Mr. Lankandia’s label is IASO Records; it’s worth a visit.
The Jefferson Bible
Modern conservatives who can’t bear to think that the Declaration of Independence was written by a Bible-defacer have spread the rumor that Thomas Jefferson created his own Bible as an ethical guide to civilize American Indians. The so-called ‘Jefferson Bible’ was really a tool to introduce the teachings of Jesus to the Indians,” declared Rev. D. James Kennedy. Actually, Jefferson’s editing of the Bible flowed directly from a well-thought out, long-stewing view that Christianity had been fundamentally corrupted -by the Apostle Paul, the early church, the great Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, and by nearly the entire clerical class for more than a millennium. Secularists love to point to the Jefferson Bible as evidence of his heathen nature; but that misses the point, too. Jefferson was driven to edit the Bible the way a parent whose child was kidnapped is driven to find the culprit. Jefferson loved Jesus and was attempting to rescue him.
Steven Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
I’ve been enjoying HBO’s John Adams, and then the other day Steven Waldman, the founder of Belief.net, was on Fresh Air, promoting his book Founding Faith. Waldman emphasizes that religion was a part of revolutionary culture, but that the writers of the declaration of independence and the constitution were scrupulous about keeping Christianity out of their government.
Waldman’s main point is that Adams and Jefferson and the rest had 150 years of experience with religious intolerance, especially against Catholics and Jews, and that they did not want the national government to repeat these mistakes. Interestingly, Waldman says, like much of the Constitution, this was a compromise; the states were free to support religion. This wasn’t corrected until the 14th amendment.
Anger / Race / Hate
Anger and hate are only the same thing to people who have not yet moved beyond the childhood notion of hate, which is: Hate = Anything I Am Pissed About Right Now. No. Hate is much stronger and less fleeting than that.
I am angry, that much is certainly clear. The things I’m angry about or the people I’m angry at? I don’t hate them. I’m just frustrated and annoyed. I deal with my frustration by blogging, by trying to make people understand why I’m angry, by trying to fix things so they don’t make me angry, anymore. But that’s hard to do when people insist on telling me I feel a way I don’t.
Things You Need To Understand #8 – Anger Does Not Equal Hate, March 17, 2008 by the angry black woman
I have to say that i admired Senator Obama when he refused to take the bait and ‘denounce’ his preacher for so-called hate speech. I admired him a little less when he claimed to reject his preachers ‘rigidity’ which the Senator said refused to recognize the possibility of change in the White community.
I think it was one of those straight-off-the-shelf bits of analysis rather than an honest assessment. I think the Senator didn’t want to talk about anger. If you do a search using the terms ‘Obama” and “hate’ you can get a feel for why Senator Obama wanted to avoid this subject.
Again and again you see writers (mainstream and otherwise) refusing to think about anger by claiming to see hatred. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s speech on 9-11, for example, represented legitimate anger. Even if we grant the important role of the white community in the Civil Rights movement, the powers-that-be are often blissfully unconcerned with the violence that afflicts the Black community.
The atrocities go back hundreds of years: slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, busing, crack, the ongoing litany of atrocity and injustice that never seems to cause more than brief flashes of concern. Yet one admittedly horrible, dramatic act of terrorism and suddenly the ‘world changed forever.’ Who could blame the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his anger?
Food Court Musical