Thanksgiving thoughts updated 2023

Update: November 2, 2023, Thanksgiving is a few weeks away, but events dictate I repost a blog that deals with whether this is a Christian nation or not. How did it happen we are not.  The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the state cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state.   The newly elected, Trump-approved House Speaker is Mike Johnson. We have never knowingly had such an ideologue in that position who is governed by the most extreme form of  Christian Nationalism. His allegiance is not to Democracy first but to his religion, whether it represents the majority (it doesn't) or surpasses democracy as rules and laws governing the nation (it does not).   Privilege in our country is for all, not just for those who demand obedience to the same religion as the ruler. This country is not a theocracy; it is a democracy, and we must keep it that way.   I am a protestant Christian, but I do not derive my politics from the same interpretations Speaker Johnson proclaims as what guides him. I do not want to live in a country that exists, favors,  and rules only for those who subscribe to his brand of Christianity or support his interpretation of how it applies to modern life. The Golden Rule or the Beatitudes have no meaning or importance in his interpretation, but they are the fundamental message Christ delivered in the version of the Bible I read.   For an in-depth study of who is a Christian nationalist and what is Christian nationalism is, go to PRRI.

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-ideas-qa-00123882  

Reposting of a November 2018 blog post________________________________________________________________________________This Thanksgiving, we should give our thanks to the Pilgrims, who have become an icon of what made the New World so unique in the civilizations that preceded them. They left England and the old world to seek freedom to practice their own religion, free from a government-backed state religion that oppressed them. It was a beginning. There was a rocky road ahead to laws guaranteeing religious freedom for everyone, not just one group.

 Some colonies adopted laws with limited forms of freedom of religion, while others established state-sponsored religions, hung heretics, and launched witch hunts. Pennsylvania and Virginia had enacted their own laws effectively protecting freedom of religion. The Constitution authors adopted those concepts in the First Amendment, ""Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Congress later passed civil rights and hate crimes legislation that protected religious practitioners and punished those who interfered with their practice.