Religious Liberty!!!

[thecountrydoc]

Hello to all,

This was sent to me earlier today at one of my web sites by a young SDA lady down in New Zealand. Just incase no one has noticed, our religious freedom is under attack everywhere. EVERY Christian should be concerned. Please pray about this and share this letter with every Christian you know. This should be shared with every church, of any denomination, that you can reach in person or by e-mail.

Respectfully, your brother in Christ,
Doc

Gidday there! Hey Doc..that was an interesting article..thanks for sharing.

Many prayers are needed for our Country.

Subject: Fw: Important for all Christian New Zealanders - Please forward to all Christians



LIGHT A CANDLE FOR CHRIST



To all New Zealanders



You will be aware that last week the Prime Minister, Helen Clark wanted to declare this nation as having no religion. A heavy sadness came into many of our hearts as to how to respond to this action.



In our prayer meeting last Friday, we were prompted to pray for this issue and our nation. As the Holy Spirit moved, one of the women shared a vision of New Zealanders lighting a candle to show their support for New Zealand being a Christian Country.



On Friday 29 June at 7.00pm we are asking all you who believe that we are a Christian Country to turn your lights off and candles on. Open your curtains and let the world see what we believe. Even if you do not attend a church but base your life and values on the Ten Commandments you may want to light a candle too.



For those of you living in Wellington or the Hutt Valley, we encourage as many as possible to come to Parliament and stand in the grounds with your lit candles as we silently protest what our hearts feel.

In 1858, the Coronation ceremony of the first Maori King, Potatau Te Wherowhero (paramount Chief of the Tainui Tribes) took place at Ngaruawahia. The ceremony was performed with the same Holy Bible that is used to this day. At this great meeting, Ngati Tuwharetoa paramount chief Te Heuheu said, “Potatau, this day I create you King of the Maori people. You and Queen Victoria shall be bound together to be one. The religion of Christ shall be the mantle of your protection; the law shall be the mat of your feet, for ever and ever onward.” To this, Potatau, turning to his people, replied, “Yes, I agree, for ever and ever onward. After I am gone, hold fast to love, to the law and to the religion of Christ.”

Please send this email to every person in your address book, speak to your churches and to everyone you can about this special day. “ It only takes two men to do nothing for evil to prosper.”



Men of every creed and race gather here before thy face, asking thee to bless this place, God defend our free land, from dissension, envy hate, and corruption, guard our state. Make our country good and great.

God defend New Zealand.

Goldeelocks.

 

[JonMiller]

How does religious freedom being attack relate to not being a Christian nation? I would think that a Christian nation would be less religiously free than a secular nation.

JM

 

[DrStupid_Ben]

Religious liberty, like all other liberties, should be defended from attack, but this does not sound like a case of religious liberty under attack. As long as you are still allowed by the state to practice your religion without harm, then your religious liberties are in tact. As far as I can see, Helen Clark isn't saying that Christians can't practice their religion, just that the state will not favour one religion over others. This seems like a step to greater religious liberty.

I agree with mjona3 that there would be less religious freedom in a "christian nation". Religious liberty is something that must go both ways.

 

[JonMiller]

What nations have we seen Christianity actually lose serious strength in? Why the nations of europe, which were Christian nations for 1000+ years. I don't think that this is an accident, I think that with the religion and the state being mixed, that the state corrupted the religion (giving us some the worst of the actions of the Catholic Church and others) and religion being used as a tool of oppression by the state. This created a great backlash towards it, that is still being felt today.

Christianity is alive and well (there are issues, but there are many people who are practicing Christian) in the US, which has had freedom of religion (and hasn 't been near as much of a Christian nation).

It is only in a Christian nation, that something like the sunday law could be passed.

I view the religious right as one of the greatest dangers facing Christianity in America today (as in driving away Christians of other political persuasions).

JM

 

[StormyOne]

If Christ is inside the believer, then they will always have liberty. Perhaps we would do well to remember that... If God wanted another Christian nation, He would have established one. He has not, which should tell us something.

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

What nations have we seen Christianity actually lose serious strength in? Why the nations of Europe, which were Christian nations for 1000+ years. I don't think that this is an accident, I think that with the religion and the state being mixed, that the state corrupted the religion (giving us some the worst of the actions of the Catholic Church and others) and religion being used as a tool of oppression by the state. This created a great backlash towards it, that is still being felt today.

Actually the backlash against church and state happened in Europe a couple hundred years ago. The French Revolution is the prime example. It was much more a revolt against the divine right of Kings and the Roman Catholic church then against Christianity in general as is often assumed in the Adventist revisionary history.

It is only in a Christian nation, that something like the sunday law could be passed.

I view the religious right as one of the greatest dangers facing Christianity in America today (as in driving away Christians of other political persuasions).

