Christian values

[Boxlicker101]

He doesn't have to have been president at the time, to have said it, Box.

I know that, but the quote says "President George Bush August 27, 1988" rather than "Vice President" which he was at the time, or "presidential candidate" or "future pesident" or similar words. I am much less inclined to take something seriously if I see factual errors contained therein.

 

[Pure]

christians and jews.

it's hard for me to see how the theocrats could win, if they don't have the jewish people, lots of them, on side.

if you want lots of God talk, prayers, etc., i think some Jews would make good (effective) allies.

some issues can draw them together, e.g. conservative opposition to homosexual practices.

in any case, my point is that you don't need to rewrite the constitution and BR. i bet that subtracting about 10 lines, and adding 15 would do the trick.

another trick is NOT to negate old things, but add an interpretive amendment or ruling: "the above guarantees and rights are to be interpreted in a manner consistent with affirming the US's jewish and christian heritage and origins."

 

[Boxlicker101]

it's hard for me to see how the theocrats could win, if they don't have the jewish people, lots of them, on side.

if you want lots of God talk, prayers, etc., i think some Jews would make good (effective) allies.

some issues can draw them together, e.g. conservative opposition to homosexual practices.

in any case, my point is that you don't need to rewrite the constitution and BR. i bet that subtracting about 10 lines, and adding 15 would do the trick.

another trick is NOT to negate old things, but add an interpretive amendment or ruling: "the above guarantees and rights are to be interpreted in a manner consistent with affirming the US's jewish and christian heritage and origins."

It's hard for me to see how the Theocrats could win anyhow, especially with the examples of Iran and England under Cromwell and Nazi Germany and some others. At the same time, Prohibitionists were very successful in getting their agenda passed, and anti-drug people have also. Pressure groups, who tend to be single-issue voters are listened to a lot more than ordinary citizens.

 

[xssve]

You are assuming these people know who the hell Oliver Cromwell was.

 

[Boxlicker101]

You are assuming these people know who the hell Oliver Cromwell was.

If they don't, and want to, he is easy to google.

By the way, the Puritans, who came along and started the Plymouth Colony were the descendants of Cromwell.

 

[Weird Harold]

It's hard for me to see how the Theocrats could win anyhow, especially with the examples of Iran and England under Cromwell and Nazi Germany and some others.

I can see how the Theocrats can win -- even if "Campaigning From The Pulpit" is officially banned.

It's one of the unintended consequences of FCC regulations:

First, the requirement for broadcasters to air two hours of "community service programming" has given televangelists a guaranteed timeslot because "church services for shut-ins" was a cheap and simple way to satisfy the requirment. The 700 Club started out as "community service programming" and a gained enough a following to become commercially viable on it's own.

At the same time, Prohibitionists were very successful in getting their agenda passed, and anti-drug people have also. Pressure groups, who tend to be single-issue voters are listened to a lot more than ordinary citizens.

Second, the deregulation of "Equal Time" means that only those with the money to buy air time or "community service" value get heard via mass media -- and breaking into the "community service" time slot against established televagelists who actually turn a profit for the community service time for the broadcasters is damn near impossible -- at least on TV.


Those two FCC regulations mean that "Televangelists" have a disproportional voice in mass media -- that doesn't necessarily mean just the big megachurch televangelists either; there are still local church services on many radio stations every Sunday, and when I stumble across one, moderation doesn't seem to be in big supply there, either.

With the disproprtional voice and skirting of the "pulpit campaign" ban -- as in telling your national congregation, "pro-life and pro-family issues should determine how evangelicals voted" and providing other political guidance:

Important support for these centrist initiatives has come from Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, the pastor of a huge church in Orange County, California, and, next to Billy Graham, by far the best known of all evangelical preachers. Just before the 2004 election, Warren sent out a letter to his network of 150,000 fellow pastors telling them that pro-life and pro-family issues should determine how evangelicals voted. But he sent the same network a letter urging them to put pressure on Bush to increase foreign aid, provide debt relief, and eliminate trade barriers that hurt the poor. The following year he called upon his own 22,000-member congregation to support an effort in Rwanda, backed by its government, to alleviate hunger, teach literacy, and slow the spread of AIDS.

