Yes, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" appears in the Declaration of Independence.
I've clarified that I'm talking about the constitution.
Many Christians use those words from the Declaration of Independence as "proof" that the USA is a Christian nation. I've never heard them claim the DoI is on the same level as the Constitution, but they do say it is an influential document upon the founders, and demonstrated what the founders believed. (Just as they use quotes from speeches and letters from the founders as "proof".) I'd recommend adding a sentence or paragraph addressing that the DoI.
In a democracy, it`s surely the people who are eligible to vote now who should decide what sort of country it should be now; not dead people, however eminent they were in their day.
Part of how they decide is to use the documents that founded their democracy in the first place. If everything needed to be decided anew every day, or even every presidency, we'd be mired in even more bureaucracy than we are now.
You misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting all decisions should be remade constantly, but the will of the people should surely take precedence over the will of long-dead people from a different era. All decisions should be up for change at any time (as opposed to all the time).
My country has no document which founded our democracy, but we manage very well. I believe it makes us better able to adapt ourselves to a changing world. Outdated documents from very different times are more a hindrance than a help; that's exactly why it wouldn't be a good idea for the writings of 2000 year old religions to play any part in the law.
I don't think a country can be at once Christian and democratic; the Christian view of people as lost sheep in need of a divine Shepherd (and his lieutenants, the bishops and other clergy here on earth) isn't compatible with a free people being masters of their own collective destiny. I think the framers of the American constitution deliberately ruled out any place for religion in government because they understood this all too well, living as they did at a time when inquisitions were still at work in Spain and Italy and Catholics and others were disenfranchised in officially Anglican England.
A Christian state in America would at best be something like the Islamic Republic of Iran, where a Guardian Council of clerics routinely vetoes acts of the democratically elected parliament it feels stray too far from the One True Way; at worst, it might resemble the 17th century Puritan dictatorship of Massachusetts, or that of Oliver Cromwell in England.
I don't think a country can be at once Christian and democratic; the Christian view of people as lost sheep in need of a divine Shepherd (and his lieutenants, the bishops and other clergy here on earth) isn't compatible with a free people being masters of their own collective destiny.I think this depends very, very heavily on what branch of Christianity you're talking about. The variety with which I'm most familiar is non-hierarchical--it emphasizes individual relationships with that divine shepherd. It thus treats individual insights as the ultimate source of understanding of the shepherd's will, which means that the ultimate earthly source of divine guidance *is* the individual conscience. In that model, clergy are not the lieutenants of the divine; they're people chosen by the communities they serve--authority flows upward from the members of the religious community to its leaders. I think this is quite compatible with democratic rule
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Are Christians who emphasize indivdual relationships with God, and who acknowledge the sovereignty of the individual conscience, likely to argue for a Christian society, though? The concept would seem to fly in the face of what they profess.
A *free* society, in which Christians relate to their neighbors as their consciences tell them Christ would have them do: that is another thing entirely.
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Oh, wait, you meant suggestions on the document.
Never mind.
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I've clarified that I'm talking about the constitution.
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Ben
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My country has no document which founded our democracy, but we manage very well. I believe it makes us better able to adapt ourselves to a changing world. Outdated documents from very different times are more a hindrance than a help; that's exactly why it wouldn't be a good idea for the writings of 2000 year old religions to play any part in the law.
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A Christian state in America would at best be something like the Islamic Republic of Iran, where a Guardian Council of clerics routinely vetoes acts of the democratically elected parliament it feels stray too far from the One True Way; at worst, it might resemble the 17th century Puritan dictatorship of Massachusetts, or that of Oliver Cromwell in England.
Beware the New Model Army, folks.
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A *free* society, in which Christians relate to their neighbors as their consciences tell them Christ would have them do: that is another thing entirely.
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