hi all. recently i got into a pretty heavy conversation over the role of religion in american culture…especially politics. now let me mention a few things right up front. let me start by explaining what i mean by religion. to me religion is a man made system that defines god, man, and explains how man can be rightly related to god. this changes from religion to religion. this is not mans role as far as i can tell. god has defined himself in scripture. he has also defined man. he dictates what is needed to be rightly related to him. what he offers is a personal relationship with him through jesus. when we recognize we need him, turn to him seeking forgiveness and relinquish control of our life to him he begins to transform us into the men and women he wants us to be. religion cannot do this. as such i do not have a high regard for religion. in many ways religion has done more harm than good to the cause of christ.
that being said, if i look at religion another way, as a way of communicating spiritual truth, i think it can play an important role in our culture. if you read history, you’ll find our founding fathers did too. they saw a democratic republic as an ineffective form of government unless the citizens were virtuous. the key to virtue from their perspective was religion. and not just any religion, they were christians. when they spoke of religion, this is what they meant, this is what they knew and practiced. for instance in the declaration of independence, when they said we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. who did they see as that creator??? allah? some hindu god? zeus? they understood the system of governance they had created depended on people being of good moral character, and religion was the key to maintain that character.
now, let me mention one more thought before i get to my main objective. do you know why the constitution was written? the individual colonies had banded together to declare independence from what they saw as an oppressive rule by great britain. they had come to america from europe to be free, especially to be free in the area of religion. read things like the mayflower compact and you can clearly see they felt called of god to come to america and found a country for his glory, where they could worship freely. this was not available in europe where state run churches dominated. having won their independence, the colonists realized their need for a centralized government. but the thought of a federal government was fearful. they understood a federal power could over run the individual states and their rights. so, in establishing the federal government, they carefully listed its powers. where it had jurisdiction, and where it did not. what was the very first right they established???
congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. now, i am not a lawyer. but i also am not an illiterate. i can read and i can understand both the english language and the culture of that day. lets start with the first word…congress. as the constitutional convention met and hammered out the make-up of the federal government, they came up with 3 co-equal branches. the executive branch (president, vice-pres, cabinet), the legislative branch (congress made up of the house of representatives and senate), and judicial branch (supreme court, lower federal court system). when they wrote congress, they meant the legislative branch of the federal government. they did not want the federal gov’t interfering in the area of religion by establishing a federal religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. it was not there domain. boy have things changed. today congress can mean a teacher or school, a city council, a municipal authority of some sort. none of these are the congress, non of them are even close. but it is this amendment that we refer to every time. no nativity scenes, no crosses, no prayers, no intelligent design, etc. separation of church and state don’t you know. somewhere along the way we got on that slippery slope, and apparently it was slipperier than we could have ever imagined. we can find the constitutionally protected right to kill unborn children, to produce pornography, to create a welfare state, and at the very same time deny prayer, nativity scenes, christmas carols, the christmas story for that matter, crosses, intelligent design, etc.
as i said i am not a lawyer, but i do have a brain. i can read our history. i can read our founders. if this is what they meant in the first amendment, why did schools practice prayer up till the last 50 years? why do they pray at the beginning of a congressional session? why do they have chaplains? why do they have the 10 commandments in the supreme court? why do they pray in the supreme court? why do we swear on a bible? why do we have so many religious mottos? why do we have so many religious inscriptions? why does god decorate our currency and significant buildings? why? i mean, i assume our founders knew what they meant when they wrote the constitution? and then they were the ones who implemented it, i assume they knew what they were doing. so why has all this stuff come up in recent history?
i don’t want to get into all the details, but in simple terms in the late 1800’s we started looking at law and the constitution differently. we began to apply the theory of evolution to the law. it was something that was alive and evolving. immediately we were transformed from a constitutional republic where the rule of law was an absolute, that grew out of an understanding of and respect for gods moral absolutes to simple humanism. once god was removed, the state operates in the place of god, doing what is in its best interest as it sees it. so today it is unconstitutional to pray in a school assembly…b/c that is how we now interpret the constitution. and i haven’t even asked exactly what religion is being established by a moment of prayer or even a moment of silence…and i won’t even get into that for lack of time. today , a school or municipality is equal to the congress. go figure…i sure hope they don’t go out and declare war or or raise the federal income tax or something. and isn’t it funny how the prohibit the free exercise part is completely ignored. i guess you lose your civil rights if you become a teacher. yet the very same constitution says, you have a constitutionally protected right to murder your unborn child. please look up the constitution for yourself and try to figure where and how they came up with that. again, its not there, but it has been interpreted in.
