Becky Akers, media moron and hysterical historian, wants to know if the flag or the pledge of allegiance belongs in church.
My first thought was that there are thousands and thousands of churches. If you don't like the practices of one church, go find another one that supports your ideas. I could name a few that would go along with Ms. Akers' "Killer America" drone. Instead, we have to get some half-wit, heinous massacre of history and constitutional meaning.
Why do American churches have American flags in a place of prominence when the Constitution was supposed to, per Ms. Akers, protect each entity from the power of the other? I have to say, if Ms. Akers has to ask that question, then she isn't much of a historian. It isn't, as she lamely suggests, "If they think about it at all, most believers probably see the flag and Pledge as tokens of affection for their country."
No, Ma'am. It is because the First Amendment states emphatically:
Simply put, the United States is, in fact, the first nation in history that guaranteed and protected by law the freedom to practice religion without interference, persecution or prohibition. As a historian ought to know, that was an extremely limited opportunity at the time the Constitution was written and, in fact, is still not the norm around the world today.
Maybe Ms. Akers could look a little deeper past her own shallow ideological preferences and figure out that American churches might feel both grateful for that protection and compelled to honor it to remind people of the importance of that freedom. Particularly, in a world where real extremists are willing to kill people to force their religious practices on others. The actual people, you know, who threaten small Christan enclaves in countries like Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Pakistan among the few easily named.
They might even feel that it is of eminent importance to remind people of that one "relationship" between "church and state" when there are repeated attempts to exclude faith from public places and even utterance. When anyone who expresses their faith openly is denigrated as a "Jesus Freak" or worse. Faith is often viewed as a quaint, out moded practice in a world full of science and "rationality". Frankly, if some of Ms. Akers fellow travelers had their way, religion would be outlawed and not protected.
My question to Ms. Akers et al is whether they really think their religious practices (or even the ability to write hysterical pieces like this) would be protected in this or any other country if the United States, as symbolized by the flag, with all its "flaws", had not first declared it so?
Dare one mention to such an eminent, hyperventilating "historian" that the worse, mass murdering, totalitarian governments of the last century had succeeded in limiting, if not eliminating, religion and faith from government? Creating, not equality, but amorality? Or, persecuted and killed those of faith within the governed population? Ms. Akers alludes to that history when lamenting the appearance of any symbol of state and its potential to subsume the church towards totalitarian goals, but she seems to fail to note or mention that the presence of the flag or any pledge of allegiance in church is actually the choice of the church, not an order of the state. Therein lies the difference and hardly purports any looming subjugation by the state.
In China and North Korea, there are hundreds of underground Christian churches. These churches are very unlikely to have the flag of their respective nations present at their secret places of worship. Nor does anyone have to wonder why considering North Korea's repressive, atheist government and China's past "cultural revolution" that limits worship to state controlled and authorized churches in order to control any suspected "counter-revolutionary" ideas. They learned their lesson from Poland and Solidarity.
Ms. Akers should remember them the next time she freely "attends Protestant churches" in broad daylight without fear of being killed or imprisoned. It might actually answer her all consuming, hysterical question about why there is an American flag present near the altar or the pledge of allegiance is given at her church.
No wonder the state wars against so potent an adversary. Its antagonism compelled to decree, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Founders weren't only insulating government from Christianity, as today's secularists insist; they also hoped to protect Christianity from the poison of political power. A free society flourishes because of its families, schools, marketplace and churches. If these become mere outposts of government, if the state subsumes them so that they advance its agenda rather than curtail its power, the country sinks into totalitarianism.It goes down hill from there where she claims that flags in churches "symbolize an infatuation with the government" and complains about her own church's practice of having the flag near the altar and saying the pledge of allegiance.
My first thought was that there are thousands and thousands of churches. If you don't like the practices of one church, go find another one that supports your ideas. I could name a few that would go along with Ms. Akers' "Killer America" drone. Instead, we have to get some half-wit, heinous massacre of history and constitutional meaning.
Why do American churches have American flags in a place of prominence when the Constitution was supposed to, per Ms. Akers, protect each entity from the power of the other? I have to say, if Ms. Akers has to ask that question, then she isn't much of a historian. It isn't, as she lamely suggests, "If they think about it at all, most believers probably see the flag and Pledge as tokens of affection for their country."
No, Ma'am. It is because the First Amendment states emphatically:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Simply put, the United States is, in fact, the first nation in history that guaranteed and protected by law the freedom to practice religion without interference, persecution or prohibition. As a historian ought to know, that was an extremely limited opportunity at the time the Constitution was written and, in fact, is still not the norm around the world today.
Maybe Ms. Akers could look a little deeper past her own shallow ideological preferences and figure out that American churches might feel both grateful for that protection and compelled to honor it to remind people of the importance of that freedom. Particularly, in a world where real extremists are willing to kill people to force their religious practices on others. The actual people, you know, who threaten small Christan enclaves in countries like Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Pakistan among the few easily named.
