tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post4163831822819060323..comments2024-03-15T02:49:51.232-04:00Comments on Prophets of Culture: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the MireCarl F. Ellis, Jr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10804728159028813800noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-3459088973700611152012-08-16T12:41:35.829-04:002012-08-16T12:41:35.829-04:00Thank you for this. Use of the Treaty of Tripoli i...Thank you for this. Use of the Treaty of Tripoli is a popular contemporary approach to advocate that the framers sought a purely secularist state. We feel the actual historical answer can be found through a more robust analysis of the documents than can be given in this limited space, but we’ll take a stab at a synopsis. <br /><br />We will pick up where your quote of the treaty of Tripoli continues: “…—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”<br /><br />This treaty was negotiated with the Barbary nations with whom we were in conflict, shortly after the Revolutionary War. These nations were at war with what they claimed to be the “Christian nations” who had participated in the Crusades; they assumed America was in cahoots with these nations, and declared war against the US in 1801. In seeking retribution for America’s perceived involvement in Crusade-like activity, the Berbers frequently attacked American merchant ships, seizing their cargo and capturing and enslaving American seamen. To secure the release of the hostages and to guarantee security for Mediterranean Naval commerce, American diplomats negotiated several treaties with the Barbary nations. However, these treaties’ terms resembled a protection/extortion racket, as the US was required to pay thousands of dollars or face attack. Article 11, which we’ve both quoted, was inserted to demonstrate that America had not been involved in a Christian Crusade against them, and that they were not fighting to impose Christianity on anyone else. <br /><br />So the Treaty of Tripoli wasn’t intended as a declaration that America’s founding documents were not predicated on theistic core values – though that’s how it’s often used today; rather it was intended as a statement that America was not a participant in any religious war against Muslims. Under the terms of the treaty, each country was to recognize the religion of the other in order to prevent the conflict from escalating out of control. In the case of this document, context rounds out our understanding.<br /><br />Note: we’re not advocating in the other direction, that the founding fathers intended to create a system where Christianity was forced on all citizens; quite the opposite. The framers were not making God a part of their laws, but the laws they made were based on what they believed to be God’s revelation. It is precisely because of our country’s original documents’ theistic understanding of justice – based on a Transcendent Reference Point – that religious freedom and liberties are able to flourish for everyone, regardless of religious persuasion. The freedoms in the documents you’ve mentioned – Article 6 of the Constitution, The Treaty of Tripoli, and the First Amendment, bear this out.<br />Carl and Karen Ellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087481249584033808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-39006801586471634012012-08-03T15:29:15.681-04:002012-08-03T15:29:15.681-04:00Thank you for this blog post. It makes a lot of se...Thank you for this blog post. It makes a lot of sense.RFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16399168981061464324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-4757473130883458472012-08-03T14:56:28.135-04:002012-08-03T14:56:28.135-04:00It may be true that the Declaration of Independenc...It may be true that the Declaration of Independence predates the Constitution, but the framers of the Constitution deliberately left out creator language because, as later stated in the Treaty of Tripoli, "...the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."<br /><br />The Constitution mentions religion in Article 6 when it says that religious tests cannot be required as qualification for any office or public trust in the U.S. It mentions it again in the first amendment, in the form of freedom of. If they had wanted any god to be a part their nation's law, they would have carried him over from said Declaration. <br /><br />In our country, we definitely RESPECT the Declaration of Independence, but it is essentially a breakup letter, whereas the Constitution is the plan we set for how to live our lives after the end of a bad relationship. God may be mentioned in the breakup, but he did not quite make it over to the plan.m5robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16411093754351632960noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-29020565364658523122012-08-03T00:23:56.276-04:002012-08-03T00:23:56.276-04:00Well written article Carl. I often wonder why some...Well written article Carl. I often wonder why some Christian choose to make a stand on some social justice issues but is blinded and aloof to others. I wondered why Mr. Cathy chose to give voice to this issue yet there are so many racial injustice issues in the news such as the Trayvon Martin case and yet there was no voice given to that. In fact I don't hear any voice to support racial equality and a condemnation of racial injustice that is front and center in the media everyday. The scripture tells us to cry aloud against all injustice. I just wonder how some are able to pick and choose which one they will cry out against.Just wonderinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17986097780746398353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-89904216955920851102012-08-02T11:31:20.236-04:002012-08-02T11:31:20.236-04:00Thanks for the observation, m5roberts. We did inde...Thanks for the observation, m5roberts. We did indeed discuss your exact point as we were writing our response. We are aware that the Creator language we cited comes from the Declaration of Independence (1776) which predates the Constitution (adopted, ratified, and put into effect in 1787-89). The DOI provides the rationale for the founding of the country, and articulates core values upon which the Constitution was written. First came the articles of Confederation that actualized the principles in the DOI, but they proved to be inadequate. That’s why the preamble to the Constitution contains the phrase “in order to form a ‘more perfect’ Union.” (Since your delightful blog is titled “WordPlay,” to have a little fun with it we’ll say they sought a “mo’ better” union … see our post on Ebonics, titled “’How We Be’ – An Offbeat Look at Ebonics.”) The core values of the DOI are foundational to the core values upon which the Constitution rests. This is why we say in our response to Mr. Baughan that the Constitution is ‘predicated’ on the Creator language. We stand by our comment.Carl and Karen Ellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087481249584033808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-20254994881300606282012-08-02T10:18:53.390-04:002012-08-02T10:18:53.390-04:00“all men are created equal and are endowed by thei...