Category Archives: Judeo-Christian

Thou Shalt Not

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The Proselytism destroying Liberty in America

The dictionary defines Proselytize; convert or attempt to convert (someone) from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Yet, straight definitions in words alone hide the meaning in another word, Evangelize; convert or seek to convert (someone) to Christianity.

The Apostle Paul Explains His Faith in the Presence of King Agrippa, his Sister Veronica, and Proconsul – Vasily Surikov

It could be easy for a person to confuse the meanings as similar or equivalent words. Their could not be two very different verbs or action words. In the two the actions conveyed are quite different. The difference in meanings are so subtle that it’s usage in recent Baptist sermon, that I attended while visiting with family, allowed the Pastor to use Acts 24:25 and the trial of St Paul to confuse their meanings in his approach to teach his congregation of the actions and justification in Trans-identity opposition. This point has recently moved from the religious podium into mainstream American political legislation, rhetoric and debate.

To understand the definitions as understood by the faithful themselves we examine another Christian Orthodoxy in how they define those similar words. In a homily given on Aug. 5, 2013, Pope Francis discussed the difference, reiterating again and again some of the differences between evangelization and proselytization.

Pope Francis blesses the crowd from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Paul in the Areopagus (Acts 17:15-22, 18-1) proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ among the worshipers of idols. It is the way in which he did this, that is so important: “He did not say: Idolaters! You will go to hell… ”. No, he “tried to reach their hearts”; he did not condemn from the outset but sought dialogue.

Paul, too, was “aware that he must evangelize, not proselytize”. The Church “does not grow by proselytizing, as Benedict XVI has told us, but grows by attracting people, by its witness, and by its preaching”

Pope Francis       

08.05.13  Holy Mass  Santa Marta      

Acts 17: 15-22, 18-1 

Proselytism is the strongest venom against the path of ecumenism.
– Pope Francis, Oct. 13, 2016

So using the Roman Catholic definitions we find a small but distinct difference in the two words besides the lay ‘opinion’ definition. We see that Proselytism is a declaration and judgement while Evangelism is a method of listening and letting the message define the conversion. In some Roman Catholic discussion the ‘Holy Spirit’ fills the listener and does the convincing. Pope Francis declares that ecumenism or the principle or aim of promoting unity among the world’s Christian Churches is at stake in the two words

There is a meaning found under the Baptist Pastor’s discussion. “They don’t mind if you proselytize but they don’t like if you evangelize.” The Pastor raised his voice and pushed his bible forward towards the congregation in a forceful manner when he said this. The vision of his imposing figure on the stage moving quickly and thrusting his bible conveys a much different idea of evangelize than that defined by the Roman Catholic leader. It appeared that the Pastor relied on a the definition of a proselytizer as being passive and merely excluding those not listening. He used his forceful movement to emphasize action in the word evangelize to determine an outcome. While he tempered his movement of with words of encouragement in helping someone make a hard decision about their life, he was unable to cover the lesson on evangelizing was not something easily welcomed and needed to be thrust upon the audience.

If one visualizes the scene in the previous paragraph you can determine the definitions from a small town Baptist point of view. Proselytize is to passively try to convert someone and if that fails excluding them. For this small Texas town Baptist Pastor, Evangelize was an active and forceful action albeit with some attempt to help the person to understand why they need to convert or repent. This point of view is almost 180 degrees the opposite of Pope Francis.

This meaning proclaimed from the lectern of that small town Baptist church can be found in the nationwide actions of the religious right in recent politics and legislative actions limiting the liberty of LGBTQ+ and specifically against trans-persons or transgender persons. A transgender person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth. Many experience gender dysphoria, which they may seek to alleviate through transitioning, often adopting a different name and set of pronouns in the process.

A Baptist based school next to the Baptist Pastor’s church states its concerns and in order to enter their children, parents must state that they align with the beliefs as a prerequisite to admission of their child. In the belief on gender the admissions documents declare; “God created male and female with the distinct and biological sex of each person immutably determined and manifested at conception by God.” The use of the term immutably is key to the opposition to any child’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria or unease with one’s birth gender.

Immutably:unchanging over time or unable to be changed

Definitions from Oxford Languages

So the beliefs are condemning trans-children from the outset and not seeking any dialogue. They are declaring that they are predetermined in their psychology since birth. There is no way to change and that it is physically impossible to change one’s sexual orientation from that of male or female at birth as determined by their God. As you can see they are not listening or trying to evangelize with God’s help but proselytizing their feelings declaring it is impossible for someone to seek happiness and peace through emotional and medical change to blend into society.

Both of these acts upon which members of a religious sect are choosing to act as medical and psychiatric doctors of medicine in their diagnosis and declarations against LGBTQ society. They have with this, created a violation of the sacrosanct chasm between government and the right of personal conscience.

