it is very sad when we disgrace our Lord. i know that there has been a large decision in my life recently in which i was fearful of proceeding with what i believed was right because i didnt want to dishonor the LORD’s name. finally, i realized that in this particular case that i should act, because i believe it is something that God has commanded us to do as His followers.
so when i say this, i understand that there can be times when others may think that dishonor to His Name is inevitable. however, i feel that the article below demonstrates a thoughtless lack of love which has and will continue to dishonor His Name for some time to come:
what are yall’s thoughts about it?
Filed under: Christianity, Politics, Religion
Really ugly behavior, from people who completely have missed the point of Christianity.
Also, from people who have completely missed the point of the United States of America. Christianity doesn’t get special treatment. Period.
kullervo
i think you make a good connection between understanding the point of the USA and the point of Christianity. the founders certainly intended a republic based upon Christian ideals. however, that was lost somewhere way back when. or really i supposed it was never fully embraced as we began the country with slavery among other things. that is why augustine makes a great pt about the city of God not being the same as the city of man.
peter
I’m also not so sure that it’s easy to say that the Republic was “founded on Christian ideals.” What do you mean by that? It’s a phrase that gets thrown about, usually by the Christian Right, but there’s rarely very much to back it up.
kullervo
my pt was not about our republic’s christian foundation, but that our foundation was set for equality of all religions. there was no “christian” govt. it is secular and was intended to be so. but the laws which govern us were based upon christian principles of morality. the most important thing is that we were founded where all men, regardless of religion, could equally worship together and have the same status under the law and equally represent the people within the govt.
so what you may have misunderstood was what i meant by christian foundation. i dont mean a “christian” govt, but founded on the moral principles of christianity with a secular and religiously equitable govt.
peter
You don’t deserve this, because I see what you’re getting at, but I’m sorry- I need to rant here. It’s a soapbox of mine.
You said “but the laws which govern us were based upon christian principles of morality.”
This line gets thrown around all the time, and it simply under no circumstances is true. People who say this usually know very little about “the laws which govern us.”
Which “laws that govern us” are based on Christian principles morality?
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land (as per Article 6)? Hardly. It sets up a Republican democracy, horizontal separation of powers, and federalism. Even the Bill of Rights, tacked on to the end at the last minute, doesn’t really have Christian roots at all. At best, the Constitution is rooted in the Enlightenment revival of ancient Greek philosophy (which predates Christianity).
What then? Our common law system of jurisprudence, which is utterly fundamental to our system of law? Nothing particularly Christian about that- all it does is say that a judge’s reasoning in a case is binding on future cases with similar facts. Huge sections of American law are based on common law decisions, going all the way back to ancient England, and rooted in Anglo-Saxon culture and medieval property law, not in Christianity.
Then what? Which of the “laws that govern us” are based on Christian morality? The mind-bogglingly huge body of federal regulations handed down by administrative bodies? Come on; don’t even try to argue that. They may be rooted in ideas of fundamental fairness and evolving social public policy concerns, but mostly these days they’re a product of the New Deal concept of the regulatory state, which just is not really connected to Christianity at all.
So what laws, or system of laws, are based on Christian morality?
Laws like criminal prohibitions on murder, theft, and adultery?
Give me a break. Those are criminal statutes. Statutes are not really fundamental because they are subject to change whenever a Congressional majority decides they change. On top of that, do you have any idea how many statutes there are? The United States Code takes up an entire wall of a library, and it’s constantly being added to. Pick a volume, flip through it, and tell me which statutes are based on Christian morality.
Oh, snap! You won’t find very much at all about murder and stealing, or anything else you could say is “based on Christian morality!” Do you know why that is? Because those are criminal statutes, and that’s the purview of the states. Each state has it’s own body of statutory law, and again, we’re talking an entire wall of library shelves for each state. And out of that huge body of a state’s statutory law, you’ll be lucky to find even a handful of laws that you can say are clearly based on Christian morality.
And even then, it’ll be things like killing and stealing, which are universal morality. Every legal system since the Code of Hammurabi has included prohibitions against killing and stealing, regardless of whether Christianity was involved.
