Sorry, America is Not a "Christian Nation"
A couple weeks ago, I was reading the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and saw a story about competing groups in North Carolina who were putting up dueling billboards. The atheists were putting up signs that said "One nation indivisible", taking the phrase "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance, and a local church group countered with signs that had the full line from the pledge. When they went to the representative from the church group for a quote, a Rev. Sexton gave that often-echoed line that "we are a Christian nation."
I'm sorry but I just have to roll my eyes whenever I see that said or written somewhere. Where in the Constitution does it state that the United States shall be a "Christian nation"? The only part of the Constitution I know of that mentions religion is the First Amendment, where it says that there shall be no state religion. Declaring that we are a "Christian nation" implies a state religion, and furthermore implies no tolerance of Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, really any non-Christians, in addition to agnostics and atheists. When you hear about us being a "Christian nation", it's usually from a very devout Christian who believes that all other religions are wrong.
Then you'll hear about how the Founding Fathers were good Christian men. Except they weren't all Christians. Thomas Jefferson, for one, preferred to take the Deist route, which involves believing in a higher power, but not necessarily that Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, the Founders talked about faith and prayer and divine help in the American experiment in democracy, but that is who they were. It does not imply a desire for all Americans to believe in the same thing. They weren't into proselytizing because they saw the Puritans' brand of that, and they knew people wouldn't go for that, so they made the public square a place that could be "free from religion". By that, of course, the imposition of religion from the government.
But when you get people who have it in their head so deeply that America is a "Christian nation", you are bound to get those who wish there would be imposed Christianity on the people... or at least certain people. And that's how we come to the curious case of Terry Jones. Jones made waves worldwide this week when he threatened to burn copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, on September 11th for the benefit of his parishioners... all 50 of them. But such a spectacle brings the media spotlight and in our global village of the 21st century, news gets out there pretty quickly, and by "out there" I mean the Muslim world, which did not take kindly to Rev. Jones' plans. It got to the point where General David Petraeus, the commander of our Afghanistan war effort, made a statement in which he feared reprisals against American troops. Then we got into this whole tete-a-tete about whether or not this was about the "Ground Zero mosque", and was Jones going to meet with the imam behind that project and it was practically a 24-hour news cycle in itself.
And a debate began about whether or not it was right to give Jones so much attention. Well, the media has to cover things that may cause us trouble abroad, and when General Petraeus said something, it had to be covered. But then the media turned around and started issuing stories lamenting about how this story was causing 9-11 to be politicized. And once again, the accusation was coming from THE VERY PEOPLE who were politicizing 9-11! Just like in 2006 when the Democrats accused President Bush of playing politics with 9-11, and in so doing played politics with 9-11 themselves. I should note that I originally was set to publish this entry on 9-11, but realized that I myself would be politicizing the day, and that is not the proper thing to do, so I waited until today in order to give yesterday the reverence it deserves. Luckily, the media caught themselves and changed their 9-11 stories to depoliticize things and turn attention instead to the tolerance issue.
But not before they introduced one very intriguing wrinkle into the story. Turns out Jones went to the same high school in Cape Girardeau, MO as Rush Limbaugh. Why is this an issue? Because the fact that this story ran will now lead many on the Left to believe that this cuckoo-banana's planned Quran burning had the tacit approval of the Leader of the Republican Party... and they'll work it into the template of xenophobia that they are using to try to preserve the Democratic majorities on Election Day.
Well, in the end, Jones didn't do it. Furthermore, he said he never was going to do it. His purpose was to call attention to that element of Islam that was dangerous and radical. Of course, in so doing, Jones no doubt fanned the flames of such radicalism, which only makes you want to shake your head in disgust even more. Furthermore, he also called attention to that element of Christianity that was dangerous and radical. Because as soon as it appeared that the burning wouldn't happen, who showed up to proudly proclaim, "We'll do it"? None other than Fred Phelps and his wackjobs from the Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, the guys who celebrate at military funerals. And I doubt anyone would try to stop them since half his flock are lawyers and they would get sued so fast it would make their heads spin. Truthfully, I don't know if the Westboro wackjobs went through it; furthermore, I don't really care. I'm just glad it's over. Now can we PLEASE start talking about how we're going to fix this friggin' economy?!?
For the record, Rev. Sexton, in that same Inquirer article from a few weeks ago, later used a much better and more accurate statement: "We are a nation built on Christian principles." Yes, very true, "love thy neighbor", "thou shalt not kill", a lot of the moral code of the Bible is built into our system of laws. Thankfully not all of it, such as the stuff in Leviticus about homosexuals and what you do with someone who eats shellfish (but that's my next entry), but certainly the system of morals is similar. So yes, we are a "moral nation", but not an officially-sanctioned "Christian" one. Also, I'm not quite sure if there's a line in the Bible about over-the-top publicity-seeking reverends and the media that love them, but I'm pretty sure that kind of spectacle was NOT what the Founders intended...
