America Once Feared Catholics

In a recent newspaper article, the author gives us a small history lesson. She indicates that in the 1920s, America once feared [Roman] Catholics. She gives some fairly frightening descriptions of the persecution Catholics went through at that time. The insinuation is that we persecuted Catholics at that time because they were different from us thinking they were going to overthrow our government by taking orders from the pope. 


This is happening today, according to the author, when we fear Muslims. They too, we say, are staging an overthrow of the government. However the difference between the Catholics of the 1920s and those who follow Islam today is that you never had Catholics blowing themselves up all over the world. Catholics did not kidnap and kill their captives. They got along well with their neighbors and were a general benefit to the societies in which they lived. Can we say the same for those who follow Islam? Certainly not all or even most Muslims are violent. However to say that we have nothing to fear from them and should treat them in a similar fashion as we do Roman Catholics is naive and dangerous. We need to see the threat as real and stop deceiving ourselves.

North Carolina Constitution of 1776

This truth is self-evident: the United States was founded by Christians for Christians. The founders had no intention of other religions being treated in the same fashion as Christianity. Freedom of religion was was established so that no denomination would have supremacy over another denomination as it had in Europe. 

Section 32. "That no person who shall deny the being of God, or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office, or place of trust or profit, in the civil department, within this State."

A listing of other State Constitutions that clearly articulate the Christian religion can be found here.

Cary Jay Vaughn

Delaware Constitution of 1776

http://tinyurl.com/286hxh4 
Art. 22. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit: "I, A B, will bear true allegiance to the Delaware State, submit to its constitution and laws, and do no act wittingly whereby the freedom thereof may be prejudiced." And also make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: "I, A B, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration." And all officers shall also take an oath of office.

Jerusalem Occupied by Non-Jews Until Latter Days Arrive

http://tinyurl.com/2a2aq7t

(Luke 21:24) "And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (emphasis added)

From the early 4th century, when Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire, Jerusalem developed as a center of Christian pilgrimage. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher and many other Christian shrines were erected. Except for a brief period of Persian rule (614-28) the city remained under Roman (later, Byzantine) control until 638, when the Muslim Arabs took Jerusalem. The Arabs built (688-91) the Dome of the Rock mosque on the site of the Temple.

In the 11th century, Muslim toleration of both Jews and Christians gave way to persecution under the FATIMID caliph al-Hakim (r. 996-1021) and under the SELJUKS, who seized Jerusalem in 1071. European Christendom responded by launching the CRUSADES. The Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099 and established a Crusader state. SALADIN recaptured the city for the Muslims in 1187, and the Ayyubid and Mameluke dynasties ruled until 1517, when the Ottoman Empire took control.

In 1917 the British occupied Jerusalem, and it became the capital of mandated PALESTINE from 1923 until 1948. During this period the city saw Arab rioting against the Jews. The 1948 United Nations partition plan for Palestine called for internationalization of the city. The Arabs rejected this resolution, and, from 1949, Jerusalem was divided into an Israeli and a Jordanian sector. The city remained divided until 1967, when Israel took the entire city following the Six Day War. (Groliers Academic American Encyclopedia).

Constitution of Massachusetts 1780

CHAPTER II.--EXECUTIVE POWER

Section I,--Governor

Art. II. The governor shall be chosen annually; and no person shall be eligible to this office, unless, at the time of his election, he shall have been an inhabitant of this commonwealth for seven years next preceding; and unless he shall, at the same time, be seized, in his own right, of a freehold, within the commonwealth, of the value of one thousand pounds; and unless he shall declare himself to be of the Christian religion.

Epiphany

Just this past Monday, I had an epiphany. I was thinking about my deathbed as I oftentimes find myself doing when I wondered what would I be reaching for at that time. What type of assurance would I have that I am going to heaven? At that time, it would be difficult to go back and to assess all the "good" that I did over my life since there is little good to review. I believe I would need to solely rely on the good that Jesus did. That I would only be able to trust in Him. But that wasn't all...

I went to a small group meeting just one day before that when it was presented to me that the theophanies (God-sightings) in the old testament were really Christophanies (Christ-sightings); even when Moses was in the cleft of the rock and the hind-parts of God passed by creating an almost unbearable radiance. This is Jesus! He is God, the Radiant One! He said, if you see Me you have seen the Father. What an incredible Saviour. Most of the time, I think of him dying on a cross and performing various miracles, but to find that His radiance is overwhelming is, well, overwhelming. But that wasn't all...

Reading Luther's commentary on Ephesians, it is apparent that our works are as rags. There is no Law, but only Christ or His fulfillment of that Law.

Putting all of this together, I realized, why wait until my death bed to fully trust in Jesus alone. Yesterday I evaluated whether I was a Christian based on the good that I did. That would be a good indicator. How much did I study His Word; another good indicator. How did I treat others; another good indicator, etc, etc. But that is not it. Its not about me, my feelings, the "good" that I do, it is all and only about what Jesus did 2000 years ago. That is all I can rely on. Nothing else on my deathbed and nothing else today. Nothing I feel, do, and even think matters. The only thing that matters is Christ and Him crucified. So now, I can stop wondering and live in the liberty that is mine through Christ and what He has done.