coming back to life isn't "declaring war on science?"
Water magically turning into wine isn't "declaring war on science?"
Insisting that bread magically turns into human flesh isn't "declaring war on science?"
Just how does only the "old" testament "declare war on science" when it is interpreted literally?
but dismissing so much of Jesus’ actual words and the revelations made to his disciples as “merely symbolic.”
The Five Books of Moses are G-d's actual words. Bet you didn't know that. Bet you still don't believe it.
By the way, I don’t mean to say that God didn’t create the world in seven days.
Sure you didn't. That's why you're b*tching about it.
Modern chrstianity's hatred of the Hebrew Bible is really something.
“ What I can’t stand is the deification of one of the world’s most evil men of all time, Martin Luther. He was the very mouthpiece of Satan, who yes, does use sin to separate us from God and each other. ”
Nut job statement .
Luther wanted to clean up the failings of the Catholic Church but he was met with resistance .
> And insisting that J*sus was conceived seedlessly, born to a virgin, and passed through her side so as to avoid bursting her hymen isn’t “declaring war on science?” <<
What on Earth are you talking about?
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