Separation of Church and State?

Separation of Church and State?

article by Scott Ashley

Some people believe that the U.S. Constitution forbids any connection between religion and government - or, as it's popularly known, separation of church and state. American history, however, clearly proves otherwise.


Source: CorbisThe website for the U.S. Library of Congress contains a lengthy history of Christian church services being held in the most recognizable of government buildings—the U.S. Capitol building, where the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives meet! Notice these excerpts from a portion of the site titled "Religion and the Federal Government" (emphasis added throughout):

"It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example . . . Worship services in the House . . . continued until after the Civil War . . . Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) . . . Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

"Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a 'national' religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government."

The site includes descriptions of religious services also being held in the U.S. Treasury Building (by several denominations) and the Supreme Court chamber, and notes that for a time the U.S. Marine Band provided musical accompaniment for hymns at worship services in the U.S. Capitol building.



The Religious Roots of America's Founding Fathers

The Religious Roots of America's Founding Fathers

Article by Jerold Aust

Were the Founding Fathers of the United States believers in God and the Bible? Were they religious and devout men who believed in and did their best to follow Jesus Christ?
The presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to congress on June 28, 1776.
Source: Painting courtesy of the Architect of the CapitolSome try to argue that America's Founding Fathers weren't particularly religious men and certainly weren't Christian.

One writer states, "The early presidents and patriots were generally deists or Unitarians . . . rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the relevance of the Bible" (Steven Morris, "America's Unchristian Beginnings," The Los Angeles Times, Aug. 3, 1995).
Another author argues, "Most of our other patriarchs were at best deists, [not] believing in . . . the God of the Old and New Testaments" (Michael Macdonald, "Founding Fathers Weren't Devout," The Charlotte Observer, Jan. 15, 1993).
Even one notable historian claims that "the Founding Fathers were at most deists"—men who did not believe in divine revelation or that God was active in His creation (Gordon Wood, "The Radical Revolution: An Interview With Gordon Wood," interview by Fredric Smoler, American Heritage, December 1992, p. 52).

But what is the truth of the matter?

A large part of the problem is that American children are no longer taught about the religious faith of the nation's Founding Fathers, as was common at one time. An 1848 textbook, in use for decades, was titled Signers of the Declaration of Independence. It included a biography of each of the signers of the 1776 document declaring separation from Britain (celebrated annually on July 4), openly discussing the Christian beliefs and faith of many of them.

Many readers have probably seen John Trumbull's famous painting of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to Congress, which is in the U.S. Capitol rotunda and appears on the U.S. two-dollar bill. While space doesn't allow us to describe the beliefs of all 56 signers (at least 50 of whom were Christian), we'll take a look at a sampling of them—some well known, others not so recognizable.

When we consider the backgrounds of these men, the truth of the religious roots of America's Founding Fathers becomes obvious.

John Witherspoon

"John Witherspoon . . . was an ordained minister of the Gospel, published several books of Gospel sermons, and played major roles in two American editions of the Bible, including one from 1791 that is considered America's first family Bible" (David Barton, A Spiritual Heritage Tour of the United States Capitol, 2000, p. 23).


Charles Thomson

"Charles Thomson was the Secretary of Congress, and he and John Hancock were the only two to sign the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Thomson is another Founder responsible for an American edition of the Bible. That Bible—called Thomson's Bible—was the first translation of the Greek Septuagint into English. It took Charles Thomson twenty-five years to complete his translation, but even today that work is still considered one of the more scholarly American translations of the Bible" (p. 24).


Benjamin Rush

Many Founding Fathers rated Benjamin Rush alongside George Washington and Ben Franklin. He started America's first Bible society, the Bible Society of Philadelphia. Dr. Rush "pointed out that with a Bible, every individual could discover how to have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ; second, he argued that if every individual owned a Bible—and would study and obey it—that all of our social problems, including crime, slavery, etc., would diminish" (p. 26).


Charles Carroll

Charles Carroll died in 1832 at the age of 95, the last of the 56 signers. On his 89th birthday he declared, "On the mercy of my Redeemer I rely for salvation, and on His merits; not on the works I have done in obedience to His precepts" (p. 24). Carroll also personally funded a Christian house of worship.


Richard Stockton

Captured by the British and later released, a dying Richard Stockton penned his last will and testament to his children, which became a living testimony to his faith in God.
He extolled the greatness of God and His divinity and the completeness of the redemption purchased by Jesus Christ. He encouraged his children to a habitual virtuous life, living by faith. He charged his children to exhibit the fear of God, which he viewed as the beginning of wisdom, and that "all occasions of vice and immorality is injurious either immediately or consequentially—even in this life" (p. 28).


Francis Hopkinson

Francis Hopkinson was a church music director, a choir leader and editor of one of the first hymnals printed in America. He set all 150 psalms to music.


