The religious right's historical fraud

Nicholas

What complete tosh.

Jason Cherno

Is this crap a reject piece from Comment is Free? That is normally the home for the small breed of Brits who like to get all worked up about the Evil Right Wing Christians in America. This blog is the type of hysteria from the psuedo-culture wars in America - one bunch of loons versus another - that I come to Coffee House to seek sanctuary from. Go bother an American website, Hobson. You'll be in good company.

Archbishop Cranmer

O, why does The Spectator publish this pseudo-theological tripe? Can you not find a proper Anglican?

David Lindsay

You are of course right about the Founding Fathers, and if anything rather generous in calling them "liberal Protestants". They were not Christians at all. They were Deists, and their position is exemplified by The Jefferson Bible, from which he excised all reference to Christ's Divinity, Resurrection or miracles.

However, the actual phrase "the separation of Church and State" does not occur in the Constitution, and in point of fact the First Amendment's reference to religion is designed to stop Congress, full of Deists as it was, from supressing the Established Churches of several states, although they all went to disestablish them of their own volition later on.

The Tea Party is strikingly uninterested in abortion or in the definition of marriage. It is really about lower taxes and nothing else. Indeed, where religion is concerned, it embraces Sharron Angle's ties to Scientology, Christine O'Donnell's dabbling in withcraft, and Rand Paul's Aqua Buddha, cheered on by the Moonie-founded, and until recently Moonie-owned, Washington Times.

DavidDP

Spot on.

For so-called defenders of the founders' original intentions, they show a complete willingness to make up a narrative if it doesn't accord with what they want.
See the Texan schoolbook controversy.

Larry Linn

My grandparents were Christians in Northern Ireland. She was Protestant, and he was Catholic. They had to flee after death threats. When I became of age, I volunteered and joined the Army, and I served as an 11B Infantryman. Most of my time in the field was in squad or platoon size operations. We would have discussions about what we were fighting for. It always came back to the “Bill of Rights”. To me the most important was “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
What did our Founding Fathers have to say about religion:
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787):
"All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason;
"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.", John Madison;
“Lighthouses are more helpful than Churches”, Benjamin Franklin

Rhoda Klapp

If obama believed as you say, would he leave 'by their creator' out of the declaration?

I find this whole item perplexing. Not just 'not as I see it', which would be fine, but way out there in mystic land.

Kennybhoy

What a fundmamentaly innaccurate, nay dishonest, post.

TomTom

The author has his own history. The Protestants who landed at Cape Cod has a refusal to bow to State Authority as their history and the USA has been true to the precept, resisting political interference as Europeans have fused Religion and Socialism.

The fact that the 1st Amendment prevents Congress from establishing a State Religion restricts CONGRESS not Religion....though often politicos confuse the direction of the prohibition. In other words no Church as in Germany, Denmark, England or Sweden..........but not a prohibition on Religion influencing Politics

Hadrian

It may have escaped you that long before the reputedly wonderful Declarers of Independence created what you call 'secular political space' Protestant Great Britain passed the Toleration Act and gradually extended its reach as procscribed groups were seen to be no longer a danger to the State and its freedom. This cocept is a fundamentally religious principle that Protestant and calvinistic Christianity endorses. Men are born fallen and need space to 'repent' or orientate themselves so that they come to see all human life is precious, made in the image of their Creator but now imperfect and in need of a Mediator/Saviour. The much derided doctrine of 'you must be born again' ( NOT by innate 'free will' but divine conversion) is what grants this 'free space'. The framers of the Declaration were baically humanists who, like all humanists, forgot that their high ideal of mutual respect between all and forebearance and the vision of life as something sacred, derives from the Christian, Biblical religion. Liberalism when it sheers iiself off from its roots in that essentially calvinistic religion, degenerates into chaos or idelogical self righteous, extremism, political, ecclesiastical or otherwise.
As ever Scripture Truth is eminently practical- 'Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us...' That keeps us all- lawmakers, law enforcers, politicians, all of us, duly realistic and humbled.
So, your analysis is largely off key, though I am happy to admit there are many on the so called 'religious right' who are actually at heart 'leftist'- anti-Calvinistic and promoters of man's innate ability to do good. Their shallow, superficially attractive doctrine of man IS a threat. Again Scripture solemnly reminds us:' Saved by FAITH..not of works, lest any man should boast.' That boasting, complacent Pride afflicts us all and is a dire threat in the political sphere.
However the Left is badly wrong if it thinks civic freedoms can rest on an amorphous, amoral, 'multi cultural' hotchpotch. That way your civilisation crumbles. The freedoms rest firmly on revealed Christian principles, not a false 'liberalism'.

porkbelly

What a completely asinine,empty-headed post - is "Theo Hobson" Massie's nom de plume? First of all, the Tea Party has been deliberately organized to stay away from all of the divisive social issues that have created rifts in the past such as abortion, prayer in schools, and so on. The Tea Party's goals are very very simple - smaller government and lower taxes. The end.

