Losing our Christian Rights? Never knew we had any…

Subject: FWD: Losing our Christian rights

Dr. Dobson & CBS Response

Apparently we are to be allowed to watch TV
programs that use every foul word in the English
language, but not the word ‘God.’ It will only
take a minute to read this and see if you think
you should send it out

DR. DOBSON’S PLEA FOR ACTION

CBS discontinued ‘Touched by an Angel’ for using
the word God in every program. Madeline Murray
O’Hare, an atheist, successfully managed to
eliminate the use of Bible reading from public
schools a few years ago.

Now her organization has been granted a federal
hearing on the same subject by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) Washington, DC

Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave
the way to stop the reading of the gospel, our Lord
and Savior, on the airwaves of America..

They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand!
If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship
services being broadcast on the radio or by
television will be stopped. This group is also
campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and
Christmas carols from public schools!

You as a Christian can help!

We are praying for at least 1 million signatures.. This would
defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians
alive, well and concerned about our country. As Christians
we must unite on this. Please don’t take this lightly.

We ignored this lady once and lost prayer in our
school and in offices across the nation

Please stand up for your religious freedom and let
your voice be heard. Together we can make a
difference in our country while creating a way for
the lost to know the Lord.

Please press ‘forward’, and forward this to
everyone that you think should read this.
Now, please sign your na me at the bottom ( you
can only add your name after you have pressed the
‘Forward’).

Don’t delete any other names, just go to the next
number and type your name and state. Please defeat this
organization and keep the right of our freedom of religion.

REMEMBER: Our country was founded on freedom of religion
and our Constitution is based on the 10 Commandments.

Agree or Delete: Instructions to sign are at the bottom

PETITION FOR PRESIDENT BUSH

PETITION TO REINSTATE PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
1. Frankie Dorsett
2 Marilyn Hampton
3. Tommy Hampton
4. Joy Walker
5. Barbara Singleton
6. Jason Singleton
7. Aileen Berry
8. David Berry
9. Marie Dorsett
10. Becky Louis…….. (the list continues with over 2500 people’s names)

————————–————————–————

Of course, if you know me, you know that titles like “Losing our Christian rights” will immediately raise my eyebrows. Since when did we, as Christians, have our own special set of “rights”? I understand that as children of God we have been given certain spiritual rights, like John 1:12 which states that those who believed in Him were given the “right” to be called children of God. But last time I checked John 1:12 wasn’t an amendment to the Bill of Rights. Actually, I believe I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that the Bill of Rights was written, ratified, and amended for all citizens of the United States, not just Christians. But who knows… I could be wrong.

Now that we’ve gotten past the title, I hope that any rational person could read the very first lines of this and realize it was all a bunch of (insert your own word for horse manure, here). Seriously, if you believe that CBS would allow a show that was making them lots of money to be canceled because it said the word God in it, your beyond Tom Cruise levels of crazy. CBS or any big company for that matter, doesn’t give a crap about the product they are selling. They care about one thing and thing only. I’ll give you a hint… it starts with “R” and rhymes with “ridiculous amounts of money”. As long as CBS executives are happy and swimming around in a big vault tower of Benjamins like Scrooge McDuck, they wouldn’t care if their top tier programming was the devil himself hitting all the penguins from Happy Feet over the head with a nine iron. Touched by an Angel was a successful show. It was on almost 10 years. I’d be willing to bet CSI’s ratings and need for a better time slot had more to do with it’s cancellation than the FCC or the American Atheists.

Moving on… Madeline Murray O’Hare, who was the founder of the American Atheists was kidnapped and murdered by one of her co-workers in the American Atheists, years ago. But from the way this email was written, you’d believe she’s prowling the steps of the Supreme Court with a legion of minions bloodthirsty for America’s religious freedom. But no, she’s dead; buried in a shallow grave behind her bookkeeper’s house (ok, well maybe they moved her after they found out he murdered her, and maybe then, her son gave her a proper burial, he being a Baptist minister… oh, the irony).

