Posts Tagged ‘Religion’

By Ronald Rodriguez

Constitution of the United States of America (Photo credit: The U.S. National Archives)
It does not take a casual observer much effort to realize that many people who have an anti religion agenda deliberately misinterpret American history. Thus, factual historical facts are simply “erased” to fit an ideology. This is an unfortunate practice of revisionist history as it is not an accurate approach to updating our known history with new facts.

There is a debate between two separate ideologies. The first ideology is the most accepted belief of American history, which believes that Christianity played no role in shaping the U.S. government. The second ideology, commonly accepted among-st Christians, insist on teaching ”traditional” history to their children.

The linchpin causing such debate around “traditional” history is that Christianity played a significant role in shaping the U.S. government and morals of the colonies and eventual young nation.

This is not an attempt to say that all the founders were devout followers of the Christian God or if they even believed in Him. It is not our right to judge the “walks” of our founders with God, but it is out right to defend what they did through their lives.

There are anti-religion quotes that revisionist’s find and use to argue that the founders were not christian. Thus, as a result, the U.S. is not a christian nation. The founders surely made statements that were critical of organized religion, but there is overwhelming evidence that almost all the founders believed in the Christian God and were members of established churches. Thus, it is not hard to believe that the founders used the principles of the Bible played help establish the U.S. government and a moral society

There is always a danger in history being interpreted with a broad brush of political activism today to fit an intellectual idea. Thus, it becomes important to dig deep into topics yourself and believe that history is best told by those that lived it and wrote about it. Considering this is the U.S. a nation under God or a nation not under God?

The Supreme Court was faced with the issue in 1892 with the case ”Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S.“

The Court affirmed the religious nature of the U.S. This can be seen in opinion delivered by Justice David Josiah Brewer on the behalf of the Court that unanimously agreed. He stated the following:

[t]here is no dissonance in these declarations. There is a universal language pervading them all, having one meaning; they affirm and reaffirm that this is a religious nation. These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons: they are organic [legal, governmental] utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people. … These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.

The decision by the Supreme Court did not merely say that a majority of the American people were Christian, or that there were no Muslims, Hindus or other religious sects in America. Rather, Justice Brewer claimed it was the courts unanimous opinion that America is a Christian nation in “the domain of official action and recognition, [but not in regards to] individual acceptance.”

The Court’s decision demonstrates that our entire system of government was created with a responsibility to recognize the authority of the Christian God. Also, those who acknowledged the Christian God’s authority and committed to obey His commandments intended the government they created to acknowledge and obey God.

This decision is astonishing considering the nations rejection of Christianity’s role in its founding and government. As a result, it certainly is intriguing to consider how do we got from Supreme Court opinion to the doctrine of “separation of church and state.”

The “Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S.” case was effectively overruled in 1931. As a result, the idea that government was “under God” was replaced with “separate” from God.

The doctrine of “separation of church and state” encompasses more than churches as it infers the separation of God and Government.

In 1989, the Supreme Court declared in its decision for “Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU” that “the Constitution mandates that the government remain secular.”

This is certainly a far stretch from any truth.

There is no piece of the Constitution that does or does not establish the U.S. government to ignore God’s authority.

The Case involving the Church of the Holy Trinity shows four points:

Each american colony was considered a Christian Theocracy from its earliest founding in the 1600′s.
The colonies had a universal agreement that the formation of civil government was a Biblical obligation – all the governments were Theocratic. The colonists formed governments with the belief that God commanded them to form them. Thus, the founding of a government was considered a religious act.
The federal government established under the U.S. Constitution were Christian Theocracies.
The ratification of the U.S. Constitution would never of occurred if the federal government had been given authority to prevent the U.S. from being “under God” and officially and legally acknowledging that they – the founders and colonies (states) – to be under His jurisdiction.
There are many statements by the founders in support of christian principles inclusion in the U.S. founding.
John Adams wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson (June 28, 1813) which stated:
[t]he general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.” He also stated in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade, the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts that “[o]ur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
In the Notes on the State of Virginia (Query XVIII), Thomas Jefferson wrote:
God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event.
In “The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia,” Henry is quoted stating

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.

I considered leaving concluding remarks to encompass my interpretation of these remarks, but I believe the best approach is to allow you to interpret what has been presented for yourself.

I hope you will take the time to dive into the history of this matter and voice what you find here for discussion.

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith has shaped his life, but he barely mentioned it as he spoke to graduates at an evangelical Christian university Saturday.

