Reposted from My Substack
MAGA: What we’re seeing is an awakening in this country, a return to Godly principles, Godly morality, we have no more tolerance, tolerance is not a virtue in the Bible at all. Tolerance means to turn a blind eye to the convictions you once held. And that is going to be gone. We’re not going to be tolerant of sin, we’re not going to be tolerant of the woke agenda, and Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States, that’s very clear.
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus echoed several of the 10 Commandments.
And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
— Matthew 19:16–19
In his letter to the Epistles, Paul the Apostle also wrote about the Commandments.
Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
— Romans 13:8–10 KJV
In John Chapter 8 the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had committed adultery.
3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them,4 they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"11 She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."
Tolerance and forgiveness are absolutely a virtue in the Bible. So why exactly is this so-called Christian so intolerant and unwilling to forgive?
Q: If he were to lose again what would that mean for the country?
MAGA: He will not lose.
Q: What does a woke agenda mean to you?
MAGA: Our country has taken a radical shift towards the acceptance of really child mutilation, what’s going on with the transgender thing,
Transgender surgical procedures are generally not performed on children.
The ultimate step in gender-affirming medical treatment is surgery, which is uncommon in patients under age 18. Some children’s hospitals and gender clinics don’t offer surgery to minors, requiring that they be adults before deciding on procedures that are irreversible and carry a heightened risk of complications.
Only in extreme circumstances to protect them from suicide is surgery recommended for patients under 17.
Investigators said that previous data showed gender-affirming hormones (GAH), puberty blockers (PBs), and gender-affirming surgeries have been found to be independently associated with reduced depression, anxiety and additional adverse mental health outcomes.
Puberty blockers administered during puberty can actually reduce suicide risk in this population. A decreased lifetime incidence of suicidal ideation was also found among adults who received access to puberty blockers during adolescence.
[…]
With an adjustment for temporal trends and potential cofounders, individuals were 60% less likely to experience depression (aOR, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.17-0.95) and 73% less likely to experience suicidality (aOR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.11-0.65) when compared to youths who did not received gender-affirming interventions.
So would we prefer these children receive the care they need, or should we let them kill themselves?
The MAGA continues.
MAGA: Even in our school that we have in our town there are two girl who identify as horses, and our principles and teachers, they just turn a blind eye and accept it, and so you have to accept them.
Q: What town is that? Where is that school?
MAGA: That’s in, Iowa City.
I’m not sure what to say about that, if it’s true. But exactly what is he suggesting when he says you shouldn’t “accept them?”
Should they be shunned? Punished? Held underwater until they say “Uncle?”
MAGA: So it’s it’s it’s terrible what’s happening in this country, evangelicals feel this should be a Christian nation. And that’s why we have evangelists and pastors and teachers and healers, like like myself.
I’m a missionary and an evangelist. Okay? I pastor a ministry called Alpha Ministries, and we’re doing everything we can to see that America turns back to God, that America has another great awakening like it did in ancient times past, and that this, this nation becomes a Christian nation again.
Exactly when were those “Ancient times past?” When is he talking about?
MAGA: We want Christian elected officials. We don’t believe in the separation of church and state to such a radical degree that we become a Marxist state. Separation of Church and State was never supposed to be confused with what we see now. Many of these people on the Democrat side are more Marxist than anything else. The doctrine of Karl Marx right?
Marxism is an economic theory that describes the capitalist system of production as inherently unfair to the workers, who represent most of the population. First off, that’s true and secondly, it has nothing to do with religion. Although admittedly, Marx wasn’t a fan of Christ.
MAGA: In his communist manifesto is the abolition of Christian morals, values and church. Completely do away with it and that’s what happening here in this country. We’re done with it. America is done with it, the MAGA base is done with it.
No, it’s not. People can worship how they please — what they can’t do is make other people worship the way they like, and they can’t try to implement their religious morals onto other people who aren’t part of that religion. This guy isn’t talking about Christian freedom - he’s talking about Christian Supremacy. Where Christians make the rules and everyone else has to submit to them.
Most Americans do not support this idea. 73% of us believe that Religion should be kept separate from government policies according to Pew Research.
That includes White, Black, Latino and Asian Americans. That’s how 84% of Democrats feel and 61% of Republicans. Only 25% of the public, including just 38% of Republicans, feel that Government policies should support religious values. Why exactly should America be forced to do something that is only supported by 25% of the public?
The only people who really like this idea are White Evangelicals — and even with them it only gets 49%. It’s only a 50/50 proposition even for them.
