Gmail

Gmail

The Manhattan Declaration - Or Why I Am No Longer a "Christian"

Over the last 25 years, the term "christian" has become a political term like
liberal or conservative. While I am not a "Christian" as defined by others, I
have my own faith and I am extremely turned off my those who wish to enforce
conversion upon us. I have enclosed my own statements upon this racist and
hateful document. I cannot believe that any true Christian who believes in a
forgiving and benevolent God would actually agree with this pack of statements.
I am truly offended. I thought I would also post this here for discussion. I
have not commented on every thought here, but I can say with a certain amount
of authority, that they are wrong regarding some of their historical
interpretations. How convenient, they use and twist history just like they
claim their opponents do.

I would like to find out if other members of the forum have as strong a problem
with this statement. I believe that its goals are the exact opposite of what
being a true "Christian" is suppose to be



Preamble
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
[Actually it was Christians who perpetuated the practice of slavery, And by the way are they implying that Catholics are not “Christian”? While they are technically correct in their statement on the 16^th and 17^th century papal edicts, They forget that for the 500 years prior to this they allowed and indeed participated in slavery. They perpetuated a system of monarchical rule and serfdom in the Europe for centuries. Why is it that these “Christians” forget about the Inqusitorial Courts of the Inquisition, the Religious Wars of the 17^th century where people for generations were killed because they believed in a different religion than their foes. It strikes me that this is what they want to return to a Theocracy. And what is worse its their form of theocracy that is scary]

In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
[ No, in Europe it was the “Christians” who instilled and promoted divine claims in kings from Charlemagne to the present. Even to this day Queen Elizabeth II believes she was put on the throne by God. I also see a touch of the Enlightenment thinking here with the idea of a rule of law and balance of governmental powers???? Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau were discredited by “Christian”. No argument about the “Christian” participation in the Civil Rights movement. However, it was right that they should help tear down the walls of segregation and slavery that they built in the 400 years prior to the 1960s]

This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
[ Yes, they have brought care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, but at a price!!. They still will not implement the simplest reforms of all. They will not promote the use of Contraceptives or other family planning programs. Instead, they provide medical aid to those who are still ignorant about the basic problems facing these poor people. Basic knowledge of how to prevent STDs, and the education of contraception methods would go much further than singing psalms.]

Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
[the Question remains who's good. They intend to remain constant martyrs on the sidewalk trying to convert everyone to whatever the latest calling is. For me, religion is a personal thing. I do not feel the need to proclaim it from the mountain tops or the local shopping market. And I personally dislike the efforts of those to convert people who are satisfied with their current relationship with the Almighty. The zombie like zeal of these people is such a turn off. I often wonder if they actually believe what they are preaching]
Declaration
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.
{Truth in Holy Scripture, now this could be very interesting. Are you now saying that you all agree on one set of Scriptures??? That would indeed be an achievement. Especially since the Scriptures actively contradict each other in the Bible, not to mention the Scriptures that are not a part of the Bible. So a list of what you all agree on would be nice. The statement of natural human reason strikes me as very interesting. Especially since according to most of your theologians we need not study science or history we just need to know the Bible. Do we now return to the days of accepting the Geocentric Universe despite all the evidence?? Do we now condemn the persecution of Galileo by the Catholic Church who perpetuated this idea?

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.
[Freedom of Religion also means Freedom From Religion. I should not have to be persecuted or bothered by the psalm singing street corner worshipers. The government should remain RELIGION NEUTRAL and not endorse or enable ANY religion. I also find it heartening that you have this concern for the unborn. I can understand that it is a moral question that should remain between a person and her God, nobody else. But, I would like to know why you are not concerned for the current flock of children who are under nourished, have no health care, and are often abandoned??? As for promiscuity infidelity, and divorce, I can agree that there may be a considerable amount. However, when it comes to divorce we should be able to admit we have made a mistake instead of staying together for the sake of the children and making their lives miserable. Marriage should be a happy affair. By making divorce harder, we will perpetuate a system like Ireland. Where we have thousands of couples who have been separated for years living with their true loves and having other families. The history of the Church should illustrate that this is not a good thing. While I do not think that one should enter marriage lightly, I do think that couples should not have to suffer.

