The land of the free, home of the brave celebrated its 229th birthday today. I often hear people in evangelical circles say that we need to return to our Christian roots. Perhaps the truth is that we have never deviated too far from our enlightenment roots. Were the framers of the constitution not influenced by John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau?
Rousseau's Social Contract stated that we are born good, corrupted by an evil society, good goverment steps in to save good individual from corrupt society and utopia is realized. Is this not how most view our world? We are good, the world is bad and the government must save us.
Firstly, The Social Contract is flawed in its logic and secondly, it is the complete opposite of a Christian worldview.
So the next time someone wants us to return to our Christian roots we need to evaluate our roots and rather desire to view the world Christianly.
2 comments:
Amen brother! The problem is that many of these 'Christian' PAC groups/lobbyists have convinced many a person that somehow we were founded on these evangelical roots that are simply not so.
Yes, the Puritans were very much in that group, but the FOUNDERS and framers were not all evangelical Christians. The 'Christian' Coalition is famous for their 'all of our Christian forefathers' spiel... When in reality many of the framers were deists, at best, and anarchists at worst.... Patrick (give me liberty or give me death' Henry, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, to name but a few, were not evangelical Christians...
We MUST, as evangelical Christians, distinguish between being founded on Judeo-Christian ETHICS, and being based upon the Christian gospel message. The reality is that many of these special interest groups are really nothing more than lobbyists for tax reform. I would highly recommend that people read the Bible and determine what Christ might have said about taxes/government.
While I am all for voting our conscience, this is not what I am referring to; I am addressing this recent (last 25 years) phenomenon whereby many believe that somehow we define our Christianity by the party we vote for. Witness the pastor who kicked out several members in N.C. for voting for Kerry... Give me a break. GOP does not stand for God's Own Party. While I agree with much of the GOP's stance, I also feel that they miss the boat on many things as well, let's not fool ourselves, they have an agenda like everyone else, and that does not always jive with a Christian worldview...
Ray
Preach it brother!
It was good to see you yesterday.
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