Christian Nationalism and Article 6 - Clause 3

I have long been bothered by the notion of Christian Nationalism, and this as a Christian.
It is a scary idea and as dangerous as any totalitarian ideas that have come along in a very long time.
It is a movement that purports to have come up with a complete governing program from the Bible, and with that they claim divine sanction for a campaign of national renewal. It promotes a revisionist history in which the founders were conservative Christians who never meant to separate church and state, and in which America's true Christian character has been subverted by several generations of God-hating leftists.

America admittedly has been subverted, but it isn't because Christians weren't in positions of power and money. The church today is wealthy, and it has always had the right to exercise vote on issues. What happened, Christians were less concerned with social and political changes for the "all" then they were with investing money into building funds, expansion of their particular denominational ideas, and sitting quietly in their pews. While sin will continue until Christ returns, legislation will not create a redeemed man, woman or child.
Only the life of Christ can do this. It is apparent that the problem doesn't lie so much in our form of government, but those that are governed who have lived ungodly lives and lived in religious institutions, hiding from the world.

Christian Nationalist dogma has very scary results. History has proven this time after time. any religious group no matter what they subscribe to, always ends badly.

Let's see how our forefathers first solved the problem when the government disinherited any one religion from running this country.

Article Six, Clause 3 states: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Now this is true separation of Church from State.

Now to the liberals, this never meant a man couldn't be a Christian and serve in a political position as they would like to see.

What it meant was that government would never make the mistake of creating an alliance with any one religous view to rule the masses based on it's concepts of justice or other.
Religious equality was it's purpose.
It was a radical idea, that has protected us all from tyranny for a very long time.

To quote from a source;

But its hard to get around the simple fact that there is no mention of God or Christianity anywhere in the Constitution. This was not because the Framers were irreligious. It was because they believed in religious freedom and did not want the government to interfere in religious affairs. Nor did they want the abuses of power that come from commonly state power with the power of the clergy. Its true that the words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the Constitution or any of the amendments.
But the meaning has been unambiguously been there from the beginning.

The danger of Christian Nationalism, is that a very few are to dictate for the all, what is good, what is evil, what is allowed, what isn't allowed, and so on. This is totalitarianism in it's fullest definition. Who will decide, that their interpertation of law that they extropolate from scripture is truth? Who will exercise judgement of these laws? Men? Men, that simply because they say they are Christian will rule above all others and all other concepts of justice and equality. This is dangerous. This creates despots and dictators. What one must never forget is:

"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

History is already written and overrun with the story of those who thought they were God's specially called individual to create the "City of God", from Popes, clergymen to political leaders. It always has resulted in a preponderance of blood shed, inquisitions, war, and power exercised over the impoverished.
When will Christians see that in the Old Testament that they so suddenly want to rule with, the folly of a people who thought they could keep the law, Israel. The law is the schoolmaster to Christ.
For Christians, we need to less concern ourselves with making law and dictating that law, as bringing others to Christ. We are called as ministers of reconciliation. All of us who claim the name of Christ.

Politics and the Law is not where souls are saved.

People get saved when they see God's love and forgiveness. Yes, judgement is part of God's plan but it is just that it belongs to God and not us. Now someday when Christ our Judge and Lawgiver returns there will be a true "theocracy" once again worldwide, but only Christ can judge righteously and without bias. Only those that this flesh has been cut from completely and finally in our total transformation from what we are now, a fallen man, saved only because of the grace of God to the revelation of being the true sons of God, will we be able to judge righteously.

It doesn't promote Christianity, but Artice 6, Clause 3, is very wise in the context of things and prevents, any one denomination, religion or other to be the test for serving in these positions of political power.
Let me ask the Baptist, would you be happy if all the Congressman and Legislators were Catholic? Of course not. What if all the Congressman and Legislators were Baptist. What then would become of the law of the land? Would it appease all those divided denominations to be ruled by others of another because they to can lay claim to be Christian as being defined by the leaders of these Christian Nationalistic ideas. Would you accept a Mormon, or A Jehovah Witness, or a Unitarian, who also say they are Christian.
Of course not, you would define and dictate what YOU consider Christian and all others would be overruled. Who would decide what is Christian and what isn't - a few over the all?

I will say as a Christian that there must have been some tremendous wisdom that did come from a higher authority to come up with Article 6, Clause 3.
I would prefer to think as a Christian that God would prefer we leave as it is. We need to quit trying to revise history to make people believe lies. Get busy living and preaching the Good News, and get out of the pulpits of preaching a moral majority rightness that you are allowing others to dictate. You want to see the world turned upside down for Jesus, get up out of your pews and reachout to the hurting, the AIDS victims, the poor, the orphan, the widow, the drug addict and more. Let love become real!
I promise you will see a change in America and it won't come from legislating and punishing anyone that disagrees with you. It will come because the love of God will be shed abroad in their hearts. Love conquers all.

Sin has it's consequenses, and we all live with them. Trying to legislate righteousness didn't work for Israel and it won't work for America. A changed people, that are truly the reflection of God's love toward men, this will change America.

