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AF A-10 "Hack" -- Keeping Religion Out of PoliticsHack, you said, “I am a religious person who tries to keep religion out of politics as much as possible.” (Will you define religion?) I’m so glad that the opponents of slavery did not take your position. William Wilberforce wrote in 1787, “God almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [the morality of society]." "The latter goal we would now formulate as 'changing the culture' -- which is what he did . . . . The 18th- century Church of England preached 'a tepid kind of moralism' disconnected both from any serious faith and from the great questions facing the nation. It was a sensualist culture amusing itself to death: Wilberforce goes to a performance of Don Juan, is shocked by a provocative dance, and is then further shocked to discover the rest of the audience is too blasé even to be shocked. The Paris Hilton of the age, the Prince of Wales, was celebrated for having bedded 7,000 women and snipped from each a keepsake hair. Twenty-five per cent of all unmarried females in London were whores; the average age of a prostitute was 16; and many brothels prided themselves on offering only girls under the age of 14." "His legacy includes the very notion of a 'social conscience': in the 1790s, a good man could stroll past an 11-year-old prostitute on a London street without feeling a twinge of disgust or outrage; he accepted her as merely a feature of the landscape, like an ugly hill. By the 1890s, there were still child prostitutes, but there were also charities and improvement societies and orphanages." [He was also deeply affected by cruelty to animals and was a founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.] "A 'social conscience' obliges the individual to act. Today we call for action all the time, but mostly from government, which is another way of excusing us and allowing us to get on with the distractions of the day." I recommend the following books and articles for a historical perspective: Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States Christianity and the American Commonwealth by Charles B. Galloway (1898) “The Myth of Moral Neutrality” "The Illusion of Moral Neutrality" "The Founders Intended a Christian, Not Secular, Society" “America: Founded to Be Free, Not Secular” "As the greatest foreign observer of America, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, noted in his Democracy in America, 'Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.'" “That is why the Liberty Bell's inscription is from the Old Testament and why Thomas Jefferson, the allegedly non-religious deist, wrote (as carved into the Jefferson Memorial): ‘God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?’” “James Madison and Religion in Public” “The Separation of Church and State” “The Founders And Public Religious Expressions” “Franklin’s Appeal for Prayer at the Constitutional Convention” ____________________________ In his “Farewell Address,” Washington reminded the nation: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. . . . The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.” Denise Conner's blog | login to post comments![]() |