And he barely touched on hot-button social issues like abortion and gay marriage, instead offering a broad-based defense of values like family and hard work.

“Culture — what you believe, what you value, how you live — matters,” Romney told graduates gathered in the football stadium on Liberty University’s campus in the Virginia mountains. “The American culture promotes personal responsibility, the dignity of work, the value of education, the merit of service, devotion to a purpose greater than self, and at the foundation, the preeminence of the family.”

Instead of a red-meat conservative policy speech, Romney discussed his own family and offered a defense of Christianity, saying that “there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.” Still, he was inclusive: “Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life,” Romney said.

He had one sustained applause line in a 20-minute speech delivered days after President Barack Obama historically embraced gay marriage. “Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman,” Romney said to a cheering crowd of students who have to follow a strict code of conduct that considers sex out of wedlock and homosexuality to be sins.

The late Rev. Jerry Falwell founded Liberty University in 1971 to be for evangelical Christians “what Notre Dame is to young Catholics and Brigham Young is to young Mormons,” as his son, University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr., said on commencement day. It’s become a destination for Republican politicians looking to speak to the religious right, and Romney’s campaign team — planning the speech long before gay marriage became a central issue — viewed it as an opportunity to address the kind of socially conservative audience that had been wary of him during the prolonged GOP primary fight.

For Romney, the challenge is twofold. His past policy positions, including support for abortion rights, don’t sit well. But his personal faith is also an issue because many evangelicals don’t consider Mormons to be fellow Christians. Evangelicals are a critical segment of the GOP base; many of those voters backed his GOP rivals in the prolonged primary.

When he locks in the Republican presidential nomination, Romney will make history as the first Mormon nominee from a major party. His faith is central to him and to his family — he spent two years in France as a missionary, a time when he lived in occasionally primitive conditions. When he returned home, he attended Brigham Young University, a Mormon school, and married his wife, Ann, who had converted to Mormonism. As they built a life in Boston, Romney took on a significant leadership role in the church, serving as a lay pastor, fighting to build a temple in town, and counseling families in need.

But he’s mostly avoided talking about it on the campaign trail, largely avoiding religious forums and events throughout the primary season.

And at arguably the most religious venue he’s addressed during the campaign — since announcing his bid, Romney hasn’t made a public appearance in a church of any kind — he continued to keep his own faith in the background.

“This isn’t a speech about Mormonism,” senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told reporters Friday on a conference call. Fehrnstrom pointed to the speech Romney gave in Texas in 2007 outlining his faith and defending religious freedom — the last time the former Massachusetts governor has addressed his faith in any detail.

Still, it was clear the campaign was keenly aware of the overtones. Romney was introduced by Mark DeMoss, an evangelical who has repeatedly defended Romney’s faith on the campaign trail. “I suspect I won’t agree with Mitt Romney on everything, but I will tell you this: I trust him. I trust him to do the right thing,” said DeMoss, who went on with a lengthy testament to Romney’s values.

Despite the concern, surveys have shown for months now that whatever reservations Republican evangelicals have about Romney’s faith, they are likely to back him in a general election.

A spokesman for Liberty said that Romney is not the first Mormon to speak at a university commencement. “This is our 29th commencement speaker, and 21 of those 39 speakers would not necessarily meet Liberty’s doctrinal theological statement,” said the spokesman, Johnnie Moore, explaining that anyone who teaches at the university is held to that doctrinal standard.

Romney’s selection as commencement speaker was an issue for some students who graduated from Liberty this weekend. When the school announced Romney as commencement speaker, hundreds of angry comments were posted on Liberty’s Facebook page by people who said they were students or alumni, objecting to giving a Mormon a platform. The school responded by affirming its welcome to Romney.

“There was some concern in my family, yes,” because of Romney’s Mormonism, said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army colonel whose nephew is a member of the 2012 class.

Ahead of Romney’s remarks, University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said the school’s invitation to him should not be considered an endorsement. He noted that his father, the school’s founder, said that Christians should vote for the candidate who shares their political positions “not the candidate that shares his or her faith or theology.”

Read more on Newsmax.com: Romney Tells Liberty Students to Honor Family Commitments

Speak now or forever be a slave to Islam. via Criticism of Islam Could Soon be a Crime in America » Publications » Family Security Matters.

When President Obama delivered his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University in June 2009, the free world trembled while the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) gushed with praise and begged for a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The OIC is the largest head of state organization in the world after the United Nations (UN) itself and comprises 56 Muslim countries plus the Palestinians. Itclaims to be the “collective voice of the Muslim world,” i.e., the ummah, and speaks on its behalf in effect as the seat of the next Islamic Caliphate. In 1990, the OIC membership adopted the “Cairo Declaration ,” which officially exempted all Muslim countries from compliance with the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and replaced it with Islamic law (shariah).

