To Serve Or To Be Served
So, the word “God” does not appear in the Democrat Party platform. What are we to make of this? Are they in some warped fashion trying to honor the separation of church and state, or is there something deeper at play.
Watching the DNC last night I saw Robert Gibbs interviewed in one of the “on the floor” things (and therefore not transcribed) by either CNN or Fox – I think Fox. They asked him about the whole “God” thing and his response was, paraphrasing, “Well, if you read it you see a lot of mention of faith and religion – the stuff that really matters.” And in a flash, what to make of it became very clear to me.
Religion, and “faith” when used synonymously with “religion,” is an institution created specifically to try and preserve and extend what one group of people has come to know about something greater than themselves. But if you take “God” out of the equation, religion is merely an institution with a purpose subject to the whims of its members.
Now, I do not want to be accused of being one of those that thinks “all religion is essentially the same.” It most certainly is not, but with the notable exception of Buddhism, all major religion shares a concept of a deity or deities, and something beyond the natural world that we know and experience daily. The great American Civil Religion tries to unite us in these commonalities of our various faiths while placing us as individual and the nation and its government in service to this greater thing. Different people may understand this greater thing very differently, but all of us seem to understand that we are IN SERVICE to it. It is this attitude of humility and service that has made America great.
But the absence of the word “God” from the Democrat platform creates an entirely different scenario. Because there is now no greater anything, humility and service disappear – leaving only power. Thus they feel free to do things like the HHS mandate, forcing religious institutions to pay, even indirectly, for offensive medical services like abortifacients and birth control. You see, without God in the mix, religion does not serve anything greater and can be pushed around. Religion, being just another societal institution is now just another lever to push and pull to shape and warp the nation.
Jim Geraghty points out another expression of this concept in the video used to open the convention, a video that featured the line “The government is the only thing we all belong to.”
Isn’t . . . the nation itself, and our national identity, a better description of what binds us all? Aren’t the values described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution a better summary of what we “belong” to, as opposed to “the government”?
A part of that national identity is the humility and service born of an understanding that there is something more and greater – unless, apparently, you are a Democrat. I think this explains the attitude that Geraghty describes in his morning newsletter:
But the Democrats, from the elites to the grassroots, have managed to summon the appropriate rage and direct it as needed. From the opening remarks to James Clyburn to Ted Strickland to Deval Patrick to Martin O’Malley, all of the Democrats spoke as if the country was on the verge of a great, epoch-defining change, that if Mitt Romney — Mitt Romney! — were to take the oath of office, the American experiment would come to an end.
There is something very fundamental in the choice this time – that explains the vehemence and energy at play. One would think, given the unpopularity of the president’s policies and the abysmal record of his first term that the messianic stuff would have come to an end. But did you listen to Michelle Obama last night? Here is just a taste:
So, in the end for Barack, these issues are not political. They’re personal. Because Barack knows what it means when a family struggles. He knows what it means to want something more for your kids and grandkids. Barack knows the American dream because he’s lived it.
Dear friends, that is a precise, almost word-for-word, parallel to the gospel message that Christ is God incarnate, who understands our humanity having taken it on. Of course they took “God” out of the platform – they needed to make room for “Barack Obama.”
The choice in this election is more fundamental that just policy. I am absolutely sure there are still many good people in the Democrat party, people that fear God and worship deeply – I know some of them. But they are not in control of the party. And thus we are faced with a choice between a man, and a party, that understands we all serve a higher power, even if we understand that power differently, and a man that would have himself be that power.
Rome thought Caesar was a god, at least after a while. The Roman Empire fell in the wake of that change. Worth thinking about.
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TVHall on 05 Sep 2012 at 7:58 am #
This sort of rubs up against an epiphany I had some time ago. There is no such thing as a true atheist. Everyone worships one god or another or, as you said, multiple gods. Even those that refer to themselves as atheists worship at the alter of reason, or intellect. In biblical parlance, this is the very definition of “trusting in the arm of flesh.”
Rockgod28 on 05 Sep 2012 at 12:21 pm #
“Government is the Only thing we all belong to.”
It is the big “G” that has replaced the name of God.
The new name of the Supreme Ruler of our lives is Government.
In the past there was another name used to replace God, it was called the ‘State’.
The State was what was all powerful, today it is the new name for Government.
There is also another reason to change the name from State to Government. The State is too close to another name that starts with an “S” who opposes God. We know his name. So now we are deceived by the name to replace God with another name that starts with a “G”.
Clever, subtle, and carries all the marks of the enemy to God himself in its scope and scale.
Paul Ryan was accused recently by a Democrat in California right in Nancy Pelosi’s presence of being like Joseph Goebbel, the Nazi propogandist in charge of the German media. As usual for the Democrats, they are projecting what they themselves are doing.
“It is the absolute right of the [government] to supervise the formation of public opinion.” Isn’t that what the media is doing right now at the DNC. Just change out the word ‘state’ for ‘government’ and the horror of what is happening to America could not become more clear.
It gets worst.
Would those Socialists and Communists be so quick to join this cause if they knew the source of this quote from over seventy five years ago?
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
Or that their core beliefs don’t come from the Sickle and Hammer or Red Star, but instead from Lightning and Skulls.
“We ask that government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within the confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand: … an end to the power of financial interest. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand … the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of the national, state, and municipal governments. In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our system of public education…. We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents…. The government must undertake the improvement of public health — by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor — by the greatest possible support for all groups concerned with the physical education of youth. [W]e combat the … materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of The Common Good Before the Individual Good.”
It is terrifying to know that OWS, ACORN, LEFTISTS, and the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY all agree with this statement or platform as political parties.