The "religious right", which has faded almost completely away as an American political force, has no involvement in the Tea Party. Their objection to Obama is not religious but political: they are not willing to accept the transformation of the United States into a European-style social democracy with top-down rule by a soi-disant elite. And Obama's personal religion is a singular one, shared by him and his dwindling band of followers in academia and the media: he worships Himself, period.

Can someone please wake the Editor and ask him to read the drivel that is posted here before allowing it to be put up?

Rescomania

This is my first (despite some temptations) "what a pathetic / rubbish / ill-informed article" post.

I really hope it's my last.

Kennybhoy

“It’s very telling that, in a debate earlier this week, Christine O’Donnell seemed not to know that the separation of church was in the Constitution. “

How can something which “seems” to be be “telling”? You are trying to get a conclusion in the indicative from a premise in the conditional. This is logically impossible. And as Young Maister Lindsay has pointed out above separation of church and state per se is not actually “in the Constitution”.

“The wider point is that the religious right, which underlies the Tea Party movement (as a recent study shows)”

Actually this “study” shows no such thing. Even if we take the tendentiously presented figures in the article you link to at face value then 57% of 87% of total in no way merits description as an underlying majority.

“But this vision was rejected by the nation’s founders, who were various sorts of liberal Protestant.”

This is not, as Young Maister Lindsay states above “rather generous”, it is quite simply wrong. The Founding Fathers were, as Maister Lindsay accurately observes, Deists. Liberal protestantism did not exist back in the late C18th.

“They daringly created a more-or-less new phenomenon: secular political space.”

Not a new phenomenon. Free Will is a ramifying principle.

“So the nation opted for a liberal form of Protestantism, which informed anti-slavery and the ‘social gospel’ movement that influenced the New Deal, and the civil rights movement.”

The “nation” as a whole did no such thing. Then as now the United States was in religous terms a varied tapestry. And the notion that “liberal Protestantism” of any description was a driving force in the abolition of slavery is wrong to the point of offensive.

“But something went wrong.”

Your prejudices are showing you arrogant man.

“Liberal Protestantism proved far less popular than fundamentalism.”

I wonder why?

“America became the most religiously unbalanced country in history. Its official ideology is directly at odds with the form of religion that is most popular. Its official ideology is liberalism.”

“Most popular”? What percentage of American Christians are Fundamentalist? And is Fundamentalism homogenous? Do liberal democracies have an “official ideology”? SHOULD liberal democracies have an “official ideology”?

“Its popular religious ideology sees liberalism as Satanic, literally.”

Left-liberalism is most certainly Satanic. Any ideology, nay religion, which encompasses the mass murder of unborn innocents as an article of faith is Satanic by definition. Literally so.

“This motivates the Tea Party more than racism (which most liberals assume is the real impulse).”

More than? Sleekit wee man!

“He threatened to expose the fundies as fundamentally un-American. “

Petitio pricipii.

Were you actually paid to write this?

Richard

Why is it that people will jump to complain how stupid someone is, without first checking that she was wrong?

Christine O'Donnell was right. She was very careful and specific in her wording. The distinction she made was also relevant, in that the case under discussion was of separation of church and state (which is not mentioned in the US Constitution) but not related to congress making any law establishing a religion, which is prohibited by the First Amendment.

The gaffe was by her opponent, who did not know the establishment clause and refused to answer when asked to name the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (which even a Brit such as I can name a two or three).

The second gaffe is of course yours, Mr Hobson, and you have exposed your own arrogance.

Andrew Lyttle

WHat an absolutely moronic piece of tripe this is. First of all, there is no separation of Church and State in the US Constitution; there is only the non-establishment clause, which applies to the federal government only, and which originally prevented the union from interfering with the established churches of the states. More to the point, however, the suggestion that there is some large movement towards theocracy, somehow associated with the Tea Party (whose only concern is fiscal policy), can only be the product of the febrile imagination of someone whose experience of America consists in sitting in a hotel room in Manhattan watching MSNBC. Speaking as a Brit ex-pat, please stop embarrassing us with twaddle of this sort.

