Is it the end of the separation of church and state.

Democrats and Republicans have, for decades courted the religious vote, but not like what started this weekend in Christian Evangelical churches throughout the country. Senator Frist went overboard in his speech at one of the evangelical churches, rileing an already lathered-up group of members wanting to eliminate any judicial judges not in agreement with their views on Christianity.

I think it's time to force the Churches to get out of politics and back to preaching love, [not that they have a good history, doing that].
It's time for their tax-exemption to be forfieted if the politics continue. Nothing changes the direction of a church like the smell of money.

You can not have Bush, telling religious groups to back off now that he won the elections, that will be biting the hand that feeds you.

Also fundamentalist has already taken sits in our senate and in our government, you can not get them out.

They were quiet during Clinton sinful days in the white house, but with the reborn Christian self called president they are set to push the agenda that has been on hold for so long.

Is all about money and power under the "will of God"

People thinks that we have checks and balances working for us, well open your eyes fundamentalist are going to control everything in the government and they may already have, they are the majority after all.

Marge--it was over the top this week-end in the good old bible belt. But it's also spreading over the whole country.

Exactly, they are running out of time, fundamentalist are hungry for that power, and they are preaching left and right the key is.........are people believing them?

It's nothing more that they will like to do that to change the entire constitution on their advantage

Occurs I am exaggerating here, but I guess this is their change to get away with what they want.

They are not many but their are loud and they have money to push as hard as they can using the media and their fancy churches.

There is a good article on the Domionionist or Christian Reconstructionist movement here.

Yes, they are slowly taking over the country, though it might happen a bit faster if DeLay manages to succeed in his pogrom against the court. This movement has been gaining strength for a while, and they have powerful allies in Congress and the White House now.

Here's a sample of what we're in for once they take over:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical "warfare" is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, "sodomy or homosexuality," incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, "unchastity before marriage."

According to Gary North, women who have abortions should be publicly executed, "along with those who advised them to abort their children." Rushdoony concludes: "God's government prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them." Reconstructionists insist that "the death penalty is the maximum, not necessarily the mandatory penalty." However, such judgments may depend less on Biblical Principles than on which faction gains power in the theocratic republic. The potential for bloodthirsty episodes on the order of the Salem witchcraft trials or the Spanish Inquisition is inadvertently revealed by Reconstructionist theologian Rev. Ray Sutton, who claims that the Reconstructed Biblical theocracies would be "happy" places, to which people would flock because "capital punishment is one of the best evangelistic tools of a society."

The Biblically approved methods of execution include burning (at the stake for example), stoning, hanging, and "the sword." Gary North, the self-described economist of Reconstructionism, prefers stoning because, among other things, stones are cheap, plentiful, and convenient. Punishments for non-capital crimes generally involve whipping, restitution in the form of indentured servitude, or slavery. Prisons would likely be only temporary holding tanks, prior to imposition of the actual sentence.

I'm sure this sounds good to a lot of our own fascist types in here.
These people are closer than ever to seizing control of the country, IMHO by the time most Americans realize what's happening, it will be too late.

The scary thing is how much of this is being done right out in the open, no secret conspiracies here, they are the dominant power in the loony fringe right, and they are in the process of taking over enen as I write this.

[edit on 26-4-2005 by xmotex]

Well I have been reading on the Reconstructionist, they are a scary bunch but what people doesn't realized is that many of them are their own political candidates.

See, Americans are as diversify as they can be, most Americans has spirit and they are just dormant but when the times comes and their rights are scrutinized they will rise and fight back.

I have not lost my faith on my fellow Americans yet, they may be mellow but they are not ignorant.

xmotex--thanks for the link, everyone should read it. It wants to take us back to the 14th and 15th century. These peole should go right to hell and anyone that follows their teaching--if there is such a thing. We need a national debate on this lunacy before too many people buy into it not knowing their supposed Jesus would never have gone along with any of it, if what they say about him is true.

Interesting, I read that you tell me that the "Churches" are to get out of politics, by which I can only assume that you mean that the Christians should stay in church and not meddle in the likes of the state of our union. I would like to know why you think that I have no business in the affairs of this nation.

You use the term, "separation of church and state"; a term you will find nowhere in either the constitution, the Bill of Rights, or even in the Articles of Confederation, and certainly not in the Declaration of Independence.

A study of the creation of this Republic will prove to you that Christianity is the faith of this nation, and was intended to be the faith from the very beginning. The first amendment to the constitution was meant to insure the federal government would NOT selsect one sect (denomination of todays venacular) to be the official Christian preference of worship. This did not mean that the individual stated could not prefer one sect over another, as witnessed by history. This ability drove the creation of other states, so that people could worship the Christian God as they saw proper and correct.

History clearly reveals that we, the Christians, the forgers of this nation, were not meant to sit in churchand allow the non-Christians to be the ones to dictate the progression of this nation.

I am very sure that there are many who wish that their Christian countrymen go back to sleep and allow them to dictate policy as they might choose, but the historical fact is, you have no right to demand that this be the case.

I further suggest that the Christian countrymen of this nation do not look for power, but are hungry for the good and morally courageous nation that America once was. True, there are power-hungry people, bent on perverting this nation from what it was intended to be, but we, the Christian majority, are not those people.

The phrase "separation of church and state" comes from a letter written by Jefferson to a group of Baptists who felt their religious liberties were under threat by a state (Christian) church in Connecticut.

The full quote follows:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

And regardless of how you may choose to see the situation, the simple fact is that most Americans, even most American Christians, do not want to see their country turned into a theocratic state, like some Christian version of Iran, which is exactly what the extreme religious right is seeking.