It is dangerous to think you can trample on the choice of others, because you decide what is wrong or right and most often from a fleshly self centered interpretation of scripture.

I am not getting on the boat to these ideas of Christian Nationalism. My hope is not in these kingdoms, which are all false and ungodly. My hope is in the Kingdom of God, where Christ rules MY life.

Quit worrying about everyone else, and get concerned with yourself. What sins are you hiding now? What things in your life need to be brought under the kingship of Jesus?

Now if you being a man, of failure in so many areas of your life, how can you possible expect to rule America while you are a sinner. "Judge not less you might be judged."

I think our forefathers had more foresight than any Christian Nationalist when they wrote Article 6 , Clause 3.

With such wisdom, it had to be clearly the intervention of a wise and loving God.

Now if you want to say our forefathers were all Christians and re-write history, go ahead. But before you do, perhaps then you will look at the godly wisdom they had to write this in the Constitution and yet you want to change it. What does that say about this unChristian movement wanting to make a correlation between the cross and the flag. I say it spells the words out clearly - IDOLATRY AND PRIDE.

You're wrong, flat wrong! Christian Nationalism is dangerous to your spiritual health.
REPENT while you can, before it's too late, and the new RELIGIOUS LEADER OF THE WORLD IS DECLARED by the Christian Nationalist, the Christian Zionist. From this unholy union they preach will arise a world False Prophet for sure! Don''t be fooled.

Dr. J.

The American Myth of Manifest Destiny

One of the most hotly contested issues in the 1840's through the 1850's was American territorial expansionism. To most it seemed that it was inevitable that America would expand into the West beyond the Mississipi. It would be inevitable that we would have to displace the residents of that land from Mexico, England and the American Indian tribes. In 1845 John O'Sullivan, editor of the influential "Democratic Review", coined the phrase, "Manifest Destiny". Along with this highly regarded concept came the idea that America's destiny was meant by God to be. The idea of America stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Of course, we should all know by now, how this Manifest Destiny, resulted in death, wars and more over time, to the setting aside of the Indians to reservations but not before many died at the hands of those who so strongly believed it was their manifest destiny to have all the land.
This fierce, individualistic, political idea has continued even today, and because of Darby and his teachings on Dispensationalism and the American public falling in love with the books like LaHay's fictional books the "Left Behind Series, and previous books that swept over the organizational church attendees, "The Late Great Planet Earth, a new mindset has developed which is neither orthodox in scripture or consist of proper Biblical exegesis. This new mindset has created what is known as Christian Zionism and has now transposed into a new Manifast Destiny, that the politicians call the "American hegonomy", and as a Christian I can no better define it as "Christian Nationalism". The idea is the same but it is in my opinion, nothing but pure unadulterated idolatry. I call it Christian Nationalism but there really is nothing Christian about it. In it's purest form, it will result in fascism, totalitarianism, a Police State full of fleshly pride with disregard for all human life as it stands in the way of it's goals and purposes. The goal, to create, what the fundamentalist, the Bush regime of politics, the Israeli influence of dictating American foreign policy call "Democracy" worldwide is actually misnomer for dictatorship. The new Rome has risen it's head out of the sea of history and now proclaims itself God. The American has come to believe that he is somehow to rule the world, and that God means this for us, as assuredly as the Dispensationalist teach Israel is to have their promised land. We believe and listened to a lie to come to believe that we like Israel were a persecuted people, and the American revolution, was won, because we were God's special people and he brought us into this promised land. It is an easy transition to make mentally when one has fleshly pride, and a lust for power. We will justify like Israel, all our sins against all other humanity, for the sake of proving this is so, worldwide. In Iraq alone since 2005 there has been over 35,000 men, women and children that have died as a result of our occupancy there that has created a civil war within the boundaries of this country. Yet, we went there, proclaiming and announcing the horrible practices of Saddam and his killing. We alone have suffered the deaths of over 3,000 men and women of the United States serving in the military. Just as we have slaughtered and justified to kill during the "Christian Crusades" and we slaughtered and killed thousands of American Indians, we will continue to press forward until all the world is America or a clone of ourselves. We desire to make an image of us, the American worldwide, rather than see the image of God restored to the world through the proclamation of the true Gospel of peace and love. This is George Bush's plan and the thought and belief of most of the fundamentalist preachers like Hagee and Robertson and TBN.

They are seriously leading this country toward not the Kingdom of God, but the kingdom of hell on earth! Their doctrine will only feed the Israeli hate for all those but their race, and feed the hatred and warmongering of American foreign policy.

To borrow from a great paper written by John Hubers entitled " "Christian Zionism" and the Myth of America.