David Preiser

The First Amendment forbids Congress to create a law establishing a religion. The word "church" isn't in there. The Founders were wise enough to avoid the religious persecutions of Europe and Britain to block any specific Church from becoming intertwined with the State, e.g. the Church of England. That's not the same thing as keeping religious ideas or beliefs in general out of it. It does not forbid people teaching religious belief in public schools if teachers want to do it. It does forbid Congress making a law requiring religious belief of any kind to be taught in schools or the Ten Commandments put up on the wall of every court house. But it's a relatively modern interpretation that religion is forbidden from the public square.

"In God We Trust" is still printed on the money. Eisenhower added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and it's still there. If the First Amendment forbade what Theo Hobson and the BBC and the Leftoid US media and the Leftoid law students in the audience believe it does, that would never have happened in the first place. That's not establishing "a religion", though, so it's allowed.

Finzi Holst

Hate to tell you your flies are showing, and a number of your commentators, because O'Donnell is correct. Separation of Church and State is not guaranteed in the Constitution.

While you may be forgiven for not knowing this given you are British, the useful idiots of the LEft in the US do not get off so lightly.

Will

Unlike most of the comments above me I liked this post. The Tea Party movement is a disingenuous and dangerous political movement that has shamed the Republican party and all right of centre politics in the US. They conceal a very wide ranging agenda under their claims about lower taxes and in moving so far to the right they have virtually guaranteed Obama a second term even though he has proved himself pretty useless as President. The fact that the leading lights of the Tea Party movement are as monumentally arrogant and ignorant as Christine O'Donnell should set alarm bells ringing, most especially with those who support its aims.

Ron Todd

I thought that the original intention was to stop the Federal Government from interfering in what ever settlement individual states made about religion.

Fergus Pickering

Woud you care, Mr Hobson, to define what the Liberal ideology is that you say is the 'official' ideology of the United States. How does it fit in with the isms and ideologies of, say, Ronald Reagan and Dwight D. Eisenhower, both successful Presidents and neither, as far as I know, generally condemned as un-American?

Chris Morriss

This article is utter drivel. The reason that Obama is now hated in the US is simply because he is incompetant, mendacious and a racist.

John Shields

Mr Hobson, good piece on an interesting topic that rarely interests the British press readership (mainly, perhaps, because the American religious right are so quickly dismissed as fruit-loops by both poles of the British political spectrum).

This hijacking of the American ideal is perhaps most evident in the idea that 'liberal' is somehow a dirty word - that it is somehow incompatible with the tenets of a Constitution that embraces, nay embodies, true liberalism.

@Kennybhoy - if you'd like a proper debate, I'd be happy to visit your village classroom some day...

Chris

Well said, David Lindsay (not something I ever expected to write.) This article, as many another commentator has observed, is complete crap.

Occasional Ostrich

Nicholas

If you believe it to be tosh, then provide a countervailing argument. Your statement says more about you than it does about the subject.

benny

What a load of c**p, anything to demonise people who think differently from the left, am sick of this now, we dont need to take anymore of this b*****t.Time to start fighting back.

Dave B

"In a statement, campaign manager Matt Moran said, “In this morning’s WDEL debate, Christine O’Donnell was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts. She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution. It was in fact Chris Coons who demonstrated his ignorance of our country’s founding documents when he could not name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment.” "

http://www.nationalreview.com/battle10/250293/exclusive-o-donnell-clarifies-first-amendment-remarks-katrina-trinko

CS

Mildly amusing that, on a thread lambasting pathetic ill-informed rubbish, a comment like this can pass without remark:

"Men are born fallen and need space to 'repent' or orientate themselves so that they come to see all human life is precious, made in the image of their Creator but now imperfect and in need of a Mediator/Saviour."

CS

***How can something which “seems” to be be “telling”? You are trying to get a conclusion in the indicative from a premise in the conditional. This is logically impossible.***

Absolute nonsense, Kennybhoy. Seeming to be something has nothing whatsoever to do with "the conditional". "Seems to be" is merely recognising that this is only the author's opinion from what he/she has observed and that it is open to error.

Do you realise how ridiculous you sound lecturing us on logic and then going on to describe certain beliefs as Satanic?

