{"id":1704,"date":"2012-12-01T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T06:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/12\/secession-theology-runs-deep-in-american-religious-political-history.html"},"modified":"2012-12-01T06:05:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-01T06:05:00","slug":"secession-theology-runs-deep-in-american-religious-political-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/12\/secession-theology-runs-deep-in-american-religious-political-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Secession Theology Runs Deep In American Religious, Political History"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">Corruption has gone too far. The righteous must break away. Hope now rests with a holy remnant that will honor foundational texts.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">The message sounds familiar. A church schism? No, mounting calls for secession from the United States.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">Since President Obama won re-election, more than 750,000 Americans have petitioned the White House website to let their respective states secede, from Alaska to Iowa to Maryland and Vermont. Those leading the charge are framing it, observers say, in terms that suggest a deep-seated religious impulse for purity-through-separation is flaring up once again.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">But this time, it\u2019s playing out on a political stage.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">\u201cToday\u2019s secessionist movements are just the latest example of a long parade of breakaway groups (in American history) seeking to restore some lost ideal,\u201d said Peter J. Thuesen, professor of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. \u201cThe problem is that the ideal is invariably a mirage.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">Seeking purity through separation has marked American religious history since the Puritans sailed from Holland to establish a holy beacon in the New World. It helps explain why Baptists, Presbyterians and others have splintered into countless subgroups over the years, and why the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina disaffiliated from the Episcopal Church this fall.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">The pattern commonly involves one group breaking off to re-establish a holy community by living in fresh accord with sacred texts. Religious purists have the Bible to guide their quest; secessionists look to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Both insist these centers of authority have suffered neglect and must be restored.<\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: white;border: none;color: #333333;font-family: Georgia, Century, Times, serif;font-size: 15px;line-height: 21px;margin-bottom: 15px;padding: 0px\">Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/11\/30\/secession-theology-american-religious-political-history_n_2215158.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Corruption has gone too far. The righteous must break away. Hope now rests with a holy remnant that will honor foundational texts. The message sounds familiar. A church schism? No, mounting calls for secession from the United States. Since President Obama won re-election, more than 750,000 Americans have petitioned the White House website to let [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Secession Theology Runs Deep In American Religious, Political History<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Corruption has gone too far. The righteous must break away. 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