In the world of American education, the Texas State Board of Education has been in the spotlight in recent months. Attempts by far-right members of the Board came to a culmination last week in a decision to re-write Texas public school textbooks in a manner which downplays minorities' contributions to American history, glosses over pivotal historical themes such as slavery, and banishes Baptists' greatest contribution to American history - the separation of church and state - in favor of advocating the myth of America founded as a Christian nation.
Following is a collection of articles, editorials and commentary focused on how Christian fundamentalists, in control of the Texas State Board of Education, came to rewrite history for the state of Texas, and the implications of such historical revisionism:
American Historical Association:
The official response to the Texas State Board of Education from the American Historical Association - the response focuses on history prior to 1877 (May 24)
Associated Baptist Press:
Texas board gives final approval to controversial textbook standards (May 24)
Religious leaders decry proposed Texas textbook standards (May 13)
Gaddy urges textbook publishers to ignore new textbook standards (March 22)
Baptists decry Texas board's votes on textbook standards (March 16)
Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty:
Texas Textbook Decisions Have National Implications (April 13)
Baptist Press:
Texas School Board Members Dispute Critics' Assertions (March 29)
Baptist Studies Bulletin:
Baptist, Muslims, Atheists and the First Amendment - by Bruce Gourley (May)
Dallas Morning News:
Texas State Board of Education Approves New Textbook Standards (May 22)
At Board of Education, Church-State Fight Grows (May 15)
3 Education Board Members Take Issue With Social Studies Proposal (October 16, 2009)
Houston Chronicle:
McLeroy Offers More Shifts on Social Studies Changes (May 17)
New York Times:
Texas Approves Textbook Changes (May 22)
Textbook School Board Set to Vote Textbook Revisions (May 20)
Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change (March 12)
How Christian Were the Founders? (February 14)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Texas Skews Curriculum With New Changes, California Set to Respond (May 22)
Telegraph (U.K.):
Biblical Values and Confederates Promoted in Texas Textbook Revisions (May 21)
Wall Street Journal:
Texas Board of Education Adopts Controversial Curriculum (May 21)
Texas Syllabus: It's History (May 20)
Bloggers:
Read what bloggers are saying
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, May 03, 2010
An Armageddon in the Gulf ... of Mexico?
While Tim LaHaye and the Council for National Policy try to arrange wars in the Middle East in order to force Christ's return, a present-day Armageddon is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.
I have been following, from afar and in horror, the epic saga of the British Petroleum oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico (here is the moment's story from the New York Times). In short, the deepest offshore well ever drilled is now gushing as much as a million gallons of oil daily (by some estimates) into the waters of the Gulf, following an explosion on and subsequent sinking of the drilling platform on April 20. And no one really knows the upper limits of just how much oil is gushing up from the ocean floor, although it could become the greatest ocean oil disaster ever.
All efforts to stanch the oil have failed, and it may be up to three months before the flow is finally stopped. Already, the oil slick is reaching the marshlands of Louisiana, and it will soon coat the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida with oil, with the possibility that the slick will round the tip of Florida and head northward up the eastern seaboard and further into the Atlantic Ocean.
The implications are staggering. Ocean ecosystems could be wiped out, resulting in chain reactions that we cannot imagine at the moment. Entire human industries and livelihoods dependent upon the Gulf and Atlantic oceans could be destroyed for months or even years to come.
The back story is that BP earlier claimed their deep sea exploration was completely safe and that any accidents were "virtually impossible." Seriously. They actually said that.
In addition to BP's arrogance, some are blaming Halliburton (yes, the same Dick Cheney company that stole untold tens if not hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars through government contracts in Iraq they never fulfilled) for some work they did for BP on the seabed below the drilling platform that exploded. And in hindsight, some experts are saying that oil companies are drilling too far below the ocean surface to ensure safety.
It makes me cringe to think what we as humans are doing to the planet God gave us. We're poisoning the air, land and oceans with reckless abandon, for the profit of a few and the pleasures and conveniences of the masses. Rather than using our technology to be stewards of God's creation, we use it for destructive, self-serving purposes.
Perhaps this horrific tragedy will serve as a wakeup call to people of faith and our nation and world at large, concerning the dangers of abusing the earth. Or perhaps the time has already passed for a wakeup call, and the best we can hope for is to begin the long-term task of partially patching up a planet that has already been fatally wounded by human greed and callousness, of which the Gulf oil spill is the latest example.
