God and Religion in Politics?

How have we failed to move forward in our short history? About one-half of a millennium has passed since Columbus’ adventures and still our arguments have not changed.

Listen to our politicians today and read what they said 100, 200, even 300 years ago. Have we learned nothing?

I listen to pundits and citizens ask if the United States is ready for a Mormon president. We asked this same question in 1960 about a Catholic president and in 1800 about a president who may or may not have been an atheist. Certainly he was a deist, a non-Christian.

America did not fall apart in 1801 because we showed that our own mythologies are false, that our great leaders may not have been anything more than ordinary men in extraordinary times and that the guardians of the temples care not of the humanity of the planet.

America did not fall to the pressures of the Vatican in 1961, because we showed that religion and government are indeed two spate powers in our land of religious freedom.

When did the political movement for states’ rights and individual freedom deem their own leaders as “them,” and when did the federalist take up the arms for more state power and become “us?” Some have put that date at 1932, but I sure it was earlier. 

Read more:  God and Religion in Government

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