Army Corps of Engineers General Henry Martyn Robert
"I have come to the conclusion that one worthless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a congress. And by God, I have had this Congress!" ~John Adams
During the 2004 election campaign, TV evangelists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson basically said that if you didn’t George W. Bush, you couldn’t be Christian.
I tend to believe the bumper sticker that’s out there that says "God is not a Republican...or a Democrat."
During the same 2004 campaign, the Republican National Committee asked churches to turn over their congregational membership lists. The RNC also actually postcards to voters in a few states with pictures of the Bible with the no smoking circle with a hash through it over it and another with two gay men getting married - warning that "liberal" politicians planned to ban the Bible and promote gay marriage.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican declared that Democrats who’d filibuster to slow down the confirmation of Federal judges nominated by President Bush are basically “against people of faith.”
James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Prison Fellowship's Chuck Colson (who served time in prison for his part in Watergate) are hosting "Justice Sunday," a TV program from a church in Kentucky. Their message that they want to get across is that they think that anyone who doesn’t support Bush's judicial nominees are hostile to "people of faith." Frist plans to join them by video.
Frist and some Senate Republicans are threatening to exercise what’s been nicknamed “the nuclear option.” They want to change Senate rules to no longer allow the opposition to filibuster.
To filibuster, simply is to speak in a legislative body without “yielding the floor” in an attempt to delay or prevent a vote. It was designed to delay a vote on controversial issues in order to protect strong minorities from being overrun by majorities.
Meetings can be heated affairs, and church meetings, as anyone who has attended them can tell you, are no exception. Twenty-five year old Army Engineer Henry Martyn Robert found this out while stationed in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1862 when his church asked him to preside over church council meetings.
"One can scarcely have had much experience in deliberative meetings of Christians without realizing that the best of men, having wills of their own, are liable to attempt to carry out their own views without paying sufficient respect to the rights of their opponents." wrote Robert. He tried using different manuals on running meetings but everything seemed too complicated.
As trustee of the First Baptist Church in Bedford and as a member of the Board of Directors of the YMCA, Robert ran into lots of issues that could divide Christians: Should the pastor or the congregation approve new members? Should women be allowed to vote? Should the church move to a more respectable part of town?
Robert wrote a guide for all organizations. In 1876 “Robert’s Rules of Order” was published. Robert established a step by step system of guiding principles that ensured order while protecting and advancing democratic principles.
Rules of order ensure the right of the majority to decide, the right of the minority to be heard, the rights of individual members, the rights of absentees. If you follow the parliamentary procedures established by our founding fathers, a two- thirds majority vote is necessary whenever you limit or taking away the rights of the minority or of individual members or whenever you are changing something that has already been decided. Everyone has the right to be heard, to speak and debate.
I wonder what a Church Council meeting with Bill Frist, George W. Bush, Pat Robertson and James Dobson would be like. I wonder what General Henry Robert would say to them if he had to sit through it with them.
That's where I left it for the NEWSpaper, but you know me, I can't shut up, so here's what I cut out to make it shorter:
Frist and his “Conservative Christian” allies care only about control, not rights, and not balance. Their ambition is a one-party system. What’s worse, they’d love to make America into a Christian theocracy. They’ve invented the “culture wars,” taking advantage of social and doctrinal tensions in order to divide and conquer voters.
They assume that conservative Christians own religion in America. They demand that religious people vote only their way. They claim that "values voters" in America belong to them, and they have contempt for the faiths of those who disagree with their agenda.
I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, my savior. I’m opposed to abortion on demand as a form of birth control, but I’m also opposed to clothes hanger abortions. I’m not a proponent of homosexual marriage, but I am opposed to any form of discrimination or denying anyone due process under the law. Poverty, war, taxes, corruption, education, health care, end-of life issues like what happened with the Terri Schaivo case are all things that Christians and Americans have different opinions about.
You can’t force people to believe in God or obey His commandments. You cannot make people Christian by an act of Congress.
Rev. Jim Wallis is the author of the best selling book ‘God’s Politics; why the right gets it wrong and the left doesn’t get it.’ In a recent column as editor of Sojourner’s magazine he had a balanced suggestion for Christians involved in politics, “We should bring our religious convictions about all moral issues to the public square - such as the uplifting of the poor, the protection of the environment, the ethics of war, or the tragic number of abortions in America - without attacking the sincerity of other people's faith, or demanding that we should win because we are religious. We must make moral arguments and mobilize effective movements for social change
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