You could maybe make the argument that our system is based on fairness and equality, and those are rooted in Christian morality. First, I would argue that our system of law isn’t necessarily based on fairness and equality, but that those are merely some of the many shifting and evolving considerations and ideas that underscore “the law that governs us.” And even so, fairness and equality, at least for white male landowners (which are the only ones who really got fairness and equality when the nation was founded) comes once again from the ancient Greeks and Romans, prior to and independent of Christianity.
Our legal system just isn’t based on Christianity, the Bible, or Christian morality! People who say it is are usually people who don’t really understand our legal system. At best, a comparative handful of our laws are compatible with or their passing was motivated by Christian morality. But we’re talking a tiny fraction, and nothing particularly fundamental.
kullervo
i understand why this would be a soapbox issue for you. it wasnt my intention to get into a discussion about such, but since you bring it up…
let me first give my credentials in the discussion…i have studied a lot in university about the foundation of the American Republic to include one course on nothing but the foundation. in addition, i have spent a large amount of personal time studying the aforementioned topic. and i have read multiple biographies and histories of the people and the time period. so i am no expert professional historian, but i am quite well-informed for an average joe…
i think you are somewhat right and somewhat wrong. first of all, let me address the least important of the issues. that is one of criminal statutes like murder, robbery, etc. technically, one can trace this back (in my opinion) to judeo-christian values. bc most of our crime laws came from western values and heritage. western values and heritage (for good and for bad, like it or not) had a huge influence from judeo-christian morals.
but i could concede that this one is much more intangible and nearly impossible to “prove”.
let me continue, judicial system. this has always been a system based upon british common law. i believe there also is a connection here to christian values. for instance, read samuel rutherford (british legal mind) about their system of common law. he is one of the influences in our own system, as well. he says essentially, God is in charge, he charges the governors (or whatever title/system you can imagine) to bring order and justice for the people. and only under God, can a judge properly bring justice. now, these arent my thoughts, they are rutherford’s.
let my conclude by discussing the constitution. because this, i think, is where you are most wrong about your assessment. sure, one can argue that limit constitutional govt was “greek”, but this isnt really fair. for instance, if you read plato, he speaks of a republic, but one ruled by “philosopher kings”. it is no limited democracy, its an oligarchy. if you instead turn to aristotle, he speaks of limited democracy, but not of federalism. he speaks of city-states, not nation-states. sure, however, certainly some of the influence is from aristotle and plato and even some things (not many) from the Roman govt. BUT i think you miss something that happened much later, Protestant Reformation.
you see, out of the reformation came a man named calvin. ultimately, many of the people who believed similar things as calvin became known as “presbyterians” in england under john knox. this is because there system of govt was a limited democracy with a federalistic hierarchy.
now, you may think this has nothing to do with america, but let me remind you who many of the people who founded the colonies were. puritans.
these puritans were “presbyterians” from england and other places. sure, there were other denominational backgrounds in our history, but puritans played a significant role. then, of course, you cant forget what happened soon before the Revolution. jonathan edwards and the Great Awakening. edwards was a presbyterian minister most wellknown for Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God sermon, but he was one of the driving influences in the Awakening.
now, let us turn to the crux of the issue. john witherspoon. he was a presbyterian minister, president of princeton, statesmen, signator of the Declaration of Independence and framer of the Articles of Confederation. (check him out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Witherspoon)
this guy was extremely influential in the foundation of our limited democracy. not surprisingly, he was a presbyterian. the church govt of the presbyteries was also one that we used in our US govt. this wasnt something that had not been implemented before. it was something that had been used for centuries since the Reformation.
now, you can attribute our system of constitutional federalistic limited republican democracy to secular influences, but i think you would be highly mistaken to conclude that the “separation of church and state” had nothing to do with the framers using or not using “christian” principles and morals and values in determining the course of the US of A.
peter
Huh. Most of what you said I haven’t heard before. Let me think about it and I’ll get bac and answer more completely.
cool