Category: politics

Anne Arundel County Council Candidate David Whitney's Questionable Defense of State Militias

David Whitney is an instructor in Michael Peroutka’s Institute on the Constitution and is also chaplain of the MD/VA branch of the white separatist League of the South. He is also seeking the Democratic nomination to run for Anne Arundel County Council.
Whitney is a minister who believes the Bible supports no restrictions on the Second Amendment. As a part of a recent newspaper interview, Whitney says he was asked about his view of state militias. He claims a Constitutional mandate but even more basic than that, he says opponents of militias are the enemies of God. As I will demonstrate below, his appeal to the Bible is highly questionable. Whitney writes:

So the opponents of the Militia are really opponents of God’s Law. For example, you simply need to obey what Jesus said in Luke 22:36 (KJV) “Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” Therefore it would be lawless to amend away the Second Amendment. So those who oppose Constitutional Militia not only reject the Founders of our Country, they reject and violate the U.S. Constitution and the State Constitutions and more importantly they reject and violate the Law of God; the command of Jesus which is the Supreme Law of the Universe. They are the truly lawless ones in America and not those who believe Constitutional Militias must be reestablished in our land.

Ok, let’s look at Luke 22:36 in context:

35 Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered.
36 He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’[b]; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
38 The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”
“That’s enough!” he replied.

Jesus and the disciples had just completed the Passover meal and Jesus was about to go out and pray. However, before He went out, He specifically referred to a prophecy that He would fulfill by being numbered among transgressors. Certainly, armed men would be considered subversives. Jesus did not stop talking at verse 36 as if he was encouraging the arming of a militia. If this was His teaching, then His militia would be pretty weak. They only had two swords and Jesus said in verse 38 that two was enough. Surely, the two swords were not enough to arm the disciples, but they would have been enough to number Jesus among the transgressors. Note that Jesus does not advise any more sales of purses, bags or sandals.
Even more evidence against Whitney’s interpretation is the fact that Jesus didn’t encourage the use of the weapons. According to John 18, Peter carried one of the two swords and when Jesus was confronted by the Roman soldiers later, Peter lopped off the ear of the high priest’s servant. The Luke 22 passage also records the scene without mentioning Peter.

47 While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, 48 but Jesus asked him,“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
49 When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.
52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”

Understandably, the disciples were a little confused. They had swords but asked if they should use them. After Peter started carving up the opposition, Jesus strongly told him to stop and healed the servant. It seems pretty clear that Jesus had another thing in mind for the swords. They had served their purpose and it wasn’t to resist an unjust authority.
Whitney should worry more about bearing false witness than bearing arms. He is running as a Democrat with no intention to represent the people as a member of the Democratic party.

David Barton Back in Good Graces of Family Research Council

After removing the Capitol Tour video from You Tube due to historical errors in May 2013, the Family Research Council again had David Barton conduct the Capitol Tour for pastors during the Watchmen on the Wall conference. According to Time Magazine, David Barton led the spiritual heritage tour and covered at least some of the same ground as in the video FRC’s V.P. Kenyn Cureton removed from You Tube in 2013.
Last year, FRC told me that Barton was not going to conduct the tour in favor of Kenyn Cureton.
Politico reported on Barton’s resurgence last year and he has now come full circle with FRC. Despite the fact that FRC removed the video riddled with errors and Focus on the Family attempted to cover up the fact that they also had to edit Barton’s videos to get them a little closer to accurate, Barton continues to be viewed as an expert on American history by a certain segment of the Christian right.
According to Time, the conference participants talked much about taking the country back to God. Even if creating a Christian nation was possible or virtuous, one cannot expect success when the foundation of the effort is built on half-truths and error.  Unless Barton has had a major change of course, those pastors are now ill-prepared to engage in intelligent dialogue with their ideological opponents. Many Christian historians would have been willing to discuss the full story with those pastors, but instead FRC chose someone the FRC and other Christian groups have admitted traffics in a faulty narrative.  I am never more ashamed of my community when perceived political usefulness trumps truth and accuracy.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore Says First Amendment Only Protects Christians

This is a few days old but still worth talking about.
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore preached a sermon recently in which he said the First Amendment only applies to people who believe in the God of the Bible.
Here is the video:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY8xf1uJOqI[/youtube]
At 1:15, Moore said:

Everybody, to include the Supreme Court, in the United States has been deceived as to one little word in the First Amendment called religion. They can’t define it. That’s what the 10 Commandments’ case was about, I wanted to define it but they backed off just decided not to take the case because they can’t, can’t define it the way Mason, Madison and even the United States supreme court defined it, “The duties we owe to the Creator and the manner of discharging it.” They don’t wanna do that, that acknowledges the Creator God. Buddha didn’t create us. Muhammad didn’t create us. It’s the God of the Holy Scriptures. They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship. Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history. Let’s stop playing games.

