Wanted: Critical Thinkers. Position: Conservative Right.

(Shmoo courtesy of Juleslife)

I get a lot of crap from Human Events and like minded right wing bottom feeders. This ranges from vitamins, to caulking tools to protecting your investments from Obama liberals who just hate freedom.

Pretty much all of them fall apart under a little scrutiny.

The latest one today came with a headline, "The ACLU's Worst Nightmare is Back in Print After 140 Years..." Difficult to have a nightmare before you exist but the hyperbole is typical.

Turns out Benjamin F Morris (unknown figure from 1864) wrote a book titled "The Christian Life & Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States." I looked around but found nothing of substance regarding either Morris or the book.

Now I'm not surprised someone would go looking for God in the closing days of the Civil War. After all, thousands of people died in minutes. Everybody lost someone. Religion thrives on loss and hence the book. But nineteenth century scholarship is rife with books where fact and chance are pulled together to make an unsupported point.

This book appears to be not much different.

I did find a link here that describes the chronology of "Christian Constitutionalism" leading up to our own. And, gee, in 1215 they have fighting clergymen. It's interesting that by the time they get down to 1776 the scholarship gets progressively more dubious. Things like stating a right exemplified and used at Runnymede (already linked to Christian thought early but in 1215) and then dropping unsupported statements of "Biblical doctrine based upon such texts as Jehoiada's stand against Athaliah and all the prophets who withstood tyrany."

What's weird about this is not this book-- I have a wonderful 19th century book at home entitled: "Vaccination: A Curse". 19th century tomes presenting the choking passions of authors abound. Books about vaccination, Christian Breeding and the Horrors of Masturbation were all written in the 19th Century. Not one of them means a whit today.

What's weird is there is an audience that finds this stuff the least bit relevant. I find myself just floored by such tiny, silly concerns. Trying to pull religion into the government-- haven't the people who purport to revere the Constitution actually read it? Didn't they notice Amendment I? Numero Uno. The Big Red One. The first of the Bill of Rights-- do they think it was number one by chance? Here, I'll quote it:

"Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petitiion the Government for a redress of grievances."

Note that the first part of the amendment is religion. Note that it doesn't say "Christian"-- even though most of the Founding Fathers were Christian. Note that it says "respecting and establishment" of religon. Which means that Congress can neither establish a special relition nor give any particular religion special treatment. This is about as strong a statement regarding the separation of Church and State as I've ever seen.

Yes, they were Christians. Yes, we have God all through the government from our money to our speeches. So what?

As Paul said, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God."

We're imperfect beings and we get things wrong. A lot.
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New England Webcomics Weekend, 3/20-22
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Ocean Conservation Success Stories
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Internet Archive
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