The abortion argument is hypocritical. We effectively condone allowing many people to die every day. How many old people die of hypothermia in this country because we choose to have a society which only raises a certain level of taxes and only spends a finite amount of it on winter fuel payments? It seems OK to wink at the deaths of living people but Satanic to consider the deaths of the unborn.

But what more can we expect from the readers of a magazine whose main line on religion is that paedophile priests are misunderstood?

Kennybhoy

John Shields writes.

"Mr Hobson, good piece on an interesting topic that rarely interests the British press readership.."

Appallingly tendentious to the point of propagandistic rather. And the spirited wee response here would seem to gie the lie to your second proposition.

"This hijacking of the American ideal is perhaps most evident in the idea that 'liberal' is somehow a dirty word - that it is somehow incompatible with the tenets of a Constitution that embraces, nay embodies, true liberalism."

Petitio principii upon petitio principii upon..

Who made liberal a dirty word? A usage I deplore incidentally.

"@Kennybhoy - if you'd like a proper debate, I'd be happy to visit your village classroom some day..."

I dinnae know whether to be flattered or insulted...? I choose to be flattered.

Kittler

Strange that their politics should be deranged by the fiction of ancient, tribal, desert dwellers.

Edward

A dishonest, misleading and poorly-written article. One thought seems to emerge from another with no obvious connection, other than a hazy dislike of conservative Christianity.

The Tea Party movement is of course primarily about taxation and the size of the federal government.

Robert Eve

I agree - complete crap.

dg

Christine O’Donnell is a plumber sent by God to clean the pipes of the Republican Party of filth like David Frum.

BAJ

O'Donnell may have been infiltrated into the God-fearing Republican party by Satan in order to ensure the election of her diabolical opponent. On the other hand she may just be a nut.

Kennybhoy

Edward wrote.

"One thought seems to emerge from another with no obvious connection, other than a hazy dislike of conservative Christianity."

Very well put.

Nicholas

Oh, for goodness sake Ostrich, get a life. I'm not the slightest bit bothered about what my comment "says about" me - or your interpretation of it. So what. Why should I provide a "countervailing argument"? (What a pompous phrase). Comments are not arguments, they are just comments.

Don't single me out for your judgemental, priggish ad hominems. Read the other posts here. It appears my reaction was far from unique.

Kennybhoy

CS writes.

“Absolute nonsense, Kennybhoy. Seeming to be something has nothing whatsoever to do with "the conditional". "Seems to be" is merely recognising that this is only the author's opinion from what he/she has observed and that it is open to error. “

That which merely “seems” to be simply cannot be “telling”. By merest definition. Are you familiar with Hume?

“Do you realise how ridiculous you sound lecturing us on logic and then going on to describe certain beliefs as Satanic?”

Petitio principii.

“The abortion argument is hypocritical. We effectively condone allowing many people to die every day. How many old people die of hypothermia in this country because we choose to have a society which only raises a certain level of taxes and only spends a finite amount of it on winter fuel payments? It seems OK to wink at the deaths of living people but Satanic to consider the deaths of the unborn.”

So two wrongs make a right? Racking up the fallacies there Maister CS. And who is "we" in this context? Please speak for youself sir. And can you no’ tell the moral difference between indirect and a direct cause and effect? And may I conclude from that last sentence of yours that you consider the unborn to be people?

“But what more can we expect from the readers of a magazine whose main line on religion is that paedophile priests are misunderstood?”

Who ever argued hereabouts that “paedophile priests are misunderstood”? And if someone did indeed do so, by what warrant do you then characterize this as the “main line” of the magazine or it's readership?

Your prejudices are showing.

Edward McLaughlin

I wouldn't know whether she was right or wrong about the constitution. I do know she is quite rude in that she speaks and doesn't listen much.

And if I had one, she would get my vote.

That's how bad her opposition is.

yank

Well, my limey brothers and sisters have done a fine, comprehensive job, thrashing this errant blogpost, so no need for me to add to the carnage.

I'm quite impressed, that so many there on the pile of rocks would have such a granular understanding of both the origins of our Constitutional republic and the status of the understandings and workings of it today. Dare I say it? Many in here may know as much or more about it than the average American.

Which is more than I can say about the Spectator as a whole, because in this blogpost it once again demonstrates an almost willful ignorance of the United States of America, yesterday and today. You should be ashamed.

I'm pleased that the grassroots, populist movement here is receiving its proper due, however, and that all the right people are striking out against it. It's coming, folks. It's coming to a voter district near you. It's not "led" by some evil group. It's not "led" by anybody. It just is, and has been for some centuries now, long before there was a U.S. of fuqqin A.