I have been following, from afar and in horror, the epic saga of the British Petroleum oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico (here is the moment's story from the New York Times). In short, the deepest offshore well ever drilled is now gushing as much as a million gallons of oil daily (by some estimates) into the waters of the Gulf, following an explosion on and subsequent sinking of the drilling platform on April 20. And no one really knows the upper limits of just how much oil is gushing up from the ocean floor, although it could become the greatest ocean oil disaster ever.
All efforts to stanch the oil have failed, and it may be up to three months before the flow is finally stopped. Already, the oil slick is reaching the marshlands of Louisiana, and it will soon coat the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida with oil, with the possibility that the slick will round the tip of Florida and head northward up the eastern seaboard and further into the Atlantic Ocean.
The implications are staggering. Ocean ecosystems could be wiped out, resulting in chain reactions that we cannot imagine at the moment. Entire human industries and livelihoods dependent upon the Gulf and Atlantic oceans could be destroyed for months or even years to come.
The back story is that BP earlier claimed their deep sea exploration was completely safe and that any accidents were "virtually impossible." Seriously. They actually said that.
In addition to BP's arrogance, some are blaming Halliburton (yes, the same Dick Cheney company that stole untold tens if not hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars through government contracts in Iraq they never fulfilled) for some work they did for BP on the seabed below the drilling platform that exploded. And in hindsight, some experts are saying that oil companies are drilling too far below the ocean surface to ensure safety.
It makes me cringe to think what we as humans are doing to the planet God gave us. We're poisoning the air, land and oceans with reckless abandon, for the profit of a few and the pleasures and conveniences of the masses. Rather than using our technology to be stewards of God's creation, we use it for destructive, self-serving purposes.
Perhaps this horrific tragedy will serve as a wakeup call to people of faith and our nation and world at large, concerning the dangers of abusing the earth. Or perhaps the time has already passed for a wakeup call, and the best we can hope for is to begin the long-term task of partially patching up a planet that has already been fatally wounded by human greed and callousness, of which the Gulf oil spill is the latest example.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Cecil Sherman: You Will Be Missed, But Your Presence Remains
Cecil Sherman, respected pastor and denominational statesman in Baptist life, passed away April 17. Yet Sherman, to Baptists, was much more than pastor and denominational leader. Sam Hodges, Dallas Morning News religion reporter, hints at the place Sherman held in Baptist life in referring to him as the "Mount Rushmore" of moderate Baptists. At a time when the carefully-laid foundations of institutional Southern Baptist life buckled and ultimately collapsed under the weight of newly empowered legalistic, fundamentalist religion channeled into the "takeover" of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Sherman stood tall, offering a prophetic voice that many on both the right and left did not want to hear, and blazing a trail for traditional Baptists seeking to escape the Southern Baptist wreckage.Memorial services, including webcasts, are scheduled for today and Thursday for the man who served as the first leader of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). The emergence of the CBF in 1990/1991, led by Sherman, signaled that for white Baptists in the South, the larger Baptist identity, distinctives, heritage and missionary impulse would remain intact at a time when a new breed of fundamentalist Baptists were trying their best to demolish centuries-old Baptist foundations of freedom of conscience, the priesthood of all believers, biblical faithfulness, religious liberty and separation of church and state.
In 2008 Cecil Sherman published his autobiography, entitled By My Own Reckoning. The volume tells the story of how a Southern Baptist pastor who in his early ministry courageously confronted the racial prejudices of white Baptists in the South, was later pushed and propelled to the forefront of national Baptist life and consciousness for the sake of Baptists everywhere. For new generations of moderate Baptists who reject legalistic religion but did not personally witness the wilderness journey that paved the way for their own spiritual birthing, By My Own Reckoning provides an invaluable account of the recent history that underlies their own faith story.
Cecil Sherman, 82 at the time of his passing, was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy "Dot" Hair. He is survived by his daughter, Eugenia Sherman Brown, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin; his brother, Bill Sherman, of Nashville, Tennessee; his sister, Ruth, who lives in Oklahoma City, and a grandson, Nathaniel.
While Cecil Sherman will be missed by traditional Baptists everywhere, his presence in Baptist life remains with us, forever woven into the narrative of a freedom-loving people of faith.
More Links:
Associated Baptist Press obituary
News and Updates from the Cecil Sherman website
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Anti-American Health Care Reform Opponents Spew Hatred and Venom
Colonial Baptists, over some 150 years of bloodied backs and prison time, played an instrumental role in establishing America as the world's first nation that, through governing structures, placed primary emphasis upon human rights, freedoms and welfare. To be certain, the ideals of our nation's founding fathers - in no small part inspired by Baptists' insistence upon full religious liberty and separation of church and state - are yet being worked out in the realm of reality: slavery was legal until the 1860s, racial discrimination was legal until the 1960s, gender discrimination was long a part of our nation's history, and to this very day the anti-American spirit of inequality remains embedded within the hearts, minds and souls of many Americans.
