Artist: Francisque Millet Today's religious right could sometimes be seen to be promoting a new puritanism. But, you know, it really doesn't work to impose one's belief system or moral code on other people:
Two thousand years of failure have not taught some reformers that you can't stop sin by declaring it illegal. Two thousand years have not taught them that you can't save a man's soul by force -- you can only lose your own in the attempt. Drunkenness and gambling and secularism and lechery -- various hopeful churchmen have earnestly tried to outlaw them all; and what is the result? A drunken nation, a gambling nation, a secularist nation, an adulterous nation. And, often, a ruined Church.
In case you don't recognize the name Joy Davidman, she wrote a number of books including Smoke on the Mountain (from which the above passage is taken) and was also married to C.S. Lewis.-- Joy Davidman
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If the only thing the current crop of right wing Christians was trying to do was make this country more moral it wouldn't be so scary. They're actually trying to make it less moral by convincing people that helping others is a bad thing. They're seeking a theocracy and that goes well beyond anything they've done before. Now religion is only a front for a power grab by bigoted greedy people.
ReplyDeleteWell said Sister !
ReplyDeleteAlso we see a Church constantly calling for freedom of speech and then telling both clergy, religious and laity what they CANNOT discuss! When, O when will they learn?
(Jimmy)