John Hancock

John Hancock, whose large signature on the Declaration of Independence is now a byword for fidelity, loyalty, courage and commitment, served as a president of Congress during the Revolution and later as governor of Massachusetts.

As governor, on October 15, 1791, Hancock issued a proclamation for prayer, asking especially "that universal happiness may be established in the world; [and] that all may bow to the scepter of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the whole earth be filled with His glory" (p. 30). Hancock issued other evangelical proclamations to honor God.

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams has been called "the Father of the American Revolution." As governor of Massachusetts, he also issued strong proclamations, one of which closed with a request to pray "that the peaceful and glorious reign of our Divine Redeemer may be known and enjoyed throughout the whole family of mankind" (p. 31).
Adams often repeated such requests, as in 1797, which asked that the people pray for "speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all the people willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is the Prince of Peace" (pp. 31-32).

George Washington

George Washington, though not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was military commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War.

When Great Britain signed the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War, General Washington immediately resigned his commission to return to private life. He then sent a letter to the governors of the 13 states informing them of his resignation, closing with a prayer for the States and governors:

"I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the State over which you preside in His holy protection, that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and a love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that character, humility, and [peaceful] temper of the mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation" (p. 35).



We could cite and show numerous other examples that could fill many pages of this magazine. Suffice it to say that the more one studies into the origins of the founding of the United States of America, the more one learns of the nation's true biblical roots!

.Article Originally Posted in

Good News Magazine

http://www.gnmagazine.org/

Exercising freedom is easy, preserving freedom is hard

Exercising freedom is easy, preserving freedom is hard

Brian Goettl

Reprint From:

The Conservative Edge

http://www.conservativeedge.com/

Jan 7, 2011 Bgoettl Politics When my kids were raving about the new cell phone technology that will allow video chatting, their enthusiasm waned and they rolled their eyes when I commented about how the technology would allow the government to access their privacy. A friend of mine was unmoved when I told him that Google read his personal e-mail, and for all he knew, Google was controlled by the federal government. “They probably already have all my personal information anyhow” he said with a shrug.
Now, we have a Kentucky Senate President who caually gives away the very freedom that our fouding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to preserve for us and our posterity, for political expediency in an election year. The Leader of the Kentucky House of Representatives has proposed that government should be allowed to enter your vehicle and exam your use of a legal product in the presence of your own children. The appalling lack of respect for the foundational principles of our Republic is shocking from these leaders. They look first to polling numbers instead of the constitutions they swore to uphold. Neither one is qualified to hold an elective position in a republic and are better suited for tyranny and despotism.
For the rest of us though, we have to regain our bearings or lose all of our freedoms. Because, if Greg Stumbo can tell you what you can do in your vehicle with a legal product with your own children, then he can tell you what you can do in your own bedroom with your own mate.
We are so far down the road to tyranny though, we may not be able to find our way back. We have been dominated for decades by nanny staters who believe that they know better than us, how to run our lives. And, for too many citizens, they have become accustomed to government running their lives and telling them what to do.
Exercising freedom is easy, while you still have it. Preserving freedom is hard work. It means that you may have to skip eating at Joe’s restaurant if he allows smoking and you don’t like second hand smoke. You may not be able to keep your job at Jake’s bowling alley if he allows smoking and you have asthma. You don’t have a right to eat wherever you please, and make the owner comply with your wishes, and you don’t have the right to a paycheck from someone else.
You have to take responsibility for your own life, and make accomodations for your fellow citizens and their rights too. From the tents at Valley Forge to the Sands of Iwo Jima, Americans have given the full measure of their devotion to this country to preserve freedom for all of us. It would be nice if we took time from our busy schedule of texting, chatting, and facebooking to remember this.



RON'S COMMENTS:
We are frogs in a giant pot of water... If the water was hot when we got in, we would have jumped out. The heat however, is being turned up little by little, and as we get "used to" the growing temperature, it will soon get so hot that we will "Cook" ourselves.
This issue is another way of letting our officials control our lives, little by little... The fact that a friend of Mr. Goettl's said “They probably already have all my personal information anyhow” is an example of us "getting used to" the increase in the temperature of the water. Before you know it, the water will be so hot, we will not be able to jump out, and we will be "cooked".
Jump out now.

Do what is right, not what is popular.

Do what GOD wants us to do!!!