Much of American history has revolved around a narrative of individuals who were (and are) far more concerned with their own well-being than that of their fellow Americans. This pattern began in the colonial era, when established state churches (theocracies) respected only those who were of their particular religious faith. For this reason the heretical, liberal, radical Baptists were beaten, whipped, jailed and suffered many other persecutions at the hands of theocratic colonial governments. That Baptists emerged triumphant in the Revolutionary era is a testimony to their perseverance and their unselfish commitment to the championing of equal rights for all persons: their victory in securing America's founding as a secular nation committed to religious liberty for all and separation of church and state was a victory for all Americans. The colonial theocracies lost their power and control, and state churches could no longer use government to force religious compliance, as the United States Constitution created a nation of citizens with legal equal rights and privileges (with the exception of blacks and women, admittedly, for many years).
And yet ... in addition to, and alongside of, racial and gender issues, the colonial-era legacy of power and privilege that refuses to recognize the equality of citizens remains embedded within America.
The opening years of the 20th century witnessed the ascent of corporations to the seats of power and privilege formally occupied by colonial theocrats. By the 1930s, corporate leaders, playing to fears stoked by the Great Depression, convinced many American citizens that any government policies designed to further the "general welfare" of the citizenry as stated by the U.S. Constitution, were in reality attempts to turn America into a socialist or communist nation. This perverse misuse of the Constitution, spearheaded and stoked by corporate interests and fanned into flames by many (primarily) majority white citizens (including many conservative Protestant Christians) who feared immigrants and (later) opposed equal rights for blacks, in the ensuing decades erupted into full blown rage. Opposition (often violent) to Social Security (1935), minimum wage laws (1938), the Civil Rights Act (1964), and Medicare (1965) - all of which were enacted to further the general welfare and equality of all American citizens - was led (to varying degrees) by a combination of corporate interests and white religious indignation claiming (in each instance) that the legislation was either socialist or communist (or both).
While corporate America (increasingly aligned with white conservative Protestants) proved unable to prevent the enactment of the four landmark social legislation achievements noted above, by playing upon the fears of majority whites, corporations further consolidated power and control over America under the guise of free markets (with unfettered free markets held forth as the righteous alternative to godless socialism and communism). By the early 1970s, ongoing fear-fueled fallout from three decades of social legislation reached a tipping point as unfettered free market ideology gained enough influence and power within the national political sphere and on main street to nudge government toward redistribution of the nation's wealth to the rich. And by 1980, the final marriage of corporation, white conservative Protestantism, and federal government was consummated: Ronald Reagan served in the U.S. presidency and enacted policies further transferring the nation's wealth to the rich, while Jerry Falwell formally aligned the nation's white conservative Protestants with the morality-cloaked economic agenda of Reagan Republicans (in the 1960s, Falwell had opposed civil rights as a communist agenda; now he led the rising Religious Right to oppose the "communist" agenda of Democrats and religious liberals).
For the next three decades, corporate America ruled virtually unchecked, served by government. The era of far-reaching social legislation came to an end; government's championing of the "general welfare" of the citizenry was mothballed. White conservative Christians (many increasingly voicing theocratic overtones), having been convinced of the godliness of unfettered free markets, cheered as their money was redistributed to the wealthy, convinced that their Republican allies would reward them by enacting their religious agendas into federal law. The alliance of corporation, religion and government received an additional boost when in 1996 Republican strategist Roger Ailes formed the Fox News Channel to assist in the furtherance of the Corporate/Republican/Religious Right agenda.
Under Republicans, the first decade of the 21st century witnessed an even greater acceleration of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. By 2004, the richest Americans were taxed at a federal rate well less than half of that of 1970, while the remaining population was stuck with a higher federal tax rate than in 1970. By 2007, the 400 richest Americans owned more wealth than 1/2 of the entire United States population (that is, the 150,000,000 least wealthy Americans). And at present, the United States is now the equivalent of a third-world nation in terms of the disparity between rich and poor.
And then along came Barack Obama, America's first black president, in 2009.
Immediately angry white Americans formed the "Tea Party" movement. Suddenly indignant over deficit spending (the trademark of Republican administrations from Reagan forward, and especially under George W. Bush) and tax increases (never mind that Reagan enacted the largest peacetime tax increase in American history), and claiming that Obama was a socialist and a communist - and Hitler reincarnate - and would ruin America through health care reform, the Tea Party movement set out to drive Obama out of office. The racist nature inherent within much of the white Tea Party movement is readily evident: they resort to the same arguments antebellum southern whites used in defending slavery (states rights and freedom only for themselves and like-minded persons) and they repeatedly put white supremacists front-and-center stage in their rallies (both local and national).