(The careful wording avoids the tax consequences "campaigning from the pulpit" could incur, but it has to be a very blatant offense to draw any legal censure.)

It wouldn't take much effort to expand the exposure televangelists get into an overwheliming theocratic movement capable of generating moralistic Constitutional Ammendments like Prohibition passed and turningthe US into a fundamentalist fascist theocracy. (Luckily, the Big Televangelist seem to be more worried about their own personal ratings and/or offerings than they do in working with their competitors for ratings and offering, but I wouldn't count on that state of affairs continuing forever if they feel "threatened.")

 

[rgraham666]

Don't they always feel threatened?

Time to re-read Revolt in 2100.

 

[HornyHenry]

His plan to do away with income tax sounded good,

Huckabee scares the shit outta me.

and he plays the bass guitar, which is cool.
But he is a liar. He wants to replace income tax with a 23% sales tax.
It's really 30%!!! If you buy something for $100 and pay $130, that's 30%, not 23%. (And I don't think I want either one since my tax is less than his lie.) Don't vote for someone who thinks we're stoopid!

And Mitt, Golden plates with Egyptian hieroglyphics that Smith conveniently lost? Scary to think so many people bought that.

 

[Weird Harold]

Don't they always feel threatened?

Time to re-read Revolt in 2100.

No, not always.

and then, there is "threatened" and "THREATENED!!!" In the current political environment, there is little for televangelists and/or fundamentalists to feel threatened about execpt the ongoing battle to keep Creationism/ID out of the educational system. That's not ging to be enough to trigger serious cooperation between media stars competing for ratings and offerings.

Yanking the community service regulation might be enough to do it, but the biggies have mostly reached the point where they're profit-makers instead of non-profit public service losers.

 

[Boxlicker101]

and he plays the bass guitar, which is cool.
But he is a liar. He wants to replace income tax with a 23% sales tax.
It's really 30%!!! If you buy something for $100 and pay $130, that's 30%, not 23%. (And I don't think I want either one since my tax is less than his lie.) Don't vote for someone who thinks we're stoopid!

And Mitt, Golden plates with Egyptian hieroglyphics that Smith conveniently lost? Scary to think so many people bought that.

Depending on how they are written, sales taxes can be the most regressive taxes there are.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Well, I don't regard the viciousness cant listed as a Christian problem. Or even a religious problem. It's a human problem.

Humans don't like to think and they do like to believe. They like being part of a group. They don't like to be responsible for their actions.

Ideology in all its forms satisfies all those needs. If atheism became as big as religion it too would spawn groups and individuals who would use it as an excuse for hatred and violence.

It's just the way human beings are.

Nicely put. That's my take on it too. It doesn't matter what your cause is or how good the things it could achieve may be; you're going to have to spend a good deal of your time trying to keep vicious yahoos from taking it over and calling it their own.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I shall subside for now, and work against the fascism while forbearing to repudiate all of Christianity or all of religion. That would be simpler, though, and would let me lump them, rhetorically, with radical Islam. I have the feeling that's where they deserve to be lumped, frankly.

It depends how big this damnable thing gets. If it grows enough, then the gloves are off.

Decent of you to forbear. I think it will do your cause good. It's awkward to know how to fix the broken parts, but as you said yourself - radical extremists tend to draw out other radical extremists. If it's any consolation at all, I keep having the equal and opposite version of this discussion with my father and trying to point out that at least in my experience, the more religion one attempts to jam into schools and public areas of people's lives, the more bitter and angry atheists one thereby manufactures. Forget whether it's moral or constitutional, if you like - it simply does not work. Why do something that angers people and has the opposite effect of what you desired?

I think the same with the extremists on both sides of the church/atheism divide. It's a shame, but they're each others' best ammunition. A good part of the reason I groan when I hear either side at it is that I know they're busily manufacturing more of the other.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thanks very much for the links, Pure. Those are just the people I was thinking of.

 

[Guest]

I really should write that story where a 'Christian' gets to meet the deity he really works for.