So not only does the Democratic Party have a horrible history of slavery, secession, sedition, treason, lies, racism, and other parts of its culture based in the suffering of humanity that they now embrace a political platform of evil and darkness.
Chuck Norris was not kidding or being foolish in his statement of a 1,000 years of darkness if the Democratic Party wins this election.
This election is for the soul of America. Literally.
To follow the path that was once followed by Germany seventy five years ago. It is upon us now with the cult of personality that is Barack Obama. Just look at the Democratic National Convention. There is not one logo of the Democratic Party. There is no Democratic Party anymore. It is the Obama Party. It has been for four years now. Hillary failing to win the Democrat nomination ended the Democratic Party.
The establishment media and the Obama party tried very hard to lead the American people down the path toward National Socialism. They tried so very hard to create the conditions that caused Germany to allow the National Socialist Party gain complete control over the people.
There were some flaws in their plan. All the conditions are right. There are not enough jobs, people are poor, those in financial institutions will not make a move, new vendors are shut out, and America business is waiting on the results of this election.
There should be riots in the streets. Lines to soup kitchens and desperate families looking for a vision of “Prosperity Tomorrow.”
Yet there isn’t. There isn’t for many reasons, but to me it boils down to one reason only.
We are Americans, not Germans.
We might be uneducated, distracted, and foolish, yet as a nation we have a better character that literally a light that can not be extinguished within the American soul.
While literally most American would fail a citizenship test, not know the names of the thirteen colonies or branches of our government, even some of our own elected officials, we know our country.
Here is how I know. Most, if not all, Americans know this name: George Washington. One other name: Abraham Lincoln.
These two names alone redeems the American character and provides a legacy that all Americans strive to live up to.
Now if you asked Americans what men like Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton did they would tell you they were Presidents since they are on our money. However while they don’t know what these men did or who they are again there is a legacy within all Americans that they can not help feel some thing when these names are invoked.
Again other American names that have build the legacy of America are also remembered as heroes in the eyes of all Americans. Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.
Now here is an interesting fact. Most Americans know who these men are. Strange isn’t it. Two men who have nothing to do with government are heroes and more well known than nearly all our Presidents.
These men and even those unknown men to most Americans who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America and other inventors, business men, and people of our shared civil past who we teach to our newest citizens stand against the tide of National Socialism and the Obama Party.
They can’t overcome it. It isn’t possible. Even though the country of American is barely two hundred years old, young by any standard as a nation, the fire of that Liberty burns bright in our fathers and father’s fathers.
A form of Government was designed to collapse if evil and darkness took hold. Our founding fathers, specifically James Madison, the architect of the Constitution, built its foundations. John Adams was able to gain great insight into the foundations of the Constitution. He said “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Barack Obama has been quoted and his voice recorded “… the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.”
President Obama advocated the “redistribution of wealth” and “redistributive change”. Exactly like the National Socialist party platform advocated.
Now it does no good to go around accusing the President, the media or the leftist Democrats of being the N word, not that n word that the reporter Toure used, the N word they are throwing at Republicans right now or even the S word such as Socialists.
No one would believe it. How can they? It goes against the foundations of the country, the fabric of American society and the very light of liberty inherited by all Americans by birth or oath.
Yet here we are. Today and the next 60 days until the election.
The Power of the State [Government] vs. the power of the individual
Who will win?
“It doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, you move.” Captain America, Spiderman #537
Well Captain America is a fictional character, he isn’t real and when the mob, the media and the politicians tell you to move they do so with the power of GOVERNMENT by force of regulations, laws, and even real weapons, there is no river of truth.
There is no river of truth. You plant yourself on that fictional river that you call truth and you will lose. How brave and noble you were, but an oppressive law, jail time or a quick death not noted or commented on by history. Who were you? What is your reward?
Where do you plant yourself to stand for Truth, real Truth, not fictional truth in stories?
You plant yourself on a ROCK. A solid and sure foundation.
When the floods of falsehood rise and the winds of persecution beat upon you and the rain of oppression chokes you as you try to speak what is your foundation?
There is a God in Heaven. At His word we know he can calm the waves and stop the rain. At the same time we know that He will fight our battles if we stand on His ROCK. The sure foundation that is solid.
This fictional character is close to the truth in his words. It just needs few changes.
It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians [order] or the mobs [do]. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself [on the ROCK] of truth, and tell the whole world — “No. [Repent and hear the word of the Lord].”
That happened to Joseph Smith, literally, in Carthage, Illinois. Leaders of the reformation in Europe that sparked the seeds of the idea America, William Bradford who saw socialism fail quickly and even more modern examples like Dr. Martin Luther King.
Another American legacy is Faith.
So what do we do? How do we fight these forces of fascism and socialism that are at our very door?
With prayer. Fasting. Obedience to the words of the Master or in other words keep His commandments.
It is simple, but very complex in execution and to carry out by voluntary service.
Right now it is to vote.
61 days and counting.
coltakashi on 05 Sep 2012 at 11:35 pm #
Apparently the Democrats have gotten so much flak over the removal of references to God and Jerusalem as the capitalof Israel that restored the 2008 language with a bogus ruling that 2/3 of the delegates voted for restoring the old kanguage, even thpugh three vouce votes showed that the votes against God and Jerusalem were at least equal to the votes for the old kanguage. Talk about the Big Lie. They don’t care what reality is, they believe they can manipulate the voters’ perceptions of reality, as in 1984.
The Blog Post That Should Be a Tweet | Article VI Blog | John Schroeder on 06 Sep 2012 at 6:06 am #
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