We tend to divide humanity into groups rather simplistically. I am called Caucasian or just “white,” yet I am not aware of any of my ancestors coming from the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas. There’s more to me than what the Caucasian label says.
Here is an interesting commercial, which shows some of the descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Generally speaking, the political correctness of today refers to the signers as “a bunch of old, dead, white men.” Their descendants, however, portray a different picture. The cynics will say that the signers “just had sex with their slaves,” but whatever their sins, do their descendants thereby lose dignity? Does the America they begot, even if in sin, lose its worth? What if most of these categories are simplistic and inaccurate?
You decide.
And here’s a video that reveals not just our simplicity, but our ignorance.
Oh Dear!! As an Englishman myself, the second video is just a little astonishing – but, I have to say – not so incredibly surprising! On my many visits to The States over the years, I encountered the most amazing ignorance among a lot of ordinary people, (some, not long out of school!), of their own country’s history!
However, what ‘has’ concerned me rather more than that over the years, was the large number of Freemasons involved in the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I do wonder how much of the current and very sad scrabbling after unhindered and uncontrolled ‘freedom’, (which you were writing about only the other day, Msgr Charles), is down to the Freemasonic principle of ‘self’ in almost everything they do and believe. Freemasons being the epitome of the ‘self-made-man’, it is little wonder that today’s America suffers from this unfettered chasing after ‘self’-interest and ‘self’-satisfaction at the expense of so many others.
I am reminded that St John of The Cross, partly paraphrasing Proverbs 28:26, once said, “Those who trust in themselves are worse than the devil!!”
Which further reminds me that, one day in October 2013, a lowly stenographer in Congress, Dianne Reidy, stood up for God on the floor and delivered this scathing statement to the house:
“He will not be mocked! This is not one Nation under God. It never was. The greatest deception here is this ‘is’ one Nation under God! It never was. Had it been, The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons! You cannot serve two masters! Praise be to God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Food for thought, perhaps . . . . . . . . .
God bless all.
There is, I fear, a fundamental error in your analysis here, and that is your own subjectivizing of what presumptively should be viewed objectively. That is, interpreting words and actions according to not their actual content, but the person or persons who said and did them.
This ad hominem approach to things is, in fact, a serious problem right now (and is an example of the very dividing people into groups mentioned above). If X is said, how people react to it is determined by who says it — if it is said by an opponent, they protest, but if the exact same thing is said by an ally, they agree with it. So, should people interpret your comments here differently because you wrote them rather than if someone else had?
The “who” wrote the words of the Declaration and Constitution is irrelevant. The “what” of those words is what matters. Should we reject the idea that there are certain self-evident truths, among them “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” just because Freemasons helped write those words and/or voted in favor of them??
I do not allow myself the luxury, (or otherwise), of getting drawn into this kind of ‘word-dance’!
What I have written, I have written. It is what I believe God would want me to write.
The dear lady in Congress was absolutely right, “You cannot serve two masters.” – which ‘was’ my main thrust in my comment! Our Lord Himself said that. And – do you know what? It is precisely because HE said it that I ‘react’ to it and ‘totally believe and trust it’! Is that perhaps, ‘my own subjectivizing of what presumptively should be viewed objectively’ . . ??
As for yourself – and anyone else – in the words with which Msgr Charles ends his blog, – “You decide.”
God bless . . . . . .
Ray in the UK. The Constitution of the United States has no reference to God. The three fold answer lies in the stated purpose of the Constitution, it’s stated purpose, it’s religious neutrality, and the theory of government it embodies. Whereas the Declaration of Independence explained and justified a rebellion against unfair representation of Amercian colonist under British rule to secure God-given rights, the Constitution is a blueprint for a stable and effective republican government in a free country. The Preamble to the Constitution declares that its purposes are “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Bessings of Liberty. These are wholly secular objects; religious references are extraneous in a document to further them. Eighteenth century America was religiously diverse, and by the time of the Revolution religion was widely viewed as a matter of individual choice. The Constitution acknowledged these realities and, unlike contemporary European political orders, promoted no sect and took no position whatsoever on theological issues. There is no state religion and Article VI of the Constitution provides that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The First Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1791, provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The absence of references to a diety in the Constitution is consistent with the strict religious neutrality of the entire document. The theory of government underpinning the United States Constitution is popular soverenignty. The government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed, not from an assembly of elders, not from a monarchy or a prelate and not from a higher power.The opening words of the Preamble, “We the People of the United States,” make it clear both who is establishing the government and for whose benefit it exits
The Declaration of Independence contains several refernces to God and the reasons for this variation reveal a great deal about the founding principles of the United States complete break with Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence is an apology for revolution. Support for a complete break with Great Britain was growing stronger week by week in the spring of 1776, both in the Continental Congress and in the thirteen colonies at large. On June 7, 1776, a resolution advocating independence was presented to Congress by Richard Henry Lee of the Virginia delegation. Four days later Congress appointed a committee of five delegates to draft a document explaining the historic separation it would soon be voting on. The resulting Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson,[who by the way,”sired descendants with slaves he owned”}, was edited by his fellow delegates.The Declaration of Independence contains a theory of rights that depends on a Supreme Being, not a man, for it’s validity. The Declaration states that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is possible to see in these words an affirmation of the Founders’ religious faith, but God-given rights had less to do with theology in the summer of 1776 than they did with rebellion.[I dare say the same could be said for our present period 2017.] In stating that people’s rights were given to them by their Creator, the Continental Congress endowed those rights with a legitimacy that knows no parallel in mortal sources. What God has given to man is not enjoyed at the sufferance of any monarch or government. Liberty is the inviolable birthright of all. The right of revolution proclaimed by the Declaration flows directly from this notion of inviolbility; it is to secure people’s divinely endowed and unalienable rights that governments, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, are established. The people consequently have the rght and indeed the duty to alter or abloish a form of government that becomes tyrannical[such as a European Union or a theocracy](Source: allthingsliberty.com) with a few personal addendums noted in brackets.
Hi Robert,
“The Constitution of the United States has no reference to God.”
NO! How true! And how very Freemasonic! Let’s sit on the fence of ‘neutrality’ . . . !!
Perhaps if the Constitution did indeed have a reference to GOD, (euphemistically referred to by Freemasons as the ‘creator’), then perhaps it might mean something so much more.
The words of the constitution are very fine – and would be ‘great’ if interpreted and enacted as intended. Unfortunately they are not!
God is the source of all truth – and He always delivers. The Constitution does not.
As for the Declaration – the very words ‘unalienable right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’, all too often, (not just in the USA but throughout the world, these days,), are far too freely interpreted as the ‘right’ to take life that gets in the way and is no longer required in order to selfishly hold on to one’s own; the ‘right’ to total ‘libertarianism’ in all we do; and the ‘right’ to pursue the ‘Happiness’ of the shallow and the obscene, no matter what and whomever suffers as a result!
The name ‘God’ may appear in this declaration – but it doesn’t seem to mean a lot to a great many people!
God bless, Robert.
Well, we never canonized any of the founding fathers either, now did we?
Racism is sometimes in reaction to sin, often subtle too. A joke goes:
A theft was witnessed by two bystanders.
Bystander 1: Another [racist slur] committing a crime!
Bystander 2: Typical of you [racist slur] to judge others like that!
But evil should be returned with good, not evil, for the good and evil alike receive rain and sunlight.
Black, white, brown, yellow – all are children of the same God. They are born, they live and they die without fail.
It’s time we denigrate the n word.