Now, with the passage of health care reform (a goal sought by U.S. presidents since Teddy Roosevelt), the hatred of large-scale government actions on behalf of the general welfare of the citizenry - a hatred with colonial precedent in the persecution of religious heretics such as Baptists, its antebellum expression rooted in defense of slavery, and 20th century expressions driven by corporately and religiously-stoked fears of socialism and communism - has again erupted full-scale.
Specifically, Tea Partiers and allied Republicans, serving America's corporate interests, are frenzied with rage (also see here and here) against extending health care access to all Americans, a rage that has also revitalized the Religious Right in the post-George W. Bush era. At least one Southern Baptist pastor is calling upon God to kill all the Democrat lawmakers in Congress, while another insists that in offering health care access to all Americans, the United States has become equivalent to “Nazi Germany, Communist USSR, Communist Cuba, and Iraq under Saddam.” Yet they are only following the lead of Southern Baptist leaders such as ethicist Richard Land, who back in October labeled national health care as Nazism (and continues to rage against health care access), and theologian Albert Mohler who (falsely) claims that health care reform legalizes federal funding of abortions, (falsely) claims that Christ is unconcerned with social reform, and expresses no concern for the tens of thousands of deaths and millions of ruined lives each year that result from America's current system of corporately-controlled, rationed health care.
In short, it has been a long, sordid journey to the present day where many white American Christians (including some national Southern Baptist leaders), now long married to unfettered capitalism and the extreme wing of the Republican Party and politically selfish-minded, are spewing anti-American hatred, venom and lies in their rage against health care access for all Americans.
Yet I am hopeful that David Leonhardt is right in his contention that putting an end to corporately-controlled rationed health care marks the beginning of pulling America out of its descent into third-world wealth-gap status, by reversing decades of economic stagnation and wealth redistribution to the rich, and refocusing government to serving the general welfare of all Americans.
And I want to believe that today's Baptists (in particular) who are at the moment so enraged that America once again is ready to serve all her citizens, will in a future cooler moment reflect upon their own faith heritage of championing equal rights for all, and recognize that selfish individualism is a barrier to America's greatness.
Much of American history has revolved around a narrative of individuals who were (and are) far more concerned with their own well-being than that of their fellow Americans. This pattern began in the colonial era, when established state churches (theocracies) respected only those who were of their particular religious faith. For this reason the heretical, liberal, radical Baptists were beaten, whipped, jailed and suffered many other persecutions at the hands of theocratic colonial governments. That Baptists emerged triumphant in the Revolutionary era is a testimony to their perseverance and their unselfish commitment to the championing of equal rights for all persons: their victory in securing America's founding as a secular nation committed to religious liberty for all and separation of church and state was a victory for all Americans. The colonial theocracies lost their power and control, and state churches could no longer use government to force religious compliance, as the United States Constitution created a nation of citizens with legal equal rights and privileges (with the exception of blacks and women, admittedly, for many years).
And yet ... in addition to, and alongside of, racial and gender issues, the colonial-era legacy of power and privilege that refuses to recognize the equality of citizens remains embedded within America.
The opening years of the 20th century witnessed the ascent of corporations to the seats of power and privilege formally occupied by colonial theocrats. By the 1930s, corporate leaders, playing to fears stoked by the Great Depression, convinced many American citizens that any government policies designed to further the "general welfare" of the citizenry as stated by the U.S. Constitution, were in reality attempts to turn America into a socialist or communist nation. This perverse misuse of the Constitution, spearheaded and stoked by corporate interests and fanned into flames by many (primarily) majority white citizens (including many conservative Protestant Christians) who feared immigrants and (later) opposed equal rights for blacks, in the ensuing decades erupted into full blown rage. Opposition (often violent) to Social Security (1935), minimum wage laws (1938), the Civil Rights Act (1964), and Medicare (1965) - all of which were enacted to further the general welfare and equality of all American citizens - was led (to varying degrees) by a combination of corporate interests and white religious indignation claiming (in each instance) that the legislation was either socialist or communist (or both).