The New Middle East at a Glance-Country by Country

The New Middle East at a Glance-Country by Country

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Arab countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa are experiencing unrest. Israel National News brings you a brief review on what’s happening with the Arabs – and the Jews – in the various states:

ALGERIA
Hundreds of protestors clashed with security forces in the capital city of Algiers over the past few days, demanding the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. About 100 have been arrested. Bouteflika has agreed to lift the nearly 20-year-old state of emergency with which the country has been ruled.
Algeria’s Jewish population can be traced back about 2,600 years, to when the First Temple was destroyed. After Algeria achieved independence from France in 1962, most of the country’s 130,000 Jews – who had long suffered from local anti-Semitism – emigrated to France. By the 1990’s, most of the remaining Jews had emigrated. In 1994, the rebel Armed Islamic Group declared war on all non-Muslims in the country. The Algiers synagogue was abandoned that year and later became a mosque. Slightly more than 200 Jews remain today in Algeria, mostly in Algiers.

BAHRAIN
Thousands of people are marching in the streets today, demanding the regime’s ousting. At least two protestors have been killed and three police officers hurt. The small island kingdom (population 1.25 million) has been ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family for nearly two centuries, since 1820.
After World War II, riots were focused against the middle-class Jewish community. By 1948, most of Bahrain Jewry abandoned its properties and evacuated to Bombay, India and later to Israel and the United Kingdom. As of 2008, 37 Jews remained in the country; the issue of compensation was never settled. In 2008, King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa called on the Jews who emigrated to return.
EGYPT
Unrest continues despite the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak on Friday. Banks and the stock market remain closed, while the army attempts to take control until elections are able to be arranged.
In 1956, the Egyptian government issued a proclamation stating that “all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state” and threatened them with expulsion. As a result, half of Egypt’s 50,000 Jews left, and 1,000 were imprisoned. After the 1967 war, nearly all Egyptian Jewish men aged 17-60 were either thrown out of the country or incarcerated and tortured. Fewer than 100 Jews remain in Egypt today.
IRAN
Tens of thousands of anti-Ahmadinejad demonstrators marched in downtown Tehran on Monday. The Parliament Speaker blamed the United States and Israel for the protests. Opposition activists continue to call for more demonstrations, in which security forces have fired tear gas; dozens of people have been arrested, and two opposition leaders have been placed under house arrest.
"The parliament condemns the Zionist, American, anti-revolutionary and anti-national action of the misled seditionists," Speaker Ali Larijani said during a parliament session.
Jews in Iran, formerly known as Persia, date back 4,000 years. In 1948, the population numbered close to 150,000, and at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the number was 80,000. From then on, Jewish emigration increased dramatically. Estimates of today’s population range from 20,000 to 35,000. Iran's Jewish community, the largest among Muslim countries, is officially recognized as a religious minority group and as such is allocated one seat in the Iranian Parliament. Tehran has 11 functioning synagogues.
IRAQ
Though Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s regime does not appear to be in imminent danger, thousands of people have rallied in recent days and weeks across the country, protesting poverty, high unemployment, and shortages of food, electricity and water. Al-Maliki has announced a 50% cut in his $350,000 salary and that he would not run for a third term in 2014.
Iraqi Jewry dates back at least 2,600 years, and numbered around 120,000 in 1948. Nearly all the Jews left because of persecution following Israel’s War of Independence, and today fewer than 100 Jews remain.
TUNISIA
The future of Tunisia is still in doubt, following the fleeing of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as a result of the December unrest that sparked the protests across the Middle East. The EU’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, met yesterday with various leaders in an attempt to shape a policy for governing the country.
In 1941, Tunisia was home to roughly 100,000 Jews, and a year later became the only Arab country to come under direct Nazi occupation during World War II. The Nazis forced Jews to wear the yellow Star of David, confiscated property, and sent some 5,700 Jews to forced labor camps, where 150 died in the camps or the bombings. In the 1950’s, anti-Semitism and other forms of persecution led to the departure of tens of thousands of Jews; each person was allowed to leave with approximately $5 of their own money. As of now, 700 Jews live in the city of Tunis and 1,000 on the island of Djerba.
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
The Cabinet headed by prime minister Salam Fayyad submitted its resignation to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, and Fayyad was immediately re-appointed to head the new government. Abbas, whose Fatah organization runs the Judea/Samaria parts of the Palestinian Authority, has called for new elections "by September at the latest" – but Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it will not take part.
Only minor protests have been held, but the Abbas government has been under criticism for the lack of progress in the talks with Israel, for having reportedly made concessions to Israel, and in light of constant Hamas criticism.
Jews, by definition, do not live in the PA-controlled areas. This past December, Abbas said, “We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it." Months earlier, he even said that he would not agree to a single Jewish soldier in a NATO peacekeeping in the region, but later backtracked.

