Here’s a reminder of the two remaining Truth Project training seminars: One is in Fredericksburg on Saturday, September 11 and one in is Newport News on Saturday, November 12. You do not have to live in the immediate areas to attend. In fact, people often travel from out of state for these engaging and intelligent workshops, and there are nearby accommodations if you need to stay overnight. As these will be the last Truth Project seminars anywhere in Virginia for quite some time, we hope you’ll consider attending to the one nearest you, or to the one on the more convenient date.
The seminars are dynamic training sessions that prepare people to lead the Truth Project’s innovative small group curriculum, which imparts a Biblical worldview into the lives of others. It has been called “Dynamic, “Inspiring” and “Transformational.” The events are open to everyone, especially pastors, small group ministers and church leaders.
For more information, please click here.
Below is my letter to the RTD a few weeks ago. Texas’ view on slavery reflects some of the FF’s religious rantings and twisted doctrine. It reflects the BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW, or “Truth” as you put it, in Texas in 1861:
Correspondent of the Day
By Staff Reports | Times-Dispatch
Published: August 20, 2010
Does Texas’ God Wear Blue or Gray?
Editor, Times-Dispatch: In the recent Op/Ed feature regarding the cause of the Civil War, I found Texas’ declaration of secession the most interesting. Of the three states’ declarations, it was the only one that invoked Christian doctrine to justify slavery — suggesting that the bondage of the African race “is abundantly authorized by the experience of mankind and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian Nations.”
I’m curious to know if the Texas declaration of secession is included in that state’s school history textbooks. After all, in their effort to “correct” liberally biased versions of history and bring God back into Texas classrooms, members of the Texas Board of Education made numerous revisions to schoolbooks. I have to wonder: When they do bring God back into the classrooms will they bring back the God who blessed the C.S.A. or the God who blesses the U.S.A.?
Herein lays the fundamental problem with infusing religious teaching into our children’s public school curriculum. There are many approaches to Christian doctrine. Which approach will be adopted? A liberal-based theology? A conservative-based theology? If pro-secession, pro-Confederacy teaching in 1861 Texas schools reflected the sentiment of that state’s own government, children were subjected to a twisted version of Christian doctrine. It was twisted to bolster support for an evil system that had dire consequences for African-Americans, the citizens of Texas and the entire United States. To believe that the twisting of Christian doctrine can’t happen today like it did in 1861 would be very naive indeed.
Mark W. Siegel.
Richmond.
Let me quote from Mr. Siegel’s diatribe: “To believe that the twisting of Christian doctrine . . . ” and I would add, “as he has just done.”
History, when based up facts, primary sources, provable evidence, is not somebody’s daytime, fictional soap opera.
It is a simple matter to include exerpts of Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, the letters of our founders, and other primary documents to see that religion-based morality played a prominent role in the thinking of those who founded our nation as well as our early nation’s leaders. One needn’t go off on a tangent discussing various heresies or theological interpretations to establish that simple fact. It is a paradox that both sides invoked the name of God to bring them victory in the rebellions against Great Britain and against Mr. Lincoln’s government. The theological aspects of that paradox are not matters for secular public schools, but trying to erase the role of religion from the history of those periods would represent ignorance of the highest order. Robert E. Lee opposed slavery his entire live and always said something similar to what Mr. Siegel wrote: Mr. Siegel’s words, “an evil system that had dire consequences for African-Americans, the citizens of Texas and the entire United States”; Lee, likewise, wrote that slavery destroyed the character of the master most assuredly as it destroyed the initiative of the slave. I wonder if Mr. Siegel would approve of a more thorough teaching of the morals of Robert E. Lee in our public schools?
In any event, morality in this nation has been anchored in Judeo-Christian roots. The fact that religion has been twisted for unholy purposes does not undo the reality that our founders sought to create a document based on morality — as did many leaders of the Confederacy. We may look back and condemn them, but that is the luxury that future generations will always have in condemning the mistakes of previous generations. Hindsight is 20-20.
Mr. Dawes – Acknowledging Judean-Christian roots as the moral basis for our Constitution and our laws is a far cry from teaching “Christian” morals in our public school classrooms. I ask: What is the significance of the “Christian Nation” concept when Christians themselves do not agree on theology? The reason there are so many different denominations and splintered/fragmented denominations is because Christians are not always on the same page when it comes to Christian doctrine. Conservative Christian organizations like the Family Foundation, Focus on the Family, and American Family Association frequently use language that implies that “liberals” and “secularists” are something other than Christian. The reality is those same “liberals” and “secularists” are more often than not Christians themselves but recognize that the best way to preserve and protect religious liberty is by keeping it in the homes, within families and churches and out of the public sphere to the extent possible.
The so called “religious right” is adamant about the right to pray even during state/government events. Even if they do have the right to do so, why do they insist on doing what Jesus himself discouraged in Matthew 6:5? “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” While Jesus often spoke in hard to understand parables, there’s little ambiguity in his view on public prayer. He encouraged private prayer if you wanted to be heard by God.
Even if our laws are based on Christian morals, our Founders also tempered them with a substantial dose of “live and let live.” In that vein they made no reference to “Christian” or “Christianity” in the Constitution. They knew all too well that any such inference would undermine their very intent.