Thanksgiving is a few days away, but events dictate me to ask the question of whether this is a Christian nation or not. Many citizens differ in various views of the role of Christianity in government and theology, and I treasure my ability to express my views freely in our current form of Democracy in the USA. I am thankful we are not a theocracy. Update: https://apnews.com/article/america-christian-united-states-conservative-beliefs-9286431a0ddde91c928e5d411795c1fe?user_email=2254787f2de6133291d8de56d5223ad0836fd31a4ba928a7dc8ea959298ab6f4&utm_medium=Morning_Wire&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_campaign=Morning%20Wire_Feb_21_2024&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
11/18/2023 The new House Speaker has called this country as "dark and depraved", mostly because of the permissiveness of abortion and tolerance of homosexuality. It is a condemnation based on his devotion to his particular interpretation of the scriptures. House speaker Mike Johnson calls America 'dark and depraved,' laments LGBTQ+ youth Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House, is a gender extremist | Moira Donegan | The Guardian MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The GOP is becoming the American Taliban?
How did it happen we are not, by law, a Christian nation. When we became a nation with the adoption of the Constitution, the separation of church from state was at the top of the list of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the government cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ") The Christian right has been active in narrowing the interpretation of the First Amendment, and the Christian nationalist movement has made it a goal to eliminate this separation altogether. Even Jesus referenced separating loyalties from government and God on matters of taxation.: "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21 NASB).
How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics, The Scarlet Letter, and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts.
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A whole lot more :
The raising of a Christian nationalist to the Speakership made me personally appreciate the founders' wisdom in writing the separation of church and state into the First Amendment. .I am thankful we are not a theocracy, and church and state are mostly separated. However, the issue of using taxpayer money to fund religious-based private education is constantly challenged in the courts. I am a protestant Christian, but I do not derive my politics from the same interpretations of the Bible 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 who support Johnson's and Christian Nationalists' particular interpretations of how the scriptures apply to modern life. It differs from what I see as the fundamental message Christ delivered in the version of the Bible I read.. While abortion and same-sex love were practiced and well-known in the time of Christ, I find no direct reference to it in the New Testament. It takes books by theologians to derive an interpretation to rationalize a direction from Christ on these issues. The Golden Rule and the Beatitudes, or forgiving those who trespass against us, have less importance in some modern Evangelical applications. Hate or denial of human rights of those one disapproves is not a Christian value. Ignoring and denying the needs of those who cannot help themselves in the name of freedom from government and taxes or fear of becoming powerless in a time of racial demographic changes are also not my Christian values.. Ending abortion has become going off on a specious tangent, overtaking everything else of Christ's message of caring about neighbors and the "least of these." A singular focus on saving the unborn while not caring for the thriving life of the born is not in my Christian value list. Other. public policy issues reflect these differences. . As we sit down to our feasts, let us also remember that the new Speaker supports the right-wing initiative to cut food stamps to the poor, which is not exactly a charitable policy for a professed Christian. Being a good steward should not be used to justify being cruel or ignoring hunger to get a better tax advantage. 14 GOP governors rejected federal money for summer nutrition programs for the poor. https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d Johnson's first act was to cut IRS funding to prosecute rich tax cheats before approving aid to Israel in the name of cutting the deficit. A tax collector is a low-hanging fruit to attack to get popular approval. It was also a rooky mistake: failure to get the figures first before advocating a position.. The Congressional Budget Office figured that one would cost the treasury $90 million in lost revenues and add to the deficit much more than it would save. Here’s Exactly How Much House Republicans’ Israel Bill Would Cost | The New Republic For an in-depth study of who is a Christian nationalist and what Christian nationalism is, go to PRRI. For how Mike Johnson fits into the definition: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-ideas-qa-00123882
We are still a nation of diverse religious beliefs and non-believers. Still, we have never knowingly had such an ideologue in that position of Speaker who is loyal to the most extreme form of Christian Nationalism. If Johnson follows the ideology to a T, his allegiance is not to Democracy first but to his religion, whether it represents the majority (it doesn't) or should surpass Democracy as formalizing rules and laws governing the nation. (It shouldn't). Among those beliefs is one that is purely mysoginist. Women are to be submissive to men. Some women agree; most women do not when it takes two breadwinners to make it in a middle class home, and women cannot afford to abide by either the old Nazi phrase of kinder, kirche, and kuchen, or children, church, and kitchen. In short, women, keep your nose out of lobbying for equal pay and control over your reproductive functions and keep on making the coffee in the office. That's your place. PRRI The core goal of Christian nationalists is to establish this country as a Christian country. That flies in the face of democracy. Privilege in our country is for all, not just for those who show obedience to the same religion as the ruler or one religion set in stone in the federal laws.