And once again, as often happens in history, the first sparks of a revolutionary movement were lit over there on the pile of rocks, with the dethronement of a stagnant regime. Tentative sparks, but it's spreading now if you notice, amongst the anglosphere and even elsewhere. Best get ready, because the wave will be sweeping back over the shores there soon. It has its fuel and tinder, piled up and ready, still, as it has been for all these centuries.

My only suggestion to you our always gentile betters: Steel yourselves to ill informed and quivering commentary, and be not afraid of the blade, as it is a quite useful implement, and must be used on even those close by your side. Watch in about 9 days time, as we the unwashed utilize it promiscuously.

Then pay close attention to the proceedings following, and hold today's doomsayers to close account. Those shrieking of the onset of "theocracy" must surely surrender all credibility, in a land where true argument is cherished, should they not?

Edward McLaughlin

yank

Your posts have a strange effect: I can't quite decide if I want to hug you or take a crow bar to your shins.

I know it's a big old country, but you're not my ex-wife by any chance?

R. Ryan

American over here. Hello.

From our perspective, Mr. Hobson's article is very accurate. The Koch brothers have been funding the Tea Party with the intent of establishing Fundamental Christianity as the law of the land. Dominionism is what they call it, and they've done a great job of infiltrating the military and government.

Most politicians pander to them because it's easy,though many are End-timers who believe the world will end just before they die. Fear of death is a strong thing.
The Iraq war has the subtext of a religious war,and some believe it signals Armageddon is here.

The phrase 'Separation of Church and State' is how we translate 18th century diplomatic language to children.

Caviling about exact words hides the fact they are appealing to a very narrow audience. One that is not too bright and very scared.

The Establishment clause was in part the result of a fight with the Anglican Church about appointment of Bishops.

But the Deists were adamant about not allowing any religious views the authority of government. Of course, that hasn't stopped people from trying.

Unlike Europeans, Americans can live their whole lives and never live, or even visit, somewhere that is foreign to them. They don't know how other people live, but assume everyone wants to be like them.

And they have forgotten that our Civil War was in many ways a religious war. They romanticize war, because we've never been invaded.

I think some are finding the real world isn't going to change to make them cozy and that the Tea Party leaders are opportunistic profiteers.

yank

Mr. McLaughlin,

You must forgive me my chosen role here, as iconoclast and provocateur. It's all in good spirit, I hope, even if it provokes thoughts of a good kneecapping.

But to your earlier point, about voting for the Delaware witch, I offer this. As did the Spectator, you missed the critical point of the Delaware US Senate race, me thinks, and it happened months ago.

That critical point was to whack the unprincipled, careerist political hack then running against the witch in the primary election.

If that doddering old fool had won, the choice in the general election would have come down to the establishment candidate who favors the status quo, vs the other establishment candidate who favors the status quo.

No choice at all, then, and the good people of Delaware decided to reject that false choice right there in the primary. An establishment candidate would win the general election, and all understood this from the beginning. The witch is just a sideshow, then.

That's the whole point of the current populist movement here... that the establishment candidates are unacceptable and must be whacked, whenever the opportunity arises.

This was a critical statement made here. The People burned their boats, and I trust you understand the significance of that statement.

The People have demonstrated that they are more than willing to walk up behind a careerist logroller, cup their hand over his mouth, slash his throat from ear-to-ear, then throw his carcass down and stare out, dripping blade in-hand.

Pour encourager les autres.

That was the point of Delaware. It's not the witch, nor even close, and in a week or so she'll be forgotten.

However, a finely tuned ear over there on the pile of rocks would have discretely identified the certain voices shrieking out over that single bloodletting... they are the les autres in question. They got the message, rest assured, even if the Spectator missed it, and they are absolutely terrified.

More so after November 2nd, les autres will get the message. It seems incumbent politicians have gotten quite comfortable, and that's no sound state of affairs, as we clearly see in their recent doings. We're fixin' to change that.

Reg Stocking

This is very true. Franklin and Jefferson were Deists. President John Adams assured a Muslim head of state that he wouldn't be signing a treaty with a Christian nation; the United States isn't one. Adams was a sit-up-straight New England Puritan, so he should have known.