I would LOOOOOVE to read it.

 

[Pure]

theocratic movement --pro

one strong group was founded by rushdoony: kind of biblical calvinists.


survey of Christian theocratic mvts.
http://www.brucegourley.com/christiannation/theocracy.htm

====


chalcedon foundation.

http://www.chalcedon.edu/credo.php
http://www.chalcedon.edu/vision.php

speech on the christian world order

http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2814

The City of God: Readings in R. J. Rushdoony on the Christian World Order

by Christopher J. Ortiz
January/February 2008 issue

Faith For All of Life
"The Christian World Order"




A Christian Government

[T]he intellectual foundations for the return of Christianity to government are being laid down. In this area, Chalcedon Foundation has pioneered, rebuilding on ancient foundations.20

No other concept has done more to infuriate and frighten both the secularists within and without the church than the notion of Christians in government. I have written much in the last two years regarding the misconceptions surrounding Christian government, but the fact remains that a new form of government is needed and commanded. However, the kind of Christian government advocated by Rushdoony and Chalcedon is not a takeover of the bureaucratic behemoth known as the U.S. Federal Government, but a return to the self-governing Christian man:


The state is sick and dying. Government needs to be reborn. This can only happen as men govern themselves and their spheres under God, as, step by step, they take government back from the state and restore to man his responsibility and freedom to be, in every sphere of life, a participating and governing power.21

As I’ve written previously, Christian dominion in our era is a “taking back” of government and not a “taking over” of the state.22 Although we seek the Christianization of civil government, the foundation of a Christian world order is established upon the embraced responsibilities of self-governing Christians. In the meantime, politics is but one aspect that leads to Christian civilization—it is simply one among many; and godly action begins by acknowledging that Christ has both secured and ordained history as the arena for His victorious Kingdom to be made visible:

The kingdom of God is not depicted as a political kingdom, but its unmistakable sovereignty in the political as in every other sphere is plainly affirmed. To separate that kingdom therefore from the economic, political, and educational aspects of world order, and from reference to the messianic pretensions of these and other activities of man, is to do violence to the kingdom and to misunderstand it. While the kingdom is not of this world in that it is primarily and originally an eternal order, its triumph in and over this world is set forth in the resurrection, a historical event, and shall be developed in terms of the whole of history.23

Closely related to the fact of the Resurrection as evidence of the historical victory of the Kingdom of God is the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20). Virtually every Reconstructionist writer has noted that our Lord was issuing a restatement of the creation mandate (Gen. 1:28); and like the Garden, the failure or success of this godly enterprise relies upon the obedience of God’s covenant people:

God created man to observe His statutes and keep His laws in Eden. Man chose his own will as his law and defied God’s order, and the result was disaster and death. The covenant people are redeemed to observe the statutes and keep the laws of God in order that this world and the people thereof might become God’s Kingdom in the fullest sense of the word.

 

[rgraham666]

Even that gave me the chills, Pure.

I don't care how Christian they are. A born heretic such as myself would have no place in such a structure.

 

[Pure]

box--

boxIt's hard for me to see how the Theocrats could win anyhow, especially with the examples of Iran and England under Cromwell and Nazi Germany and some others. At the same time, Prohibitionists were very successful in getting their agenda passed, and anti-drug people have also. Pressure groups, who tend to be single-issue voters are listened to a lot more than ordinary citizens.

i think you've answered your own question. prohibitionism is an example of a US christian mvt., which succeeded well.

"pro-life" and "person-from-conception" constitutional amendments are examples of what's on the burner, not to say a "man/woman marriage" amendment

 

[cantdog]

Important support for these centrist initiatives has come from Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, the pastor of a huge church in Orange County, California, and, next to Billy Graham, by far the best known of all evangelical preachers. Just before the 2004 election, Warren sent out a letter to his network of 150,000 fellow pastors telling them that pro-life and pro-family issues should determine how evangelicals voted. But he sent the same network a letter urging them to put pressure on Bush to increase foreign aid, provide debt relief, and eliminate trade barriers that hurt the poor. The following year he called upon his own 22,000-member congregation to support an effort in Rwanda, backed by its government, to alleviate hunger, teach literacy, and slow the spread of AIDS.

