Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2

Spirituality Column #190
June 29, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2
By Bob Walters

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
– Preamble, U.S. Constitution

“… Blessings of Liberty …”

Did you catch that?

“Blessings” – capitalized in the original – is a God and faith word, not a secular, non-faith word. It’s a word that assumes a Creator and more importantly assumes a relationship with that Creator.

Yes, one could argue that a blessing can be as secularly simple as doing something nice for someone else, but that’s a good deed. One can also argue that all the nouns except “defence” are capitalized in the Preamble, but that’s grammar.

I would argue that Blessings are God-inspired things, and that words like “Blessings” and “ordained” clue us into the intent of the Constitution’s framers – that for this grand venture of American democracy to succeed, God needed to be not only on our side, but in the very hearts of the republic’s newly empowered and free citizens.

Given that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin were all more deist than conservative Christian, and that secular humanism was the philosophical fashion of the age (and especially of the Founders), let’s not worry for now whether 18th century America was founded as a “Christian Country.”

Let’s instead focus on the immense, frontier-penetrating Christian revival, the Second Great Awakening, that almost immediately followed our nation’s birth.

Revival is when the Holy Spirit works to reveal the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. And regardless of the “Christian Country” debate, America with its unbridled freedom was surely a nation of unlimited personal opportunity, an unimaginably vast expanse of land, and with no establishment church, previously unknown religious openness.

Americans proved thirsty for the Gospel message. In many ways we were a people without tradition. New directions and snap judgments fueled the ferocious growth of the nation. The population physically grew away from the Protestant religious establishments of the East. The independent pioneers went west, and independent Bible preachers followed.

The Holy Spirit knew the opportunity was ripe to shine the light on Jesus Christ from sea to shining sea. The old rules were left behind, and Bible revival was on.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can’t think of a worse hindrance to freedom – and brotherly love – than state religion. More next week.

Koran Oath, Episcopal Split

Current! In Carmel - #11 - January 23, 2007
Koran and Cathedrals

Founding Fathers not only ones who flinched
By Bob Walters
Here are a couple thoughts on recent news involving religion.

Oath on the Koran: I wonder how many Middle Eastern mullahs flinched Jan. 4, 2007, when Minnesota congressman-elect Keith Ellison was symbolically sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives on a Koran, promising to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

Plenty of people here flinched, that’s for sure.

Here is what I find curious. The Koran, the Holy Book of Islam, does not separate religion and government (church and state) the way the Bible does, nor does it offer freedom outside the holy writings.

So, swearing allegiance on a Koran to the freedom-based tenets of a law-based government document (largely conceived by Christians), even in a symbolic photo op, seems more than curious. I would suspect such an act borders on Islamic heresy.

The fact that it was Thomas Jefferson’s Koran intensifies the oddness.

Jefferson championed religious freedom and the separation of church and state, yet is widely regarded as the least religious of the founding fathers. There is nothing to indicate Jefferson believed the Koran any more than he believed the New Testament (which he personally rewrote to remove its supernatural elements - the Jefferson Bible). He would have studied either book as a skeptic, not an adherent. Jefferson, who Islam would consider an infidel, certainly had neither Ellison's demonstrated religious zeal nor Islamic obedience.

Jefferson did, however, in 1801 send U.S. Marines to "the shores of Tripoli" to militarily stop Islamic pirates along the Barbary coast from raiding U.S. shipping and kidnapping for slaves the Christian sailors.

Funny, Ellison didn't mention Jefferson had considered the "Mohammadon" beliefs and actions, and concluded war was the best response. Maybe that is what Jefferson wrote about in the margins of that Koran Ellison was sworn in on.

Personally, I don’t care if an elected official desires to be sworn in on a cookbook – it’s the person’s heart that matters, not the book – but I’m with the Mullahs in wondering what a Holy Koran is doing at a U.S. government swearing-in ceremony.

U.S.-type religious freedom and Islamic religious obedience just aren’t cut from the same cloth.

Muslims know that; most Americans don’t. Jefferson - very obviously - did.

Those Fun-loving Episcopalians: Speaking of our founding fathers, America’s traditional Anglican-Episcopal Church has been torn asunder in recent years, straying from the holy faith and toward the popular culture. Last month, it cost them big time.

Citing doctrinal revisionism, the vital and growing American Anglican Church departed the ever-dwindling Episcopal Church. Not surprisingly, the liberal-leaning media is missing the story on this one.

Orthodoxy is the issue, not gay bishops and women’s leadership. By orthodoxy we are talking about the basic doctrines of the Christian faith, like the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of a divine Christ, which in some quarters of the Episcopal “faith” have morphed from infallible truth into disposable matters of opinion.

Exit the believing Christians. John Yates and Os Guinness wrote a brief but stunning defense of the Anglican departure, available online. I found it by Googling “Episcopal Guinness”. The article, which appeared Jan. 10, 2007 in the Washington Post, is available on various websites.

Historical note - It was The Falls Church congregation in Falls Church, Va., that led the exodus away from the Episcopalians. That was George Washington's church.

Walters, a Carmel resident, does not own a cookbook. Contact him at rlwcom@aol.com