Are you going to address my points, or ignore them and attempt to change the subject?

Ezekiel 6:8-11: “But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations. 9Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. 10And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them.
11“‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Strike your hands together and stamp your feet and cry out “Alas!” because of all the wicked and detestable practices of the house of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine and plague.”

As for the poor and service to mankind:

Is 3:14,15: “The LORD enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
15 What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”

I bring these things to your attention Hareidi, not to condemn the Jewish people across the board as you do Christians, but to point out the fact that ANY people who ignore God, as the Jews have done in the past, will suffer serious consequences.

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Thanks for your post. You offer a different and valuable perspective on this debate about America’s Christian heritage. Jon and I differ on that of course. Foundational to my concern is the overall direction in which our nation seems to be heading. The current candidates for President signify two different directions. McCain, in many ways, would confirm our heritage. Obama, though claiming to be Christian, would lead us further down the road to abandonment. Choices have consequences.

I used Old Testament Israel as an example of bad choices and bad consequences related to the same choices that confront America today. Will we keep faith with the God of our heritage or will we continue down the road the road of abandonment? Old Testament Israel is a valid example of God’s chastisement of His people when they abandon Him. The prophets speak constantly of that abandonment, even likening Old Testament Israel’s behavior to that of an adulterous wife.

When you speak of covenants, you must keep in mind the difference between conditional and unconditional covenants. God’s covenant with Abraham was unconditional. Therefore, I agree with you. He has not abandoned His covenantal promises to Abraham, even though Israel has an opposite, roller coaster history of spiritual adultery.

The Diaspora and thousands of years of Jewish persecution that you mention are seen by most Christians as evidence of the God’s chastisement upon an unfaithful Israel. The fact that some Christians have been among the gentile persecutors is deplorable and indefensible. It is a wretched stain upon the history of Christianity. However, I would argue with you as to the degree of guilt shared by the American nation in that regard. American Jews have found more freedom, prosperity, and acceptance here than in any other nation on earth, save modern Israel itself. And that freedom has been based on the Judeo Christian principles embodied in our Constitution. America was also a vital factor in ending Israel’s Holocaust persecution, her rebirth as a nation state in 1948, and her subsequent survival. Do not be so quick to include us in your “EVERY” list of persecutors.

As to Israel’s current prosperity, it is undeniable in many respects. Israel has blossomed like a rose, yet a fragile one in a sea of predators. Is this due to Israel’s faithfulness to God or to His faithfulness to the unconditional promises He made to Abraham? How will this turn out? Things are often hanging on a thread over there and that question cannot be answered with much specificity at this point. Paul gives an answer in Romans 11 and I’m sure you will find that debatable, but I think that is off the subject of this thread.

In the meantime, we can all be thankful for the blessings God has showered upon this country. We must not throw it all away!

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You are wrong when you say that, “…there is nothing distinctively Christian about RI from the beginning.”

Their original charter of 1683, continued to be their Constitution until 1843. It said, in part:

”The object of the colonists is to pursue, with peace and loyal minds, their sober, serious, and religious intentions of godly edifying themselves and one another in the holy Christian faith and worship, together with the gaining over and conversion of the poor ignorant Indian natives to the to the sincere profession and obedience of the same faith and worship.”

There is just no way that you can get around the predominant role that Christianity has played in the foundation of this nation. It is so strong that referring to America as a “Christian nation” in our early years is absolutely correct. Unfortunately, this is part of our heritage that we have lost over the years. We can no longer call ourselves a Christian nation. Undoubtedly, this makes many people happy as they seek to distance us even further from that heritage. I see you as part of that group.

One of the valid concerns of today’s Christian community is the example of Old Testament Israel. They started with a wonderful heritage and a wonderful God, which they also abandoned. The results were disastrous for them. We see many parallels in America today, accompanied by similar and growing elements of social and cultural disintegration. The warnings are everywhere around us. If these trends are not reversed, we will suffer a similar fate geared to the horrible realities of our age.

