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Br. Max said:

The founding fathers gave us the first amendment to keep the GOVERMENT out of the church NOT - as some would have you believe - the church out of the government. The founding fathers were notorious for their public displays of faith, so much so that De Toque Ville commented on it in the book Democracy in America.

Its sad that we are being required to hide our faith.

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So very true, Br. Max!!!!!!!!!!

Knight said:

Who said they were my heroes?

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Uh-uh, I said "the" heroues not "your" heroes.

What was the point of even bringing this up?

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Irony.

Br. Max said:

The founding fathers were notorious for their public displays of faith, so much so that De Toque Ville commented on it in the book Democracy in America.

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Yes, and among his comments there was this: "Religious insanity is not uncommon in the United States."

hmmmm

La Bonita Zorilla said:

Yes, and among his comments there was this: "Religious insanity is not uncommon in the United States."

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Can you reference where in the book that comment is found?

a) Since when are the American Founding Fathers experts on religion? (or any politicians for that matter?). So, because they make a statement about the separation of Church and State does that make it right? They were simply repeating their own traditional Protestant understanding and belief that the two institutions should not interfere in each other's business. That does not mean that members of either institution are excluded from the other. Politicians can go to church, and Christians can go into politics. However, the government can't define the nature of Christ and the Church can't define the tax system.


That's the clear, traditional, historic protestant understanding, and that's where these guys were coming from.


b) Since when were the American Founding Fathers the infallible magisterium of American politics? They certainly didn't think they were. They even made provision for their writings to be amended. Why then do the current debates in US politics tend to gravitate to citing old documents that can and on occasion should be ammended?


c) Since when do American Christians have to hide their faith? They even have strong political lobby groups! Christian Coalition, Moral Minority? No hiding there. I would suggest they have the appropriate amount of political clout they are entitled to in a democracy- it's proportional to the population. US Christians also plague the planet more than any other nationality with their own religions and its obvious that they expect the same kind of religious freedom abroad as they get in their own country. US Christianity is prolific, and I think that's good (except when they're exporting cults).


d) Relax everyone.

d) Relax everyone.

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Actually, the level of godliness in the US had declined by the time of 1776. Based on the history that I have read, visible godliness was greater among the settlers of Jamestown, Virginia and the Puritans of Plymouth, Massachusetts and those of the later 17th century. The reputation of this time has been tarnished by events at Salem. However, godliness in terms of knowledge of the Bible, knowledge of standards of sound doctrine such as the Westminster Confession and catechisms, ascribing historical events to the Providence of God, prayer, and devotion to public worship and observance of the Lord's Day was much greater. Godliness declined as settlers dispersed and many lived a distance from a visible church. The English parish system was more difficult to utilize in America where residences were often great distances from one another.

Godliness revivied during the Great Awakening from around 1730 to the 1770's under the mininstry of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Gilbert Tennant, Samuel Davies, and others. One of the major results of the Great Awakening was to unify 4/5ths of Americans in a common understanding of the Christian faith and life. Americans--North and South--shared a common evangelical view of life.

Godliness began at the grass roots and its influence reached to the leadership of the American Revolution.

The Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, is a greater authority than the heads of earthly governments. Earthly power comes from the One, True God. The powers that be are established by God (Romans 13:1).

May godliness in the churches flourish again and permeate into government.

1 - the American founding fathers did NOT believe in the notion of excluding religious expression from public life the mistaken notion of separation church and state. ONE man amongst them wrote in a PRIVATE letter to the members of a baptist church saying that there was a wall of separation between church and state. I suggest you read the whole letter and its draft copies and realize that he was only stating that the federal government was prohibited from making laws about religion - any law establishing a state church (as was the case in ALL of Europe) - any law LIMITING how we can express our religion - any law at all that says ANYTHING about religion. It was a one way street statement. Government out of the church. There is no implication of faith out of the state. http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html

What more, of the 300 men who qualify as being called founding fathers, more than HALF were trained as clergy. Washington himself was a member of clergy in the Anglican church! The false notion that the founders were a bunch of Atheist is a blatant lie. There was NOTHING so repugnant to the FF as this notion. So much so, that there did not exist in this country a single atheistic institution until the middle of the 19th century with the founding of MIT. When Thomas Paine wrote his famous "Common Sense" booklet, he sealed his fate in America. From that point on, he was publicly lambasted and shunned. He only found acceptance for his ideas in France.

