Protestantism

» Brian Tubbs - What's Incorrect?

Alright, I guess it comes down to how you define "religious tyranny." In the past, you've given the impression that if America were to move toward D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, et al, that would be religious tyranny. Well, I'm here to tell you Kennedy, Falwell, etc. are LIBERALS compared to the way things were in colonial America with respect to religion.

In colonial Virginia, for example, you had to pay taxes to the Church of England - and the Anglican ministers were paid out of those tax monies. You had to have a license to form a church or preach if you were NOT part of the Anglican community. I'm pretty sure also that you had to be an Anglican in order to advance in Virginia's political world. Not sure if that was an official or unofficial requirement, but it ain't a coincidence that George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and others - all had ties to the Anglican Church.

Jefferson and James Madison changed all that in Virginia with the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom -- a document that really set the tone for what would happen in the other states has America progressed.

I'm a HUGE supporter, btw, of the VA Statute of Religious Freedom. And so was Falwell and so is D James Kennedy.

The battle lines have shifted to the LEFT since then. In those days - the founding era - the establishment clause of the First Amendment wasn't designed to stop prayers at high school graduations or Bible study clubs from meeting on school grounds or ending the prayer tradition at Virginia Military Institute. The Founders would flip in their graves at those things. What the establishment clause was designed to do was put an end to what had been the case in most of colonial America -- denominational establishments like the Church of England.