i could go on, i’ll spare you. jesus has called us to be salt and light. we live in a hostile world. christianity is offensive by nature…it says man is a sinner and needs a savior…and that savior is jesus…only jesus. no man seeks after god, but god seeks after us and does so mainly through the church he has raised up to make disciples of all nations. i started this blog mentioning an extended conversation where a person who claims to be a christian said she was not in favor of christianity having any place within the state. specifically, the turlock city council should not pray because it would be offensive to non christians. this prayer would negate the message of christ’s love. she said she would never pray before non christians, she was not an “in your face christian”, and she preferred to share her views…whatever that means.
here is how i see it. constitutionally the founders set up a system of gov’t where they fully expected religion to have an active role. but that role would be determined within individual municipalities and states. without the virtue/moral and ethical absolutes taught by the church, they did not see a democratic republic being effective. spiritually, christ and the apostles were about as “in your face” as it got. they were salt, they were light, they turned the world upside down. they did not practice the religion of political correctness, they did not shy away from persecution or opposition.
i asked this individual why america was so blessed. does god like americans more than others? if so he has a lot of explaining to do. no, i think america has been blessed by and large b/c we were founded on judeo christian ethics…by and large we did things right, according to scriptural principles. and as that was true, we became the most prosperous, powerful, influential country on the planet. we are in decline. the decline runs parallel with our slide down the slippery slope of explaining god right out of his place in our culture. we as christians can either go along for the ride(can anyone see jesus doing that??? wasn’t he the one who says over and over in the sermon on the mount mt.5-7…you have heard that it was said, ie. the politically correct version of the day, but i say unto you, ie. this is the truth straight up) or we can exercise our rights as christians living in america and push back. i am not calling for a moral majority political agenda. but i do see the need for the church doing exactly what jesus and his followers did. they engaged their culture with truth and called men to belief. they were revolutionary, they were counter cultural. how do you see it??? love to hear from you. blessings. vince
the title of this blog may be objectionable to some, and it has not been tested in any kind of scientific poll, but i’m using it anyway. my experience with normal, everyday people is there is little respect for the political class. here is my spin on why.
let me start by saying there are so many problems with politicians, i cannot possibly address them all. but recent events are a perfect example. a new book is coming out entitled something like game change. in this book there are many disclosures from the 2008 presidential election. from what i heard, the average politician involved would have preferred this book not be written. i want to mention only 1 incident. apparently in 2008, senator harry reid commented on president obama’s run for the white house in positive turns because he is “light skinned” and does not speak with a “negro” dialect.
political correctness bothers me…a lot. so much of it is for public consumption rather than being genuine. this is the perfect example of this nonsense. without getting into the whole controversy being debated in the media, let me make a couple very simple points.
1. when were these racially insensitive remarks made? that would be 2008.
2. when is the supposed very sincere apology offered? that would be 2010.
3. what happened to cause this change of heart? that would be public disclosure.
4. so how do you measure whether this is genuine remorse for the racially insensitive remarks, or if this is political expediency because of the public disclosure? that would be, in my humble opinion, simple because of the fact that it took so long to apologize, and the apology only came under the threat of public disclosure.
you are welcome to enter into this argument on either side as is being hashed out in the media. but this is why we have so many problems. everything is evaluated on the basis of political correctness and expediency. if senator reid was genuinely remorseful, i would have expected an apology back in 2008. when it comes under the threat of public disclosure in 2010, excuse me if i am skeptical.
i titled this blog, why most people of character dislike politicians? look no further. i would say we deserve better, but since we voted these people into office i guess i can’t. i do not know if we as a people have the character to change this, but i hope we do. more importantly, as a follower of jesus living in this broken world, i hope i have the character to live an open, honest, genuine life where others can see jesus in me. i hope that for you too. thanks for reading. blessings. vince
have any of you been following the flap over the comments of brit hume??? if not, he commented that tiger woods should consider turning to christianity because forgiveness and transformation are foundational beliefs of christianity. in doing this he referenced that tiger was apparently a buddhist, due to his mothers influence, and brit was not sure whether forgiveness was an essential element to buddhism. but he was sure christ offered tiger forgiveness, and out of that forgiveness comes transformation.
like brit hume, i am not an expert on buddhism, and i do not want to be. i have looked into it enough to see immediate and irreconcilable problems. but here is what i do find interesting. the media has rushed to the defense of buddhism. WHAT??????
when was the last time the media rushed to the defense of christianity? in my life, that would be…never??? but i digress. i expect nothing different. but let me throw a few thoughts out there.