This email also states that Madeline Murray O’Hare “successfully managed to eliminate the use of Bible reading from public
schools a few years ago.” What? Ok… O’Hare and the AA won a court case in the early ’60’s that led to the elimination of teacher lead prayer and scripture reading in public schools. Let’s be honest. This woman did Christianity a huge favor by winning this case. I think the utmost of those who have chosen the profession of educating our youth. In fact, in a way I am one of them. But, when it comes to the spiritual direction of my (now fictional) children I’d rather trust someone with a seminary degree or at least a member of my church or other ministry to teach my kids spirituality and theology rather than some gym teacher that I don’t know from Adam. And by the way, contrary to popular neo-con opinion prayer and Scripture reading are not banned from public school. I pray at schools all the time. In fact federal guidelines uphold the presence of prayer and religion in schools. Students can pray whenever they want, of course they’re teachers aren’t going to lead them. Most schools even have a daily “moment of silence” to specifically allow students time to pray. Religious gatherings and non-curricular religious activities outside of class are allowed in all schools. Federal guidelines even allow for public schools to teach classes on Religion and the Bible, so long as public school teachers aren’t providing religious instruction as a cleric would.

Now this email claims that our religious freedoms are in serious jeopardy because a dead lady and her organization are so powerful that they can essentially burn the first amendment and urinate on the ashes. It goes on to claim that AA though only having 2200 members, has managed to get over a quarter of a million people to sign their petition. In reality this petition, RM-2493, had little to do with banning all religious broadcasts and was actually shot down by the FCC in the 70’s. But we are Christians and it is our duty to fight! Fight against this dead lady and her petition that was denied 30 years ago! Jesus is counting on us! And how do we fight? We start our own petition, but wait… we shouldn’t create an actual petition. That would be logical, and we passed the exit for Logictown 50 miles ago. No, what we need is a forwarded-email petition. Yeah, we’ll just forward this thing along and every time someone sends it to more than one other person it’ll branch off into a new petition, so instead of having one coherent petition with a list of names on it, we’ll have thousands of little “baby petitions” with different names on them that will be impossible to track. Onward Christian Soldiers! Its a good thing this lady and this petition are dead and/or fictitious, because I’m thinking a reverse pyramid, email tree petition wouldn’t exactly impress any judges or district attorneys.

Then this is my favorite…. “Our constitution was founded on the Ten Commandments.” I have read the Ten Commandments many times. In fact, let me check…. yeah I know all ten by heart. If I recited them they would probably be worded a little differently, and probably not in exact Biblical order, but I do know that there is nothing about the Presidency, the Judiciary or Legislative Branch, Electors, or Scope of Power in any of the Ten Commandments, but then again, I’ve never seen the original movie with Charlton Heston. Maybe the writer of the email meant the specific part of the constitution known as the bill of rights, since there were originally ten amendments to that document. Lets see, freedom of speech, right to bear arms, trial by jury, prohibition of excessive bail, quartering troops, search and seizure… I probably need to brush up a little on my Levitical Law study, but I’m reasonably sure none of these are anywhere in the Bible, much less the Ten Commandments. But, I’m sure the Constitution was founded on the Ten Commandments, it has to be right? Isn’t that what Judge Roy Moore said?

And then there’s James Dobson, he got drug into this whole mess without even realizing it. He had to come out on his website and say that he had nothing to do with it and it’s all a lie. Poor dude, he’s apparently a lot bigger of a man than I. I’d be raging if someone put my name all over this garbage and then spread it around the world.

Well, if you’ve actually made it this far, congrats… Here comes the real reason I felt hopelessly compelled to write this. This email is kind of funny and very misinformed but it is a prime example of what has happened to Christian spirituality as it has somehow become mangled and mired in the neo-conservative/moral majority/right wing political sphere. Jesus said “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) Unfortunately, we are known by other things. We are known by what we are against. We are against homosexuals getting married, we are against the liberal media, we are against lotteries, we are against the Ten Commandments coming down from courthouse walls, we are against the public school systems, we are against the atheists, we are against the Muslims, and were against each other because we can’t agree on what the most important thing to be against is. This is the type of stuff that makes me embarrassed to call myself a Christian. Hear what I say, though. I will never be ashamed or embarrassed to be seen as a follower of Christ, whom (as Dostoevsky said) nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly and more perfect. However, being recognized as a Christian today means something totally different, and as long as we continue to check our minds at the door and hypnotically regurgitate anything we see or hear that has a fish, a cross, or a dove on it, we will continue to perpetuate this “us versus them” mentality, and we will squabble and whine about “losing our Christian rights” while the Kingdom of God passes us by.