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Religion and State
Christianity, the weapon of the Elites in times of War by Cherrie Lynn Lipsett Religion was given to human beings by a higher being to help them through their individual lives especially in times of crises or when they did not know what to do. Religion was never meant to be contorted and misused by human elite power people (to date always men) to motivate the masses of humanity to some end which will benefit the elite power people. It was Jesus who said when asked by a follower if he should pay Caesar his taxes, "Give to Caesar what is due him." In plain present day English: There is a separation of state (government) and religion. A person should give to the Church if able but a person is not to use religious charity as a reason not to pay what is owed the government. Religion and government were not the same thing and religion was not trying to take the place of government. Revolutionary War of America The first instance of Christianity being used by the elite to motivate the masses for political ends in the United States was during the Revolutionary War. The British incited Christians in Britain to fight and support the American colonists who were trying to become independent from Britain. Britain at this time was a very religious country. The issue used was slavery. It was the first time slavery was ever condemned by a Western government. Contrary to popular belief, there were slaves in all the "pre-America" colonies. Those in New York and Pennsylvania (including Benjamin Franklin) had slaves. The British used the promise of freedom to get slaves to fight on their side. The British needed more both people to fight and those who knew the area well. The Civil War of America The slavery issue was used again during the Civil War but was not the reason for the Civil War. At the time the Constitution was written to get the Southern States to become part of the Union, a Clause was put into the Constitution stating that "for voting purposes slaves would be counted as 3/5’s a person". The South, because of its big plantations, had more slaves than the North, which was more industrial. Most wealthy people in the North had businesses which their slaves worked in, but could do without slaves. They did not need the vast number of slaves that the agrarian South needed. The Clause would supposedly equal out the number of votes between the North and the South. The North had a greater voting population than the South. However, in the years following the writing of the Constitution the South’s number of slaves increased, while the North’s decreased, thereby giving the South a distinct voting advantage. Because the South was agrarian and the North industrial. and due to cultural differences, there were marked differences in issues important to these two parts of the United States. Due to the greater number of votes the South had, the South most often won the Presidency and had a majority in the House of Representatives. The political & financially elite of the North finally got fed up with it and decided to take on the issue of Slavery which gave the South their superior voting power. The very religious populace was the first to be incited in the North and lead the cause of abolishing Slavery in the South. World War I Another instance of Christianity being exploited in the United States to incite the masses was during the World War I. Turkey, a part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire at the time, fought on Germany’s side. Turkey was the first country to ever use modern technology to commit genocide. In 1915, the Turks started a mass deportation and genocide of the Armenian people by rail cars. It is estimated that 1.2 to 1.3 million Armenians were killed by the Turks. Protestant religious groups were active in Turkey before the war, and for awhile during the war. These groups built schools and hospitals and did other relief work, especially for the Armenians, who were Christian. Woodrow Wilson was President during the World War I. He wanted to declare war on Turkey also, but didn’t because pals of his from his days in Princeton University, Cleveland Dodge, (very influential in the Protestant Church) and James Barton, persuaded him not to. They did this, because they were afraid that more than $125 million worth of real estate they owned in Turkey would be destroyed. So, these two devote Christian got the Christians in Turkey, who were working to help the Armenians, to quit their cause. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson had inserted in the 1920 Peace Treaty that an Armenian State would be formed by taking part of Turkey and other countries. This Clause was not included by the United States Congress because of a Republican movement spearheaded by Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican from Massachusetts. The Republicans did not want to do this because rich oil men who had backed their campaigns, wanted to keep warm ties with Turkey. Hitler knew of the Armenian genocide and used it as a template for his genocide of the Jewish, homeless and mentally ill during World War II. It was not just the Jewish who were killed during World War II by the Germany regime, as is most often heard. 21st Century America Now, we see the political and financial elite of the Untied States hijacking Christianity once again. They claim that the true Christian would only be a Republican. According to the Republican elite, a person is a Christian if they think homosexuality is a sin and if they do not believe in abortion. Neither issue did Jesus ever talk about. Homosexuality is discussed at length in the Old Testament, which preceded Jesus, however. Jesus talked most often about helping the less fortunate. Giving to them to help relieve their suffering. Yes, GIVING to them. Jesus also said, "Let he who has not sinned throw the first stone". Yet, we now see many, who confess to being sinners, throwing boulders at homosexuals and the less fortunate by cutting programs that GIVE (no strings attached as Jesus said we should do) to the less fortunate. Jesus also said, "that a camel could get through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man could get into heaven." We all know it is impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. So we all know the possibility of a very rich, greedy person who goes against the teachings of Jesus (as stated in the Bible) to keep both his wealth and chances of getting into heaven. I don’t think Jesus believed in Adam Smith-style Capitalism, per se, which is a system which measures Wealth only, and looks down on Welfare. President Bush used humanitarian (religious) reasons for going to war in Iraq. And he supposedly can do this since he is a self-professed religious Christian. In fact, since no weapons of mass-destruction were found this is now the only reason Bush uses for going to war in Iraq. Since the war, the United States has directly or indirectly caused the death of 100,000 Iraqis. The America-led UN sanctions on Iraq since 1990 and ending in 2003 also killed an estimated 500,000 children between the ages of 0-5yrs – and act which Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, when asked on a "60-Minutes" interview, labeled as "a necessary trade-off" between American lives verses Iraqi lives. Saddam Hussein did his killing over more than 20 years. If you take the estimates of people killed by Saddam Hussein and divide them by the number of years he was in power he did not kill as many Iraqis per years as the United States has caused the death of. Can Bush realistically take the humanitarian high-ground? Europe has become less religiously fanatical and the politically and financially powerful have quit using religion to incite the masses to a cause any more. In fact, the only industrialized country that still uses religion for evil means is the United States. What of the Wrath of God? I sometimes wonder what the higher power that watches over us thinks about all of this – our elite using religion in the most heinous way. We, who have read the Bible, know that He isn’t the kind that easily forgives, as many leaders of the Christian religion want us to believe. He says throughout the Bible "Vengeance is mine", punishing Disbelievers whenever he found in them profound transgressions. He caused the Great Flood to punish those who had questioned Noah, the Plagues on to the Canaanites who questioned Moses, the Locust to destroy the Pharaoh who wanted to kill his Prophet. I wonder if he has helped in causing the Islamic religion which he created also to be used against the United States because we are the only first-world country that still manipulates and uses religion for other means than what it was given to us for. Our President tells us God is on our side. But I wonder if he really knows what that means or how blasphemous his own activities are. I am more inclined to go along with Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts on this matter and say, "I hope we are on God’s side." I hope we are doing His will and not reaping His wrath. Further Reading: "The Burning Tigress" by Peter Balakian "Negro President: Thomas Jefferson and the Slave Power" by Gary Wills "Runaway America, Benjamin Franklin, Slavery and the American Revolution" by David Waldenstreicher About the Author(s): See under Our Contributors to find out about the Author(s) of this article. |
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