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The labels USA (which I did not use) or British colonies are not pertinent to my point. Those are political distinctions that can change in a single day while the people remain the same. I am talking about the people and their religious beliefs which were distinctly Christian both before and after the war for independence. A Christian patriot in the colonies of 1770 did not become important to our history only on July 4th, 1776, when the independence he worked for and finally brought about became something officially recognized. For all your supposed academic sophistication, I am surprised you would advance the notion that the period before 1776 was “irrelevant” or even debatable.

It was the Christian beliefs of these patriots that brought the political change and the blessings that followed. You are wrong to ignore the Christian faith of those people who gave us the Mayflower Compact, the Christian character of MA, CT, RI, et al, the Christian character of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.

By the way, Harvard began in 1630 as a distinctly Christian school, long before the Unitarian takeover (170 years later) that you mentioned. From a Christian perspective, Harvard has been going downhill ever since. Unfortunately, they have been an increasingly anti-Christian influence throughout this last century.

Although your points about the Unitarians are relevant, your introduction of Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses into this debate is out of touch with reality, which you should know. They had absolutely nothing to do with the founding of our country. The Mormons did not come on the scene until the 1830’s and the JW’s in the 1870’s.

You seek to detract from our Christian heritage by the point that some (probably less than 10%) of our founders were Unitarians and hence not orthodox Christians. I’ll grant you that, but that in no way reduces the importance of the much higher percentage of orthodox Christians. Nor does it reduce the impact on our heritage of the correct Biblical beliefs of those who were Unitarians. For example, much of Jefferson’s important influence came straight out of the Bible. Both John Adams and J.Q. Adams were devout men of the Bible and incorporated that into their politics. They got it right on many, many things. I, as an orthodox Christian, applaud them and stand with them on that—and I consider that part of our Christian heritage. I would have voted for them, just as I would today vote for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama.

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“All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarian,” the daughter of Lyman wrote in retrospect; “all the trustees and professors of Harvard College were Unitarian; all the elite of wealth and fashion crowded Unitarian churches; the judges on the bench were Unitarian.” (The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher, II, 82; rpt. in Ahlstrom and Carey, 19.)

In the 18th Century Harvard, like Yale, William & Mary and other places, was a hotbed of “infidelity.” Harvard officially became unitarian in 1805-06.

It relates to the notion that America can’t be a “Christian Nation” because you have to first define it and that’s something about which we disagree. The Unitarians insisted they were “real Christians,” but the orthodox tended to say, (as they oft-do with Mormons today) you aren’t Christians, you are “Unitarians.”

Unitarians were part of the Standing Order of Established Congregational Churches in Mass. — the last state to disestablish in 1833. And this occurred because the orthodox thought that infidel Unitarians were getting state establishment aid under the auspices of being a “Christian” Church unacceptable; it was a poison pill.

I’ve found an astonishing # of key Founders to be either unitarian or likely unitarian and their unitarian faith inspired their Founding actions and policies [Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, G. Morris, Marshall, Story and others]. If this — the unitarian heresies — notions that reject original sin, the trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, eternal damnation, the infallibility of the Bible, and Jesus as the only way to God — have a proper place in America’s “Christian Heritage,” then I don’t think we have anything over which to argue.

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2) Re your “basic Christianity” or “broad Christianity” — “Protestantism” in some broad or formal sense — I’ll grant you thank. However, ON THESE THREADS especially (one reason why I come to these threads) that does not a “real Christian” make. The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Barack Obama (who denies that there is just one way to God) are all “Christians” in this broad sense. One problem I’ve found with this notion of “Christianity generally” is we can’t agree on how to define it. But evangelicals tend to be especially insistent that it defines as “orthodox Trinitarian,” hence the Mormons aren’t Christians, the JW’s aren’t Christians, even if they call themselves such. And btw, I’m not an expert on the Civil War but I know Unitarians played a tremendous role in the heritage of abolition.

And if it does indeed define as “orthodox Trinitarian” and purely “biblical” then indeed, America was not Founded as a Christian Nation and the key Founders were not “Christians.”

So ultimately what we are left with is a public heritage of formal, nominal “broad way” Christianity that includes you evangelicals, along with Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other deniers of the Trinity and “Christians” in name only like the kind who think it would be just fine to perform a same sex wedding in their Churches. If that’s “Christianity” I don’t think we disagree over its public heritage in America.

