Replies

"When I received documentation from one of the Christian Identity churches I did not defend what they were doing or saying just because it said Christian. This is exactly what GK is doing."

Most of the larger churches of Christianity are now Christian identity groups. They urge businesses to divest from Israel (the largest of those churches, by its usual stealth and participation with the WCC), declare themselves to be the new figurative Nation of Israel (including both of our President's churches--the one of his past and the one he attends), defend terrorists (sometimes physically--the Church of the Nativity standoff, for one) and propagandize against Judaism (thus, the rising frequency of "Jews are going to hell if they don't convert" statements). It is a tendency toward what the first few hundred years of Christianity (the emperors and other "fathers" of the Roman Church, who were essentially all of Christianity then) did. I don't believe that GK is doing anything like that. Hinduism is not a replacement religion, and its followers aren't trying to conquer the world.

"There was a threat, a pastor was beaten. And if you and others are attempting to defend it or desire to make excuses about it then you are not much better than those that are making the threats."

...another false accusation and, I take it, you decline my offer to debate on the history of Christianity. To publish so many repetitions about isolated incidents in India for the purpose of generalizing about India and Hindus (or to split new US cooperation with India for security against expansionist, fascist regimes) is wrong. It is a false accusation using an Ancient Roman diversion and repetition tactic.

My argument is that Christianity needs to clean its own house and get with "us" in the war against radical, Islamist terrorism (even against terrorism in Israel) instead of pecking on Hindus. You're not going to convert many more Hindus, unless you start using the tactics of Constantine, Hadrian, Augustine and countless others like them again.

Our US Constitution is the best law model that I know of for religious freedom under a government, and there are now too opposing sides trying to disrespect our rights under it. One of those sides is trying to misrepresent it to fit their agenda of stopping public religious speech, and the other is trying to establish a national religion.

For about four years, I studied the history of Christianity, the history of Nazism, and a little of Judaism. After that, my own mother watched "The Passion..." After watching that passion play, she subseqently told me that "Jesus is G-d" and "all of the Jews are going to hell"--same thing I've heard from most Christians who've preached at me since. We didn't behave that way or say such things in the Christian church of my childhood. That was the last straw for me.

Interesting comments.

****So devoted were the American founders to this understanding of religious liberty that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Autobiography (1821), the authors of the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom refrained from mentioning the exact name of the "holy author of our religion." Here is Jefferson’s explanation for the omission:

"Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the words "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion"; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination. "

Thomas Jefferson, regarding the Virgina Constituion and religious freedom.

There are three principal strains of Christian faith in America: mainline Protestantism, which can run from Barthian neo-orthodoxy to Marxist liberation theology; Roman Catholicism, which has factions ranging from extreme liberalism to radical traditionalists who believe the Papacy has been held by usurpers since 1958; and evangelicalism, with its own subgroups like charismatics and fundamentalists and longstanding disputes over issues like free will and the end times.

Anti-Israeli sentiment can be found mostly in the mainline group, notably the Presbyterian Church, USA, which has been the most active in promoting divestiture from Israel. Their objections are of a leftist character and are thus more in accord with those of socialist and Communist enemies of Israel. Liberal Protestants deny the substitutionary atonement and even the divinity of Jesus Christ, not to mention other orthodox Christian doctrines. As such, they believe that Jews or other non-Christians would be not denied heaven (if the liberal Protestant believes in its existence). Furthermore, they not hold to any theories of white supremacy, generally regarding them as far more abhorrent than Communism. As such, their grounds for opposing Israel have nothing in common with the Christian Identity believers.

The Christian Identity movement adheres to several doctrines, such as the "dual seed" of Adam and the black race being accursed due to their descent from Ham, that were never held by Reformation or patristic theologians. As such, it is at best heretical. Furthermore, they have absorbed the corrupted Darwinism of white supremacist authors like Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Madison Grant, that holds to the superiority of the white race, especially Nordics, to the remainder of mankind. As such, they have more in common with Hitler and his ilk than with Paul, Augustine, or Calvin.

My argument is that Christianity needs to clean its own house and get with "us" in the war against radical, Islamist terrorism (even against terrorism in Israel) instead of pecking on Hindus.

The fact is that evangelical Christians have been the strongest supporters for the War on Terror in the overall American population. Evangelicals, especially Southerners, serve in the U.S. military in numbers greater than their portion of the population. The principal leaders of the Christian Right, men like LaHaye, Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, and Kennedy, have been strong supporters of Israel. Furthermore, neither Dobson nor Kennedy are dispensationalists, coming from Holiness and Reformed backgrounds, respectively.