Tag: Bill of Rights

For Religious Freedom

On November 19, 2017

In 7 Days of Gratitude, Creative Life, Cultural Diversity, Holidays, USA Patriotism

Day One: Grateful for Religious Freedom

On many calendars, this is the first day of the week, so I figure this is a good place to start my Seven Days of Gratitude project for the week of the US Thanksgiving holiday. Throughout my life, gratitude and thankfulness have repeatedly come up as important themes. I welcome this holiday each year as an opportunity to explore them once again.

My daughter recently started a “Gratitude Journal,” a daily recording of at least one thing each day for which she is thankful. Thinking about her project has given me my theme. As a practicing Christian, it is my belief that I have myriad blessings each day to celebrate with joy and thanksgiving to my God.

Massive among of those blessings, for me, it the United States Bill of Rights guarantee that I may practice my religious faith freely, without fear of persecution. It should be a source of great joy to everyone in the USA that this not only is guaranteed to me, but to everyone in my country, whatever tradition of faith–or however much absence of religious expression–they cherish.

Ironically, I think this is the single most important reason why so many people in the United States still say they believe in God (89%, according to a 2016 Gallup Poll. Compare that to most other industrialized nations, many of which have long histories of state religions). It seems to me that if you are free to believe in the God of your innermost spiritual being, you are more able to find reasons to believe in any God at all.

Or not. And that won’t get you thrown in prison either, thank . . . the Bill of Rights.

Our strength, yet again, lies in our diversity. That’s why I shudder when I hear people say “America is a Christian nation!” Many of the founders may indeed have been some variety of Christian (pretty broadly defined, though: consider how many were Deists, or how Thomas Jefferson felt free to create his own “good parts” version of the New Testament), but asserting any specific religion as “the” American religion would have been “fighting words” to them.

And rightly so. I believe that all of us in the United States should be deeply thankful for our guarantee of religious freedom—and I believe that we must remember and defend it, any time we see the rights of any religious community under attack. Bad as that is, though, I think it’s even worse when the values of any particular religion are imposed upon others, especially by people acting in the name of some level of government. Any advocacy for either abuse should be “fighting words” for all true Americans.

IMAGES: The “Seven Days of Gratitude” design is my own creation, for well or ill. If for some reason You’d like to use it, please feel free to do so, but I request attribution and a link back to this post. The illustrated quote from Sir Patrick Stewart is courtesy of We F**king Love Atheism. Many thanks!

Happy Birthday, USA!

By jansgephardt

On July 4, 2016

In Artdog Quote of the Week, USA Patriotism

The Artdog Quote of the Week:

I think there has never been a time when the great experiment of democracy in the United States has not been enduring a test of one kind or another, and this period in history is certainly no exception.

We’re currently mired in an ideological struggle between ever-more-sharply-divided factions, each of which perceives the country to be in peril–but the perils they perceive are much different from each other, and the struggle threatens once again to tear us apart (or did we forget the Civil War?).

Wherever you stand on the threats and forces that work within and outside our nation to do us harm, I hope that on this anniversary of the United States of America you will (prayerfully, if that fits your spiritual practice) consider how to nurture the strengths inherent in our centuries-long affirmation of human rights and human dignity.

We haven’t always gotten it right, in the USA. Lord knows, we aren’t perfect. But the idea endures, the hope persists. As long as we look for ways to make tomorrow better, we can hope that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

It’s important to look back into our history for guidance, but we must remember that there never was a golden age when everything was perfect. We still have yet to form a union that couldn’t get any more perfect.

By all means, please enjoy the Fourth. Put on a parade. Break bread with friends, neighbors and family. Deck the porch with bunting, and tonight may you have fireworks, and have them abundantly.

But once you pick up the cares and duties of your world again, give a thought to the ideals expressed in the sonnet by Emma Lazarus on the base of the Statue of Liberty:

There’s a popular quote (from Pope Paul VI), “If you want peace, work for justice.” Like most slogans, it’s a little simplistic, but it conveys a truth we’d be wise to heed.

In the days to come, please remember that “liberty and justice for ALL” part, from the traditional Pledge of Allegiance. If we all do that, we might just pass our current test without losing our nation’s soul.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Marketing Artfully for the image with the flags and the Peter Marshall quote; to the National Constitution Center for the photo of the title of the Bill of Rights; to All Posters for the photo of Grucci fireworks in the sky over the Statue of Liberty; and to Daily Inspiration for the graphic of the Emma Lazarus sonnet (please note this image is part of an interesting article about the poem that adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island).