Th problem today is that, as America has sunk into depression as the American Dream has faded and discolored, a sort of Christian Taliban has arisen. They imagine that they can restore a past that never was by gaining power and institutionalizing their fervent beliefs. Some years ago a friend moved from the city of his birth to a small town nicely isolated from the nearest big city. He described his new neighbors as dumb ad proud of it. This is a perfect description of the Tea Party mentality. Their minds are all made up, and you're better off if you don't try to antagonize them with facts.

xenophon

Well, I think Mr Hobson that all you have succeeded in doing here is to expose your own ignorance, as other comments amply demonstrate. Liberal 'Christianity' had its roots in nineteenth century Germany, and certainly cannot claim any credit for abating slavery in the United States.

Maybe you should learn a little history before you post here again.

Yam Yam

I think most posters have by now blown sufficient holes in Theo's argument for it to sinking fast by the bows. However, his piece is typical of the intellectual conceit of his ilk.

NickW

Where does one draw the dividing line between politics and religion?

Michael Burleigh, in his book, "The Third Reich - A New History", presents the proposition that Nazism was not a political movement; it was a religious cult. This goes a long way towards explaining the behaviour of the German people.

If one were to look closely at what the Bible says about the words and actions of Jesus Christ, then one can see Christ not as a religious man, but as an astute and successful politician, who had little time for the Church, condemned its avarice, and said nothing about the supposed necessity of continuous worship and munificence towards the priesthood.

My own view on religion, (any religion) is that God and the Church have very little connection with each other.

Organised religion leads one to understand God to the same extent that painting by numbers gives one an appreciation of art;-- better than nothing but very incomplete.

Kennybhoy

Edward McLaughlin.

Regarding Yank.

He does tend to have the effect you describe.LOL!

Kennybhoy

Edward McLaughlin.

Regarding our occasional visitor Yank.

He does tend to have the effect you describe. LOL!

But a crowbar rather than, say, a swift kick? You didnae grow up in the Gorbals by any chance? LOL!

Keith

The problem I have with all this is that I do not consider the Organised Religions to have higher standards that the non religious.The doctrines seem to be about tribalism and a kind of control freak obsession with power over the minds of others but there seems to no evidence of a level of goodness and kindness or standards of morality greater than that which exists with the non religious, in fact it seems to be less so because of the bias of doctrine and indeed some doctrines of some religions are so unacceptable that they are against the law. Tribalism is an instinctive evolutionary development and belonging to a group satisfies that instinct but since there is no proof of any of the huge variety of claims by the Organised Religions that their ethos has divine origins and is the only one that is right I conclude that this is a fantasy world obsessed with that level of discrimination against other religions and the non religious demanded by the doctrines. In some areas there is coercion and I do not consider that there can ever have been true belief where there is coercion or indoctrination and I suspect that the binding factor is not Faith but tribalism.
A very good stance for a Politician is perhaps to claim a belief in a Divinity but not be a member of any religious group and this, if sincere, which politicians seldom are, would be an honourable stance since if the 100 Billion Galaxies that have been observed so far were created by a thinking entity then such an entity would be able to see into our minds and give us guidance via our conscience. In which case what real need has mankind for any of the Organised Religions?

Edward McLaughlin

yank

A hug it is then. But let's see both your hands first.

Robert Tobin

Although I am Australian I am concerned with the situation on the USA regarding Religion there. I am a bedraggled refugee from the "Holy" Roman Catholic Church now Atheist. The way the Christian FundaMENTALists are forcing their literal interpretation of the Bible is doing a lot of harm to America. I have been closely following the actions of these people, especially in the Bible Belt. They are turning the USA into a Third World Country. They might as well call for a change of name of the USA to the United Christian States of America.

Tommy Hunt

Wow what a load of crap. Don't believe a word of it.

~ a proud American

Finzi Holst

R. Ryan speaks for the elitist ruling class not for the majority of Americans as his pig ignorance of his compatriots signifies.

It is the view of the cocktail party, where such remarks are made as they revile -- as does their gormless leader -- those they wish to dismiss as bitter people who cling to their guns and religions.

They seek to marginalize the Tea Party, by categorizing its members -- so much easier than thinking. They fail to mention that the Tea Party is actual a party of inclusion, which irks them. There are Tea Party members from all backgrounds and races, ethnicities and cultures, and there are Democratic members as well.

They reduce themselves to planting candidates in the Tea Party and planting people at Tea Party rallies with the hope of disruption and incident. They have failed.