Q: Who on the other side is talking about abolishing Christian ideals or breaking down the Christian church. You must be thinking of some people as you describe…
MAGA: People like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar whose supposedly a Muslim all she does in favor of Democratic legislature [sic] that is antithetical to biblical values. You have individuals like them who are definitely opposed and have an agenda to destroy Christian freedom, liberty, and the Church.
Bernie Sanders is Jewish, Ilhan Omar is indeed Muslim but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is Catholic as is her father, her mother is an Evangelical Christian. I doubt this guy could name a single piece of legislation by any of them that “Destroys Christian Freedom.”
MAGA: And they’re doing that. And they do it through the Church of Satan which is the public school system. First Timothy talks about false teachers teaching doctrines of demons. God Christed Male and Female, male and female, we don’t have 100 gendersin this country. There’s only two genders. Period. Any biologist could tell you that.
No, they won’t.
There are in fact, more than two options for chromosomal pairings. There’s XX and XY certainly, but there’s also XO, XXX, XXY, XYY and XXYY That’s what science says.
Sex chromosome aneuploidies comprise a relatively common group of chromosome disorders characterized by the loss or gain of one or more sex chromosomes. We discuss five of the better-known sex aneuploidies: Turner syndrome (XO), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), trisomy X (XXX), XYY, and XXYY. Despite their prevalence in the general population, these disorders are underdiagnosed and the specific genetic mechanisms underlying their phenotypes are poorly understood.
Also, biologists don’t agree that there are only “two genders” and that even a person with an XX chromosome could be gender assigned as male due to hormone saturation during development according to the National Institute of Health.
Research investigating the role that hormones and genetics contribute towards guiding sexual differentiation and behavior in rodents has been extensively reviewed elsewhere (Arnold 2009; Ngun et al. 2011). Strong evidence from such studies suggests that testosterone, either directly or indirectly, is responsible for organizing male-typical features, including gender role behavior, sexual orientation and perhaps gender identity.
[…]
In addition to sexual orientation, gender identity (one’s internal sense of being male or female, independent of gonadal sex) has also been a topic of investigation in cases of DSD. Among the compiled studies that have focused on 46, XX CAH and gender identity, it was found that the vast majority, (95%) of patients who were assigned to the female gender were satisfied and non-dysphoric in adulthood (Dessens et al. 2005). However 5% of CAH females exhibited gender dysphoria and/or identified as the male gender as reviewed by Dessens and others (Dessens et al. 2005). This 5% of dysphoria in CAH females is far above the estimated average of 0.3% of adults who identify as transgender within western societies, specifically the U.S. (Gates 2011). In instances where 46, XX CAH were assigned to the male gender at birth, a small sampled study showed that 12% of cases experienced gender dysphoria and associated themselves with the female gender (Dessens et al. 2005). However, later studies assessing outcomes in severely virilized 46, XX cases who were assigned as males at birth drew different conclusions about satisfaction of male-gender assignment and identity (Lee et al. 2010).
And there is some biblical confirmation of this.
Matthew 19:12 "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
What is a man who is born a eunuch? Would that be a person who isn’t naturally attracted to women? Would that be someone gay? Would that be someone who isn’t — internally — a man at all? And that was Jesus, your savior, speaking. He may not have known or understood the science, but he did know that some people are born different.
MAGA: We’re done with it we’re fed up with the nonsense. We’re tired of having these agenda shoved down our throats and being forced to accept them when they are completely antithetical to biblical values and principles.
The problem with his entire rant is that the first settlers came to America to escape religious persecution and conformity by Christians in Europe, including the Quakers and Puritans [although they persecuted others for religious reasons too].
The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations.
This is why the First Amendment includes protection from Religion as well as a prohibition against the establishment of religion.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Under Article VI the Constitution specifies that no religious test will be required to hold office.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
This clause was the cause of a great deal of debate among the Founders.
James Madison, among others, defended the ban on religious tests, arguing that the oath to support the Constitution required in Article VI served essentially the same function as a religious test—presumably the oath was being taken before God. Francis Cummins agreed that any oath implied some sort of religious test and, in a speech before the South Carolina ratifying Convention, suggested an amendment to Article VI so that it would read “no other religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust.” Cummins’ amendment became one of South Carolina’s recommendatory amendments but was never acted on by congress. Other supporters of the Article VI ban argued that religious tests only disqualified the conscientious; unscrupulous characters would not hesitate to take any oath necessary to secure power. North Carolina Governor Samuel Johnston readily acknowledged that the lack of a religious test might someday lead to a non-Christian becoming president or holding high office, but this would be the choice of the people themselves and should be respected.
People like to claim that the Founders were all Evangelics but they were not, many of them were actually Deists.
