I am writing about how Emerson criticizes religion, but really what it has become. I am taking it to the next level, though, and showing the history, present, and future of separation, and lack thereof, of church and state. "God himself, into the open soul, is not explored as the fountain of the established teaching in society." This quote can be used as a starting point for the separation between ministers as in the way when reaching god. If we do not need a middle man to reach a "higher being" than we do not need to mix that faith into education, or a "higher knowledge." These are the issues I will address in my essay:
- Presidency/government (Obama = Muslim?): we have ALWAYS had a christian president. the government has always been affected by christian values.- Schools/education: reading the bible in school, Christmas break, allusions to the history of Christianity
- Constitution/history: all man created equal, freedom of religion
- Founding fathers left England to escape religious persecution, all white Christians
- New issues: abortion
- Why? we should have a diverse group in government and in everyday life, and on paper we do, but in reality we don't.
I would love some feedback on some other quotes that relate to my topic!
“Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble.” Is a quote I think you could work into your essay very well.
ReplyDeleteI think if you want to use this quote you should compare the issue presented by Emerson regarding religion and ministers to our current issue of democracy, and how their shouldn't be such a large 'middle-man' between the people and the power.
ReplyDeleteOr if you would like to pursue church and state i would try to find something in divinity school address that somehow criticizes the power of the high-status religious educators (i.e. the pope, the ministers and others).
While I have no ideas on quotes for you, I know a lot about the historical side of this topic. For instance, your statement of our government always being Christian is interesting as really only after Madison (he's the last one that I can think of with more of a "Deist" philosophy rather than Christian) did that become the norm. You could use that to say that the ideal was never achieved properly as it left the door open for this influence.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting politcal (and religious) event that happened fairly recently was Bush calling our War on Terror a "crusade" which you could relate to Christian prejudices (as seen in the original "crusade") STILL affecting our policy today.
This may be a little sensitive but I was just a little mystified by you inclusion of the Obama=Muslim line. I'm sure you know that he is in fact a "born again christian" as they say. Of course I think you could work this in to show that his conversion to Christianity was an important step in his political career, and what that says about American Politics.
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