1. why not have a serious evaluation of buddhism. you know like the critical scrutiny applied to christianity. why not question the truth claims of buddha to see whether they stand up to scrutiny?
2. when you do this, at least when i do this, here is the problem i immediately faced. the whole premise of buddhism is to rid the world of suffering. to break the cycle of birth, suffering, death.
but where does this suffering come from? as far as i can tell, suffering stems from man’s inability to follow the path of enlightenment. i say this because in their belief system the way to eradicate suffering is to follow the eightfold path to enlightenment. failure to do this results in a reincarnation to a lesser status (bad karma). this eightfold path consists of right actions, concentrations, efforts/exercise, livelihood, mindfulness/awareness, speech, thoughts, and understanding.
again, more questions. i assume it was buddha who decides what the right actions, concentrations, efforts/exercise, etc. consists of. but on what basis. why are his ideas superior? and remember, we live in a hyper tolerant, morally relative culture. isn’t it inconsistent to say the ideas of buddha are superior to any other ideas. that is what i hear about christianity all the time. but i see christianity differently. buddha was a man. buddhism rejects the idea of a creator god mankind is accountable to. they do embrace the idea of gods…divine beings…but that in my estimation just opens up another can of worms. which god is right, on what basis is some entity considered to be a god, is there superiority or inferiority among these gods, and if so, on what basis, etc. as far as i can tell in our culture, you couldn’t conclude buddha was any more right than the arian nation, the skinheads, or the nazi party. since there are no absolutes, on what basis does one conclude the nazi’s are wrong???
i mentioned i see christianity differently. you do not have to believe it, but christianity presents us with a creator god to whom we are accountable. because of our (mankind’s) rebellion, we call this sin, god became a human (jesus) and sacrificed himself so we could be forgiven. jesus was not a man, he is god. he died, rose again, and offers us forgiveness, relationship, and transformation as a free gift if we are willing to submit to his leadership and control in our life. when we do this, his spirit takes up residence within us, and the metamorphosis begins from the inside out. so i agree with brit hume, tiger needs jesus.
should he stick with buddha, this is what i see. first, because he has screwed so many people over, he has piled up a bunch of bad karma. that means he won’t enjoy the status of being the best golfer on the planet, multi millionaire, married to a model, top of the world guy he has experienced in this life. in his buddhist reincarnation who knows what he would come back as…but i don’t see much forgiveness in the whole karma thing.
and then there is the simple reality of ability. if tiger was able to get on, stay on the eightfold path to enlightenment (and surely he must have excelled in a previous life to have the advantages he now enjoys), what happened??? how could this happen??? to enjoy his present status, he must have been advanced in the whole eightfold path stuff. so i can only conclude one of two things.
either that 8 fold path is bizarre when it comes to moral issues, and tiger really is doing everything right. or, somehow, this advanced follower of buddha fell off the wagon. and then the whole karma thing kicks in and he comes back as a snail. haha, couldn’t resist.
don’t get me wrong, i’m all for self improvement. buddha probably has many good ideas. but the premise of buddism seems to be that man is essentially good…that he can understand the right path and follow it perfectly. that is about as far from reality as i can imagine. man is not essentially good. we are predisposed to sin. our total instinct is to pursue self interest. this is the story of tiger woods. he had everything this world could offer and it was not enough. if he can’t get it right, who can? i would suggest none of us can, we need a savior, we need jesus. tiger didn’t go down this road out of ignorance of right from wrong. he went down this path with eyes wide open, he didn’t care enough to change. he needs help, he needs jesus. he doesn’t need buddha telling him to get ready for his return as a slug.
just some thoughts. very raw. unorganized. tell me what you think. blessings. vince
