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Will S.
Participant
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
15:01:51
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 Subject: America as God's Kingdom on Earth
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Message:
It seems that more and more, the neoconservatives are confusing patriotism, or rather utopian nationalism, with Christian faith; consider this blasphemous image:
http://www.littlegeneva.com/images/americantrinity.jpg
Notice how Bush appears to be on a cross, head down like Christ upon His death; the cross itself merges into the Presidential Seal; and the ghosts of Lincoln and Washington are aiding him... The host of this image rightly calls it "American Trinity"...
There's more of this sort of thing going on:
http://www.markdankof.com/Barmen.htm
Here's another excellent essay on the subject:
http://www.theambler.com/may16-31_04.htm#molnar
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Will S.
Participant
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
15:52:59
| RE: America as God's Kingdom on Earth
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Message:
I should point out that the site hosting the "American Trinity" image is critical of it (not endorsing it); it actually comes from this site:
http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org
I had no idea that U.S. soldiers were angels:
http://www.presidentialprayerteam.org/images/protect_web.jpg
And of course, fun for the whole family, even the kids:
http://www.pptkids.org
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Franco
Participant
Friday, June 04, 2004
23:20:32
| RE: America as God's Kingdom on Earth
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It seems that more and more, the neoconservatives are confusing patriotism, or rather utopian nationalism, with Christian faith....
More and more? Nah, this garbage has been going on for decades in the U.S., even centuries. Remember William Jennings Bryan and the cross of gold? He believed in the gold standard and had the stupidity to make a religious issue out of it. The WCTU element in American politics is absurd, and unfortunately still exists. The role of Protestant Christianity in America's republic is mostly an embarassment.
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Will S.
Participant
Saturday, June 05, 2004
01:15:57
| RE: America as God's Kingdom on Earth
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Message:
True, various political crusades in America have always been expressed in religious terms - the Revolution ("No King but Jesus!"); as you mentioned, Bryan's "Ye shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold!" speech; the explicit tying of the anti-slavery cause and the Civil War with the Christian cause ("As Christ died to make men holy / let us die to make men free!"); and various other ones - the temperance movement to which you alluded, anti-gambling crusades, etc. But I think it's now reached a level where it never has been before, where politicians are actually believing that they can "rid the world of evil"; where they are now actually blending crosses with patriotic symbols, literally, rather than merely misguidedly appropriating the Cross for their political crusades. (It reminds me a bit of Nazi Germany, where the swastika was called the "Hakenkreuz", or "twisted cross", and in churches which caved and sold themselves out to National Socialism, permitted to be displayed in sanctuaries along with real crosses, in a spectacular display of state-supported blasphemy, equating the two...)
Maybe I'm just engaged in hair-splitting, but I think the change from before to now is not merely one of degree, but of kind...
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