The "yanks" may have to eat cake after what the Pelosi and Reid led Congress has done to their country over the last six years, but they will eat the cake and remove the rats. And the One is nothing but an Alinksy-Marxist-Socialist who, like so many of the Left, do not know how to bear their disappointments like a man but must force them upon everyone else.

Paul Marks

Actually Christine O'Donnell's "gaffe" was entirely accurate. It was the ex beared Marxist person who made the "gaffe" as he cited words as being in the Constitution that are not there (they are in a letter by Thomas Jefferson, and mean the exact opposite of what Chris thinks they mean - the "wall of seperation" is about protecting Christian practice from the government, not the government from Christian practice - in Jefferson's time most States had established churches, and the Federal government itself printed Bibles, and used its own capital building for church services).

"Liberalism" - it depends what you mean. If you mean "liberalism" as Gladstone would have understood the term then I agree with you. However, "liberalism" in the modern American context means the exact opposite of what it once meant (it does not mean strictly limited government - it means ever expanding government).

If only the elite (including the supposedly conservative members of the elite) were as learned as you think you are.

By the way the Tea Party people are overwhelmingly motivated by FISCAL concerns (the endless growth of government spending) not "racism" or "theology". You would know this is you actually talked to Tea Party people - but, of course, you are too much of a snob to talk to your "inferiors".

Paul Marks

Barack Obama the "liberal Christian" - what would Gladstone make of that claim?

Do you really believe that the Marxist "Black Liberation Theolgy" taught and preached at Holy Trinity in Chicago by the Rev. J. "Audacity of Hope" Wright was "liberal"?

Barack was at Wright's right hand (pun if you wish) for 20 years - the very title of his book comes from Wright. Then, in 2008, we were all supposed to accept that there was no major connection between the two men (or between Barack and Bill Ayers - or between Barack and Frank Marshall Davis, or between Barack and any other Communist he had been trained by or worked with) and Barack was not Comrade Barack, that was just "what he had to do to get ahead in Chicago politics" (oh that makes it O.K. then).

Actually in the modern American sense this is "liberalism" - because it is the worshop of the collective (as Barack Obama says "collective salvation" as opposed to silly out of date individual salvation) and an ideal existance on Earth - not a "reactionary" worship of God and belief in indiviudal survival of the soul after death.

As for "Satanic, literally" - please look up who Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is dedicated to.

Perhaps Mr David Cameron (or his reaserchers) should be more careful before citing the Chicago Community Organizer in Chief (that was Alinsky's unoffical title years before Barack Obama claimed it).

Paul Marks

I repeat that the main concern of the vast majority of Tea Party protests is GOVERNMENT SPENDING (even taxes are not stressed nearly as much - and theological issues come just about nowhere).

As for theological issues - the lies about Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, and so on are duely noted (with contempt). All the candidates libeled on this thread are mainstream Christians - not scientologists, worshippers of AB, witches (and so on), as ads paid for by public service unions (i.e. paid for by TAX MONEY) are claiming.

On the religious opinions of the Founders - see David Barton's works (but, of course, you will just sneer at Barton - not read his works, or the works of anyone else at "Wall Builders"). So I will confine myself to saying (quite accuratly) that the great majority of the Founders were mainstream Christians - but had no intolerance towards people who were not mainstream Christians.

On the Texas School Board.

More nonsense from the left.

What the Texas School Board did was to include MORE blacks and hispanics in the textbooks - and they were real people not "made up".

You see "oddly enough" almost all the blacks and hispanics included in the old text books were leftists - hardly any conservative blacks or hispanics were included. Also the contributions of blacks during such periods as the American Revolutionary War (the War of Independence) were almost airbrushed out of history by the old textbooks - but NOT by the new textbooks brought in by the evil (elected) Texas Board of Education.

So much for the "tolerance" or "diversity" of the left.

Hadrian

It has been stated on here that there is a sinister group of semi-theocrats known as 'Dominionists' who are wanting to subject the USA to their rule. It is frther stated that they are 'End Timers' believing the world is about to end in some cataclysmic Second Advent. Actually, the origins of Dominion theology lie in old fashioned Reformed theology that was as far from End Times melodramatic guff as you could get. Dominion theology was predominantly 'post-millenial' which means they categorically reject the Dispensational view that Christ must come back and physically rule the earth from Jerusalem. Instead they hold that the Kindom of Christ must be spread by dedicated hard work, persuasion, gradually and slowly so that civilised rule progressively - though with many reverses along the way- pushes back the forces of oppression and cruelty. It is a level headed vision, not a cranky one. Many of the most incisive critiques of End Times rubbish comes from the Reformed wing of so called 'Fundamentalist' Protestantism.

