Christianity and our Nation.

This is just a statement of which I believe all of our Nations Founders would agree upon. Of course there will be the naysayers that want to redesign our Nation......but it is ours to keep and cherish as long as we can!

 

Better check the source of this claimed quoted which appears to be from a 1956 Christian magazine and not something that Patrict Henry ever said.

https://checkyourfact.com/2019/06/2...founded-religionists-christians-jesus-christ/

https://www.christianpost.com/news/josh-hawley-posts-fake-patrick-henry-quote-about-the-gospel.html

Note, the same publication making the false Patrict Henry claim was concerned about race mixing. lol

 

And the Treaty of Tripoli proves your belief is false.

 

yabberefugee, have you read "The age of reason" by Thomas Paine? Very interesting read indeed. Here, I will quote some for you:

The rest you can read for yourself.

 

Yep. And I'll add the text of the Treaty of Tripoli that I referenced earlier. Keep in mind that treaty was commissioned by George Washington, signed into law by John Adams, and was ratified unanimously by the Senate, where several other Founding Fathers still served.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

 

It's no secret about Thomas Paine and his atheistic views. Funny how he and Thomas Jefferson were in France together helping to bolster that Godless French Revolution. Jefferson saw the Godlessness of it and came home. Paine stuck it out. He would have probably been a Marxist today.

 

I suggest that the naysayers study the book "Sacred Fire" by Peter Lillback. It is very extensive research on the faith of George Washington. You cannot deny his own writings. Perhaps we are caught up in a word game here. Religion has very little to do with my own faith. I shun the idea of wearing a cleric collar or any of that sort. I do not tout a denomination or the pride that exists in that. Like the majority of the Founders, my faith resides in the person and provision of Jesus Christ alone. Washington, the Founding Father, would certainly agree with me. Without his humble servitude, I don't believe we would have ever survived as a nation!

 

Paine was not an atheist. And Jefferson rejected the idea of the immaterial, miraculous, and supernatural, famously taking a knife to the Bible, cutting out anything supernatural or miraculous and leaving only some moral lessons. He compared it to digging for pearls in a dung heap. Paine was a textbook deist. Probably THE textbook deist. I seem to recall Jefferson not liking the term, but it applies to him as well. And they were hardly the only ones among our Founding Fathers.

Paine's problems with the Bible were specifically in regards to decidedly immoral teachings that fly in the face of American values.

 

Paine was not a Believer, granted. He was a product of "the age of reason".....Godless. Call it deist, all the same. There is evidence that toward the end of his life Jefferson re friended his one time friend, John Adams, a devout Christian. In that reunification it is thought by many he accepted the provision of the Lord. They both died on July 4th.

What is amazing about the Founders, they represented several denominations though Christ was the foundation of each. They laid their differences aside for the sake of unity (much as Christ would have us do). Quakerism was a big factor in holding freedom of Religion in high esteem though there were others.

 

One of the truths about America and if you hear me out you might find it to be quite beautiful. Is your religion is yours to keep. I think this is the way it should be. Anytime it's used to justify a certain law or doing against a certain law it's absolutely butchered as it should be you should protect your religion from the butcher block that is politics.

Love with your heart but use your head for everything else. I'm a firm believer in the concept of you need to be the change you want to see in the world.

This is a biblical principle Jesus didn't come here to tell you how to live he came here to show you how to live. So instead of preaching instead of clovering people with the Bible passages meet them where they are. Show kindness to everyone not because you want to convert them but because there is Divinity in them. And that what you do to the least of us you so do unto the Lord.

Christianity is supposed to be humble not boastful it's supposed to be a component of your life not politics let's keep it out of that let's not ruin it. Politics has to serve a worldly master. If you do that with your religion you're corrupting it.

 

I agree with your quote of Gandhi.

But, one can't support genocide, or deny healthcare to those who can't pay and then just claim that was the political side, that actually one believes what Jesus said.

Those are two VERY separate paths.

 

I've never encountered a person that supports genocide.

 

Not even historical genocide? Because every Christian church I've been to has defended genocide.

 

You are stating that anyone who does not believe in your God is "Godless." I'd wager most of the Founding Fathers would have disagreed with you on that. As far as John Adams goes, he was the one who signed the treaty saying that we aren't a Christian nation. And, no, there is no reason to believe Jefferson secretly converted.

I'm glad that Quakers, deists and the Enlightenment helped Christians to abandon their violent doctrines, though.