While corporate America (increasingly aligned with white conservative Protestants) proved unable to prevent the enactment of the four landmark social legislation achievements noted above, by playing upon the fears of majority whites, corporations further consolidated power and control over America under the guise of free markets (with unfettered free markets held forth as the righteous alternative to godless socialism and communism). By the early 1970s, ongoing fear-fueled fallout from three decades of social legislation reached a tipping point as unfettered free market ideology gained enough influence and power within the national political sphere and on main street to nudge government toward redistribution of the nation's wealth to the rich. And by 1980, the final marriage of corporation, white conservative Protestantism, and federal government was consummated: Ronald Reagan served in the U.S. presidency and enacted policies further transferring the nation's wealth to the rich, while Jerry Falwell formally aligned the nation's white conservative Protestants with the morality-cloaked economic agenda of Reagan Republicans (in the 1960s, Falwell had opposed civil rights as a communist agenda; now he led the rising Religious Right to oppose the "communist" agenda of Democrats and religious liberals).
For the next three decades, corporate America ruled virtually unchecked, served by government. The era of far-reaching social legislation came to an end; government's championing of the "general welfare" of the citizenry was mothballed. White conservative Christians (many increasingly voicing theocratic overtones), having been convinced of the godliness of unfettered free markets, cheered as their money was redistributed to the wealthy, convinced that their Republican allies would reward them by enacting their religious agendas into federal law. The alliance of corporation, religion and government received an additional boost when in 1996 Republican strategist Roger Ailes formed the Fox News Channel to assist in the furtherance of the Corporate/Republican/Religious Right agenda.
Under Republicans, the first decade of the 21st century witnessed an even greater acceleration of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. By 2004, the richest Americans were taxed at a federal rate well less than half of that of 1970, while the remaining population was stuck with a higher federal tax rate than in 1970. By 2007, the 400 richest Americans owned more wealth than 1/2 of the entire United States population (that is, the 150,000,000 least wealthy Americans). And at present, the United States is now the equivalent of a third-world nation in terms of the disparity between rich and poor.
And then along came Barack Obama, America's first black president, in 2009.
Immediately angry white Americans formed the "Tea Party" movement. Suddenly indignant over deficit spending (the trademark of Republican administrations from Reagan forward, and especially under George W. Bush) and tax increases (never mind that Reagan enacted the largest peacetime tax increase in American history), and claiming that Obama was a socialist and a communist - and Hitler reincarnate - and would ruin America through health care reform, the Tea Party movement set out to drive Obama out of office. The racist nature inherent within much of the white Tea Party movement is readily evident: they resort to the same arguments antebellum southern whites used in defending slavery (states rights and freedom only for themselves and like-minded persons) and they repeatedly put white supremacists front-and-center stage in their rallies (both local and national).
Now, with the passage of health care reform (a goal sought by U.S. presidents since Teddy Roosevelt), the hatred of large-scale government actions on behalf of the general welfare of the citizenry - a hatred with colonial precedent in the persecution of religious heretics such as Baptists, its antebellum expression rooted in defense of slavery, and 20th century expressions driven by corporately and religiously-stoked fears of socialism and communism - has again erupted full-scale.
Specifically, Tea Partiers and allied Republicans, serving America's corporate interests, are frenzied with rage (also see here and here) against extending health care access to all Americans, a rage that has also revitalized the Religious Right in the post-George W. Bush era. At least one Southern Baptist pastor is calling upon God to kill all the Democrat lawmakers in Congress, while another insists that in offering health care access to all Americans, the United States has become equivalent to “Nazi Germany, Communist USSR, Communist Cuba, and Iraq under Saddam.” Yet they are only following the lead of Southern Baptist leaders such as ethicist Richard Land, who back in October labeled national health care as Nazism (and continues to rage against health care access), and theologian Albert Mohler who (falsely) claims that health care reform legalizes federal funding of abortions, (falsely) claims that Christ is unconcerned with social reform, and expresses no concern for the tens of thousands of deaths and millions of ruined lives each year that result from America's current system of corporately-controlled, rationed health care.
In short, it has been a long, sordid journey to the present day where many white American Christians (including some national Southern Baptist leaders), now long married to unfettered capitalism and the extreme wing of the Republican Party and politically selfish-minded, are spewing anti-American hatred, venom and lies in their rage against health care access for all Americans.
Yet I am hopeful that David Leonhardt is right in his contention that putting an end to corporately-controlled rationed health care marks the beginning of pulling America out of its descent into third-world wealth-gap status, by reversing decades of economic stagnation and wealth redistribution to the rich, and refocusing government to serving the general welfare of all Americans.
And I want to believe that today's Baptists (in particular) who are at the moment so enraged that America once again is ready to serve all her citizens, will in a future cooler moment reflect upon their own faith heritage of championing equal rights for all, and recognize that selfish individualism is a barrier to America's greatness.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Texas Republican David Bradley: God Does Not Exist
Texas conservative and self-proclaimed Christian David Bradley, a Republican on the Texas Board of Education, has decided that God does not exist.
