http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/22/a_time_for_heresy.php
[excerpt]
A Time for Heresy
Bill Moyers
March 22, 2006
Bill Moyers is President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy.
This is the prepared text of his remarks delivered on March 14 upon the
establishment by Marilyn and James Dunn, of the Wake Forest Divinity
School, of a scholarship in religious freedom in the name of Judith and
Bill Moyers.
When Dean Bill Leonard asked James Dunn to join him here at Wake Forest’s
new Divinity School, my soul shouted “Yes!” These two men personify the
honesty and courage we need to meet the challenge of faith in the
fundamentalist dispensation of the 21st century as radical interpretations
of both Islam and Christianity seek, in the words of C.Welton Gaddy of the
Interfaith Alliance, “to take over the government and use cause structures
to advance the ideology, hierarchy, and laws” of their movement.
James Dunn and Bill Leonard are Baptists. What kind of Baptist matters. At
last count there were more than two dozen varieties of Baptists in America.
Bill Clinton is a Baptist. So is Pat Robertson. Jesse Jackson is a Baptist.
So is Jesse Helms. Al Gore is a Baptist. So is Jerry Falwell. No wonder
Baptists have been compared to jalapeno peppers: one or two make for a
tasty dish, but a whole bunch together will bring tears to your eyes.
Many Baptists are fundamentalists; they believe in the absolute inerrancy
of the Bible and the divine right of preachers to tell you what it means.
They also believe in the separation of church and state only if they cannot
control both. The only way to cooperate with fundamentalists, it has been
said, is to obey them. James Dunn and Bill Leonard are not that kind of
Baptist. They trace their spiritual heritage to forbearers who were
considered heretics for standing up to ecclesiastical and state power on
matters of conscience. One of them was Thomas Helwys, who, when Roman
Catholics were being persecuted by the British crown, dared to defend the
Catholics. Helwys went to jail, and died there, for telling the king of
England, King James – yes, of the King James Bible – that “Our Lord the
King has no more power over their [Catholic] conscience than ours, and that
is none at all.”
Baptists helped to turn that conviction into America’s great contribution
to political science and practical politics – the independence of church
and state. Baptists in colonial America flocked to Washington’s army to
fight in the Revolutionary War because they wanted to be free from
sanctioned religion. When the war was won they refused to support a new
Constitution unless it contained a Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom
of religion and freedom from religion. No religion was to become the
official religion; you couldn’t be taxed to pay for my exercise of faith.
This was heresy because, while many of the first settlers in America had
fled Europe to escape religious persecution at the hands of the majority,
once here they made their faith the established religion that denied
freedom to others. Early Baptists considered this to be tyranny. Said John
Leland: “All people ought to be at liberty to serve God in a way that each
can best reconcile to their own consciences.”
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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