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Jon (#241): ” I do not see much of what occured before 1776 as relevant…”

Mike: I disagree because when I speak of America’s Christian heritage I am referring to the totality of America’s Christian experience that was first brought to this continent by its principal founders. The fact that the war for independence repudiated the idea of the Divine Right of Kings does not mean that the Christianity of America’s principal settlers before 1776 can be disregarded. On the contrary, it is very important. They were the foundation from which that war eventually erupted. Even though the earliest settlers supported their English king and his supposed divine right, their departure from England was the later war in nascent form. They found the religious climate of England under its kings repressive. So they left without actually being pushed to the extent that they were then willing to break the political bonds. That would come later. When repression followed them, their descendents of the war period brought to fruition the seeds that their parents had planted in the 1600’s. Then the total repudiation of the Divine Right of Kings became a full-blown and Biblically correct fact.

Their understanding of Christianity had matured beyond that of their parents in the 1600’s. I doubt that there is a Christian today who would support the Divine Right of Kings as practiced by the English of those periods. The European concept of the Divine Right of Kings was a convenient, aristocratic, human corruption of earlier Biblical practices that were applicable to Old Testament patriarchal days only. But having grown up under that yoke, it was not easy for the American settlers of the 1600’s to see that (although they certainly felt it). However, their children of 1776 had grown into a better Biblical understanding than their parents.

So, contrary to your view, the period before 1776 cannot be brushed aside as unimportant to America’s Christian heritage. It was very much a part of that developing heritage.

Jon (#242):”…there are numerous mistatements of facts and distortions in 240…”

Mike: I disagree. In your next post (#244) you have shown no misstatement of fact—no misquotes, no wrong dates, etc. What you do show in #244 is your personal point of view that you try to present as the truth in order to label mine as a distortion.

Jon (#244): ”Some of those states’ laws profoundly differed on religion, and you presented all together as supporting your “Christian Heritage” position.”

Mike: You persist in your misunderstanding and misstatement of my definition of Christian heritage as if it is the same as yours. In the first paragraph of #240 I said this:
”Step back from the trees and see the forest. In the academic world you often get so immersed in the minutia that you become blind to the larger picture. It is not so difficult to see the Christian heritage of this country if you look at what its people have produced—the evidence of their passing. The details of each individual life may be lost to us, but not what they have done.”

I speak of a much larger picture than you and the evidence of what all the Christians of this country have left as our heritage. In contrast, you seem to be speaking of Christian heritage as if it were some kind of formal, monolithic, theistic state, run exclusively by a narrow band of Christian autocrats. See my discussion of the Divine Right of Kings (above) and the development of Christian thought on that subject. When you concentrate on the minutia of the lives of a few specially selected founders and ignore all the rest, you are the one who presents the distorted picture, not me.

Jon (#244): ”The states were a mixed bag.” I agree, but the mixture was Christian at its base. Their differences were a mixture akin to denominational differences today, plus a different mixture of how their Christianity was to be expressed in political terms. Such differences reached their extreme in our Civil War, as you have noted. None would doubt the Christianity of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Joshua Chamberlain, or Harriet Beecher Stowe. Yet these four, and many other Christians of equally sincere faith, fought or supported differing sides in that war. Thankfully, the correct understanding of Christianity (on the subject of slavery) eventually prevailed politically, just as it did before with the Divine Right of Kings. However, there are still differences on the subject of “States Rights” that remain to this day.

But despite these temporary differences, the fact remains that basic Christianity was the major influence that gave us our independence from England, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, the abolition of slavery, our economic freedom and its attendant physical prosperity. That is not to say that non-Christians haven’t made significant contributions in each of these areas. They most certainly have, but the single most identifiable and significant force, by far, has been Christianity. So, we Christians have differences, but we adhere to a basic faith that has transformed the entire world and through which the sovereign God has brought us the gift of America.

We must not forget our Christian heritage because it correctly identifies the source of our success as a nation. The road to where we are today has had its bumps along the way, but we must not veer off course. Remembering the correct history of our heritage will help keep us on track and correct us when we err.

”Those who honor Me I will honor, but those who despise Me will be disdained.” (2 Sam 2:30)

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