Thursday, July 06, 2006

My Country is not of Thee

My Country is not of Thee

I’m constantly amazed by the strange attitudes and the activities of the many Christians that live in our great country. Peggy Davis tells a story of attending a Baptist Church service over the Fourth of July weekend. “At the front of the sanctuary was a projector screen with the words ‘God Bless America’. The congregation sang ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and ‘America the Beautiful’ as the call to worship. The congregation was later led in singing ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee’ by some man with a cordless microphone.

The pastor spoke of our need to protect the flag and expressed thanks [to the Lord] that the Ten Commandments had been returned to their rightful place in the courthouse. He assured the congregation that our government had been founded in Christianity. He spoke repeatedly about freedom. After the sermon, the congregation faced the American Flag at the front of the sanctuary and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.”

This deliberate blurring of the lines between Christianity and patriotism is dangerous to the foundation laid down by our Founding Fathers, but it is more a threat to the American way of life. If it is a given that Christians are also American patriots, it is only a step away from the belief that true American patriots must also be Christians.

Our country was founded on principles of religious freedom and on the principle that established religion would always be kept apart from the affairs of the State. The majority of Americans subscribe to the Christian faith, and the majority of Americans are blindly patriotic, especially in time of war. Our president is outspoken about his own Christian faith, and most politicians make sure that they are known as dutiful churchgoers. My small town throbs to the heartbeat of the “positive Christian outlook” and “blind faith,” and corruption also throbs without question. Anyone that is outside of this Christian mix is pushed even further towards the outer edge, and if all goes well maybe he will just move out of the county.

“Where is the need to force this mix of religion and politics, as if the majority were somehow threatened?” It is easy to see how this movement threatens those that are not Christians and how this movement threatens those that are deeply religions. This unknown and mysterious energy behind all life has nothing to do with these organized belief systems that have been created, invented by man. This “tangible god” simply does not exist, and this is proven by the very fact that it does not acknowledge its own existence.

“Many Christians do not support the religious fervor reaching into our government or the political fervor reaching into the many churches, but they do not speak up and are complicit in their silence.” Those that have applied open-minded studies of orthodox organized religions and, therefore, reject them as false, also remain in the closet and are also complicit in their silence.

This refusal to speak out and to stand up for the truth they see is a very harmful thing for the individual and for the rest of mankind. There is one evil that will certainly destroy this great country and this world if left unabated, and that evil my friend is organized religion.

Put together by Kerry Walker from an article by Peggy Davis