SC Cloud | St. Cloud Times
Mike Aurelius
June 6, 2022

The Reverends Dr. Judy Cummings and Dr. Kevin Riggs write in the Tennessee Lookout, "What does it mean to be a Christian?":

“But confessing with our hearts and mouths is just the beginning of living out our Christian faith. As Christians we are called to live as Jesus called us to live. He made it simple and clear in Matthew 22:37-38 when he said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ These two statements are inextricable, meaning, it is impossible to love God without loving neighbor. Many Christians forget to come back to the foundation of our faith – Jesus Christ. We can look at how he called his disciples to live out the ethics of the kingdom here on Earth.”

In the 1920s, an Indian philosopher named Bara Dada said: “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him.”

That was said 100 years ago, and it is even more true today. The evil, toxic and noxious “Christian” evangelicals are hell-bent on destroying the very foundations of our country and replacing them with their own ideals. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” This means that the government cannot create a state religion or deny the freedom to practice any religion the citizen practices. Not only that, but it protects every citizen from religion as well. You aren’t religious? Don’t worry, you are still protected — no religious belief can be forced upon you.

Evangelicals absolutely hate that they cannot proclaim that the U.S. is a Christian nation. So, what are they doing? They are using religious and “moral” positions to undermine settled law. Let’s look at an example: Abortion. As I’m writing this piece, a leak from SCOTUS has shown that at least five judges are signatories of an unpublished opinion that if published will remove Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. Texas and a couple of other states have already done this by fiat, and more states will soon follow their lead.

But there is a problem. People who practice Judaism do not believe that abortion is against God’s law and is a requirement if the mother’s life is at risk. By banning abortions, states are setting themselves up for a First Amendment challenge by not allowing the free exercise of citizens’ religion.

Rabbi Rachael Pass writes: “If anyone tries to argue that abortion restrictions are justified under the prerogative of religious freedom, we can explain that our religious freedom demands that we have access to abortion care when it is needed and wanted.” (Times of Israel, May 4, 2022)

Dominionism and Christian fascism (sometimes called “Christofascism”) can all be found in the modern evangelical Christian movement today and encompasses the fascistic, totalitarian and imperialistic aspects of the Christian church. Many of the early settlers in America came here fleeing religious persecution in their home countries.

Many more were sent here and other places as prisoners of those self-same religions. Let us not create the same situation in the future by becoming the very thing our forefathers fled in the first place.

In May 1939, a letter writer named Ivan Bussart, published in The Kingsport Times of Kingsport, Tennessee, wrote this:

“The contention of my articles will be that, if and when fascism comes over America, it will be…[an] iron hand encased in a silk glove:

For God and Country!

Freedom and democracy!

Pure Anglo-Saxonism!

Liberty and the Constitution!

—catchwords which will thwart the actual and real rights of the citizenry...”

Sound familiar?

Until next month, if you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding. Trust your doctor (unless they are a religious zealot) and the science community. Ignore the lunatics from the fringes of both parties. And above all, don’t take wooden nickels.

— Mike Aurelius is a member of the Times Writers Group. He is a semi-retired business owner and professional writer who looks askance at the utterances of the extreme right- and left-wing politicians.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/religious-freedom-freedom-religion-under-121001739.html