Christian Foundations

These are quotes that I wrote down some years ago they are still important today. There's lots more like these if your read the founders.

Patrick Henry: It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. (Patrick Henry played an important role in the War for Independence and was a leading Anti-federalist in the debate over the Constitution)

Noah Webster: In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. (Webster took part in the public debates over the Constitution. He was a Federalist)

Noah Webster: The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence... This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free Constitutions of Government.

Noah Webster: When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, "just men who will rule in the fear of God." The preservation of government depends on the faithful discharge of this Duty; if the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.

Alexis de Tocqueville makes this observation of early American culture in his monumental work Democracy in America: "So Christianity reigns without obstacles, by universal consent; consequently, everything in the moral field is certain and fixed."

Tocqueville: ...Christianity has kept a strong hold over the minds of Americans ...Christianity is itself an established and irresistible fact which no one seeks to attack or to defend. (Democracy In America )

Alexis de Tocqueville: For the Americans the idea of Christianity and liberty are so completely mingled that it is almost impossible to get them to conceive of one without the other; it is not a question with them of sterile beliefs bequeathed by the past and vegetating rather than living in the depths of the soul. (Democracy in America)

Alexis de Tocqueville: I do not know if all Americans have faith in their religion- for who can read the secrets of the heart? - but I am sure that they think it necessary to the maintenance of republican institutions. That is not the view of one class or party among the citizens, put of the whole nation; it is found in all ranks. (Democracy in America)

Father Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009)

I received my latest copy of First Things this week and I was greatly saddened to learn of the passing of its founder and editor Father Richard John Neuhaus. Father Neuhaus was a man who made major shifts and grew with the times.

Richard Neuhaus, the son of a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod pastor, first entered Christian ministry as a Lutheran Pastor but in 1990 he converted to the Roman Catholic Church and was ordained a priest in 1991.

On theological issues, I had to disagree with Father Neuhaus' views from time to time, but I have great respect for him as a Christian, and intellectual, and a teacher. Father Neuhaus was a man willing to take a stand for what he believed to be the right thing and make that stand in a godly way.

If you are interested in thinking seriously about the Christian faith and the world around us, you need to subscribe to the periodical he started, First Things, it is one of the best journals published in this country today.

I hope you will follow this link (EPPC) and read more about this great man of God.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

Abe Lincoln and the Birth of a Nation

The Founding Fathers of the United States, by writing and ratifying the Constitution, created a federal republic, made up of smaller republics (i.e. states). The federal republic, granted to Americans in the U.S. Constitution, was destroyed by Abe Lincoln and his war of aggression against Southern states, which had lawfully seceded from the federation created by the Constitution.

At the end of the "Civil War" the Southern states were grafted back into the United States, but the United States they returned to was not the one they had left. They seceded from a federation of sovereign states, but were forced back into a nation state that had not existed before. The War Between the States ended with the death of the Constitutionally created federation, and from its ashes arose the centralised national government that we know today.

I am a patriotic American. I have served my country in the U.S. Navy and the Louisiana Army National Guard. I would do so again if I were needed, but that does not change the facts.

I am not a fan of Abe. He was an enemy to the Constitution and thought nothing of trampling it under foot. He thought nothing of trampling on the constitutional rights of his political opponents in the North, and he sent massive armies into the sovereign states of the South, to slaughter the South's defenders and many of whom were the Constitution's defenders as well.

Deo Vindice,
Kenith

Ps. I wrote more on this subject HERE and HERE

The Pope and Sola Fide

There is an interesing article that is VERY interesting in Christian Today Australia. It is titled Luther, Rome and the Bible. According to the article (which can be read by clicking on the title) Pope Benedict XVI supposedly said that Luther was write in his reading of St. Paul's letter to the Romans and salvation by faith alone (i.e. Sola Fide).

Before discussing what the pope may have said, I think it is important to clarify that modern Evangelical understanding of "faith alone" is most often a far cry from what Luther, Calvin and other Reformers meant when they used the term.

I find it hard to believe that today's pope would so blatantly disagree with the Council of Trent which declared Luther's view to be heresy. Of course, according to Vatican I, Trent is an infallible statement and if the Pope said what he is accused of saying, he would directly contradict the official teaching of Rome for over 400 Year.

Of course I am one who believes Vatican II contradicts Trent, Vatican I and Unam Sanctum, all of which are without error (according to Vatican I). I hope to find more on this subject. It is interesting.

Coram Deo,
Kenith

Clement of Alexandria

Wow, what a great read. I finished Clement's Exhortation to the Heathen and it is a GREAT read. In the first part of the the good bishop examines the popular pagan religions of his day. He deals with Roman, Greek and Egyptian religion and finds that it is false and morally reprehensible.

Clement (c. 150 AD-C. 215AD) sheds light on paganism common to the Roman empire. He also delves into the history of pagan faiths and the immorality af paganism. Time and again, he addresses the fact that Roman Empire pagan's were OK with the "corrupting" of boys. Today, we would call that sort of "corrupting" by the name paedophilia. Yea, more than a few of those pagan men liked boys.

The second part of the book is evangelical. He is promoting the faith and seeking to convert his pagan neighbours to come to faith in Jesus Christ. This is a Church Father worth reading.

Coram Deo,
Kenith