They might even feel that it is of eminent importance to remind people of that one "relationship" between "church and state" when there are repeated attempts to exclude faith from public places and even utterance. When anyone who expresses their faith openly is denigrated as a "Jesus Freak" or worse. Faith is often viewed as a quaint, out moded practice in a world full of science and "rationality". Frankly, if some of Ms. Akers fellow travelers had their way, religion would be outlawed and not protected.
My question to Ms. Akers et al is whether they really think their religious practices (or even the ability to write hysterical pieces like this) would be protected in this or any other country if the United States, as symbolized by the flag, with all its "flaws", had not first declared it so?
Dare one mention to such an eminent, hyperventilating "historian" that the worse, mass murdering, totalitarian governments of the last century had succeeded in limiting, if not eliminating, religion and faith from government? Creating, not equality, but amorality? Or, persecuted and killed those of faith within the governed population? Ms. Akers alludes to that history when lamenting the appearance of any symbol of state and its potential to subsume the church towards totalitarian goals, but she seems to fail to note or mention that the presence of the flag or any pledge of allegiance in church is actually the choice of the church, not an order of the state. Therein lies the difference and hardly purports any looming subjugation by the state.
In China and North Korea, there are hundreds of underground Christian churches. These churches are very unlikely to have the flag of their respective nations present at their secret places of worship. Nor does anyone have to wonder why considering North Korea's repressive, atheist government and China's past "cultural revolution" that limits worship to state controlled and authorized churches in order to control any suspected "counter-revolutionary" ideas. They learned their lesson from Poland and Solidarity.
Ms. Akers should remember them the next time she freely "attends Protestant churches" in broad daylight without fear of being killed or imprisoned. It might actually answer her all consuming, hysterical question about why there is an American flag present near the altar or the pledge of allegiance is given at her church.
Right. We've all seen how the Anglican Church operates as an arm of the British monarchy to keep all the serfs toeing the totalitarian royal line...
The self-proclaimed historian states: "We also enhance rather than counter the state's supremacy. Our 'patriotism' [there's that condescension] is really nationalism: unquestioning and enthusiastic support of political power." No, moron. WE are the state, and WE assert, and recognize GOD's power over all, including our government, by having the flag there, in church, with us. It's a CHOICE to have it there. She says [I repeat]: "Our 'patriotism' is really nationalism: unquestioning and enthusiastic support of political power." It's OUR political power, you boob, not some disembodied, impersonal "political power." So, there they go again. Every Patriot loyal to, and devoted to THIS country is no better than a nazi, or a subject of some other totalitarian state. Moral Equivalence on display. Heart surgeons are no better than muggers with knives, and are equally to be feared. Ugh. There's their "nuanced thinking" for you.
pa·tri·ot·ism noun Date: circa 1726 love for or devotion to one's country
na·tion·al·ism
noun
Date: 1844 1: loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups 2: a nationalist movement or government http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ As usual, this liberal cannot distinguish between her own feelings, and biases and objective facts. She sees in front of her things which are actually in her own head, otherwise known as projection.
[I gave up trying to format this post]
I might be able to get my web-monkey to tweak things! It looks like he pasted from some kind of program that didn't have the right font sex compared to here.
The source option for comments would be a lot more useful if you could remove the "BR" tags and all that other stuff. But that might be hard coded.
I have posted on other forums that processed only pure html, meaning you had to add the br for line breaks, so I'm used to it. But I thought I would never have to do so ever again ; )
Yer cherry picking again, Unk.(Invalid inductive argument. Stop slapping me around for being uppity already). She's actually got a decent point on this. Treaty of Westphallia, anyone?
The Taliban? Egypt post emancipation from the UK? And, yeah, the Anglican's were pretty bad for a while. Lord Cromwell's treatment of the Irish? Yeah, Pitt felt he had to come to America because he heard of the wonderous Big Mac(ummm, Big Mac. Laalaalaalall(drool)) so he had to search for it. Fine, you want something of more recent vintage to support her point: liberation theology down in Nicaragua. She had a decent point about perils of mixing religion and politics and ruined it with anti-Iraq war, overly simplistic 'Jesus is Love' stuff.(This same Jesus who said, 'Better a man should tie a stone around his neck and throw himself into the sea than to hurt a child." Sounds kinda righteous fury and wrathful there.)
But, historically, post-Westphallian system has been better than what came before it. Fewer pointless wars. Fewer wars period actually. Gov't accustomed to being questioned about the why and how of statecraft and decisions. One of the reasons we're in this GWoT is so that the post-Westphalian system doesn't get over turned and we revert to a more thugish and benighted world.
And the wars of the Habsburgs vs. the Protestants weren't pretty. Infusing religion into gov't(and vice vesa) carries a serious potential for ugliness we would be much better off leaving in the past. Wars of reason are much easier to end without delving into near-genocidal goals. There's an absolutism that shows up when you allow this to happen that mirrors that of Robspierre(bloody handed bastard).