In the meantime, while Johnson fiddles with theology, democracy burns with threats against the democracy as we know it, the same democracy that gives Johnson the freedom to express his theology.. ) How did it happen we are not, by law, a Christian nation. When we became a nation with the adoption of the Constitution, the separation of church from state was at the top of the list of the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment to the Constitution clearly says the government cannot establish a religion, the foundation statement of the separation of church and state. ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ") The Christian right has been active in narrowing the interpretation of the First Amendment, and the Christian nationalist movement has made it a goal to eliminate this separation altogether. Even Jesus referenced separating loyalties from government and God on matters of taxation.: "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21 NASB).
How freedom of religion came to be in the Bill of Rights was because of the diversity of experiences in the original colonies. The pilgrims famously sought religious freedom to practice their own brand of Christianity, but it was freedom for them, not everyone. Some colonies like Massachusetts had established state religions with results we ought to remember, such as Salem witch hunts, hanging or burning at the stake of heretics, The Scarlet Letter, and Puritan overreach causing breakaway founding of Rhode Island by Roger Williams for religious freedom. The success of the Virginia and Pennsylvania colonies not having a state-sponsored religion had been triumphant in keeping internal peace. Fresh in the founders' knowledge of English and European recent histories were centuries of war between protestants and Catholics, the root of many conflicts.
_________________________________________________________________________________
A whole lot more :
The raising of a Christian nationalist to the Speakership made me personally appreciate the founders' wisdom in writing the separation of church and state into the First Amendment. .I am thankful we are not a theocracy, and church and state are mostly separated. However, the issue of using taxpayer money to fund religious-based private education is constantly challenged in the courts. I am a protestant Christian, but I do not derive my politics from the same interpretations of the Bible 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 who support Johnson's and Christian Nationalists' particular interpretations of how the scriptures apply to modern life. It differs from what I see as the fundamental message Christ delivered in the version of the Bible I read.. While abortion and same-sex love were practiced and well-known in the time of Christ, I find no direct reference to it in the New Testament. It takes books by theologians to derive an interpretation to rationalize a direction from Christ on these issues. The Golden Rule and the Beatitudes, or forgiving those who trespass against us, have less importance in some modern Evangelical applications. Hate or denial of human rights of those one disapproves is not a Christian value. Ignoring and denying the needs of those who cannot help themselves in the name of freedom from government and taxes or fear of becoming powerless in a time of racial demographic changes are also not my Christian values.. Ending abortion has become going off on a specious tangent, overtaking everything else of Christ's message of caring about neighbors and the "least of these." A singular focus on saving the unborn while not caring for the thriving life of the born is not in my Christian value list. Other. public policy issues reflect these differences. . As we sit down to our feasts, let us also remember that the new Speaker supports the right-wing initiative to cut food stamps to the poor, which is not exactly a charitable policy for a professed Christian. Being a good steward should not be used to justify being cruel or ignoring hunger to get a better tax advantage. Johnson's first act was to cut IRS funding to prosecute rich tax cheats before approving aid to Israel in the name of cutting the deficit. A tax collector is a low-hanging fruit to attack to get popular approval. It was also a rooky mistake: failure to get the figures first before advocating a position.. The Congressional Budget Office figured that one would cost the treasury $90 million in lost revenues and add to the deficit much more than it would save. Here’s Exactly How Much House Republicans’ Israel Bill Would Cost | The New Republic For an in-depth study of who is a Christian nationalist and what Christian nationalism is, go to PRRI. For how Mike Johnson fits into the definition: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-ideas-qa-00123882
We are still a nation of diverse religious beliefs and non-believers but we have never knowingly had such an ideologue in that position of Speaker who is loyal to the most extreme form of Christian Nationalism. If Johnson follows the ideology to a T, his allegiance is not to Democracy first but to his religion, whether it represents the majority (it doesn't) or should surpass Democracy as formalizing rules and laws governing the nation. (It shouldn't). Among those beliefs is one that is purely mysoginist. Women are to be submissive to men. Some women agree; most women do not when it takes two breadwinners to make it in a middle class home, and women cannot afford to abide by either the old Nazi phrase of kinder, kirche, and kuchen, or children, church, and kitchen. In short, women, keep your nose out of lobbying for equal pay and control over your reproductive functions and keep on making the coffee in the office. That's your place. PRRI The core goal of Christian nationalists is to establish this country as a Christian country. That flies in the face of democracy. Privilege in our country is for all, not just for those who show obedience to the same religion as the ruler or one religion set in stone in the federal laws.
