Posted on 02/02/2012 10:00:56 PM PST by dangus
Protestant and orthodox Jewish leaders join in opposition to HHS contraceptive mandate.
Today, more than 40 non-Catholic religious organizations including Protestant-affiliated colleges, National Association of Evangelicals, Focus on the Family, Assemblies of God, Northwest Nazarene University, and Eastern Mennonite University, sent a letter to the White House demanding religious protection against the newly issued HHS contraceptive mandate.
“We write not in opposition to Catholic leaders and organizations. We write in solidarity.” Says the coalition letter. “Leaders of other faiths are also deeply troubled by and opposed to the mandate and the narrow exemption.”
In a letter sent December 21, 2011, the group expressed deep concern about the contraceptive provision in the Health and Human Services mandates, which includes the most narrow “religious employer” qualifications excluding protection of most-faith based organizations.
“We are all deeply concerned about the narrow exemption, including proposals made to expand it while still leaving unprotected many faith-based organizations.” The letter continues, “We believe that the Federal government is obligated by the First Amendment to accommodate the religious convictions of faith-based organizations of all kinds, Catholic and non-Catholic.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty currently represents Belmont Abbey College, a private Catholic College, and Colorado Christian University, a non-denominational Christian University, in the first lawsuits against this unprecedented mandate.
By the way, why is this a “Catholic” issue? This isn’t Protestants and Jews sticking up for Catholics’ rights. Rather, what’s happened is that the Catholic Church has been most demonstrative in denouncing Obama’s plan, and getting all the headlines, and Protestants and Jews are piping up to say, “It’s not just Catholics; we’re all equally threatened by this.
(And no, I don’t mean to make it sound like Catholics have been “better on this issue.” The fact that they grabbed the headlines is a result of the fact that, sadly, because they are seen more as swing voters.)
By the way, why is this a “Catholic” issue? This isn’t Protestants and Jews sticking up for Catholics’ rights. Rather, what’s happened is that the Catholic Church has been most demonstrative in denouncing Obama’s plan, and getting all the headlines, and Protestants and Jews are piping up to say, “It’s not just Catholics; we’re all equally threatened by this.
(And no, I don’t mean to make it sound like Catholics have been “better on this issue.” The fact that they grabbed the headlines is a result of the fact that, sadly, because they are seen more as swing voters.)
It isn't. It's good to see different religions coming together in common defense without watering down or compromising their own beliefs.
My previous post was perhaps ill-advised, but it was not emotional. Sometimes the consciences of non-Catholics are threatened by policies, and sometimes the Catholics (and other mainstream religions as well) don't seem to understand that for these others, being taught evolution (just as an example) is contrary to their consciences.
I didn't intend to start a fight on this thread, only to state an unpleasant truth that we shouldn't forget.
Well, I’ll concede this much to you: the distrust of religion in the public schools among Catholics runs a little deeper than just the militantly Leftist, heretical CINOs.
Protestants and Catholics both have vast numbers of largely secularized followers who largely believe in evolution. Secularized, but conservative Protestants tend to see religion in public schools as at least being on their side. Secularized Catholics, on the other hand, are inherently distrustful of anything that seems too Christian in the public schools. Here’s why:
In the 19th and early 20th century, as education became the norm, Catholics were exposed to vehemently anti-Catholic propaganda in the public schools, such as the near-uniform adoption of Foxe’s Book of the Martyrs as part of the curriculum, in some areas of the counties. They withdrew to private Catholics schools, and the Protestant majority forbade public expenditures on Catholic schools. They funded their own schools, and the Protestant majority prohibited instruction of Latin, even in private schools. They altered their curricula, and the Protestant majority determined they should pay for the schools they do not attend.
So, to a significant extent, many Catholics welcomed early court rulings which established that public schools must be religiously neutral. It meant they could now send their kids to the schools that they were forced to pay for. It’s only more recently, as the courts shifted from demanding religious neutrality to religious exclusion that Catholics have been offended by secularization; the atheists now discriminate against all Christians in much the same way that Protestants once discriminated against Catholics... and using many of the same precedents.