I’ve been over this before. The Founders used the word religion to signify a person’s conscience and beliefs about God, however conceived. Some, such as early Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, claimed that the framers meant “sects of Christianity” but those who debated the Constitution in the states and some of the Founders took a different point of view. There is no religious test for public service in the Constitution. See the links below for more on why the First Amendment does apply to all religions.
Moore has been supported by the Institute on the Constitution and aligns with the Christian reconstructionist movement. I feel sorry for the citizens of Alabama.
For further reading on this topic, see:
Did the First Amendment Create a Christian Nation?
Politifact Debunks Bryan Fischer’s Christianity Only View of the First Amendment
Does Ted Cruz Believe the First Amendment is Only for Christians?
Answering Matt Barber on Jefferson and the First Amendment
Dean of Liberty Law School Says Islam Not Protected by the First Amendment
AFA takes a stand on religious freedom
David Barton: Pluralism not the goal of the First Amendment

Glenn Beck's Historical Problems at Liberty University: The Purple Triangle and the Jehovah's Witnesses

Leaving aside the wisdom of having a Mormon leader deliver a sermon, Liberty University should apologize for Glenn Beck’s questionable history.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/TYNjZ55nctE?t=9m16s[/youtube]
At about 10 minutes into the video of his sermon at Liberty, Beck went to a table on the stage with various documents. He first picked up a collection of colored triangles used by the Nazi’s to identify why prisoners were placed in work and death camps. He then identified several Bibles, saying one of them put an end to the Salem witch trials. He then told his version of how Joseph Smith died, pulling out what he claimed was Joseph Smith’s pocket watch. While not everything Beck said was incorrect, there were some significant problems. I am going to take each one in a separate post.
Let’s start with Beck’s incorrect identification of the people required to wear the purple triangle.  Beck said at 10:04:

or this one, what got you sent to the concentration camps for the purple triangle? You were a Bible scholar. The Bible is the enemy to fascists.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were required to wear purple triangles in Nazi concentration camps. The Nazi’s called the Jehovah’s Witnesses Bibelforscher (Bible student/researcher) and viewed them as dangerous because they refused to salute Hitler. Beck’s presentation is misleading and obscures the fact that many Protestants and Catholics stood by while the Witnesses were persecuted. Perhaps Beck confused the terms “Bible students” with “Bible scholars,” but the way he used that term without identifying the Jehovah’s Witnesses gave the impression that orthodox Bible teachers were rounded up. While a very small percentage of orthodox Christians (Baptists, Adventists, pentecostals, etc.) were taken into custody, the overwhelming majority of purple triangle wearers were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Given that Beck said he vacationed at Auschwitz and has studied the history, it seems incredible to believe he was unaware of these facts.
According to Auschwitz commandant Rudolph Hoss,* the Jehovah’s Witnesses were particularly striking in their behavior. They were trustworthy and resilient and seemed to revel in their affliction as giving them a chance to stand for their beliefs.

Out of respect for the sacrifices made by Jehovah’s Witnesses, I think Beck should publicly acknowledge how misleading his presentation was at Liberty. The Bible may be a problem for fascists but in practice there was one group the Nazis singled out because of the way the Witnesses interpreted the Bible and lived out those beliefs.
 
*Hoss, Rudolph, Steven Paskuly, (Ed.), (1996). Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. New York: Da Capo Press.

Religion News Services Weighs In on Glenn Beck at Liberty University

Liberty University graduate Jonathan Merritt posted an article yesterday titled: “Glenn Beck Preaches Mormon Theology at Liberty University.” In the article Merritt provides analysis of Beck’s sermon and the Latter Day Saint references in it.
While there has been some outrage expressed by Liberty grads on Twitter, the school hasn’t responded to these expressions with the vigor it did to concerns the school was partnering with Benny Hinn. Merritt seems largely correct when he wrote:

There seems to be no outcry from students, parents, or faculty over Liberty’s invitation of Beck or of his sermon so far. Perhaps the silence is because this is business as usual for the evangelical mega-school.

After clearly identifying the Mormon theology in Beck’s sermon, Merritt concludes:

So what does all this mean?Given the school’s history, Beck’s sermon may be nothing more than Liberty doing what it has always done best: thriving amidst controversy and leading with conservative politics rather than theology. But it may also be one more sign that Mormons are becoming more mainstream in American life–even increasingly welcomed by evangelicals who would have rejected them only a few years ago.

While Merritt says this gently, I do agree that Liberty often puts conservative politics before religion. To varying degrees, one might have a hard time finding a religious institution that has not done this at one time or another. However, there has to be a line somewhere, and for my taste, Liberty crossed that line by giving Glenn Beck a platform to sermonize and in essence to proselytize their students. If Beck provided value to the educational mission of the school then I can see him speaking in classes, or at politically oriented events, etc. However, Liberty showcased him preaching what was in essence a sermon.
More broadly, there are many reasons I think Beck should not be invited to speak at an institution of higher learning. Mostly, the reasons have to do with his endorsement of the historical problems of David Barton. So much misinformation has been spread by Barton through Beck’s media empire that he is culpable for it.  Beck has been approached about the matter by those close to him and he has persisted to give Barton a platform. Barton in turn has softened and minimized the real differences between historic Christianity and the LDS doctrines. All of this disqualifies both of them in my opinion.