One of the characteristics of those subscribing to the Evangelical movement is that in the last quarter of the last century, they began the effort to use politics to advance their beliefs. There was a concerted effort by this Evangelical movement to get control of political organizations, local government, school boards, and control of party leadership from the precinct level up. They began by, ousting precinct chairs who were pro-choice or mostly pro-business, even if they were professed Christians. I watched how it happened to my moderate, non-racist, pro-choice Republican brother in Tulsa in the late 1970s-1980s and again in the late 1990s when he was a GOP precinct chair in northeastern Colorado. Instead of separating church from state, Evangelicals joined politics and religion together and launched an effort to get the government to enforce their issues on their behalf, even enacting laws to criminalize those who did not comply regarding abortion and sexual orientation, enacting Don't say gay, rewriting the history of slavery in anti-CTR laws, defaming, defunding, and disapproving of "woke" institutions, including the military and judiciary, and banning books and attacking media of which they disapproved for not conforming to their views of race and LGBTQ rights and reducing government social programs of social security, Medicare, and food stamps . .
In the past ten years, Evangelists allied themselves with Donald Trump's MAGA movement. Both share the same attitude that they are under attack by the liberal public, even though Evangelicals are in the driving seat in much of the GOP and the House of Representatives and, until 2021, in the White House. This persecution complex permeates both the political right and its leader, Donald Trump, who channels this and his own personal anger against any authority standing in his way to his mostly White core MAGA supporters, giving this alliance a racist tinge as well. Along with the alliance came some members of their movement to equate Jews (personified by George Soros) to all evils of those left of center. The persecution complex is part and parcel of the Christian nationalist Speaker Mike Johnson, who is now in the driver's seat, an avowed Christian nationalist but mild-mannered and in a business suit. Could his extreme views cause a backlash and a split in the GOP over issues he supports, including isolationism, anti 'globalists" regarding Ukraine and national security, science-denying in the environmental climate change actions, and abortions and other women's rights? As an election denier, he became a bonafide MAGA. Most of these issues are unpopular with the US population if not on a legislative district and district basis, gerrymandered so birds of a feather flock together. Pushback and backlash will only add fuel to the Christian nationalist persecution complex. The immediate test will be a denial of funding for what he and the MAGA caucus disapprove of in the looming budget fight. Unfortunately, as second in line for the presidency, his constituency is no longer like-minded religious believers but a very diverse nation amid demographic shifts.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/mike-johnson-embodies-evangelicals-embattlement-strategy-it-may-be-backfiring/ar-AA1juyDH?ocid=socialshare&pc=DCTS&cvid=f88a334771844fe5e2edbdce6ad0123b&ei=14
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/27/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-ideas-qa-00123882
55 Things to Know About Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker - POLITICO
PRRI for Christian nationalist views about a woman's place in society: "submissive"
History of Rhode Island - Wikipedia
Johnson's brewing SNAP crisis - POLITICO
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom - Bill of Rights Institute
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2011/the-bibles-contradictions-about-sex/
Private charity no match for federal poverty aid, experts say | The Seattle Times
Cutting food stamps has a long history, the goal of conservatives: For updated data: What the data says about food stamps in the U.S. | Pew Research Center Ignoring the data or reducing the numbers of eligibility is not a rational or humane approach to citing fraud as the reason to oppose such welfare programs which cannot be made up by private giving. Fraud is always a concern, but estimates vary given who is estimating and the percent of the volume of the program so citing dollar figures are very deceptive. The bigger the need and program, the more the absolute fraud figures could increase. SNAP updates may increase fraud risk | Legal Blog (thomsonreuters.com) The more effort that is put into enforcement, the percentage found may also make past comparisons warped. Reducing the numbers eligible would reduce the total dollars of fraud, no doubt, and also increase those suffering from lack of access to nutrition.
What House Speaker Mike Johnson has said about Social Security and Medicare (msn.com) These proposals need some deep scrutiny. It subjects all to needs tests since the levels of benefits are tied to income levels. It appears to me the losers will be the middle class and those under 80 years old. The inbetweeners just reaching eligibility for those beloved programs would see the age of eligibility increase and the cost of living adjustments go away in a stealth way of cutting their income in the face of inflation, which will always increase at a minimum of 2 to 3% a year.This is despite most of a lifetime of work paying into a system that they expected to remain the same. At least the old GOP simplistic approach to fund Social Security with the casino of Wall Street is no longer the only path. Making fixed-income retirees pay more deductibles may result from shifting all Medicare to the Obamacare exchanges. That needs to be offset in some way if that happens.. Biden's approach is to keep everything the same and just use taxpayer money to cover shortfalls. Something must be done, for sure, because of looming shortfalls.
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