It is the fundamentalists who want to force their ways on everyone else by power of law, not the other way around. Sadly, to the warped fundamentalist mindset, being thwarted from forcing their views on society at large constitutes "repression" of their religion.

It's funny, when you guys take power, which variant of Christianity gets to be the official state religion? Catholicism? I doubt it, they'll be liquidated along with the other apostates. Baptism - a variant of Christianity that shuns doctrine and religious authority in favor of the individuals direct relationship with God? Sounds subversive to me... My brother and his family are Dutch Reformed, they're not nearly fundie enough, they get reeducation or stoning too...

It is worth noting, that while most of the founders were Christian, they came from many different denominations. That is one primary reason for the "wall of separation" which Jefferson spoke of and enshrined in the constitution: preventing the nation from establishing a state religion which forced one particular branch of Christiany on the populace.

There has never been a time when this nation was a "theocracy", nor do Christians want it to be a theocracy, as you have said.

I takes one who is truly more paranoid and more a conspiracy theorist than I, to suggest that there is any desire of any "fundamentalist" (of which I am one, because I believe the words of the Bible and refuse to accept some watered-down concept non-believers would want me to embrae) to turn this country into a theocratic nation.

I am well aware of the letter Jefferson sent to the members of the Danbury Baptist church; a response to a congratulatory letter for winning presidency. It is ironic to note that Jefferson, after sending that letter, was in attendance more often than not, the Sunday worship services held in the House of Representatives, for the rest of his presidency.

You suggest that when "we" take power, we will assert that one sect will be the federal government's official religion. Your assertion is nothing more than your own paranoia, founded by nothing more than your fear of the morality that the founding fathers expected would anchor this nation.

xmotex

Exactly, one difference between Christan American majority and fundamentalist radical minority is that they don't care about the first one, their religious radical views are the right ones and the heck with what other religious group think about.

Is their way or not way, and that include taking away the rights of any body that do not worship God or Jesus by their standards, by their laws and by their rules.

The only way our nation can turn into a fundamentalist theocracy is if done by force.

Even conservative christian Americans knows that is danger going on in our government with some of this fundamentalist politicians.

when you guys take power, which variant of Christianity gets to be the official state religion?

None of them, Establishment of any particular religion is forbidden in the Constitution. This does not mean that once a person is elected they have to remove religion from any decision they make.

I takes one who is truly more paranoid and more a conspiracy theorist than I, to suggest that there is any desire of any "fundamentalist" (of which I am one, because I believe the words of the Bible and refuse to accept some watered-down concept non-believers would want me to embrae) to turn this country into a theocratic nation.

"Our goal is a Christian Nation.... We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules."
-- Randall Terry, Head of Operation Rescue, speaking in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on April 15, 1993, as reported the following day in The News-Sentinel.

The historical or constitutional ignorance, of either your side or the side of a small, misled goup, is an ignorance I will not accpet responsibility.

Remember, their militance is borne from a judiciary system gone tyrannical; a highjacked system that usurps power in order to accomplish that which they would never be able to accomplish through the common citizens' arm of the government - the legislative branch of government.

Furthurmore, your attempt to paint Christianity with your brush of murder and bombing, is abhorrent.

Yes TC, christians don't bomb or kill, except for the ones that do. Like the KKK, or the Crusades, or the Trials, Inquisitions, massacers, and can't forget the people who blow up entire hospitals because one room does abortions, and of course they miss that room but happen to take out ICU and the emergency room.(got a picture on a dif. post in a dif. topic showing what was left after one of those "loving" christians blew up a hospital) and they never kill, except when they use sniper rifles to kill doctors, or automatics in drive bys.

they want a Iran in their image.

Also, they whined about the Left oppressing them, and several in the same sentance/next sentance talked about killing/stopping the gays and jews.

Furthurmore, your attempt to paint Christianity with your brush of murder and bombing, is abhorrent.

I don't have to, history does it quite well for me, as James the Lesser has pointed out above.
Not that Christianity is any different from any other religion in this regard.

I don't have any beef with mainline Christians or Christianity - that would include most of my family and friends (I am an agnostic myself.) In fact I find Jesus preachings to be quite an extraordinarily progressive moral philosophy - probably why the religious authoritarians of the day tortured and murdered him.

But Christianity, like any other religion, can be twisted and used for evil ends.
Eric Robert Rudolph comes from the same mold as Osama Bin Laden, as Baruch Goldstein, etc... There is a strain of fundamentalist Christianity that is not essentially very different from the fascistic fundamentalist Islam promoted by Al Quaeda and it's ilk, and it is on the march.

The death toll of 9-11 will look paltry and inconsequential by comparison if the Reconstructionists are allowed to take power in this country. By their own words, they will execute gays, atheists, and anyone else they don't like, including Christians that don't toe their fundamentalist line. They must be stopped by whatever means available, if Americans wish to continue living in anything remotely resembling a democratic Republic.

Hay, don't get all upset

The people that you are talking about will only be able to take power under Satan, I fact He will be the next Christen leader of the world which may include these that You are talking about..

Anyhow most of what they are taking about comes from the OT and even the Jews, The law was writen under the Jews and what do they Do...

I think that the Big thing that bothers the christens in is the 1 person law that which is taking over the land..

I love the USA and I will die for it when it is called for but for 1 person to change the laws that the masses haveset up under law..

We all can not have our way and the mass should not be force to make changes for the 1, How can anyone get along with all wanting to to do it different !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!