That is, according to Mr. Bradley's own reasoning, God does not exist.
Here's the story:
Bradley and his so-called "Christian" Republicans, who control the Texas Board of Education, have led the TBE to rewrite American history and economics to suit their own personal fantasies.
And what fantasies would that be? That separation of church and state in America never happened, and unfettered free markets are to be worshiped. Bradley and his allies even managed to censure Thomas Jefferson from Texas textbooks because Jefferson dared talk about separation of church and state.
That these so-called Christians would want to remove Jefferson and Baptists - the greatest champions of separation of church and state in colonial America - out of American history is rather strange. If not for Baptists of the 17th and 18th centuries, Bradley and his allies would quite likely be living in a nation in which the government mandated their religious beliefs. Yet bizarre as it seems, that is just their point: Bradley and his ilk are theocrats who want government to cater to their personal religious views and impose them on everyone else.
Not surprisingly, historians and other observers are outraged that Bradley and his allies have emasculated American history in order to serve their own personal interests.
And what does Mr. Bradley have to say to those who object to his fantasies-in-action? “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” he declared. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
Mr. Bradley obviously has never heard of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which clearly establishes - thanks to the untiring efforts of our Baptist ancestors (and yes, they were liberals in their day) - the separation of church and state.
Every American who believes in the First Amendment should each claim the $1000 that Bradley offered to anyone who could locate separation of church and state in the Constitution. Beyond that, SOMEONE needs to introduce David Bradley to the U. S. Constitution, a document - his arrogant pronouncements notwithstanding - which is seemingly quite foreign to him.
"But wait," you say, Mr. Bradley? You mean that since the words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution, the concept does not exist? You only believe it if the exact wording is in the Constitution?
Ah, that is why you believe God does not exist! God is not mentioned in the Constitution ... and therefore God does not exist!
Well, Mr. Bradley, in secular America, you as an opponent of Baptists, worshiper of unfettered free markets, and apparent atheist, are free to practice your own peculiar fantasies, and even to label those fantasies as "Christian." And you're even free to try and draw others into your fantasy world. But if you insist on trying to force the government - local, state, or federal - to give favoritism to (and/or promote) your personal beliefs that you pass off as religion, those Baptists whom you've written out of the history books are gonna come back to haunt you one day.
And while in your constitutional world God does not exist, it is doubtful that your blindness and deafness to history is the last word about what is and what is not.
That is, according to Mr. Bradley's own reasoning, God does not exist.
Here's the story:
Bradley and his so-called "Christian" Republicans, who control the Texas Board of Education, have led the TBE to rewrite American history and economics to suit their own personal fantasies.
And what fantasies would that be? That separation of church and state in America never happened, and unfettered free markets are to be worshiped. Bradley and his allies even managed to censure Thomas Jefferson from Texas textbooks because Jefferson dared talk about separation of church and state.
That these so-called Christians would want to remove Jefferson and Baptists - the greatest champions of separation of church and state in colonial America - out of American history is rather strange. If not for Baptists of the 17th and 18th centuries, Bradley and his allies would quite likely be living in a nation in which the government mandated their religious beliefs. Yet bizarre as it seems, that is just their point: Bradley and his ilk are theocrats who want government to cater to their personal religious views and impose them on everyone else.
Not surprisingly, historians and other observers are outraged that Bradley and his allies have emasculated American history in order to serve their own personal interests.
And what does Mr. Bradley have to say to those who object to his fantasies-in-action? “I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” he declared. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
Mr. Bradley obviously has never heard of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which clearly establishes - thanks to the untiring efforts of our Baptist ancestors (and yes, they were liberals in their day) - the separation of church and state.
Every American who believes in the First Amendment should each claim the $1000 that Bradley offered to anyone who could locate separation of church and state in the Constitution. Beyond that, SOMEONE needs to introduce David Bradley to the U. S. Constitution, a document - his arrogant pronouncements notwithstanding - which is seemingly quite foreign to him.
"But wait," you say, Mr. Bradley? You mean that since the words "separation of church and state" are not in the Constitution, the concept does not exist? You only believe it if the exact wording is in the Constitution?
Ah, that is why you believe God does not exist! God is not mentioned in the Constitution ... and therefore God does not exist!
Well, Mr. Bradley, in secular America, you as an opponent of Baptists, worshiper of unfettered free markets, and apparent atheist, are free to practice your own peculiar fantasies, and even to label those fantasies as "Christian." And you're even free to try and draw others into your fantasy world. But if you insist on trying to force the government - local, state, or federal - to give favoritism to (and/or promote) your personal beliefs that you pass off as religion, those Baptists whom you've written out of the history books are gonna come back to haunt you one day.