Today, Christianity is placed on Second class status pandering to the "feelings" of the irreligious. We have going before t he Supreme Court a case (which should never have happened in the first place) where in a Man claims his daughter - who happens to be a professing Christian - was "harmed" by having to say Under God in the pledge of allegiance. The man is a trouble maker who wants to force all expressions of faith out of public life. This is his professed goal in this action. He claims that the pledge violates the separation of church and state - a phrase that does not even appear in any government documents, but has been foisted on the American people as political doctrine, based on the misinterpretation of the Phrase "CONGRESS shall make no law regarding the ESTABLISHMENT of religion (and now lets not forget the part that people like to overlook when they claim separation of church and state) NOR prohibiting the free EXERCISE thereof." The funniest thing about this is - when you look at how the FF defined religion, Atheism nor the other irreligionisms are covered or protected by this provision.

If you think that Christians are not being asked to hide their faith today, one need only look at cases that have set the precedents we live under in America today:

verbal prayers offered in the school are unconstitutional EVEN when voluntary. (Engel v. Vitale, 1962; abington v. schempp, 1963; commissioner of education v. school committee of leyden, 1971)

Freedom of speech and the press are granted to teachers and students UNLESS the topic is religious at which point this becomes unconstitutional. (Stein v. Osheinsky, 1965; collins v chandler unified school district, 1981; bishop v. arnov, 1991)

If a student prays over his meal it is illieagl for him to pray aloud. (reed v. Van Hoven, 1965)

it is illegal for a teacher to have a bible in school - even a personal copy (Roberts v Madigan, 1990)

It is unconstitutional for a kindergarten CLASS to ask who’s birthday is celebrated by Christmas (Florey v. Sioux Fall School Dist. 1979)

Look at current cases -

The Boy Scouts in San Diego have a case against them so as to remove them from being able to use public lands for camps because they are a "religious group" and because they will not let gay men go camping with boys. MEANWHILE in Idaho an Islamic group won the right to have RELIGIOUS camps on public lands.

A teachers aid in Pennsylvania was removed from her job for wearing a cross Necklace. While a muslim woman in Fla is suing the state because she was asked to remove her veil from her face for a Drivers Licences photo!

The pledge case out of San Francisco.

http://www.aclj.org/index.asp this link show lots of examples of the rights of Christians in America being truncated.

There are many, many other cases before the courts today in which Christians are being asked to hide our faith while other faiths especially Islam are winning protections.

Sorry to be so long winded here, but this is something I’ve done a good bit of study on and as a Teacher, I’m frustrated in being restricted from telling students the truth when I teach.

Good post knight

Br. Max said:

1 - the American founding fathers did NOT believe in the notion of excluding religious expression from public life the mistaken notion of separation church and state. ONE man amongst them wrote in a PRIVATE letter to the members of a baptist church saying that there was a wall of separation between church and state. I suggest you read the whole letter and its draft copies and realize that he was only stating that the federal government was prohibited from making laws about religion - any law establishing a state church (as was the case in ALL of Europe) - any law LIMITING how we can express our religion - any law at all that says ANYTHING about religion. It was a one way street statement. Government out of the church. There is no implication of faith out of the state. http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html <a href="http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html">[url]http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html[/url]</a>

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Exactly. But there is also no statement of church as an institution interfering in government, like the medieval church did. Public life is not the issue in the proper distinction of church and state in protestant thought. Religion is largely a private and personal matter, and the protection of the right to have freedom of belief or disbelief is the issue as it stands regarding public life.

By the way- not all of Europe had established churches, and even in the nations where they had established churches there have always been dissenters and free churches. In most nations with established churches the co-mixture of church and state was carefully defined, and the boundaries remained in place, similar to what I outlined before.

What more, of the 300 men who qualify as being called founding fathers, more than HALF were trained as clergy. Washington himself was a member of clergy in the Anglican church!

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I doubt Washington was an active cleric, and I've never heard of that before. Perhaps he gave that up. In those days, it was illegal for an Anglican cleric to have position in the military other than chaplain. It still is in some dioceses. If he had slaves he was also breaking Anglican canon law, and thus could not be eligible for ordination.

and The false notion that the founders were a bunch of Atheist is a blatant lie.

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I've never heard that the FF were atheists- who says that? Some were Deists (maybe).

Today, Christianity is placed on Second class status pandering to the "feelings" of the irreligious.

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<major snip but only for brevity>

But you live in a democracy. That means the rule by the majority of the people. If Christianity is losing status it is because it is losing popularity.

