To “Not June Cleaver” newly on Snook’s blogroll, and to all Thinking Parents:
Heads up if your personal “no place like home” is in Virginia or West Virginia, the Carolinas, or any of the other states methodically blurring the line between Church and State below –
State lawmaker cheering for the official National Prayer Car was just entertainment for the masses, apparently not what’s happening in the political pits every day. And Illinois and Texas (states whose online homeschoolers tout their legal separation from Church and State as a model for us all) are next — your civil liberties and private family sovereignty are on deck for this Church-State chopping block in the public square, and it won’t be the dreaded charter school marketers swinging the axe. Could it be Christ himself ?
It is unclear to me how Jerry Falwell differs
all that much from the religious leaders in Iran.
Jerry Falwell’s message of hatred, intolerance and unAmerican theocracy
will continue to hurt America long after his death.These items come from Jews On First, whose motto is:
Jews responding to the Christian right –
because if Jews don’t speak out, they’ll think we don’t mind.Capitol Ministries: Making disciples for Jesus Christ in state
legislatures . . .
aims to “reach every elected official in everynation of the world at every level of government with the uncompromised, saving message of Jesus Christ,” according to its website. . . “singularly focused on establishing biblical ministries in State Capitols throughout our nation … in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ within the political arena, at every level…”So far, in addition to Pennsylvania, Capitol Ministries has established
programs that include Bible study groups for elected officials (and
separate study groups for their staffers) in Arkansas, California,
Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Programs in Montana and Missouri are set to begin and . . . “Our 2007 Ministry Leader Training Class, which commences in May,
includes prospective Ministry Leaders for the following states:
Maryland, Michigan, Illinois and Texas. If all goes according to plan,
these four states will be online by the end of 2008.”The growing roster of states is worth noting because of Capitol Ministries’ extremism. The group’s leader, Ralph Drollinger, is so extreme that the LosAngeles Daily News reported this month without qualification that he “has a long record of bashing Catholics, gays and mothers of young children who serve in the state Legislature.”
. . .Drollinger said it was important to challenge legislators to make decisions to “submit to Christ as Lord,” according to Rabbi Paula Reimers of Congregation Beth Israel in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, who attended. She also noted Drollinger’s remark that it isn’t necessary “to coerce one who has come to Christ as to how to vote.”
PBS just ran a four-part series about the Mormon Church, how carefully and effectively it governs every aspect of its members’ lives in public and private, defining everything big from parenthood to scholarship and everything small from dress to allowable beverages. Forget Mitt Romney, this reminded me that both Glenn Beck and Harry Reid are Mormons shaping the public debate but who don’t talk about “it” because their church doesn’t want them to . . . I think we all have a lot more learning to do about Church and State these days, and we’ve been distracted for far too long with trifles.
The PBS site features a school lesson plan with links and printouts, on the theme of Church and State, from which I just learned that Illinois at least, might seek political salvation in Barack Obama — see the end of this post for an excerpt of his thoughts as a Christian:
“Vote Or Veto: How Does Religion Affect Candidates And Voters?”
Students will:
* Learn about the constitutionality of religious tests for office
* Consider if the electorate imposes an “unofficial” religious requirement to hold office
* Explore the role of religion in presidential elections
* Evaluate their own attitudes concerning the role of religion in U.S. elections
So I turned on the Glenn Beck radio show. Newt Gingrinch is being interviewed. He is saying the American people have no understanding of how the next 20 years will challenge us and how dangerous the world can be, similar to the 1930s, and that we should be looking more to Asia, to understand the dramatically changing face of the world. (Tom Friedman’s book says much the same thing.) Nothing today about divine providence saving us from religious self-destruction although that’s also part of his story. . .
Educating ourselves as Thinking Parents about all these guys and what they believe, how they think, what they’re really up to and what (who) they’re willing to sacrifice in the process, would seem to be the only prayer left for protecting the universally held value of sacred and secular families alike, that of educating our children in freedom.
Barack Obama on “Universal values”
. . . democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. . .
This might be difficult for those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics involves compromise, the art of the possible. But religion does not allow for compromise. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policymaking on them would be dangerous.
In the months and years to come, I am hopeful we can bridge these gaps and overcome the prejudices each of us brings to this debate. I believe that Americans want this. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool to attack and divide.
Americans are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They might not change their positions on certain issues, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms — those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.
Eeewwww yuck, I didn’t even know that organization existed! I’m in a suburb of DC, so we’re a little different from the rest of Virginia. By the looks of the map on their website though, we’re surrounded!
I also saw this on their “About” page: “Reaching elected officials and leading them toward maturity in Christ is our primary focus.” What exactly is “maturity in Christ”?
Oh yeah, forgot to add that an organization like this is doing far more than just “blurring the line” between church and state. Yikes.
Yep, and neither Christianity nor line-blurring in and of itself is the danger anyway. I think it’s the totalitarian intent, to absolutely define everything and everyone with one all-encompassing ideology that dictates all the answers, enforced by the absolute power of the State:
Biblical literalists who think Revelations is happening now exactly as foretold seem to fit that category. So we’d better not let them gain power over us no matter how they try to do it, line-blurring or not. And it doesn’t even have to be “religious” absolutism per se:
And even if it IS religous and it IS line-blurring, it needn’t be with dominionist intent to impose totalitarian rule.
(I hope!) Take Obama’s words at face value as Exhibit One.
It’s true he made me squirm preaching to this Alabama black church, but OTOH look what he says above. His committed Christian approach emphasizes “listening and learning” and then bridging gaps and compromising, rather than attacking and dividing based on irreconcilable absolutes — that does spring from his Christian church teaching and it does sound like line-blurring, but it also sounds like the opposite of totalitarian to me.
[...] More here about Harvard Democrats like Obama and religion as power of story: The great strength of the liberal ideal has been its capacity to encompass modern ambiguities by, to borrow Isaiah Berlin’s phrase, shifting foot to foot…. Acknowledging distance between God and humanity is not a denial of values or a cowardice about faith. Hesitation to say, “This is the truth, we have received it from Amos,” is not a failure of nerve; it is hard-won wisdom. This shifting from foot to foot has been the virtue of liberalism, and the left should be wary of abandoning it for conservative-style conviction. [...]