And while in your constitutional world God does not exist, it is doubtful that your blindness and deafness to history is the last word about what is and what is not.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Mount Vernon Statement: Roadmap to (Another) Civil War
Last week a number of prominent religious and political conservatives (including Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission) released a new statement of "Conservative Beliefs, Values and Principles." The document, entitled The Mount Vernon Statement, claims as its purpose the defense of "the high ground of America’s founding principles."
A cursory reading of the document, however, with a little knowledge of America's antebellum history, reveals the document for what it is: a modern restatement of the same political and religious arguments used by antebellum southern states in defending the rights of slaveholders to own slaves. Furthermore, the Mount Vernon pronouncement is modeled after a 1960 white conservative political call to arms - the Sharon Statement - against the liberalism of the Civil Rights movement. (The Mount Vernon Statement web site initially included a link to the Sharon Statement noting the inspiration derived from the 1960 document, but subsequently removed it.)
In short, the religious and politically conservative elites who signed the document have reclaimed the southern ideological "high ground" of states rights and freedom defined as personal liberties for select individuals (but mandated inequities in American society at large).
To this southern antebellum framework the Mount Vernon Statement adds civil privileges for Christians (does anyone doubt the reference to "faith" refers to Christians specifically?) and bows before the altar of unfettered free markets that have turned 21st-century America into the equivalent of a Third World (undeveloped) nation in regards to the astonishing inequities of our national wealth gap.
Young conservative Southern Baptists are right to criticize SBC leaders who signed this statement as persons "seduced by political idolatry." Conservative political icon Christopher Buckley is likely right that the statement more immediately originates from an innate hatred of President Obama. Other commentators are correct to point out that the Mount Vernon Statement mangles its usage of America's founding documents (not to mention the irony that the United States Constitution, which Mount Vernon signees present as of divine origin, makes no mention of God).
While likely few, if any, of the signers of the Mount Vernon Statement are racists, the statement - like the larger Tea Party movement which it parrots - is that of white conservatives devoted to antebellum southern ideology welded with modern free market extremism. The statement is not reflective of the ethnically diverse, pluralistic nation that America is, nor is it reflective of the Christ to whom some of the signees claim allegiance. Rather than a roadmap to the future, it is a desperate attempt to mandate an inequitable society ruled by an ideology that has more in common with theocracies and oligarchies than western democracy. Our colonial Baptist forefathers lived under such tyrannies, and their ongoing witness and ageless voices serve as a warning to all Americans to remain faithful to our nation's founding principles of democracy, freedom, and equality for all.
A cursory reading of the document, however, with a little knowledge of America's antebellum history, reveals the document for what it is: a modern restatement of the same political and religious arguments used by antebellum southern states in defending the rights of slaveholders to own slaves. Furthermore, the Mount Vernon pronouncement is modeled after a 1960 white conservative political call to arms - the Sharon Statement - against the liberalism of the Civil Rights movement. (The Mount Vernon Statement web site initially included a link to the Sharon Statement noting the inspiration derived from the 1960 document, but subsequently removed it.)
In short, the religious and politically conservative elites who signed the document have reclaimed the southern ideological "high ground" of states rights and freedom defined as personal liberties for select individuals (but mandated inequities in American society at large).
To this southern antebellum framework the Mount Vernon Statement adds civil privileges for Christians (does anyone doubt the reference to "faith" refers to Christians specifically?) and bows before the altar of unfettered free markets that have turned 21st-century America into the equivalent of a Third World (undeveloped) nation in regards to the astonishing inequities of our national wealth gap.
Young conservative Southern Baptists are right to criticize SBC leaders who signed this statement as persons "seduced by political idolatry." Conservative political icon Christopher Buckley is likely right that the statement more immediately originates from an innate hatred of President Obama. Other commentators are correct to point out that the Mount Vernon Statement mangles its usage of America's founding documents (not to mention the irony that the United States Constitution, which Mount Vernon signees present as of divine origin, makes no mention of God).
While likely few, if any, of the signers of the Mount Vernon Statement are racists, the statement - like the larger Tea Party movement which it parrots - is that of white conservatives devoted to antebellum southern ideology welded with modern free market extremism. The statement is not reflective of the ethnically diverse, pluralistic nation that America is, nor is it reflective of the Christ to whom some of the signees claim allegiance. Rather than a roadmap to the future, it is a desperate attempt to mandate an inequitable society ruled by an ideology that has more in common with theocracies and oligarchies than western democracy. Our colonial Baptist forefathers lived under such tyrannies, and their ongoing witness and ageless voices serve as a warning to all Americans to remain faithful to our nation's founding principles of democracy, freedom, and equality for all.
