[lbo-talk] Dog sucks the big Chuck

[Chip Berlet]

Hi,
 
This rewriting of history is covered at http://www.Talk2Action.org - your one stop shopping for everything about the Christian Right.
 
Start here: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/1/26/144526/078
and click on some of the links.
 
Then here: http://www.talk2action.org/?op=search&topic=government
for some more
 
Then Fred Clarkson's article:
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v19n3/clarkson_dominionism.html
 
And, in case it is not obvious, the original subject line manages to be both homophobic, and insulting to organizers like me who are people of faith trying to organize within that community. 
 
-Chip Berlet

________________________________

From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Chuck Grimes
Sent: Fri 6/30/2006 11:14 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] God sucks the big cock




(due to volumne I needed some attention getting subject line)

I just watched an interview on Lehrer Newshour with Jon Meacham on his
book, American Gospel. Meacham maintains that there is not a hard line
separation between church and state in the US founding fathers and
cites Washington and Madison. Madison for example was quoted as making
a distinction between `tolerance' and `liberity' and Meacham says that
liberity in Madison's lexicon was the greater separation of the two
possible choices where mere tolerance is superceeded by liberity in
which any belief system is included.

The implication in Madison is that Locke's tolerance of belief must be
augmented with something more determinant and closer to Spinoza's idea
of a freedom to philosophize (from J. Israel's Radical
Enlightenment). This apparently absurd parsing of words actually has
some important US historical background for countering the US
rightwing and Christian fundies (and indirectly Leo Strauss).

What I am asking for is some US political history insight into this
general controversy. According to Meacham it was Jefferson who
introduced the phrase `wall of separation between church and state'.

The more important point is the deeper western US-EU historical
transition between theological thought concerning the `state' and
early Enlightenment thought about the secularization of the
state. Clearly the US historically stands in some rather fogging ground
between the two. It has never been able to clearly draw the
line---thanks to a constant drone of many different periods of
Protestant fundamentalism.

Feel free to comment on any of this at will. But historical notes with
citations would be greatly appreciated....

CG
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