The school, as in no manner of opposition, has the right to proselytize and exclude children whose parents do not hold the similar views. The Pastor has the right to proselytize against LGBTQ and even attempt to evangelize to ask the LGBTQ to make the hard decision upon their perceived sins and repent.

Our rulers have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. …. The rights of conscience we never submitted. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god

Thomas Jefferson – 1783

Thomas Jefferson wrote the above statement to warn against the infiltration of government into the beliefs of conscience found in religions. He later warned of an equal menace of political sermons interference into the affairs of state.

The ominous equal menace of the Baptist lectern has manifest itself into the rapid passage of anti-trans laws in Texas and other conservative States. The destruction of parental rights to seek medical treatment for their trans-child has been a direct result of the Baptists proselytizing the spiritual damnation to their congregation that do not act. The Pastors have taken to preaching medicine rather than lessons in religion. Will they soon turn towards law and other principals of government?

They are imparting injury upon families with their preaching of medicine from the pulpit. Yet, the State Government fails to protect the rights of the individual and has let the Pastors turn their politics into a religious duty. So what will stop any and every branch of human art or science being controlled in this manner?

American personal freedoms so easily taken away with the humble opinions of a Pastor or Priest are not easily won back. There is no dispute of the Pastor’s right to express such opinion nor the congregations right to listen. The rise of these religious ‘Robespierres’ and their influence upon society has not tempered calls of religious rights but imparted political duty manifest upon their congregations. There is no greater threat to Liberty than this. There is no larger reason to oppose such action on the principals upon which our democratic government has been founded.

The Right to Discriminate because of Religious Beliefs.

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When I read this article from the Washington Examiner; Justice Barrett is allowed to have religious beliefs, (by Hugo Gurdon E.I.C.) I found myself conflicted in its intention and taken aback by its content. I slowly read the absolute bias and abundant usage of harsh cliche terms for those that are termed “The Left”. The entire article could have been written without the jaundiced derision of those who doubt Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s ability to rule blindly on the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act case before the Supreme Court. Because of her membership association with a religious group that is clearly opposed to the outcome of the case this author’s seemingly only intent is on attacking those that call for impartiality.

The case is based upon the religious freedom of a woman who’s business is the designing of public webpages. In this case the women has been refused the ability to expand her business to provide wedding webpage services because of her refusal to allow public service for an LGBTQ wedding solely on her religious beliefs

“I want to create for weddings, but I can’t because Colorado is censoring and compelling my speech and forcing me to create custom messages and expressions … celebrating messages that violate my deeply held beliefs,”1

The concept of Religious Freedoms as being so inalienable by the Conservative or Religious Right as presented by Mr. Gurdon and those that oppose this web designer and her ruling on the case as solely the acts of ‘Leftist’ religious persecution deserves a remonstrance regardless of Justice Comey-Barrett’s ability to rule fairly.

I too, feel there is a fine line between using your own beliefs in business and the government’s ability to maintain general authority in society. The conflicts of any civil society with the Governor of the universe and the duty one owes the Creator based upon each individual’s right to exercise it as they themselves dictate cannot be held apart. Religious viewpoints are inalienable because as Madison wrote;

The right is unalienable because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men. – James Madison

However, as was revealed by Madison’s dissertation there is a conflict between Freedom of Religion and being a member of civil society. It is not just the pocketbook that rules our society as Mr. Gurdon inaccurately portrays but our willing subordination to the institutions of that civil society that acts to protect our basic freedoms. The conflict arises from the Constitutional holding that in matters of religion no man’s rights are to be held back by the institutions of civil society. Religion must be wholly exempt from the institutions of civil society is our belief. “No other rule exists”, Madison writes. Yet questions that divide society can only be decided by the majority for a free and democratic society to exist. As Madison continued the concept”

but, it is also true the the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority

Since the make up of civil society has never been a fad or a short lived movement it cannot be fleeted away by Mr. Gurdon as simply a ‘cultural revolution’ and its change in society as simply ‘fashionable opinion.’ Civil society adherence to the Constitution has a requirement to uphold the will of the majority and at the very same time protect the rights of the minority. In this article Mr. Gurdon directs a reader into the idea that the ‘traditional Christian’ viewpoint is the minority to be protected. Yet, it is just that Christian viewpoint in the majority that trespasses and persecutes the LGBTQ minority and violates the separation of civil powers that have protected so called traditional Christians from the dictates of other Christian sects, including protection of Justice Coney Barrett’s own Roman Catholic sect.

Can Justice Coney Barret rule impartially on the matter without recusal? I cannot tell you the conscience of this Roman Catholic and her inalienable right to the Creator left to her own reasoning and convictions by . I can hope she will not overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of people. She must do so without the violation of the free rights of every citizen in every aspect of their equal participation in civil society. She must do so free from the dictates of religious viewpoints and opinions of other men, in this particular case women and of her own.