If the majority of the people don't want their children to be led in prayer by a teacher then that's what you have to live with. If the majority want to have the freedom of choice when it comes to abortions, then that's what you have to live with- or you have to overthrow democracy, which is how some people perceive the religious agenda to be in fact.

We all know the answer is about preaching the Gospel by example as well as words and converting the populace to Christianity. That's our job, and frankly, we do it poorly these days, and that's the real reason that the church has lost respect and popularity, and thus political and public influence.

Sorry to be so long winded here, but this is something I’ve done a good bit of study on and as a Teacher, I’m frustrated in being restricted from telling students the truth when I teach.

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Well, the fact is that if you asked most of the parents in a public school if they were Orthodox and should have an Orthodox believer leading their children in prayer you might not get a majority answer in the affirmative, right?

It's a tough time for believers everywhere. Best to keep your religion alive at home and pray and work for the conversion of nations rather than enforce religious laws against the unwilling unbelievers. Christ is a shepherd, not a cowboy.

Br. Max said:

Can you reference where in the book that comment is found?

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Sorry, I've never read the whole thing, but it was quoted by Paul Fussell in Class: A Guide Through the American Status System on page 149.

Fiskare said:

Since when do American Christians have to hide their faith?

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Of course they don't. The whining about persecution of Christians is all a cognitive disconnect here where Christianity is the dominant faith.

Knight said:

So in order to avoid irony I must only use quotes from confirmed Christian sources?

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Perhaps if that is your desire.

A better course of action might be to embrace it, and recognize that things are not all black and white.

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La Bonita Zorilla said:

Of course they don't. The whining about persecution of Christians is all a cognitive disconnect here where Christianity is the dominant faith.

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I've often thought about how fortunate we actually are in democratic countries that have a Christian history. How about those Orthodox brethren in nations like Egypt? They can't even build churches anymore, unless they are underground (literally) and are victim to hate crimes and murders. That's religious persecution. I mean, my goodness, the Americans have how many religious TV networks?

Oh well. I guess I can also understand how there appears to be a diminishing of the influence of the church in secular life and how it will cause alarm among many Christians.

Br. Max said:

1 - the American founding fathers did NOT believe in the notion of excluding religious expression from public life the mistaken notion of separation church and state. ONE man amongst them wrote in a PRIVATE letter to the members of a baptist church saying that there was a wall of separation between church and state. I suggest you read the whole letter and its draft copies and realize that he was only stating that the federal government was prohibited from making laws about religion - any law establishing a state church (as was the case in ALL of Europe) - any law LIMITING how we can express our religion - any law at all that says ANYTHING about religion. It was a one way street statement. Government out of the church. There is no implication of faith out of the state.

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Actually many scholars dispute that analysis; Garry Wills' book Under God: Religion and Politics in America documents many sources to the contrary most notably in citing works of Madison and Jefferson.

The false notion that the founders were a bunch of Atheist is a blatant lie.

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Quite true. Washington, Hancock, Franklin, Rush, Rutledge, and many others were Freemasons. To be initiated as an Entered Apprentice Mason one must profess belief in a supreme being. However, it is doubtful many would be comfortable with the nature of mixing of religion and politics ala The Christian Coalition, James Dobson's use of his nonprofit status to build a political machine, etc.

When Thomas Paine wrote his famous "Common Sense" booklet, he sealed his fate in America. From that point on, he was publicly lambasted and shunned. He only found acceptance for his ideas in France.

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Actually, Common Sense, the first of Paine's three great works, was credited with winning working class support for the American Revolution and was quite popular here. His later works, The Age of Reason and The Rights of Man were hyperbolic in criticism of religion and did lead to his unpopularity.

Today, Christianity is placed on Second class status pandering to the "feelings" of the irreligious.

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Second class status on what basis? Moreover I would doubt the cause for even the glimmer of such could be attributed in any way to 'the feelings of the irreligious'. Who do you mean by 'the irreligious' anyhow? Most nominally secular people have no problem with Christianity as long as Xians avoid bullying. I suspect those whose 'feelings' are being considered more likely include Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, etc. than 'the irreligious'.

The Boy Scouts in San Diego have a case against them so as to remove them from being able to use public lands for camps because they are a "religious group" and because they will not let gay men go camping with boys.

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They have a sweetheart deal to use land in Balboa Park. But local law there forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accomodations. Therefore unless they change their discriminatory policy they are violating the law and merit the end of the sweetheart deal.