Church as State
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/books/review/Wooldridge.t.html?ex=1160884800&en=753b25354cf054e9&ei=5070
[excerpt]
By ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE
Published: September 24, 2006
SO much for the power of prophecy. If the great prophets of the 19th and
early 20th centuries agreed on anything, whether they were utopians like
Marx or pessimists like Weber, it was that God was on his deathbed.
Religion was a fading force; society was secularizing; and theology, once
the queen of the sciences, was headed for irrelevance.
Six years into the 21st century, fanatics are strapping on suicide belts
and blowing themselves to smithereens in the name of God. The onward march
of religion is not confined to Islam or the left-out bits of the globe. In
much of the developing world, Christianity is doing a much better job of
harvesting souls than Islam. In the only remaining superpower, the United
States, hot religion is triumphing at the expense of cool religion (the
mainline has long since passed to the sideline); and the religious revival
is spreading from the masses to the intelligentsia.
“The Theocons” is a study of a group of Roman Catholic thinkers who, by
their own lights at least, have been at the heart of this intellectual
revival — Michael Novak, George Weigel, Robert P. George and, most
important of all, Richard John Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor who
converted to Catholicism in 1990. Damon Linker clearly wants to capitalize
on the infamy of the neocons — a groupuscule that is recognized and reviled
the world over — and he has half a point. The theocons come from a
different generation from Irving Kristol and company: they reached maturity
in the 1960’s rather than the 1950’s. But the parallels are striking.
[end excerpts]
***************************************************************
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]
***************************************************************
.. . . 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)
.. . .
****************************************************************
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.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
.
|
