August 2, 2011

Maybe not so smart

Those religious right dominionists in the Republican party, including Rick Perry, Sarah Pain, Michelle Bachmann and even Mick Huckabee would do well to harken back to the experience of our second President. Advocating for a “Christian Nation” may provide short term popularity, but over the long run it is not real smart. 

“It was connected with the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which I had no concern in. That assembly has allarmed and alienated Quakers, Anabaptists, Mennonists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Catholicks, protestant Episcopalians, Arians, Socinians, Armenians, &c, &c, &c, Atheists and Deists might be added. A general Suspicion prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment as a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The secret whispers ran through them [all the sects] “Let us have Jefferson, Madison, Burr, any body, whether they be Philosophers, Deists, or even Atheists, rather than a Presbyterian President.” This principle is at the bottom of the unpopularity of national Fasts and Thanksgiving. Nothing is more dreaded than the National Government meddling with Religion. This wild Letter, I very much fear, contains seeds of an Ecclesiastical History of the U.S. for a Century to come.”


Read the full meal deal HERE
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1 Comments:

Old Weird Libra said...

A very interesting related article. Even some church people want to steer clear of the AFA and plan to go to Houston to protest it.