JM

If you recall there is nothing in the Bible about Sunday laws. This idea is based upon old US blue laws and there is really nothing in Christianity that indicates they want to go back to such concepts. In fact it is only media manipulations that have redefined Christians as religious bigot and then of course only conservative Christians. Since politicians can and do use anything in their arsenal it is no wonder that demonization occurs. It is not however consistent with Christianity to fall for that manipulation. As the new book "the Myth of a Christian Nation" seems to think that a Christian nation is something new with the recent political involvement of conservative Christians. Rather then it actually being the historical reality that the vast majority of people in the country claimed to be Christian.

It seems so easy to fall into the trap of demonizing others or the equally horrible trap of condemning people for actions they have not done but we have developed a belief that they will do. If you want something to worry about there is a fundamentalist Islamic religion that is involved in most of the wars and oppressive countries in the world. Better to deal with reality.

 

[JonMiller]

Oh, I Agree. I don't think that a Sunday law makes sense now (as far as from the devil's point of view). But many of the people here are Traditional SDAs and so are worried about sunday laws.

You can just look at the history of Europe to see how bad being a Christian nation is. Government and religion shouldn't mix, religion always get's polluted by it. Europe has been going less and less Christian because of the backlash. The backlash didn't happen and end a couple hundred years ago, it began a couple hundred years ago, and a continent of atheists/agnostics is the result of this backlash.

There is nothing worse for Christianity then to be linked, in any way, to the state.

JM

 

[JonMiller]

The religious right has been making religion political. This isn't the first (protestant vs catholic was politics earlier in our history), but it wasn't being used in the same way as a tool for a particular political party.

JM

 

[RC_NewProtestants]

The religious right has been making religion political. This isn't the first (protestant vs catholic was politics earlier in our history), but it wasn't being used in the same way as a tool for a particular political party.

JM

Religion has always influenced politics. It was only when conservatism regained some ground such as the short time that Republicans held the congress and Senate after (40 years of Democratic control ) and and then Presidency that the Liberal side began to decry the Religious right as if they were somehow pawns of the Republicans rather then people who held more in common with them then Democrats. You will notice that the Liberal sides of the aisle rarely mentions the conservative religious leanings of Black people because Blacks are traditionally supportive of Democrats even though on most of the social issues they would agree with the so called religious right.

The reason Europe has changed so radically is not that they are rebelling against church and state union of which none of them actually have any remembrance. It is because of the advance of what has been called secular progressives. Which asserts that the modern man has no need for any kind of the Christian religion, science has the answers religion is a refuge for those without the mental faculties to deal reality.

As I wrote in an Adventist Today article a couple years ago:

Election, Enlightenment and Freedom


by Ron Corson

Within a day of the election this November the culture warriors began their assault upon the people of America. The foreign press such as the London Daily Mirror presented the cover page with the question “How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?” Obviously those 59,054,087 would disagree with the Mirror and its pseudo-intellectualism presented as fact. But the Mirror reveals a symptom of the disease that has infected the media and many people throughout the world.


Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Wills expresses his disgust more directly. To him it is not Americans who are dumb. It is their Christianity that is dumb. On Nov. 4, 2004, The New York Times published Wills’ column “The Day the Enlightenment Went Out.” He asks: “Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?”


Later he explains how the world is confused by the American electorate: “The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.” America has not become any more religious since the 1940s, but modern Europe has become far less Christian. So now, to the secular in Europe, Christianity is the anti-intellectual boogeyman. The death of reason and enlightenment is now found in the Christian right.
http://www.atoday.com/262.0.html

 

[JonMiller]

You don't know anything about europe. I have many european freinds, the peopel who attend church are mostly the grandparents and older. The process that began over 100 years ago has been completed in the last generation, and there is now a generation where organized religion is looked at as an anarchism that only the elderly or foolish engage in after they become adults.

It is only in the last 50 years that the states of europe have finely became free of state churchs. England still has one, btw, but it is very week. But what began with with the French Revolution (or even earlier) is reaching it's completion now.

Conservatism is explicitly anti-Christian, I think. Except on the position of abortion. Conservatism, as practiced in America, is anti-stewardship, anti-family, pro-materialism, and anti-human. They have just discovered that by crying about abortion and homosexuality, that they can get blind Christians following them.

And you are blind if you think that people are just decrying the religious right now, people have been decrying the religious right for the last 40 years, ever since they began.

"By their fruits you will know them", have you payed any attention to the leaders of the religious right? I bigger group of hypocrites, blowhards, and evil men I don't think exists in politics. These are the same sort of men who make the priest/bishop/etc considered as evil/manipulative/oppressors in europe.

Satan is trying to do in america, the same thing he succeeded at doing in europe.

JM

 

[JonMiller]

That post might be a bit harsh. I am against the religious right movement here in the US, not religious conservatives. I am not saying that the republicans are all bad either, I have voted for a republican once or twice (relatively long ago, probably won't again for a long time). And I agree that liberalism, as practiced in the US, is also anti-family, pro-materialism, and anti-human. But I don't unite with them.

JM
(see the Indy tag)