"In the eyes of dispensationalists the pivotal event of the 20th century was the founding of the State of Israel in 1947 which was "proof positive" that Darby got it right. This was given more credence by the Zionist state's swift and decisive victory in the 1967 six day war. "Clearly God's hand was in this", trumpeted the dispensationalists. The ancient promises God made to Israel were coming true in front of their eyes - a literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy.
This was the position of the dispensationalists. But they were not necessarily the dominant voice of the mainstream evangelical church at this point. That didn't happen until the two myths began to merge-the dispensationalist myth and the American myth."
I use the word "myth" with some hesitancy as there may be those who take this to mean that I believe the biblical message to be on a par with children's fairy tales. Such is not the case. Myth in the sense I am using it here refers more to the power of a story to shape a consciousness which defines truth in a way that transcends the story itself. The myth of manifest destiny functions this way as it draws on historical events to define something larger than the events themselves. The dispensationalist myth does the same with the story of the founding of the state of Israel. Here, too, the historical events are less important than the interpretation given to those events, the way the story is framed giving rise to a larger Truth.
This is the way the story goes, at least in its condensed version: A persecuted people longing for a land where they can practice their faith in freedom overcome great odds and a determined opposition under God's direction and empowerment to create a state of their own. The opposition comes from "savages" who use terrorist tactics to keep these brave settlers from establishing their state, savages whose poor stewardship of the land justifies their removal.

Here, I believe, is at least one explanation for the tenacious hold of the dispensationalist myth on the American consciousness (even beyond evangelical circles)-it echoes themes of the American frontier myth. We hear our own story in Israel's story. We identify with the Zionists because their experience matches ours (or at least appears to match ours as we are dealing less with actual history here than interpretive history.

I agree wholeheartedly with John what he wrote. We have somehow made the transition to believing Israel as a political national world force and chosen by God to have their land we now believe it is our "Manifest Destiny" to force our way of life upon all the world, whether they like it or not. We will do so without consideration of justice, peace, or love. What matters is this great concept of America to be ruler over the world, and Israel to co-rule with us. Rather than a spiritual Israel which encompasses both Jew and Gentile as one in the Spirit of Christ, we desire to show the world it is a physical promise and not a spiritual one. We miss it just as assuredly as the Old Covenant Israel missed it when Christ proclaimed himself Messiah and had Him crucified.

Soon and very soon, this will all backfire in our faces, as it did for Germany and every nation in history that ever sat in the temple and declared themselves to be God. America is about to face the greatest challenge it ever will, when this idea of supremacy over anyone that opposes our ideals, turns in on itself, and destroys it's own people in the form of a massive Police State. It has already begun, and we are just starting to see the storm at the beginning of the tornado, that will rip through this country like a whirlwind destroying everthing we ever knew as freedom, as the voices of politicians and fundamentalist become one, they will cry out for the blood of those that oppose anything that is in any way, oppositional to their way of thinking and believing. They will gain what the Zionist refer to a nation under the "Noahdic laws". I will speak on this greater at another time as to what this law is and it's origins.

I remind Christians once again, Israel received the physical land they were promised, they lose the promise of their spiritual inheritance which is all that is remaining for them unless they come to accept Christ as Messiah. We are one with those Jews that are Christian as all people, as there are many Christians in Palestine, that are Palestinian. There are many former Muslims in Iraq, Iran and other nations that have come to know Christ.
Regardless of what anyone believes our government is not divinely appointed by God nor will it ever be. Only the soon coming Theocracy of God, when Christ does return will be the government of God.
In the meantime we must respect all life, and all culture, all nations, and love them and bring them to the Gospel of Christ. The problem is we want to bring them to a distortion of the gospel which is made up of the ideals of American materialism, American culture, American western theology and the list goes on to that which makes up that we call American Christianity.
It is a false gospel which is doomed for failure, regardless of the Pat Robertson's the TBN er's and others who propagate a lie, that will only turn them into monsters or will imprison them. I know these are harsh words, but I can't stomach what I see happening around me and what people call Christianity and Democracy, and on and on, when they are not! It is a lie from hell, that God has allowed to blind us to truth. We need to wake up, get serious about individual study of the Bible and the verses that clearly show these ideals come anywhere but from our heavenly Father, the Apostles and Jesus, Our Lord. It didnt take that long for Hitler and other dictators to turn Germany into a land of persecutors and death squads. Our time may be waiting to come and I believe it is just around the corner.
It is a time to smell the roses to say, Christians need to seriously step back and look at what it means to abide in Christ versus the new drive of American Zionism-Nationalism. Beware, even Satan can appear as an angel of light. I believe this is his time to do so, and Americans are falling into hypnosis of that light that he pretends to be, right this very moment. I call for an end to American hegonomy and an end to the myth of a Christian nation, and an end to Dispensational teaching in the body of Christ that separates the promises of God for Jew and Gentile. We are one and all the promises have been fulfilled in Christ. It is He, that cried out, "It is Finished." We only await the day of resurrection and His coming, when the sons of God shall be truly revealed. In the meantime we the wheat must deal with the tares, among us. I choose to discern between what is and what is not. Thus, I pray for God to bring His ideals of truth, justice, mercy and compassion back to the Church in America before it's too late. There is a late great America if we do not realize it is He who which we are to draw our strength and not a perverted gospel or perverted sense of American patriotism salted by an Apartheid government in Israel which is no Israel at all, except for the few Hebrews who live there that know Jesus Christ as Lord.

Dr. J