She's got a fair point though she tosses it aside for cheap 'aren't I moral and better than you slobs' crap. It is a worry. It is something we all might want to be concerned about given the negative effects are(which implies that one accepts that there are good effects too). In my mind this is a fine example of letting a good point be wasted by infusion of partisan politics. It is something one should be mindful of so as to steer things away from pitfalls.
It really had to do with the advent of the Godless Communist threat. The same reason that "under God" was added to the pledge. Patriotism and faith were considered two cornerstones of "the American Way" and deemed necessary to establish the US as different than the "red horde". I doubt it is anywhere as prevalent today as it was in the day. As I note, my personal experience in "Protestant Churches" has been the existence of the flag, but no pledges of allegiance unless it was some organization like the boy scouts or other youth groups using the church for their activities.
So, I think, not only did she ruin her point with "America Sucks" and "Jesus is Love" yada, yada, but she was hyperventilating over something that is actually diminishing and came to be more than half a century ago.
There may, indeed, be some connection between the loss of faith in the nation and the lack of patriotism.
And there were negatives that went right along side all of that, no? Church as gov't house saw religious bigotry, at times, run the show. School? Sure, but also saw bad sides(as was shown in the Pennsylvania SCOTUS case). I don't like that things like Catholic Charities is being pushed out of the adoption business, but people have a point about consistency within defacto being evangelism without.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that lack of religion leads to much of anything. Many of the drivers here in Indiana who are right bastards have Ixoye fish and In God We Trust plates. They're also the people I find most likely to get out of their car at stop lights if you pissed them off for 'driving slow'(meaning, the speed limit in the rh lane). Where's the civic mindedness from church going there? Sure, it is annecdotal, but, hey, if it was a universal trait these things wouldn't happen. Idjits happen.
I think a better hypothesis is that there's so little utility in being patrotic today, same for being civil. In Unk's time being unpatriotic actually could get you shunned or worse. Today? Heh, likely to get you on the Today Show when mean bullies confront your speech with theirs. There's little pay off on the societal level for being patriotic or civil(note, I didn't say none, I said little).
She's a self centered twit who abused an argument to vent her spleen about how horrible she thinks her country is for going to Iraq. But she's got a good point. Who was the GEN who got busted for saying GWoT was a war against Islam while in uniform in a church, that it was a Crusade? That kind of thing *is* dangerous. It is one thing to say, 'We stand apart.' It is quite another to say you're waging a war of religion, which, oft times, gives you carte blanche since you're playing for the highest stakes possible. And the CW has been over for almost 20 years. When do we stop using it as an excuse for things that might not be totally on the up and up? And, didn't McCarthy-ism, though Joe was right that there were Commuists in play he did go way to far, take on a religious tone that was used to beat up on people who weren't Communists? Isn't that a count against the infusion of politics in religion and vice versa?
she's right about if the church, any church, becomes a lap dog of gov't(or either political party) we've lost a vital instrument for calling the gov't on the carpet. Look at the above ground churches in China for example. They're exactly an extra set of eyes to watch the pop and to indoctrinate(which, sometimes, as in the case of PRC, is a nasty xenophobia and jingoism). The Catholic priests in Nic ruined their cred to call the Sandis on anything they did by espousing Liberation theology.
She's got points. Even if she's a twit who just had to go off on the 'slag America for Iraq' rail you shouldn't just lump it all. Look at the problems of being 'in the tank' has caused, recently. Didn't some dirtbag shoot up a Unitarian church because it was the 'church of liberals'? SOme idiiot blew up a church because it was 'a black church'. People hate Catholics for, historically, voting Democratic in some parts of the country(I know, it is a shame Maggs. SWWBO knows what I'm talking about though.). The demonization of the RCC for standing behind the theology for no contraception? Aye carrumba that causes problems both within and without the Church because people put politics into their religion. You can't say, with a straight face, that there aren't perniciuos effects of suffesing a political strain into a sectarian body.
Again, yes, she's an idiot and strikes me as a bigot. She's got two good points you can't toss simply because she decided to be a crap head on the other three. Third time, she's an idiot but even idiots sometimes have a good point buried in the BS.
(Ahhhh, annonymity makes being part of the Castle Contrarian Corps fun again, Armorer).
If the church had more power in government, there would be no ten commandments removed from court houses. If the government had more power in churches, there would be no Westboro Baptist or "liberal unitarian". there would be only churches that had a US flag and said the pledge of allegiance. Thus, my main point, her entire article is overblown, not just the "killer America" BS.
PS...I have a car that I bought that had a KU sticker in the window. I didn't go there. Imagine if everyone used a similar anecdote about people with KU stickers on the window: students are terrorizing the city. LOL
Hyper-ventilation
Let's not try to pretend the Left is interested in helping America turn her negatives into positives.
Church as gov't house saw religious bigotry, at times, run the show. School?
Which is why both the government and the church got a good deal. They left each other alone.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that lack of religion leads to much of anything.
It leads to a vacuum, which is enough.
Where's the civic mindedness from church going there? Government and society handles that.
But she's got a good point. Only if she uses it against herself.