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.
[Well I can agree that if you want your marriage blessed within a formal religious ceremony, you should agree with these propositions. However, the state has regulated the legal aspects of marriage going back to at least the Roman Republic or even Ancient Greece. Equal dignity is of interested to me because the very organized religions that are in support of these propositions do not support that very thing. What about the Equal Dignity of women to become ministers in their own right??? Wasn't it women who when Christ had died on the cross arrived to prepare the body and place it in the tomb? And it was women who first heralded the day when he arose from the dead.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right-and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation-to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.
Life
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro- abortion ideology prevails today in our government. Many in the present administration want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion-a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as “the culture of death.” We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.

A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”
[ Yet it was Christians who participated in and forwarded the whole idea of Eugenics. I am glad that you admit your errors and are willing to acknowledge your participation in this. If embryo research can cure such diseases as diabetes, cancer, etc, why not? This is as absurd as offering sex education classes in Africa without telling them about STDS, or providing counseling on contraceptives. As far as assisted suicide goes, I have no problem with ending the pain and suffering of an individual who will already die. Prolonging life for the sake of life that is already in the midst of a death struggle is as inhuman as the things that you are professing. ]

We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.

A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.

Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.
Marriage
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24

This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33

In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God's creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society-indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as “holy matrimony” to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.

Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits-the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling-and alarming-indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society-and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out- of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average-is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.

We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.

To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.

The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents' marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.

We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God's intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God's patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.

We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being-the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual- on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.

We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being “married.” It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.

No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality-a covenantal union of husband and wife-that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as “marriages” sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.

And so it is out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God's creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.
[ Marriage has changed so much over the last thousand years that while I may be a central poart of the “Christian” religion, it is also regulated by the state. The state can prevent one from marrying more than one person at the same time, prevent children who are under the age of consent from marrying, prevent family members from marrying each other, and to ensure that the legal aspects of marriage are followed. As long as individuals are legally united and are paying their taxes they are NOT asking to be recognized by any religious organization. Your holy idea of marriage is still safe because you hold the keys as to who you will sanctify as married within your religious realm. But the state has a compelling interest, and has for thousands of years, to ensure that the civil part of marriage remains available. You preconditions of “love” and “concern for the common good, yes prejudice” are obvious to all who read this declaration.]


Religious Liberty
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. Matthew 22:21

The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: “Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness..., for compulsion is no attribute of God” (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God-a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.

Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.

It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law-such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.

We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti- discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex
[I am sorry, when a hospital organized along religious lines is the ONLY hospital in a area for people to go to, religious conscious needs to be left at the emergency room door. Especially if procedures are legal, access to the public function should not be withheld because of religious views. Hospital officials, nurses, doctors, etc, if they have a problem with providing services that conflict with their religion, they should seek another job because they are no longer in the profession of health they are in the profession of Health Prevention. Whatever happened to the values of our fathers that stated “sometimes in life there are things that you do not want to do, but you do them because you are compelled to do so.”]
households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here
[Yes, because the population is tired of you spreading the hate. I you want to be a true “Christian” then maybe you should spend more time contemplating the word of God rather than preaching what you think it is. Educate yourself. Read the historical texts. You will find that they are not at all united on all areas of faith. And what is your problem if the state does this how does it affect religious doctrine? Answer, it does not. My wife and I are not any more or less married. I believe that Churches should lose their tax exempt status if they are engaging in politics. Religion should remain apart from ANY political aspect.

In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one's own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.¹ Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.

As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust-and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust-undermine the common good, rather than serve it.

Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King's willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.
[ Yes, I say go ahead and preach. I should also be allowed not to have to hear that endless tirade. It is as if you believe that the average person is incapable of understanding for themselves the Gospels. I have no problem with the preaching. It is when I have to be coerced or forced to listen to things that I have already contemplated and may disagree with, I then object. So now you want to oppose the laws that you say are the foundation of law in the US??? If you agree with the law that's ok but if you disagree well it's a holy act??? There is more to civil disobedience than the mere objection to a law. As I recall, there were a great many Christians enforcing the segregations laws in the South for many years. They used the works of Aristotle and Plato to justify their position of Slavery as correct. Civil disobedience means the refusal to comply with an unjust law. The word UNJUST is key. One can disagree, however one should also be prepared to face the legal consequences as the rest of society may not agree.]

Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar's. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God's.
[In the end, as long as you obey the laws of this country, render to Caesar what is Caesar's, you can say what you want about you position. As long as you respect other's right to do so. Rendering to Caesar means you are obliged to follow the laws of the nation whether you agree or not. And it means that God, the forgiving God you have left out here, will forgive you for doing so. The real absence in this statement is the lack of the presence of a forgiving God. At the same time, I would not expect one to render to Caesar what is God's. However, the problem is on what one is rendering. If it means that you disagree with laws and society. That is ok. But I should not have to face a barrage or army of psalm singing people thinking they are doing good. I have the right to be left alone with my thoughts and my God. It means that as a citizen you have an OBLIGATION to the civil authorities whether you agree or not. What this statement entails is not a call to arms for Christians but a statement for a new Crusade for mass religious conversion and Religious War. I do hope that we do not return to the days of the 16^th and 17^th century when the whole of Europe fought endless wars that began over religious reasons. By the time these wars ended, most people after generations at war forgot why the wars had started. If this is what you want to return to, I cannot agree in any form}

Larry Sanger Sees the Light

Well it has taken some time, but Larry Sanger has exposed the real fault of Wikipedia. The conflict between egalitarianism and what he calls epistemic egalitarianism (the idea we are all fundamentally equal in our authority or rights to articulate what should pass for knowledge; the ground on which a claim can compete against other claims are to be found in the content of the claim itself, not who makes it.)
He is right this is a doctrine about rights or authority, not about ability (read expertise). This doctrine doesn't declare we have the right to say what really is known; but only what passes for knowledge, or what is presented as known, for example through Wikipedia's mechanisms. The problem with this is that what passes for knowledge is SEEN as knowledge no matter how incorrect it might be.
The problem with this notion is that we are not all equal in the amount of knowledge that one has obtained over their life time. Equality is a great thing. However, taken to the extreme like Wikipedia in many instances it provides history by consensus. A group of people with no credentials determines the meritoriousness of an article. Now this is as absurd as taking your car in for brake repairs to your local MD. He/She may understand the concepts of the hydraulics of the braking system; but they certainly are not an expert in the field. This desire for fairness had created an atmosphere of hostility to any authority. Sorry to say it folks, but we have to have some authorities somewhere. It is not that the dabbler as Sanger notes, is no less accurate in their assessment than an "expert". The fact remains that those who have studied in certain fields do possess a certain amount of knowledge. To not make use of this would be a sad thing indeed.
For many of the so called experts, the problem with these egalitarian schemes is that they have no room for experts. Wikipedia aims for the consensus of opinion hoping to mold what people call "common knowledge." As a result, there has not been a drive on the part of professionals to engage in this medium because their advanced knowledge is not valued. The mistaken assumption by the egalitarians is that the experts will want to take over in all things. This is a mistake. Professionals do not want to take over all things, they only want to use their knowledge obtained over a long period of time within their areas of expertise to guide people.
I reject the egalitarian epistemological position. We are not all equal when it comes to our levels of knowledge. Some people study areas for years and have written extensively. And to place the results of decades of work on an equal footing with those who have not studied the subject with the same intensity is absurd. As Sanger states, "if we reduce experts to the level of the rest of us, even when they speak about their areas of knowledge, we reduce society's collective grasp of the truth." Wikipedia is a good example of that. While many of its articles are very good, the areas where they are not so good are in the social sciences where facts are not as "hard" as in the area of science.
I also reject the idea of a crowd mentality. Crowds and consensus can do some destructive things, Nazi Germany comes to mind. The greatest historical fact about NAZI Germany lies not in its great demonstrations; but in the willingness of the "average" person to do nothing and let events unfold. It is this withdrawal that helped create a consensus and crowd mentality that remains one of the most destructive examples. Do we really want a group mentality that could potentially arrive at such erroneous conclusion?

Larry Sanger finally saw the Light

Well it has taken some time, but Larry Sanger has exposed the real fault of Wikipedia.  The conflict between egalitarianism and what he calls epistemic egalitarianism (the idea we are all fundamentally equal in our authority or rights to articulate what should pass for knowledge; the ground on which a claim can compete against other claims are to be found in the content of the claim itself, not who makes it.) 