One of the fundamental laws of Islam deals with “slander ,” which is defined in shariah as saying “anything concerning a person [a Muslim] that he would dislike.” At the OIC’s Third Extraordinary Session, held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in December 2005, the organization adopted a “Ten-Year Programme of Action to Meet the Challenges Facing the Muslim Ummah in the 21st Century.” A keyagenda item of that meeting was “the need to counter Islamophobia” by seeking to have the UN “…adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments.” The word “Islamophobia” is a completely invented word, coined by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) front group. OIC adoption of the term reflects the close operational relationship between the OIC and the Ikhwan.

Six years later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to host OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Washington, DC in mid-December 2011 to discuss how the United States can implement the OIC agenda to criminalize criticism of Islam. Cloaked in the sanctimonious language of “Resolution 16/18,” that was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in April 2011, the WDC three-day experts meeting is billed as a working session to discuss legal mechanisms to combat religious discrimination (but the only religion the Human Rights Council has ever mentioned in any previous resolution is Islam). The UN Human Rights Council, which includes such bastions of human rights as China, Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, introduced Resolution 16/18 to the UN General Assembly (UNGA), where it was passed in March 2011.

The Resolution was presented to the UNGA by Pakistan (where women get the death penalty for being raped and “blasphemy” against Islam is punished by death). Ostensibly about “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and…incitement to violence against persons based on religion or belief,” the only partnership mentioned in the text is the one with the OIC. The U.S., whose official envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, helped write Obama’s Cairo speech, actively collaborated in the drafting of Resolution 16/18.

Now, the OIC’s Ihsanoglu will come to Washington, DC, the capital of one of the only countries in the world with a Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and a judicial system that consistently defends it, with a publicized agenda to criminalize criticism of Islam. His agenda, and, apparently that of his host, the U.S. Department of State, seek to bring the U.S. into full compliance with Islamic law on slander, as noted above.

Read it all and Contact Your Elected Officials – NOW!

Are Hillary and Barack in a race to see which one can destroy this Country first? May God protect the United States of America from these two Marxist thugs!

One of the fundamental laws of Islam deals with “slander

,” which is defined in shariah as saying “anything concerning a person
[a Muslim] that he would dislike.” At the OIC’s Third Extraordinary
Session, held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in December 2005, the organization
adopted a “Ten-Year Programme of Action to Meet the Challenges Facing the Muslim Ummah in the 21st Century.” A key agenda
item of that meeting was “the need to counter Islamophobia” by seeking
to have the UN “…adopt an international resolution to counter
Islamophobia, and call upon all States to enact laws to counter it,
including deterrent punishments.” The word “Islamophobia” is a
completely invented word, coined by the International Institute of
Islamic Thought (IIIT), a Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) front group. OIC
adoption of the term reflects the close operational relationship
between the OIC and the Ikhwan.

Six years later, Secretary of 

State Hillary Clinton is due to host OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu in Washington, DC in mid-December 2011 to discuss how the
United States can implement the OIC agenda to criminalize criticism of
Islam. Cloaked in the sanctimonious language of “Resolution 16/18,”
that was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in April 2011, the WDC
three-day experts meeting is billed as a working session to discuss
legal mechanisms to combat religious discrimination (but the only
religion the Human Rights Council has ever mentioned in any previous
resolution is Islam). The UN Human Rights Council, which includes such
bastions of human rights as China, Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, and Saudi
Arabia, introduced Resolution 16/18 to the UN General Assembly (UNGA),
where it was passed in March 2011.

The Resolution was presented to the UNGA

by Pakistan (where women get the death penalty for being raped and
“blasphemy” against Islam is punished by death). Ostensibly about
“combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and…incitement to
violence against persons based on religion or belief,” the only
partnership mentioned in the text is the one with the OIC. The U.S.,
whose official envoy to the OIC, Rashad Hussain, helped write Obama’s
Cairo speech, actively collaborated in the drafting of Resolution 16/18.

Now, the OIC’s Ihsanoglu will come to
Washington, DC, the capital of one of the only countries in the world
with a Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and a judicial
system that consistently defends it, with a publicized agenda to
criminalize criticism of Islam. His agenda, and, apparently that of his
host, the U.S. Department of State, seek to bring the U.S. into full
compliance with Islamic law on slander, as noted above.