{"id":1896,"date":"2011-10-11T18:12:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T22:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2011-10-11T18:12:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T22:12:56","slug":"christian-nation-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/11\/christian-nation-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Nation Revisited!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a>The enthusiastic endorsement of Rick Perry by Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress, and his additional explanatory comments have brought the claims of a christian nation<\/em> back into focus.<\/p>\n

With his dual declarations that (1) in no sense can Mitt Romney be considered a Christian, and (2) that President Obama’s Christianity is inadequate, the pastor invokes the memory of John Jay, the country’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:<\/p>\n

But it was John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, who said we have the duty and privilege to vote and select Christians as our leaders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With that quote presented as if\u00a0 it had the force of a Supreme Court Decision, pastor Jeffress carries us back to the effort to present the United States of America as originally a Christian nation.<\/p>\n

This is clear from John Jay’s original\u00a0statement, written in a private correspondence:<\/p>\n

Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is exactly this enthusiasm of fundamentalist Christians to elect “one of their own” that will give many Americans pause. Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, Hindu Americans, Catholic Americans, and Christians of the “not born again” variety.<\/p>\n

When President Obama tried to speak to this reality during his first presidential campaign, the blogosphere became prolific with the following type of reasoning:<\/p>\n

Now that Barack Obama is the official Democrat nominee his past words are coming under more scrutiny. In a June 2007 speech Obama said \u201cWhatever we once were, we\u2019re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation<\/strong><\/em>, and a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation and a nation of nonbelievers\u201d<\/p>\n

How much longer will God protect and bless this nation if we not only don\u2019t act like a Christian nation, but also openly proclaim we are not a Christian nation?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.christianwebsite.com\/obama-america-no-longer-a-christian-nation\/<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I have written in previous blog<\/a> posts, the United States of America might have been a nation with many Christians, but it never has been a Christian nation, John Jay’s remarks notwithstanding!<\/p>\n

Futhermore the idea that one must pass a personal litmus test regarding his religious beliefs before he can hold political office not only goes far beyond any teachings of Jesus or his apostles, but is contrary to the spirit of the US Constitution, should anyone care about that.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent interview, Pastor Jeffress conceded that should Mitt Romney be the Republican nominee that he would “hold his nose” and vote for him.\u00a0 Apparently in Rev. Jeffress’ view, the only thing worse than a Mormon of questionable Christianity would be a Christian who is a Democrat!<\/p>\n

Once again, the Christian Right distinguishes itself in the eyes of others!\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The enthusiastic endorsement of Rick Perry by Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress, and his additional explanatory comments have brought the claims of a christian nation back into focus. With his dual declarations that (1) in no sense can Mitt Romney …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-perspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}