JORDAN
Though no acute danger faces King Abdullah's regime, he is experiencing popular protests, and his wife, Queen Rania, has been accused of corruption. A letter signed by 36 leading Bedouin representatives says that Rania must return land and farms expropriated by her family. The letter endorses several demands expressed by the Islamist opposition, and warns that Jordan "will sooner or later face the flood of Tunisia and Egypt, due to the suppression of freedoms and looting of public funds."
At the same time, Islamist voices are coming to the fore in Jordan; the country's new Justice Minister has praised the murderer of seven Israeli girls and called for his release from prison. The lethal attack occurred on the Israeli-Jordanian border in 1997.
Abdullah has formed a new government in response to the protests, and U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Jordan over the weekend to discuss current events with the leadership.
Jewish history in what is now Jordan goes back to Biblical times, when Moses granted permission to two and a half tribes to live there after taking part in the war for the Land of Israel. Over the centuries, the Jewish population dwindled to nothing. In the 1930's, leading residents of what was then Transjordan requested that Jews move in to help revive the economy – but the British, who ruled the area, did not want more Jewish-Arab problems, and passed legislation banning Jews from living there.

After the Kingdom of Jordan was created, it ratified this law in 1954, declaring that any person may become a citizen unless he is a Jew (or if a special council approves his request and he has fulfilled other conditions). Jordan has no Jewish community at present.

LIBYA
Underground opposition groups reportedly tried to organize Day of Rage protests on Monday, and have now rescheduled them for this Thursday. Moammar Gadhafi, who has ruled the country since 1969, met last month with political activists and journalists, warned that they would be held responsible if they took part "in any way in disturbing the peace or creating chaos in Libya."
In 1931, 21,000 Jews lived in Libya - 4% of the total population - under generally good conditions. In the late 1930s, the Fascist Italian regime began passing anti-Semitic laws, and in 1942 – when 44 synagogues were operative in Tripoli - German troops occupied the Jewish quarter of Benghazi and deported more than 2,000 Jews to labor camps across the desert, where more than a fifth of them perished.
After World War II, anti-Jewish violence and murderous pogroms caused many Jews to leave the country, principally for Israel, and under Gaddafi's rule, the situation deteriorated so badly that only 20 Jews remained by 1974. In 2003, the last Jew of Libya, 80-year-old Rina Debach, left the country.

MOROCCO
A video has been distributed calling for a protest to be held on Feb. 20 to demand "equality, social justice, employment, housing, study grants and higher salaries," as well as "change, political reforms, the resignation of the Government and the dissolution of Parliament." Analysts do not expect the campaign to succeed. Some have said that the Moroccan government may face unrest in the west, thanks to Algerian instigators.
Before the founding of Israel in 1948, there were over 250,000 Jews in the country, but only 3,000 - 7,000 remain today, mostly in Casablanca. In June 1948, 44 Jews were killed in anti-Semitic riots, and large-scale emigration to Israel began. Between 1961 and 1964, more than 80,000 Moroccan Jews emigrated to Israel; by 1967, only 60,000 Jews remained, and four years later, this number was 35,000. Today, the State of Israel is home to nearly 1,000,000 Jews of Moroccan descent, around 15% of the nation's total population.
SYRIA
In an attempt to head off protests, the Assad government withdrew a plan to remove some subsidies. President Bashar Assad gave a rare interview to the Wall Street Journal in which he said he to hold local elections, pass a new media law, and give more power to private organizations. A planned "Day of Rage" that was organized via Facebook for February 5 failed to materialize.
Large Jewish communities existed in Aleppo, Damascus, and Qamishli for centuries. About 100 years ago, a large percentage of Syrian Jews emigrated to the U.S., Central and South America and Israel. Anti-Jewish feeling reached a climax in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and some 5,000 Jews left in the 1940's for what became Israel. The Aleppo pogrom of December 1947, a pogrom in Aleppo – the third in 100 years - left many dead, hundreds wounded, and the community devastated. Another pogrom in Damascus in 1949 left 12 Jews dead. In 1992, the few thousand remaining Jews were permitted to leave Syria, as long as they did not head for Israel. The few remaining Jews in Syria live in Damascus.
YEMEN
Tuesday marks four straight days of clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in Yemen's capital, Sanaa. At least three people were injured on Tuesday as 3,000 activists attempted to march on the presidential palace. They are demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years. Protests have become increasingly violent. Besides poverty and unemployment, the Saleh government is grappling a secessionist movement in the south, rebellion in the north, and a regrouping of Al Qaeda on its soil.
Between June 1949 and September 1950, 49,000 Yemenite Jews - the overwhelming majority of the country's Jewish population - was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet. Only a few dozen mostly elderly Jews remain in Yemen.
Amidst the Arab demands for the restitution of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, it is largely forgotten that around that time, more than 870,000 Jews lived in the various Arab countries. In many cases, they were persecuted politically and physically, and their property was confiscated; some 600,000 Jews found refuge in the State of Israel. Their material claims for their lost assets have never been seriously considered.