Now here’s an amazing christian screed. Its author, Roger Mullins, is definitely going on my must-read list if for no other reason than his entertainment value.
There are plenty of factual errors, overstatements and outright baffling claims made here. I want to focus one just one because, among them all, this is the only one that I haven’t encountered elsewhere before. It’s rare to find an original misstatement among these folks – another reason to add him to my reading list.
Mullins says “What was “popular” or “politically correct” was not taken into consideration when our leaders in that day drafted our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence. Which, by-the-way, made us the first and only country in the history of the world to have its government and society founded on predominantly Biblical principles.”
Really? OK, I’ll admit that the qualifier predominantly can make this an argument of greys. Plus the fact that he’s probably a Protestant evangelical – if it quacks like a duck – and rejects the idea that catholic equals biblical but still! Has Mullins never heard of the Vatican? That’s a country. And as the seat of the catholic church I think that it would be heard to deny that it was founded on biblical principles.
But setting that obvious example aside, how many other countries are based on principles or doctrines that can be argued to be as christian as those that established the US. (I question that claim, too. The founding fathers would by no stretch of the imagination recognize the modern evangelical christian as a brother.) If we accept Mullins argument that the US’s founding principles are christian then we have to accept that most countries’ are too.
What exactly are the principles he’s talking about? A peaceful society? Rule of law? Democratic rule? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? These aren’t principles over which christianity can claim a monopoly. As one founding father pointed out these principles are self evident. One doesn’t need a Santa Claus in the sky to grant them or teach them, an intelligent human seeking the best possible existence can realize their necessity.
Passionate, generalized, baseless arguments are what this diatribe – and most evangelical political thought – is based upon. It’s time to call people like Mullins out on it.