Daniel Lionsden

Well done all the contributors here for fisking this awful article.

Clayton Newberry

You got it wrong. Mormons are not Protestants. We have never claimed to be Protestant, and many Protestants wouldn't claim us, either. The story of Christendom is much bigger than a simple Catholic-Protestant dichotomy. There are also Orthodox Christianities, Middle-Eastern and north African Christianities, pre-Luther breakaway Christianities (e.g., Hussitism), and various new faith movements which do not fit the Protestant profile, neither doctrinally nor historically-- of which Mormonism is the best example.

Kepha

Those who despise Palin and O'Donnell as ignoramuses only show how much ignorance of America now passes for intelligence.

The "Separation of Church and State" is found in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association; not in the First Amendment. Indeed, the First Amendment's prohibition against a Congressional establishment of religion coexisted quite nicely with the establishment of Congregationalism in much of New England well into the 19th century. New England's establishment was not struck down by a conscientiously separationist Supreme Court, but by Trinitarian Congregationalists' squeamishness that they might have to be taxed to support a Unitarianism that was rapidly supplanting it.

They used to scoff at Palin's statement that the USA borders Russia. Well, it actually does, albeit a maritime border running between Big and Little Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea. It is little appreciated by either Western Europeans (or by East Coast Americans, for that matter), that during the Cold War, there were three NATO allies from whose territory one could actually look into Soviet (rather than Warsaw Pact) territory: Norway, Turkey, and the USA.

While generally conservative, I am not really committed to a Palin presidential bid. But, she and O'Donnell both exposed a kind of half-educated Leftism's self-conceit.

Barrie

'Unlike Europeans, Americans can live their whole lives and never live, or even visit, somewhere that is foreign to them.'
Does this writer expect to be believed?
Europeans are far more parochial than most 'Melting-Pot Americans'. Americans are more generous and accepting of outsiders too.
I have lived in both continents.

Verity

I couldn't even fight my way through the first para. This twerp has AGENDA branded into his forehead, so you know that every word and thought is going to be clumsily nailed in.

And he's an inept writer, to put it kindly.

Verity

Barrie - I agree. But in addition, in Europe, you can't go more than three or four hundred miles sideways without running into another country. The United States is 2,500 miles from coast to coast and covers tropical Florida, swampy Louisiana, the hot, languid deep south, the forested, mountainous and historic NE, the great plains of the prairies, the arid deserts of the SW, the wet, chilly and mountainous Pacific Northwest, and,of course, California. Then you have Alaska and Hawaii.

It is simply absurd to blame Americans for visiting their own magnificent and stunning country first.

Verity

Barrie - Agreed. One hundred percent.

Verity

What's more, any N American who wants to experience France can simply fly to Quebec and get snubbed in French but without the jetlag.

davod

"This hijacking of the American ideal is perhaps most evident in the idea that 'liberal' is somehow a dirty word - that it is somehow incompatible with the tenets of a Constitution that embraces, nay embodies, true liberalism"

Liberal became a dirty word when it was conscripted into the left wing lexicon.

Davod

The reaction to O'Donnell's statement is similar to the reaction to Palin's "Role of the VP" statement during the VP candidate debate with the Senator Biden.

Both O'Donnell and Palin were correct. However, whether thru ignorance or political bias, the immediate reaction of the media and commentators was to ridicule their remarks.

The response to O'Donnell's remarks at the time of the debate was more telling because the debate was held in a law school. The amount of laughter from the audience suggests the lawyers and prospective lawyers were unaware of one of the basic parts of the constitution.

raymond jones

In a debate like this it pays to know the the two masters.God the inventer of freedom of choice, hoping we choose right.satan who gate crashes our lives to lead us astray.As this debate prooves.Its down to the right to censor your children from what you believe is wrong to help them grow up strait and true.The modern state however, is trying to destroy your choice by putting
satanic preferences in politics and the classroom to give it equal opertunity to lead astray. One of Satans finest weapons is
Natural selection,this belief has no Law.Religion does and no proof that we come from monkeys.The religious Man in debate would have been in spiritual pain,as all Christians are when their fellow man/woman is in conflict with them and insisting on the state intervention on behalf of Satanic idealism. The west is not going to hell in a hand cart by accident.It has been led astray and sent their.(the hand cart is free bay the way.