I’ve been reading Daily Kos about House Resolution 888. Introduced by Congressman Randy Forbes December 18 in the US House Of Representatives, H. Res 888 is preceded by seventy-five Whearas’s, each of which claim to show how Christianity impacted the founding of our nation. Jean Schmidt (OH-2) is one of the 31 co-sponsor of the bill.
H. Res 888 claims to be about “”Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.” But the only religious history cited in the bill is one emphasizing Christianity.
According to Kos, “Actually, the resolution is packed with lies – American history lies to be specific….The easiest way to make the US into a Christian theocracy is to just re-write American history so that Americans grow up believing that the founders intended the US to be a Christian theocracy.”
Kos refers readers to an detailed article written by Chris Rodda, in her blog Talk to Action, that details the misinformation promulgated in this bill.
Rodda writes, “Thirty-one representatives have already embarrassed themselves, demonstrating their lack of knowledge of our country’s history by becoming co-sponsors of this resolution… This resolution, is packed with the same American history lies found on the Christian nationalist websites, and in the books of pseudo-historians like David Barton.” Rodda dissects this bill here.
Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation’s founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week’ for the appreciation of and education on America’s history of religious faith.
- Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very beginning;
- Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people … From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation’;
- Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;
- Whereas the first act of America’s first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;
- Whereas Congress regularly attended church and Divine service together en masse;
- Whereas throughout the American Founding, Congress frequently appropriated money for missionaries and for religious instruction, a practice that Congress repeated for decades after the passage of the Constitution and the First Amendment;
See the entire bill here
I am confident that even if this bill passes America will not become a theocracy.
Randy Forbes needs to enroll in an elementary reading class and when and if he learns to read someone should furnish him with a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution of the U. S. If he still cannot understand what he’s reading perhaps give him some crosses and matches to burn them on the graves of our founding fathers. Might ask him just why there is no mention of God in either of our founding documents if there was so much connection with Christianity.
A correction: God, Creator, and Divine Providence are mentioned in the Declaration of Indepence. Some examples: a) “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God “, b) “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, c) “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world”, and d) “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”
Even if our forefathers had founded our nation on Christian principles, which they most decidedly did not, or mentioned some “divine” power, we now know from modern science and rational thinking, (thank goodness) that there are no such things as ghosts…holy, or otherwise. What a shame that there are still so many people who insist on believing in an invisible deity. It is simply naive and irresponsible, especially when you mix those “beliefs” with politics. It is much better to know than to simply believe. How embarrassing for the co-sponsors of this resolution, and ultimately for our nation.
I notice that the bill fails to mention that the writers of the constitution explicitly voted down a proposed section that would have recognised God as the ultimate power. The lack of any mention of a specific religion in the constutution is not an oversight, it is a deliberate exclusion.
I see some outright lies in the list, but mostly its lies of ommission – every remotely religious event seems to be on the list, but all the quotes and times in which founders and other influencials rejected or opposed recognitions of Christianity are simply not acknowledged. Its history from a very one-sided perspective. Those events that further the writer’s political agenda are highlighted, but those which would hinder it are to be quietly forgotten.