Pastors and other writers who identify themselves as Evangelicals have claimed not only that most of the Founders held orthodox beliefs but also that some were born-again Christians.
Whatever their beliefs, the Founders came from similar religious backgrounds. Most were Protestants. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America—Anglicanism (as in the cases of John Jay, George Washington, and Edward Rutledge), Presbyterianism (as in the cases of Richard Stockton and the Rev. John Witherspoon), and Congregationalism (as in the cases of John Adams and Samuel Adams). Other Protestant groups included the Society of Friends (Quakers), the Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed. Three Founders—Charles Carroll and Daniel Carroll of Maryland and Thomas Fitzsimmons of Pennsylvania—were of Roman Catholic heritage.
The sweeping disagreement over the religious faiths of the Founders arises from a question of discrepancy. Did their private beliefs differ from the orthodox teachings of their churches? On the surface, most Founders appear to have been orthodox (or “right-believing”) Christians. Most were baptized, listed on church rolls, married to practicing Christians, and frequent or at least sporadic attenders of services of Christian worship. In public statements, most invoked divine assistance.
But the widespread existence in 18th-century America of a school of religious thought called Deism complicates the actual beliefs of the Founders. Drawing from the scientific and philosophical work of such figures as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Isaac Newton, and John Locke, Deists argued that human experience and rationality—rather than religious dogma and mystery—determine the validity of human beliefs. In his widely read The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine, the principal American exponent of Deism, called Christianity “a fable.” Paine, the protégé of Benjamin Franklin, denied “that the Almighty ever did communicate anything to man, by…speech,…language, or…vision.” Postulating a distant deity whom he called “Nature’s God” (a term also used in the Declaration of Independence), Paine declared in a “profession of faith”:
Thus, Deism inevitably subverted orthodox Christianity. Persons influenced by the movement had little reason to read the Bible, to pray, to attend church, or to participate in such rites as baptism, Holy Communion, and the laying on of hands (confirmation) by bishops.
[…]
Although no examination of history can capture the inner faith of any person, these four indicators can help locate the Founders on the religious spectrum. Ethan Allen, for example, appears clearly to have been a non-Christian Deist. James Monroe, a close friend of Paine, remained officially an Episcopalian but may have stood closer to non-Christian Deism than to Christian Deism. Founders who fall into the category of Christian Deists include Washington (whose dedication to Christianity was clear in his own mind), John Adams, and, with some qualifications, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was more influenced by the reason-centred Enlightenment than either Adams or Washington. Orthodox Christians among the Founders include the staunchly Calvinistic Samuel Adams. John Jay (who served as president of the American Bible Society), Elias Boudinot (who wrote a book on the imminent Second Coming of Jesus), and Patrick Henry (who distributed religious tracts while riding circuit as a lawyer) clearly believed in Evangelical Christianity.
So Ethan Allen, John Adams, James Monroe, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were essentially Deists, as reportedly were Franklin and Madison, while Samuel Adams, John Jay, Elias Boudinot and Patrick Henry were Orthodox and Evangelicals.
The fact that many of them were from different faiths is a key factor in their intent not to establish a single supremacist religion as they had seen in Europe which ultimately led to the Spanish Inquisition where heretics were not “tolerated”, they were forced to convert and if they refused they were tortured and executed for their heresy.
The Spanish Inquisition was a judicial institution that lasted between 1478 and 1834. Its ostensible purpose was to combat heresy in Spain, but, in practice, it resulted in consolidating power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom. Its brutal methods led to widespread death and suffering.
The Roman Catholic Church had established inquisitions in the past. Taking their name from the Latin verb inquiro (“inquire into”), these commissions had authority to question supposed heretics about their religious practices and loyalties starting in the 13th century.
Anti-Semitic sentiment grew toward Spain’s substantial Jewish population. During the reign of Henry III of Castile and Leon (1390–1406), Jews faced increased persecution. Pogroms in 1391 were especially brutal, and the Jewish community faced the choice between baptism and death.
[…]
Many Jews were killed upon refusal to convert to Christianity. Those who adopted Christian beliefs, the conversos (Spanish for “converted”) still faced suspicion and prejudice. Marranos, Jews who had apparently converted but continued to practice their faith in secret, were considered a major threat to Spanish society.
[…]
The Inquisition was characterized by secret procedures, the use of torture during interrogation, and the complete lack of rights for the accused.
America was founded not to be like this. It was intended to be the opposite with the rights of due process and probable cause limiting the ability of the government to subjugate the populace.
In fact the Founders took specific steps to prevent the intrusion of religion within government.