 

You are sooooo misinformed. Quakers, of course are Christians. You confuse the idea we have a National "religion", as the Church of England in England, with that individuals hold a deep, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Age Of Enlightenment supposedly "transcends" a belief in God and ascribes that belief into the eventual perfection of humanity. Today, it is often viewed as secular humanism. There are no doctrines in the Word of God calling Christians to be violent. You confuse that with the Religion of Man and that when taken to extreme becomes "enlightened" as in France when they introduced the guillotine to silence the opposition.

John Adams was a man after God. He did not want a National Religion but had a deep understanding of the provision of God in the Person of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you are animus toward that belief and faith but I would contend it had everything to do with making this a great nation.

 

Exactly, how do you define genocide? Are you referring to Israel and the defence of their Nation? After conceding land and demilitarizing Gaza, they built as a defence the "iron dome". That did not stop terrorists from spending most all their relief money in tunnels, educating hate, and planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Now Hamas, who hides among it's supporting civilians must be eradicated. That is not genocide. It is making things safe for the innocent.

You convict Christian Churches, but what does God say to you personally? I have attended several and never heard your accusation. I think you just make that stuff up. Of course Hamas has publicly declared genocide but I don't believe you have a problem with that.

 

Some are, some aren't. I went to a Friends group for over a decade, by the way.

Then you misunderstood what I said entirely. I have no such confusion nor do any of my statements remotely hint at that.

Not really.

There is quite a bit of overlap, yes. As there is overlap between the Enlightenment and modern Western Christianity. I greatly value the improvements the Enlightenment made to Christianity. But, no, just as with the Enlightenment, secular humanism is not about the "perfection of humanity."

Not all Christians share your view that the laws of the Old Testament no longer hold. Jesus openly praised these laws, which punished freedom of religion and freedom of speech with death. While Jesus himself never called for violence, Paul certainly did. He openly stated that "hatred of God" (be careful using words like "Godless") should be punishable by death and that the government wielded the sword to execute God's enemies.

This is why, for the vast majority of Christianity's history, they disagreed with your peaceful take.

His statement directly contradicts what you said in your OP.

 

Dude, the Bible says God literally told his followers to murder all of the Amalekite men, women, children, and even livestock, not because of where they lived, but because of what their ancestors had done to the ancestors of the Israelites centuries before. He wanted the Amalekites wiped off of the face of the earth. Yeah, that's genocide. There are Christians who see verses like this as errors introduced by humans and believe that God would not be so evil as to command genocide, infanticide, etc. I'm fine with those guys.

If you have never heard any Christian Church talk about the violence in the OT and claim that it was justified, then good for you, but the ones who actually stick to Biblical teachings openly teach this.

Then you think that no Christian believes that the actions of God in the OT were justified. In which case, I have to start thinking taht you are making stuff up.

Then you have no interest in honest discussion. Pity. There are some Christian values out there that could help you learn that.

 

Cool beans, but US was not founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Though do you deny it's influence?

 

Although directed toward another person, I did want to pitch in my two cents here. I wouldn't deny it's influence in the sense that many of the Founding Fathers were Christian and probably felt inspired by their religion, but the non-Christian Founding Fathers came to the same conclusions without the need of Christianity, and some even recognized that the Bible was antithetical to the values they were promoting.

 

DUDE......Evil comes about only due to the absence of good. Mankind has a propensity towards evil. So you feel you no better than God how to usher in His Kingdom? We have the Old Testament as a study in the behavior of mankind and his inability to be justified through law. Perhaps you never delved into that long enough to understand because in your own mind you know better. "Each has turned to his own way...."

 

@yabberefugee I'd also add that the Bible explicitly states that it is a grievous sin to rebel against any government, making the Revolutionary War explicitly sinful.

 

Is it good or evil to murder children? Was God absent of good when he ordered infanticide and genocide?

A propensity that doesn't come close to holding a candle to the propensity of evil of the God of the Bible.

If God does not understand that infanticide and genocide and punishing people for the crimes of their ancestors and killing people for believing or saying the wrong thing are wrong, then yes, I know better than God. So does your average kindergartner.

So now you are saying that, when the OT says God commanded something, he didn't really command it? Interesting.

Perhaps you've never actually read the Bible.

 

Not very many non-Christian Founders. In fact, several were Bible Scholars. You use that word "religion" which I contend "faith' is more accurate. Faith is the personal relationship that one has with God, in this case through the provision of Jesus Christ. Religion is a construction of mankind to try and ascribe what takes place in the inner man and is often in error. You do understand before the founding of this Nation a great "Reformation" took place that wrenched control of the Word of God from the Papal hierarchy and delivered it to the common folk. That in a sense was the very rebuke of "religion". Of course the nature of mankind has reinstituted "Religion" and it often plays against those of "faith".