constitution

The Ten Recommendations

March 5, 2013 By James F. McGrath 2 Comments

When I saw yesterday’s Non Sequitur cartoon, it reminded me of something that I run up against regularly in class: For today’s students, the Ten Commandments have always been ten “recommendations” or “suggestions.” No matter how strongly they were ingrained in them from an early age, they have not had the status of law – apart from [...]

Filed Under: Bible, Exodus, Genesis Tagged With: America, cartoon, clause, constitution, establishment, first amendment, free exercise, freedom, law, laws, Moses, Non Sequitur, religion, Ten Commandments, Torah, unconstitutional, United States 2 Comments

What Fundamentalists Worship

December 15, 2012 By James F. McGrath 44 Comments

Quite a number of people are discussing t-shirts like this one (or the wider use of the sentiment expressed on it) in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy: I am glad that fundamentalists are finally being a bit more honest about what they mean by “God.” They clearly do not mean an omnipresent [...]

Filed Under: Christianity, education, fundamentalism, religion Tagged With: constitution, education, first amendment, fundamentalism, fundamentalists, God, omnipresence, power, public, Sandy Hook Elementary School, school, schools, separation of church and state, shooting, T-shirt, T-shirts, theology, tragedy, United States 44 Comments

Possibly the Most Interesting Pact With the Devil

September 21, 2012 By James F. McGrath 3 Comments

Rick Perry has apparently made some bizarrely critical comments about the separation of church and state. That separation is the separation that the forerunners of modern Evangelicals, including the Baptists in particular, struggled for and advocated. It is the one that is surely responsible for the fact that religion is a vibrant part of American [...]

Filed Under: Christianity, fundamentalism, politics, Progressive Christianity Tagged With: Baptist, Christian, Christianity, church, Conservative, constitution, devil, freedom, meme, most interesting man in the world, politics, progressive Christianity, religion, Republican, Rick Perry, secular, separation, separation of church and state, state 3 Comments

So You Wanna Talk About Free Speech?

August 2, 2012 By James F. McGrath 11 Comments

A lot of people have brought up “freedom of speech” and related phrases in discussion of the current expressions of support for and protest against Chick-fil-A and its CEO Dan Cathy. But freedom of speech is only the issue at one very specific point in the controversy. No one should be denying the free speech of [...]

Filed Under: Bible, Christianity, fundamentalism, morality, politics Tagged With: art, astronaut, Chick-fil-A, chicken, clause, Cluckalonians, constitution, criminalization, Dan Cathy, establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech, gays, homosexuality, homosexuals, laws, lesbians, offensive, Sally Ride, segregation, slavery, sodomy, Truett Cathy, United States 11 Comments