I'm sorry but I just have to roll my eyes whenever I see that said or written somewhere. Where in the Constitution does it state that the United States shall be a "Christian nation"? The only part of the Constitution I know of that mentions religion is the First Amendment, where it says that there shall be no state religion. Declaring that we are a "Christian nation" implies a state religion, and furthermore implies no tolerance of Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, really any non-Christians, in addition to agnostics and atheists. When you hear about us being a "Christian nation", it's usually from a very devout Christian who believes that all other religions are wrong.
Then you'll hear about how the Founding Fathers were good Christian men. Except they weren't all Christians. Thomas Jefferson, for one, preferred to take the Deist route, which involves believing in a higher power, but not necessarily that Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, the Founders talked about faith and prayer and divine help in the American experiment in democracy, but that is who they were. It does not imply a desire for all Americans to believe in the same thing. They weren't into proselytizing because they saw the Puritans' brand of that, and they knew people wouldn't go for that, so they made the public square a place that could be "free from religion". By that, of course, the imposition of religion from the government.
But when you get people who have it in their head so deeply that America is a "Christian nation", you are bound to get those who wish there would be imposed Christianity on the people... or at least certain people. And that's how we come to the curious case of Terry Jones. Jones made waves worldwide this week when he threatened to burn copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, on September 11th for the benefit of his parishioners... all 50 of them. But such a spectacle brings the media spotlight and in our global village of the 21st century, news gets out there pretty quickly, and by "out there" I mean the Muslim world, which did not take kindly to Rev. Jones' plans. It got to the point where General David Petraeus, the commander of our Afghanistan war effort, made a statement in which he feared reprisals against American troops. Then we got into this whole tete-a-tete about whether or not this was about the "Ground Zero mosque", and was Jones going to meet with the imam behind that project and it was practically a 24-hour news cycle in itself.
And a debate began about whether or not it was right to give Jones so much attention. Well, the media has to cover things that may cause us trouble abroad, and when General Petraeus said something, it had to be covered. But then the media turned around and started issuing stories lamenting about how this story was causing 9-11 to be politicized. And once again, the accusation was coming from THE VERY PEOPLE who were politicizing 9-11! Just like in 2006 when the Democrats accused President Bush of playing politics with 9-11, and in so doing played politics with 9-11 themselves. I should note that I originally was set to publish this entry on 9-11, but realized that I myself would be politicizing the day, and that is not the proper thing to do, so I waited until today in order to give yesterday the reverence it deserves. Luckily, the media caught themselves and changed their 9-11 stories to depoliticize things and turn attention instead to the tolerance issue.
But not before they introduced one very intriguing wrinkle into the story. Turns out Jones went to the same high school in Cape Girardeau, MO as Rush Limbaugh. Why is this an issue? Because the fact that this story ran will now lead many on the Left to believe that this cuckoo-banana's planned Quran burning had the tacit approval of the Leader of the Republican Party... and they'll work it into the template of xenophobia that they are using to try to preserve the Democratic majorities on Election Day.
Well, in the end, Jones didn't do it. Furthermore, he said he never was going to do it. His purpose was to call attention to that element of Islam that was dangerous and radical. Of course, in so doing, Jones no doubt fanned the flames of such radicalism, which only makes you want to shake your head in disgust even more. Furthermore, he also called attention to that element of Christianity that was dangerous and radical. Because as soon as it appeared that the burning wouldn't happen, who showed up to proudly proclaim, "We'll do it"? None other than Fred Phelps and his wackjobs from the Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, the guys who celebrate at military funerals. And I doubt anyone would try to stop them since half his flock are lawyers and they would get sued so fast it would make their heads spin. Truthfully, I don't know if the Westboro wackjobs went through it; furthermore, I don't really care. I'm just glad it's over. Now can we PLEASE start talking about how we're going to fix this friggin' economy?!?
For the record, Rev. Sexton, in that same Inquirer article from a few weeks ago, later used a much better and more accurate statement: "We are a nation built on Christian principles." Yes, very true, "love thy neighbor", "thou shalt not kill", a lot of the moral code of the Bible is built into our system of laws. Thankfully not all of it, such as the stuff in Leviticus about homosexuals and what you do with someone who eats shellfish (but that's my next entry), but certainly the system of morals is similar. So yes, we are a "moral nation", but not an officially-sanctioned "Christian" one. Also, I'm not quite sure if there's a line in the Bible about over-the-top publicity-seeking reverends and the media that love them, but I'm pretty sure that kind of spectacle was NOT what the Founders intended...
Labels: religion
posted by Dave | 3:28 PM
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