He is right this is a doctrine about rights or authority, not about ability (read expertise).  This doctrine doesn't declare we have the right to say what really is known; but only what passes for knowledge, or what is presented as known, for example through Wikipedia's mechanisms.  The problem with this is that what passes for knowledge is SEEN as knowledge no matter how incorrect it might be.

The problem with this notion is that we are not all equal in the amount of knowledge that one has obtained over their life time.  Equality is a great thing.  However, taken to the extreme like Wikipedia in many instances it provides history by consensus.  A group of people with no credentials determines the meritoriousness of an article.  Now this is as absurd as taking your car in for brake repairs to your local MD.  He/She may understand the concepts of the hydraulics of the braking system; but they certainly are not an expert in the field. This desire for fairness had created an atmosphere of hostility to any authority.  Sorry to say it folks, but we have to have some authorities somewhere.  It is not that the dabbler as Sanger notes, is no less accurate in their assessment than an "expert".  The fact remains that those who have studied in certain fields do possess a certain amount of knowledge.  To not make use of this would be a sad thing indeed.

For many of the so called experts, the problem with these egalitarian schemes is that they have no room for experts.  Wikipedia aims for the consensus of opinion hoping to mold what people call "common knowledge."  As a result, there has not been a drive on the part of professionals to engage in this medium because their advanced knowledge is not valued.  The mistaken assumption by the egalitarians is that the experts will want to take over in all things.  This is a mistake.  Professionals do not want to take over all things, they only want to use their knowledge obtained over a long period of time within their areas of expertise to guide people. 

I reject the egalitarian epistemological position.  We are not all equal when it comes to our levels of knowledge.  Some people study areas for years and have written extensively.  And to place the results of decades of work on an equal footing with those who have not studied the subject with the same intensity is absurd.  As Sanger states, "if we reduce experts to the level of the rest of us, even when they speak about their areas of knowledge, we reduce society's collective grasp of the truth."  Wikipedia is a good example of that.  While many of its articles are very good, the areas where they are not so good are in the social sciences where facts are not as "hard" as in the area of science.

I also reject the idea of a crowd mentality.  Crowds and consensus can do some destructive things, Nazi Germany comes to mind.  The greatest historical fact about NAZI Germany lies not in its great demonstrations; but in the willingness of the "average" person to do nothing and let events unfold.  It is this withdrawal that helped create a consensus and crowd mentality that remains one of the most destructive examples.  Do we really want a group mentality that could potentially arrive at such erroneous conclusion?   

Christopher Moore's Canadian History: HIstory of International Law

Christopher Moore's Canadian History: HIstory of International Law

Leopold vanRanke and Johann Gustav Droysen

Leopold vanRanke the father of historical science taught his students to use the historical materials at hand to provide a proper interpretation. Rarely has a phrase been so often quoted as Ranke's "wie es eigentlich gwesen [how it actually was] (Breisach, p. 233). Van Ranke brings together philologist, erudites, and legalh historians of his age to develop a methodology that would use substantial interpretation and traditional narrative history. He innovated as he taught taking his students to the archives which has only begun to open its doors to scholars. The use of these sources under critical safeguards seemed to guarnatee the objectivity of one segment of the historian's work, the establishment of facts (Breisach, p. 233) Briesach later states that his method was not exactly new it had been used by classical philologists with the maxim: check the source for trustworthiness and against its own context. It is for this that van Ranke is celebrated is celebrated as the pioneer of a critical historical science. He deserved that recognition also because he observed his own rules. As Briesach notes; "He refused, for example, to let his onw distaste for the French Revolution or of the papacy to sway his findings"(Briesach, p. 233)

Johann Gustav Droysen perceived the historian's job as creative thought. He abandoned the transcendent element of van Ranke's idea (that once facts are established they are synthesized by the historian through the use of Ahnen, read God) he saw all historical work as resulting from the encounter historians, whose lives are shaped elements of the past (the very conventions, institutions, customs, and modes of thoughts of their won society together with the physical remains of the past -documents, monuments, etc.) (Breisach 278-279) It is from these encounters a creative and critically controlled creation of the past would emerge.