“If all men are by nature equally free and independent.  All men are to be considered entering into society on an equal conditions;  as relinquishing no more, and therefore retaining no less one than another of their natural rights.  Above all are they to be considered as retaining ‘equal title’ to the free exercise ..to the dictates of their conscience.  While we assert for ourselves to embrace, to profess, and to observe the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which has convinced us”  – James Madison.

Supreme Court and fetal viability

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The Twenty-First Century Inquisition

The burning of women based on religious ideas

The recent acts of the conservative Supreme Court Justices, most newly appointed by Donald Trump in a Republican Senate palace revolution against modern liberal thinking, has witnessed the birth of a grave threat to rights of women and individual personal freedoms not seen since the 16th Century Religious Inquisitions. The acts of conservative legislatures in Texas has all but aborted a woman’s right to determine her own reproductive future past the embryonic stage of pregnancy. The Supreme Court in a conservative majority has allowed this reduction of personal rights by a State within the Union to remain in effect, feigning the contemplation of the unique attack by the State of Texas on the individual rights of others granted by Federal Law.

When the United States formed the Federalist wrote the constitution without a bill of rights because they felt that individual rights were already guaranteed by each state in their own constitutions. Thomas Jefferson argued that they needed to be included and not just inferred so they were protected. How true indeed did Jefferson’s fears become true. States governments have begun an offensive attack against personal freedoms and individual rights based on religious viewpoints while ignoring the understandings of science.

The US Supreme Court Justices

About 20 percent of organisms fail during the embryonic period, usually due to gross chromosomal abnormalities.1 This means the women’s own reproductive system aborts the pregnancy during the embryonic period up to 12 weeks because of a dangerous developmental failure of the human chromosomal process. Further, developing child is most at risk for some of the most severe problems during the first three months of development. During this is a time most women are unaware that they are pregnant. Through no fault of the woman, the fetal process is either spontaneously aborted or complications have lead to problematic fetal development.

These chromosomal and development complications bring with them the private personal decisions needed by women and their families. It was the advancements of medical science in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that allowed women to become aware of the need for personal rights about their own reproductive systems and use medical knowledge to make their lives safer and more meaningful. The science further allowed them to see into, and decided, the futures of their own as well as their families.

The right to be free to continue the fetal development or not has now been erased by the US Supreme Court and the restrictive policies of a single outlaw State. These rights have been rescinded solely on the religious concept of when humanity consciously begins and not on the personal safety, mental health or conditions of the alive woman.

This religious biases against women’s rights are not unlike the unscientific religious viewpoint in the 16th century that the earth was the center of the universe known as Geocentrism(the earth not moving at the center of the universe). If the earth is indeed the center, then God is trying to tell us that we are special to Him. We are unique. We are destined to be with Him forever. All these ideas drove the government to detain, imprison, persecute and torture individuals in the name of a religious not scientific belief.

They argued the bible professed the truths. They believed it was bible truths. “Yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.- 1 Chron. 16:30 ” The earth was considered God’s focal point since it was created first and the sun and planets later adorned it. Those who reject geocentrism must explain why they do not submit to this rule of biblical interpretation set forth by two infallible councils.

Copernicus and Galileo both contradicted the religious authority of the 16th Century with their view that the Earth orbited around the Sun. Galileo Galileo, in 1633, was brought before the Inquisition, a judicial system established by the christian church in 1542 to regulate doctrine. This included the banning of books that conflicted with then current religious beliefs. Galileo was sentenced for heresy by religious courts in 1633 for his scientific advancements that countered the religious authority’s belief in Geocentrism. Both Copernicus and Galileo were breaking the law for reasoning with science.

Harmonia Macrocosmica
cartographer Andreas Cellarius, 1660
Modern understanding of Solar System2
Galileo before the Holy Office, a 19th century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

Today, five of the nine justices are Roman Catholic. Neil Gorsuch, who was raised Roman Catholic, professes to now be Anglican Catholic ( Episcopalian ). The other three are Jewish. The Justices have denied during Senate confirmation processes any preconception of a judgment outcome based on their faith or any Christian concepts held by themselves.

However, the notion of life and when it begins has been defined by those who wish to restrict women’s reproductive rights and bodily privacy. Life begins, according to those religious beliefs, with the entrance of a divine soul at conception or the chromosomal mix in a woman’s uterus at fertilization of an ovum. It is at this point that the concepts of human consciousness and those of strict religious ideologies conflict.

There is no definition within the religious concept of creation that allows for the modern scientific concept of consciousness. The concept of human life beginning at a point in fetal development that is also sometimes referred as the point of viability. The point where a fetus becomes aware because of the development of the cerebral cortex and simultaneously could survive outside of the woman’s uterus. This happens when the fetus cerebral cortex forms in the brain at about 23 to 24 weeks after fertilization.