This notion—that our country’s roots are explicitly Christian—is both foolish and wrong, for it devalues the Christian faith and disrespects the genius of the founding fathers. Christianity does not need to be endorsed by law or some fantasized re-interpretation of the Constitution in order to have meaning in people’s lives. Let’s face it. Will Christianity be seriously jeopardized if its followers learn that only one of the 56 founding fathers was a member of the clergy? Will their faith be dashed if they discover that James Madison objected to chaplains opening the proceedings of Congress with prayer? And more recently, will people ignore the Bible if the Ten Commandments aren’t posted in courtrooms or if the nativity scene in town squares shares space with a menorah? When people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” at Wal-Mart, are they attacking Jesus? For Christians secure in their faith, the answer to all these questions should be a resounding “no.”
The genius of the founding fathers is they understood that Christianity could not only stand on its own but would thrive without being written into the laws and founding documents of the country. In fact, it was likely their own “faith” that led them to this conclusion. Many of the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe—practiced a faith called Deism. Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. Deists believe in a supreme being who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws—and after creation, is absent from the world. This belief in reason over dogma helped guide the founders toward a system of government that respected faiths like Christianity, while purposely isolating both from encroaching on one another so as not to dilute the overall purpose and objectives of either.
If the founders were dogmatic about anything, it was the belief that a person’s faith should not be intruded upon by government and that religious doctrine should not be written into governance. James Madison, for instance, was vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill “establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,” Madison wrote his “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” in which he presented 15 reasons why government should not become involved in the support of any religion.
In his first term as president, Thomas Jefferson declared his firm belief in the separation of church and state in a letter to the Danbury, Conn. Baptists. He said: “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
Lastly, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli ratified in 1797 and signed by President John Adams - who again may have been a Deist [but was more known as a Unitarian] — makes the following statement.
“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, religious or tranquility of Musselmen, and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan 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.”
Frankly, it would be easier to do this by asking the Evangelicals to prove - using actual evidence - that America was ever a “Christian” in any way? “In God we Trust” is on our money and “God” is mentioned in the Pledge of Allegiance, but it wasn’t originally — it was added in the 1950s during the Red Scare of the Cold War.
On June 14, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill to insert the phrase “under God” into the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance that children recited every morning in school. Previously, the pledge—originally written in 1892—had contained no reference to religion.
The push to add “under God” to the pledge gained momentum during the second Red Scare, a period when U.S. politicians were keen to assert the moral superiority of U.S. capitalism over Soviet communism, which many conservatives regarded as “godless.”
“God” is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and many state Constitutions, but not in the U.S. Constitution. “Jesus” is never mentioned anywhere, nor is Christianity.
And there’s a reason why.
Because so many people have not read the Constitution, they may be surprised to learn the word “God” is not used in the US Constitution. Unlike the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution contains no reference to God. At first, this may seem odd. But is not odd if one considers the different purposes of the two documents.
The Declaration was about explaining to the world why America was rebelling. The Declaration calls upon a non-sectarian concept of divinity to support rights set forth as unalienable, with liberty as inviolable. The phrase “laws of nature and of nature’s god” is associated with eighteenth century deism, a “rather vague Enlightenment-era belief . . . in a Creator whose divine handiwork was evident in the wonders of nature” but not “a personal God who interceded directly in the daily affairs of mankind.
[…]
The Constitution outlines a republican government in a free country. The Preamble to the Constitution declares that its purposes are “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.” These are wholly secular objects. A religious reference is therefore extraneous in a document drafted to further those goals.
The absence of references to “God” in the Constitution is consistent with the strict religious neutrality of the entire document. There is no state religion and Article VI of the Constitution provides that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The First Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1791, provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
As creatures of the Enlightenment, the writers of the Constitution were keenly aware of the threat to the principle of universal freedom of religion. Indeed, shortly before the Constitution was proposed and ratified, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison squared off against Patrick Henry and his bill for “Establishing A Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion” for Virginia in the mid-1780s. Jefferson and Madison won the day, and the Virginia legislature did not enact Henry’s bill. Thus, when Madison drafted the Constitution he left out the term “God” since he wanted no part of religious intolerance and bloodshed, and established the first government in history to separate church and state.
Jefferson and Madison the Deists, won the argument over Patrick Henry, the Evangelical.
America is not and never has been a Christian nation for very good reasons. It never will be a Christian nation. We are not a religious state, we are a state of many religions and no religion — where people can worship or not as they wish. Where people can live who they wish and love who they wish. If they want to identify as being a horse — that’s their choice.
That’s the definition of “Freedom.”
But that’s not what the MAGA Evangelicals choose to believe.
And not much of what they believe makes sense.
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