Where Rankeans sought through critical and objective research to give accurate glimpses of the past and present reality, the positivists tried to explain the world by methods that forced them to see nature, intellect, and morality. Droysen objected to transforming the family, state, and nation into natural phenomena depriving them of their moral quality and purpose. For Droysen, the ethical constituted a separate and higher sphere of life, and historians of the family, nations, law, politics, economics, thought, and the arts had to understand that. Neither the world nor the methods for its exploration can be forced into a model of uniformity.

It is these two 19th century historians that have served as the basis of historical inquiry and thought for the last century and a half. While all their ideas are not currently used by historians. The foundation of historical inquiry remains a significant part of their contributions.

For more information about the foundation of Historiography see the Father of Historiography's work

The Book: Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, & Modern
Author: Ernst Breisach

The quotes above are from the second edition printed in 1993. Dr. Breisach had significantly altered the construction of his work in the second edition.

Confronting the New Frontier of Historical Science

Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig have issued a call to arms for historians. With all the concerns about the internet, historians should not resign themselves to the amateurs and hacks on the internet. Instead the challenge is to “prod historians to sit down in front of their computers and to get to work. Historians need to confront these issues of quality, durability, readability, passivity, and inaccessibility rather than leave them to the technologists, legislators, and media companies, or even just to our colleagues in libraries and archives.” (Page 13, of Digital History) In addition, “open sources” should be the rallying cry for historians rather than cede this to for profit corporations who will control access.

I do agree with Cohen and Rosenzweig fully; I did have initial reservations about the argument first presented by Dan Cohen about why professors should start blogging. It is not that one should discourage amateurs, the problem remains how to ensure that historians’ websites have the credibility they deserve. The amateurs of popular history are the ones that formerly had limited representation on the bookstore shelf; they also have passionate commentaries and commitments to a historical topic. However, as the authors point out, the problem with amateurs remains their selectivity, analysis, and quality of their work; quality refers to the content of the work not the design the page. It is the interpretation of many websites by amateurs that rehashes old prejudices and old conspiratorial theories that have long been proved incorrect. One of the best examples is the old myth that “FDR knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed and let it happen.” An astounding charge. These historians look at dispatches and communications from the point of view of hindsight. They already know what happened. Instead, on must look at how the materials were interpreted before the event happened. The answer was plain. The US did know about Japanese activities in the Pacific in the winter of 1941. FDR and his advisors suspected that a major event may occur, but what they were expecting was an attack on Singapore because the US had stopped selling high octane gasoline and oil products to the Japanese and Singapore, a British possession, was a major oil producer in Southeast Asia. These same amateurs look at possible radio communications reported by civilians who claimed they heard the Japanese Fleet. Upon further reflection, on finds that many of these civilians “did not say that the communications were Japanese”. They were merely strange or on an unfamiliar channel. In addition, the Japanese fleet observed radio silence for most of their trip so chances are that what was being heard was a very good communication from Asia on a good night. Yet, the argument still circulates and has new light due to the conspiracy theorists on the internet. Historians now have to compete with these very professional websites and dispel their ridiculous arguments

Hence, Cohen and Rosenzweig have offered an answer to the question posed to professors, Why blog? If one reads their article before reading their Book, the answer is not obvious. The article provided no incentive for one to really embrace the different aspects of blogging and its purpose, or lack thereof. For many, it offered no real answer other than a new jazzy way of presenting history along with the traditional method. Now, in Digital History, they have caught my attention and hopefully my colleagues. Action is always the best method. Yet, historians are not always prone to action, we are observers and interpreters. But, in this new era of digital history, one can firmly state that historians MUST embrace the internet, because if they do not we are leaving historical interpretation to those who will continue to present history as conspiracy and political intrigue. Acknowledging that there is a component of history that has those elements, their remains the rest of history, 99%, that does not have those elements. Therefore, Historians cannot ignore this medium because doing so relinquishes history to the hacks and amateurs, no matter how well intended they are.

Some Links for historians to start

Center for History and New Medial

American Social History Project

History News Network Blogs

American Memory Archives at the Library of Congress

Marxists Internet Archive

Colonial Latin America