“all men are created equal and are endowed by their CREATOR with inalienable rights....”<br /><br />This quote is actually the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. If Michael does use the Constitution for the basis for his sense of justice, your assertion that "god [is] in the document on which [his] judgement rests" is incorrect. The Declaration is historic, but it is not law.m5robertshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16411093754351632960noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-35515437683077836482012-08-01T12:16:24.198-04:002012-08-01T12:16:24.198-04:00It’s difficult to discern how same-sex marriage is...It’s difficult to discern how same-sex marriage is about civil rights, or as Mr. Baughan claims, “equal rights under the law.” It’s also confusing to detect why Mr. Baughan would be “shocked and amazed” at the volume of “people in minority groups” (e.g., Blacks; Women) who are allegedly forgetting their history of oppression and discrimination. Many people and civil rights leaders have correctly rejected the comparison between advocating for same-sex marriage and the fight for civil rights. As one civil rights leader has aptly noted, “Gays were never declared 3/5 human by the Constitution, and they never needed a Voting Rights Act.” <br /><br />Furthermore, Mr. Baughan presents a false dichotomy between “religious beliefs” and “political/civil” matters, stating that Cathy, “actively works to inject his religious beliefs into a political/civil matter.” Well, it really isn’t possible to know what we “ought” to do unless we know what is the “transcendent [ultimate] basis for justice.” Secular humanistic presuppositions are persuasive in our culture. Neutrality for how we obtain our bases or establish such determinations for justice (right or wrong) really is a myth. One cannot, rightly, separate political/civil determinations about right and wrong from so-called “[Christian] religious beliefs” (which are really founded on fact and ultimate knowledge by the way, see John Warwick Montgomery’s, Faith Founded on Fact). As Professors John Whitehead and John Conlan noted, “In the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century the American legal order released its hostility against the theistic foundation of American law and developed a secular humanist religion to replace it….The Supreme Court’s theory of neutrality by the State is merely a hopeful illusion. Neutrality presupposes objectivity, but value determination between right and wrong is a moral principle and establishes a religious concern. Therefore, all laws promulgated by the State are enforced morality, which is based upon moral principle, and therefore, is a religious concern.” <br /><br />(Anthropologists tell us that natural marriage—a union between a man and a woman—is humanly and historically universal. As Randy Hicks has pointed out, it wasn’t until the last few milliseconds of human history that any society advocated homosexual marriage.)<br /><br />Grace to you,<br />William E. BeckhamAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01438232852206396229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-9495904860838605592012-08-01T00:32:06.809-04:002012-08-01T00:32:06.809-04:00If you are the author Michael Gray Baughan, we are...If you are the author Michael Gray Baughan, we are honored that you both read and commented on our blog, even if we do disagree.<br /><br />First of all, we share your passion for justice. Our (the Ellises’) sense of justice is based on the moral character of the infinite personal Creator who is transcendent, immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good. Humans were created in God’s image, therefore we not only have intrinsic worth, we also share a common moral consciousness. Mankind was created good but fell into sin and abnormality, defacing God’s image. However by God’s grace much of the moral consciousness remains.<br /><br />Now, we must ask what is the basis of your sense of justice? Since we don’t know you, we have to make a deduction: your objections seem to come from an atheistic perspective. If true, then absent a personal Creator, reality as we know it is the product of impersonal forces like chance; there is no moral character and no basis for a moral consciousness or justice. These notions are illusions, and we’re left only with human opinion. No basis for justice undercuts the fight for justice, and itself becomes a “dogma” of your own.<br /><br />Your assertion that “this is about civil rights...period” indicates to us that the Constitution is the basis for your sense of justice. Webster defines civil rights as “the nonpolitical rights of a citizen; especially: the rights of personal liberty guaranteed to United States citizens by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution and by acts of Congress.” But the Constitution is predicated on the assertion that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their CREATOR with inalienable rights....” So following your own presupposition, you’ve run right smack into God in the document on which your judgment rests. As our old spiritual says, He’s “so high you can’t get over Him, so low you can’t get under Him, so wide, you can’t get round Him – you must come in by and through the Lamb.”<br /><br />The Qur’an – not the Bible – prescribes “cutting off the hands of thieves.” The remedy for theft in the Old Testament was restitution. Further, by lumping us into the same category with conservatives, you build a “straw man” of your own. We understand that no one is perfect … for better understanding of our political and social position, see our previous blog post titled “Neither and Both: Conservative vs. Liberal.”<br /><br />Dogma without enlightenment is religion – the religion of atheism.