It is the viability concept that for nearly 50 years has been used by States and Courts to define women’s reproductive rights. It is also the concept used by many States including the outlaw State that has all be denied women’s reproductive rights to allow doctor’s and their ethics committees to withdraw life support with State support using Futile Care Laws. The State is allowing dying or brain dead patient based on medical science to expire, despite in some cases, the opposition of families.

Those opposed to the concept of human awareness at 22 weeks and conscious human life are usually opposed to the rights of a woman to decide on her reproductive future. They cannot separate their religious belief of human life beginning at conception. This is, of course, is similar to the social bias during the sixteenth century belief in Geocentrism. The woman’s rights opponents transmute all rights of life at the point of conception to the fetus as an equal to the living woman.

Science has shown us this is not the case and has created a time period through which a woman, with her doctor and her family can safely determine her reproductive future. The point of viability or formation of consciousness in the human embryo. Consciousness is the ability of having perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. Prior to the Cerebral Cortex development there is no connection between the lobes in the forming brain that creates an overall cognitive ability. Each section of the brain reacts independently to stimulus independently with instinctual motor reaction.

You are not consciously making your heart beat or lungs fill but you are aware of it. Prior to this point the woman must be allowed to decide alone the individual and heart wrenching decisions facing her life. It is a moral duty of society to support and help her in these decisions.

A purely secular State cannot predetermine or force the woman’s decisions based on religious concepts of conscious human life any more than the State could make the earth the center of the solar system. The State runs on the rules of religious beliefs that are based only on temporary societal moral beliefs that change as science enlightens and have in the past been proven inaccurate.

Those that force the woman into their religious inquisition morality courts do not advance humankind but inhibit it. They burn the woman’s rights based upon their religiously biased moral authority alone.

They sow the destruction of individual freedoms of all mankind. As where does the restrictions on freedoms end? Do we return to the days of religious clerics controlling the very nature and make up of government?

PopePaul VI, in Humanae Vitae3 July 25, 1968, declared all artificial birth control methods are unlawful as are all specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means. While he also outlawed outright termination, he created a further understanding that all couples must remain celibate and for married couples to be celibate between child births as the only preventative method of birth control. He further wrote, “Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life … can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.”

This is the religious concept for the banning all types of birth control even the use of prophylactics. While the concepts of Paul VI are not a moral mainstream law. I am sure many of those in opposition to women’s rights to her own body will stand up and say that will never be the case. It is also not an accusation that current Supreme Court Justices, who are Catholic, cannot think beyond religious concepts. They certainly cannot be without confliction to understand their secular legal opinions versus their religious or biblical concepts. They must come to grips with their own beliefs and understanding with their relationship with God. This, just as a woman does in making the hardest decision of her life. However, it must be understood that it is just this type of invasion of religious ideas into a free secular society that has arisen the attack on women and their reproductive rights despite science showing them the path to moral limits.

The inquisition or the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith established in 1588 to combat Protestantism and used to convict Galileo still exists today. Leaving the right to one’s own body and reproductive rights were unfortunately left by Madison and Jefferson as ‘inferred’ in the Constitution and has proven as not protected by the States Maybe it is time to define a woman’s rights in federal law instead of interpretation.

The Gentle Breeze of Liberty

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Once again gentle breeze flows from atop the Rocky Mountains down over the plains and out each ocean shore into the world from the US. The breeze, an image of a endless flow of liberty to all men has once again been restored to the United States of America. Those the love or seek freedom can hold their hand up and feel the winds of liberty flowing through their open hands gently tapping at their skin as it curls around their fingers.

Open Hand Monument of Chandigarh. The Open Hand Monument symbolizes “the hand to give and the hand to take; peace and prosperity, and the unity of mankind”

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

The erasure of the horrors of Donald Trump as President of the United States and the reversal of so many damaging policies of his nationalistic movement to destroy the good will and prosperity of the United States has begun. The final attack of his on the US Capital, that caused the sad deaths of five persons, failed to stop the Democracy in the US from thriving once again.

Already under the Biden-Harris stewardship the US has re-entered the Paris Climate Agreement and stopped the hated symbol of nationalism Trump’s wall. The US re-enters into a committed effort of the health of the world population in the World Health Organization and along with it an effort to help vaccinate the poor nations against the COVID pandemic with the support of COVAX

America is once again a nation that unblinkingly thinks of those less fortunate than her. Those that supported Trump thought they were advancing a Christian cause and were blinded by Trump’s Medicine Man spell as he attacked the world saying that other poorer nations were evil places stealing riches from America.

“Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and becomes judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?” James 2:2-6

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” Matthew 25:35

The United States once again looks at Liberty as a citizen’s of the world rights. No longer thinking of only itself in a nationalistic sense but as a leader of world freedom.