Monday, February 22, 2010
"Progressivism" is a "Disease in the Republic"?
Glenn Beck, he of Tea Party fame, recently pronounced that the "progressive movement" is a "disease in the Republic" and a "cancer." He also said: "All right, now, if all of this sounds like a government out of control, go back to the progressive movement. It is not what our founders of this country intended."
One thing Tea Partiers consistently ignore is history. Despite their moniker, the movement bears no resemblance to the revolutionary-era Boston Tea Party. And despite Beck's rantings, progressivism has always been at the core of the American nation.
Baptists in the colonial era were the progressives of the day (alongside smaller groups like Quakers), fighting for freedom of conscience, religious liberty, pluralism, and separation of church and state. The Baptist vision - for some 150 years considered heretical and subversive by conservative, theocratic colonial church states - finally won out in the founding of the new American nation, a nation founded upon the liberal, progressive principles of freedom, justice, secular government, human equality, and human rights.
In the decades and centuries following, it fell upon successive generations to further advance the nation's expressed commitment to freedom and human rights. The story of America from the late 18th century to the present is a narrative of a nation fleshing out the substance of these founding principles, ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution in terms of America as a people who are committed to human equality, "justice," "domestic tranquility", "common defence," "the general welfare" of all citizens, "the blessings of liberty," and First Amendment rights of separation of church and state and freedom of expression. It is a story yet unfinished, and pockmarked with plenty of warts. But it is the story of the unfolding of the ideals voiced by our nation's founding fathers.
Yet demagogues like Glenn Beck have little use for truth or for America's liberal, progressive founding principles. Rather, their concern is their own personal welfare at the expense of those with whom they disagree. Their rhetorical demands are for a country in which there is essentially no federal government, taxes are virtually non-existent, life and death and wealth and poverty are willed by the profit-driven dictates of large corporations, freedom of conscience is restricted (if not illegal), diversity does not exist, the full rights of citizenship are limited to ideologically-pure persons (and maybe even ethnically pure), and freedom exists only within the parameters of approved group-think.
In short, the world of Glenn Beck and his loyalists is a world opposed to historical American principles and ideals. And while America's liberal, progressive foundations allow Beck the freedom to express his subversive views, if Beck and his followers were to succeed in abolishing America's historical identity, their ideological triumph would seal the destruction of the nation they love to hate.
One thing Tea Partiers consistently ignore is history. Despite their moniker, the movement bears no resemblance to the revolutionary-era Boston Tea Party. And despite Beck's rantings, progressivism has always been at the core of the American nation.
Baptists in the colonial era were the progressives of the day (alongside smaller groups like Quakers), fighting for freedom of conscience, religious liberty, pluralism, and separation of church and state. The Baptist vision - for some 150 years considered heretical and subversive by conservative, theocratic colonial church states - finally won out in the founding of the new American nation, a nation founded upon the liberal, progressive principles of freedom, justice, secular government, human equality, and human rights.
In the decades and centuries following, it fell upon successive generations to further advance the nation's expressed commitment to freedom and human rights. The story of America from the late 18th century to the present is a narrative of a nation fleshing out the substance of these founding principles, ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution in terms of America as a people who are committed to human equality, "justice," "domestic tranquility", "common defence," "the general welfare" of all citizens, "the blessings of liberty," and First Amendment rights of separation of church and state and freedom of expression. It is a story yet unfinished, and pockmarked with plenty of warts. But it is the story of the unfolding of the ideals voiced by our nation's founding fathers.
Yet demagogues like Glenn Beck have little use for truth or for America's liberal, progressive founding principles. Rather, their concern is their own personal welfare at the expense of those with whom they disagree. Their rhetorical demands are for a country in which there is essentially no federal government, taxes are virtually non-existent, life and death and wealth and poverty are willed by the profit-driven dictates of large corporations, freedom of conscience is restricted (if not illegal), diversity does not exist, the full rights of citizenship are limited to ideologically-pure persons (and maybe even ethnically pure), and freedom exists only within the parameters of approved group-think.
In short, the world of Glenn Beck and his loyalists is a world opposed to historical American principles and ideals. And while America's liberal, progressive foundations allow Beck the freedom to express his subversive views, if Beck and his followers were to succeed in abolishing America's historical identity, their ideological triumph would seal the destruction of the nation they love to hate.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
