LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

On religionnewsblo today is an item about The World Council of Churches (WCC), the main global body uniting non-Catholic Christians, accusing the US of violating international law in its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo. What interests me isn't so much the political points, or even the fact that a major collection of Christian denominations is criticizing the overtly Christian USA (there is surely some Jack Chick comic telling you that the WCC is a tool of antichrist anyway), but the sidebar with the links to other Religion News Blog articles about American double standards. Many of you may be heartened by the page stating Why Apologetics Index Addresses U.S. Human Rights Issues, including the bit about the country's "Special Relationship with God."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Ark. votes against church-state proposal


The Associated Press
2/18/2005, 6:41 p.m. PT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The state House on Friday voted against affirming the separation of church and state in a resolution brought by a legislator who said he was fed up with a religious undertone at the Capitol.

The House voted 44-39 against the proposal. Only two Republicans voted for it, and one of them, Rep. Jim Medley, said he had intended to vote no but didn't get to his machine in time to change his vote.

Democratic Rep. Buddy Blair said he offered the measure because he was tired of conservative colleagues "making every issue into a religious issue."

"It's unbelievable to me. They have just voted against the U.S. Constitution and the constitution of the state of Arkansas," Blair said.

Legislators have offered bills this session to keep gay people from adopting or serving as foster parents; define marriage in school textbooks as a one-man, one-woman union; require minors to get a parent's permission before an abortion; and offer "In God We Trust" license plates.

Republican Rep. Michael Lamoureux said Blair's resolution wasn't needed.

"It's clear that our founding fathers, that they wanted Christian beliefs," Lamoureux said. "The separation of church and state is not in our Constitution."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

INSTIGATION AND STEALTH

By Peter Fredson

One approach of aggressive Christians, who love to spread their beliefs, is through misdirection, deceit, instigation, stealth, and downright imposition. Whenever there is a sudden spurt of demands to install Christian artifacts, icons and symbols in public places, you can bet that instigation is at work. How does it work?

A preacher at a Sunday School gently asks his students “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could tell your public school friends about how you love Jesus?” “Isn’t it a shame that nobody has posted our lovely 10 Commandments in your school?” “I wish we could put up these posters someplace where people can see them.” “I’ll bet that if you asked if you could form a prayer club in your school that everybody could get saved quicker.” “When you graduate maybe you can pray for us.” “Just before the football game starts, you might ask God for help in winning the game.” “Be sure to wear this cross at all times.” “People should be told that Christ died for them.”

A modern technique is to create your own lawyers who cleverly evolve strategy to make things appear different from what they are. Aggressively promote your strategy through politicians in exchange for monetary support, votes and volunteer workers. God Advertising pays big dividends for politicians. Modern church data bases, web sites, and links can muster up millions of responses overnight. Displaying one bit of a nipple produced 300,000 complaints, most worded identically, to politicians complaining of the great breakdown in morality.

At meetings of top level evangelists with their lawyers they have evolved a plan to get Christianity “acknowledged,” despite the fact that courts ruled against them. They took a semantic approach that looked or sounded different, but had precisely the same application. For instance, if mentioning God during law trials is deemed inappropriate, try The Creator, Intelligence, Tradition, Customary Usage, Spiritual. If saying Christian prayers is deemed inappropriate then try Silent Contemplation, Reflection, Meditation, Moment of Silence, or Voluntary Individual Prayer, Non-curricular Clubs, Private Student Speech, or Spiritual Development. ( Read more... )