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"The church perhaps is the only institution in the nation that can ask: "Okay, how are your policies squaring up, not only with the principles of the Bible, but with the principles found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?" Everybody else is scared to do it. The Church had better be afraid not to do it."
-- Rev. James Forbes
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What do you think?
Add your thoughts below:
Poster: Stephen Hablinski
Caption: Modern democracy is the only thing that can protect individuals from the church. I find a doctrine canonized by a third century Roman dictator a strange benchmark by which modern democracy is to be weighed against.
Poster: skepticFromTX
Caption: Just which church is Rev. Forbes talking about? In the American elections of 1996, 2000, and 2004 the churches, and the Church, stood squarely behing the party that now works to change, dilute, or ignore everything in the Constitution and Bill of Rights that is uncongenial to corporate America and the Religious Right.
Poster: RFM
Caption: For better and for worse, Rev. Forbes is probably right... Big corporations and their political hirelings manipulate much of the world. Profit and power are the things that matter in the big corporations. Individuals may grumble and protest, but, in today's world, organized religion is the only organized force with the ability to challenge the corporate state... Political parties? Universities? Labor unions? They've all failed. At best, they've become marginal, at worst they're part of the system.... Democracy? It's easily bought and sold like candy.
Poster: John Richards
Caption: Re: RFM
You draw a distinction between 'big corporations, political hirelings' and 'organized religion'. Often, they are the same thing. And this is coming from a member of organized religion.
It's interesting how the Rev. Forbes talks about the Bible and the Bill of Rights together, drawing them into a unity of sorts, when, in actuality, the Bill doesn't allow this.
Most conservatives don't realize that there are many other religions in America besides Christianity. Either that, or they don't want to admit it.
Poster: RICK HENRY
Caption: What the church considers important may not be the same concerns that i have. Religion (of any faith,tradition or denomination) is by it's nature exclusionary. This cannot be helped. The exclusionary principal is the cosmic stop sign that prohibits religious institutions from speaking for anyone except those with like faith. This is a world of competing ideas and the church is just one idea. All institutions represent a narrow concern and the church is no exception. The best protection of our rights and liberties is a good education, careful study, deep thought and a sense of responsibility for our fellow man. Finally we must be virtuous in thought and action. If we do and practice these things we will be able to defend against any tyranny or tyrant.
Poster: Enita Torres
Caption: I don't agree that people are afraid to judge our political policies as they relate to the/their interpretation of the Bible. I do, however, see a frightening lack of critical discussion about our policies as they relate to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Poster: Thomas Stripling
Caption: Christianity by its' very being is an encountering and engaging tradition. It is not a 'compliance-centric' tradition like the ancient wisdoms of Juda and Islam and Hindu and Confucius. It is about people, about understanding differences and living with those differences. The 'bible' means many things to many people, and so living up to or grading one against it is nearly impossible especially when the bible is split between compliance (old testament) and humanity (new testament). Christianity gives one the measures to address the entire human community and those who don't see that as a primary goal are most likely to carve lines between people in a adversarial fashion. It is hard to live a Christian life and hate as much as today's society seems to do.
Poster: Brock Shaver
Caption: America is the tension between totalitarianism and liberty. Founded by the Church-impulse to dominate, and the Enlightenment reaction that recognized the ideals of Christ, but rejected its political implications as developed by religion. Hatred of communism is as much from the love of liberty by liberals, as it is from the envy of the caged impulses of the Church. The spirit of freedom versus the control of the mind. The question of security for the individual from political oppression, and the security for Salvation from the one dictator that you can't topple, God. America is the condensing of these tensions in a nationality that is not organic, but conceptual. This delineates the civilized mind with a clarity not seen since the ancient Greek philosophers. Christianity embodies the battle between the independence of the Greek mind with the threatening spiritual confusion afforded by Christ. The Church gives spirit its centrality, under the mind's management. America give mind its centrality, with its pride in rational goals. While nagged by the heritage of spirit that remembers when it was 'on top.' This reversed duality gives America the same dialectical engine that made Christianity such a success. And it is the thrust of its bravado to Save the world through its lifestyle. It brings this spirit-mind tension to the rest of civilization, to usher in its historical development through the American experience.
Poster: nogodzone
Caption: The problem is that the Rev. assumes one can be true to the Bible and to the Constitution at the sme time. Policies are not Biblical but Constitutional and often those two documents don't work well together. The Founders separated Church and State and it should remain that way. If anything we need more separation of the State from other things like the economy, running businesses, education, etc.
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