<br /><br />To continue dialogue offline, feel free to email us at ellisinquiries@gmail.com.Carl and Karen Ellishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01087481249584033808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-73550051351610457162012-07-31T17:56:24.940-04:002012-07-31T17:56:24.940-04:00It is all about power - I have been recommending &...It is all about power - I have been recommending "Wisdom, the Feminine Side of God" by Daniel Berrigan, SJ (he is one of the Catonsville 9 from the Vietnam war era.) He preaches non-violence and respect for all. We may look difffernt, have differnet values, cultures, etc. but we are all part of God's family and as humans, we desearve to be respected and honored. Too bad that some of us who profess to follow Jesus can carry such self rightousness - we have all sinned and are in need of a Savior. I learned a long time ago while working in an inner city hospital, to look at the person I was caring for and beyond the color of their skin, their lifestyle or their culture. I had to treat my patients as part of God's family. I pray that we can rise above the hatred and name-calling and treat everyone as we would like to be treated. I too have gay friends, friends who are not Christian, friends who attend other churches. We just enjoy being together. Thanks to my cousin who posted this article on face book. I'm so glad I read it - well said.memhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11394646906946637716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-89885403507108669872012-07-31T15:26:59.395-04:002012-07-31T15:26:59.395-04:00"Does non-discrimination require a business t..."Does non-discrimination require a business to promote a political ideology that violates its core values?" No, but it does require a business not actively fight to deny civil rights. See the difference? Christians and conservatives such as yourself keep trying to make straw man arguments about freedoms of speech and religion. This is about civil rights. Period. You want to deny gay unions in your church, from now until the Apocalypse? Fine. Just grant them equal rights under the law. Cathy seeks to deny civil union rights to gay people. He actively works to inject his religious beliefs into a political/civil matter. Frankly I am shocked and amazed at the number of people in minority groups who are forgetting their history and aligning on the wrong side of this issue. And in Christ's name, no less. The hypocrisy is quite literally of Biblical proportions.<br /><br />p.s. you betray yourself by saying the "God of the Bible" is "uniquely" qualified to provide the one true definition of social justice. Our courts and our laws are not dictated by the Bible, thank you very much. If they were, we'd still be cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning adulterers. THAT would be "reminiscent of the plight of many Afghans under the Taliban." <br /><br />Religion without enlightenment is nothing but dogma.MGBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01310941961249976777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-8941256372138197152012-07-31T10:05:33.210-04:002012-07-31T10:05:33.210-04:00Carl, thank you. Such a good word and my only desp...Carl, thank you. Such a good word and my only despair is that most on the other side will not read it,think about it, and come to some sanity. The bullies of politics, media, and identity agenda will someday reap the whirlwind for where they are steering our country. I am also sad that so many believers think that to speak to these issues is not being Christ-like. I guess they don't want to be in the company of men like John the Baptist. Keep thinking, keep writing.<br /><br />Please,<br />Randy NaborsA. Randy Naborshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16582652319512391777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-53163806729186143982012-07-31T09:36:48.073-04:002012-07-31T09:36:48.073-04:00Powerful Carl. This is an issue that is not readil...Powerful Carl. This is an issue that is not readily going away any time soon. That is, the issue of "tolerance and hate-speech." Jesus told His immediate followers and all those that would follow, that they would be hated and persecuted. We shouldn't be surprised at the attacks at the level of our core biblical values nor at the intensity of such an attack. What caught me by surprise over the last several years is the avenue (gay rights) that has been used to level such an attack. Ultimately God is still in control and knows the final outcome. <br />Thank you for your presentation of truth and boldness to speak it. God bless you.Vinnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03183143499166139295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-69135738339596118642012-07-31T00:57:39.547-04:002012-07-31T00:57:39.547-04:00I also love reading your posts. This was an espec...I also love reading your posts. This was an especially good one. Many of us are feeling battered by all the loud voices, coming from so many directions. Thanks for seeking truth and writing truth.Lisa Jeffers Fultonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00008852323273792190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-30337657017909794462012-07-30T22:12:05.887-04:002012-07-30T22:12:05.887-04:00Amen, Carl.Amen, Carl.Deehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05060586524340093188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-21868459776584641252012-07-30T18:00:21.929-04:002012-07-30T18:00:21.929-04:00Outstanding brother Ellis. Should be required read...Outstanding brother Ellis. Should be required reading.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08556885440804903749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-50495287770136344892012-07-30T17:25:08.711-04:002012-07-30T17:25:08.711-04:00Thank you for your insight. It was greatly appreci...Thank you for your insight. It was greatly appreciated.MSProdplnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17390322677177544885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-14602658110945470582012-07-30T15:16:18.302-04:002012-07-30T15:16:18.302-04:00Great response. Thanks for your "cool head&q...Great response. Thanks for your "cool head" and your "cool-ness!" I love reading your posts. Keep it up.choldridgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16282168832482191261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8600591889470508146.post-22738433253838045492012-07-30T14:48:12.431-04:002012-07-30T14:48:12.431-04:00Thanks for your comments - very well said.Thanks for your comments - very well said.Chris Hatchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08303154442912891418noreply@blogger.com