His ultimate goal, Warren announced, was to enlist millions of Christians worldwide in the struggle against poverty, illiteracy, and disease. Like Cizik, he had gone through a form of conversion. "I have been so busy building my church that I have not cared about the poor," he told pastors in Kigali. "I have sinned, and I am sorry."[15]

The dude might damn well have to experience a conversion. Up 'til recently, he has been an archi-fascist. His techniques are being used to train and recruit 'spiritual warriors.'

How nice to imagine that a career of pretending to be Christian eventually brings one to the Sermon on the God Damned Mount.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The dude might damn well have to experience a conversion. Up 'til recently, he has been an archi-fascist. His techniques are being used to train and recruit 'spiritual warriors.'

How nice to imagine that a career of pretending to be Christian eventually brings one to the Sermon on the God Damned Mount.

"I sinned and I am sorry for it" seems like a good start for nearly anyone. Of course, now we've got to see where he goes after the start. I like that he's at least acknowledged that building a socio-politico-religious organization is not the same thing as strengthening and practising one's faith. Sometimes there still seems to be a bit of "I must be holy - look at the size of my following!" going around.

 

[cantdog]

If Warren has turned, though, that's really great news. Good for Christ, I say.

 

[BlackShanglan]

If Warren has turned, though, that's really great news. Good for Christ, I say.

And there's the parable of the prodigal son, eh? It's always good news when someone sincerely turns toward reason and decency, however long he's been gone.

One thing that I would love all religious persons to take out of the rise and hopefully the not-too-distant fall of the fundamentalist / Republican juggernaut is the message it sends about what happens when church and state become too closely entangled. It's not just the state that suffers. People who think that having preachers for politicians sounds appealing really must consider that that also means we'll have politicians for our preachers. How much more repulsive a spectacle can one imagine than that? For the love of our churches if not for our country, we need to keep an eye on that boundary line.

 

[Oblimo]

...a return to the self-governing Christian man.

Who the what now?

 

[neonlyte]

I've followed the argument with interest, thanks to you all. I'm led to the view that an individual can be drawn to a religion, or born into a religion. Bringing religion to an individual is fraught with problem in that the voice of religion all too often cajoles with salvation or damnation and it seems to me to be a poor way to sell the goods. Faith, Hope and Charity may simply be taking a sabbatical, they always impressed me with their ability to reach beyond doctrine to the human in humanity.

 

[glynndah]

"I am sinned and I am sorry for it" should be the beginning of Christianity or salvation or whatever you wish to call it, not the end. Simply being sorry doesn't really mean much without sincere change on one's part.

 

[Weird Harold]

I've followed the argument with interest, thanks to you all. I'm led to the view that an individual can be drawn to a religion, or born into a religion. Bringing religion to an individual is fraught with problem in that the voice of religion all too often cajoles with salvation or damnation and it seems to me to be a poor way to sell the goods. Faith, Hope and Charity may simply be taking a sabbatical, they always impressed me with their ability to reach beyond doctrine to the human in humanity.

I am somewhat impressed by "public service ads" running on both TV and Radio stations here by the LDS, United Methodists, and the Salvation Army. They're low-key "advice to parents" and "advice to teenagers" type stuff that stress Faith, Hope and Charity along with Family. The only "religious message" is the "brought to you by..." disclaimer at the very end.

(they're distinguishable from the government's ads on the same general subjects by the fact that they actually have some connection with reality. )

They're not going to cause Falwell, Warren, or any of the other "superstars" sleepless nights, but for people who are paying attention (instead of just lumping every denomination into a single fanatical "Them" to rant,) about they demonstrate that some Christian denominations are still rational and about faith instead of politics.

However, I must say that I'm a lapsed Methodist because although the Church is about modertion and tolerance, the individual congregations tend to be just like most other congregations -- infested by those few "Sunday Christians" who dominate local policy and taint the whole denomination/religion with the stink of hypocrisy.