Unfortunately, significant sections of the secularized Catholic population still see “fundamentalist” Christianity as as great of a threat as anti-Christians. The resentment against being discriminated against remains, after the beliefs which were discriminated against have, sadly, faded. Which is precisely why I am happy to trumpet that Catholics and Protestants (and, yes, Jews) are allies against those who hate religion.
I'm sorry to learn that. I would submit, as a Baptist, that
- The Theme is Freedom:
- Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition
by M. Stanton Evans
is a book you can cite to good effect in rebuttal. It gave me the distinct impression that some of what I learned in government school back in the Fifties was biased against Catholics in a way that escaped my notice.
Why, thank you. I’m also interested in history books, lately, and that seems interesting on both accounts.
Does it not strike you as ironic that Catholics, who are the "Fundamentalist Protestants" of Europe, would become "the Jews of America?" At least Catholics have learned what being Jewish in Catholic Europe felt like. I suppose Protestants will learn if and when the moslems take over.
I’ve always thought of it as the bull’s-eye of diabolical hatred, with each circle hating all those towards the middle, as they represent an antiquity they don’t understand, and a stubborn strength they envy. I don’t mean that everyone hates everyone, only that when hatred occurs, it flows towards the center.: The Jews in the middle, hated the most; even the secular Jews hating the Zionists and the orthodox Jews; then the Christian Catholics, then the secular Catholics, then the Christian Protestants, then the secular Protestants.
That makes a lot of sense. (Though you left out the Eastern Orthodox, Non-Chalcaedonians, and Nestorians.)
Yes, I consciously left them out, because I was looking at relationships within a society, and I’d be too sloppy and poorly informed to bracket them amongst Western groups. I have a great empathy for the Melchites, and have been teetering back and forth about joining them.
I've thought of another interesting thing about your "bullseye." In addition to each circle resenting the one just within it for its greater antiquity, there is the curios fact that each considers its more ancient opponent to be more liberal than itself. Catholics see Judaism as to the Left of chrstianity, Fundamentalist Protestants see Catholicism as to the Left of themselves, etc. Perhaps because as the circles move outward they continue to move to the Right. I have long noted that the older the religion, the less is wrong with human nature, the more human conduct is demanded, and the less burden is put on G-d alone. But those older counterparts often choose to defend themselves from their newer critics by invoking "enlightenment" liberalism. Jews have done this for three hundred years, and American Catholics have done it ever since they ran into the "nativists." Ironic that this "freedom of religion" or "religious neutrality" championed by American Catholics flies directly in the face of the official position held so often by the Vatican, just as it is ironic that the "freedom of religion" justification for Judaism completely misses the point, which is that G-d is the Boss and Jews (and non-Jews as well) must do as He commands.
I've just sent an e-mail to a friend in which I confessed that I've had about as much of "Thomas Jefferson" as I can to take.
CONSERVATIVE protestants see Catholics as more liberal than they are, but liberal protestants see Catholics as more conservative than they are. Part of hatred is you always criticize the other for not sharing your values, whatever they are. I would also suggest that one circle is more critically aware of the faults of the closest circles, and that Conservative Protestants characterize Catholics by the liberal Catholics. Indeed, if conservatives were on the outside portions of the bullseye, that would suggest several false things:
(1) that conservatives were more inclined to hatred than liberals,
(2) that liberals were more hated that conservatives,
(3) that the discontent between groups is caused by political alignment, which is the opposite of what I meant by including the concept of hate.
Also, I in no way intended to say that he hate was focused solely on the one circle immediately within one’s own. Any increased tension among adjacent circles, I would argue, is simply a result of greater exposure and legitimate (not hate-based) disagreements.
The “hate” flows in both directions. The thing is, the outer circles criticize the inner ones from the “right” while the inner ones criticize the outer ones from the “left.” Eg, Judaism doesn’t believe man is in need of “redemption” (in the chrstian sense), Eastern Orthodoxy doesn’t believe in original sin, Catholicism doesn’t believe in total depravity, etc.
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