Bryan Fischer ties himself into knots trying to explain why the American revolution was not a rebellion, which is prohibited by Romans 13. This is funny stuff.
Jul 10 2012
Fischer: When a Rebellion is Not a Rebellion
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jimmiraybob
July 10, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
By July 4, 1776, the colonies had already been in rebellion for over a year. Washington was made commander of the Continental Army in June 1775, the month of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Full on armed rebellion. The colonists and their leaders (political and military) openly used the word rebellion at least up until the DOI was made public and the rebellion was officially re-branded a war for independence.
bachalon
July 10, 2012 at 11:23 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Of course, the answer to this, obvious to us, unthinkable to him is that they simple weren’t Christians.
But that requires honesty, something Fischer doesn’t possess.
allenglendenning
July 10, 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yipee! I hereby declare my city block a sovereign indepnedent nation. I now no longer have to follow the laws of my state or country. Abd, of course, I am King. So now everyone on my block owes allegence to me. Marijuana is now legal here and I will only require the property taxes my neighors now pay to our state to be paid to me. No income tax. Neighbors you are free!
fifthdentist
July 10, 2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d love to hear his opinion on the (late) Confederate States of America? Were they wrong to declare independence, as Bible-monster allowed the Union to give the Southerners a thorough ass whuppin’? Or were they a brutally oppressed group of freedom-lovin’ patriots?
Also wonder what he thinks of the United States’ conquest of the Filipinos who formed a republic that was overthrown by American colonialism. Wouldn’t that government have been the rightful body to which Filipinos owed their allegiance, making America’s overthrow of that rightful government a violation of Romans 13?
Couldn't think of a decent nickname
July 10, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So all it takes to get around god’s commandments is some simple legal trickery? I wonder what Fischer would say to this excuse: “I didn’t lie with another man, we did it standing up!”. Should be ok then, right Brian?
reverendrodney
July 10, 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He says “the American people voted to declare their independence…” (at about 1:30 in the clip).
Was there a general election prior to July 4, 1776, in which the American people voted?
Besides which the entire wresting free of Britain was and is referred to as “the American Revolution”.
Ed Brayton
July 10, 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
bachalon wrote:
I’m not sure who the “us” is that this is allegedly so obvious to, but I’m certainly not one of them. The vast majority of the founding fathers were, in fact, Christians. To claim otherwise is not honest.
slc1
July 10, 2012 at 12:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Ed Brayton @ #7
If we use the definition of Christian adhered to by Heath, they were all Christians (although it is my information that Robert Morris may have been of the Jewish persuasion).
Scarpino
July 10, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This argument makes things much clearer.
Oh, the argument itself is bullshit, of course, but it explains so much about the way these people view historical events.
For example, once the Europeans declared that North America belonged to them, the Native Americans ceased to matter–the continent became the de facto and de jure property of the various European nations. Hence, no stealing, theft, or murder of natives, but just the rightful owners defending their property rights.
Or, as another example, once American business interests held a knife to King Kalakaua’s throat and forced him to cede most authority to them, and once they completed the process with his sister, Hawaii became at that moment the property of the U.S. and the U.S. Marines were just protecting their sovereign soil.
What a bunch of assholes.
bachalon
July 10, 2012 at 12:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed, fair enough, there were many Christians among the founders; I’ll admit I spoke in an overly broad way.
Let me try again: the answer, obvious to people who try to have an accurate picture of history, is that the founders, some of them Christian, some of them not, wouldn’t be considered Christian by the likes of Fischer and his ilk today.
Ben P
July 10, 2012 at 12:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m not quite sure why Fisher needs to explain this, it’s precisely what the declaration of independence was for.
Many of the founding fathers and Jefferson in particular were steeped in the English Common Law tradition. The Declaration of Independence was not just an airing of grievances and a statement of principles, it was a very carefully drafted legal document purporting to declare to the king and to parliament why, under English law, the 13 colonies were in the right to rebel and why King George was in the wrong.
I would bet most of the founding fathers wouldn’t have bothered to claim that their particular action was not a rebellion, (few of them were such biblical literalists that it would have mattered) but they probably would have maintained it was not a common rebellion but was a just or lawful one.
Ed Brayton
July 10, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
bachalon —
Better, but still overly broad. The problem is always there when speaking of “the founders” as if they were all one thing, no matter what that thing is. Some of the founding fathers (John Witherspoon, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams) would certainly be considered Christians by today’s religious right.
bachalon
July 10, 2012 at 2:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed, ah ha.
I’m having a hard time putting into words what I’m trying to say, but I think it’s clear: the problem is with Fischer, and no one else, and the only reason the “problem” exists is due to what he believes.
How would you put it?
Ace of Sevens
July 10, 2012 at 2:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Good one, Bryan. Now do the Philippine-American War and explain how we weren’t invading anyone then.
Ibis3, denizen of a spiteful ghetto
July 10, 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hmm. I think there were some Loyalists who would have disagreed with that assessment.
Pierce R. Butler
July 10, 2012 at 6:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Romans 13:1-3 – Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. …
So “regime change” is a mortal sin. (And not just when Democrats do it!) Right, BF?
Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
July 10, 2012 at 7:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh, it’s better than that. The mitzvot is that one man must not lie with another man **as with a woman**.
“Oh, no. I totally didn’t have straight sex with that man. I had queer sex. If I had had sex with him as I would with a woman, we would have had completely different kinds of sex. Therefore I’m not breaking the commandment!”
Michael Heath
July 10, 2012 at 8:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
bachalon writes:
Not true, most founders were Christians, many in fact were also orthodox Christians in their beliefs. However fundamentalist Christianity didn’t give rise until the early 20th century, which is where when a schizophrenic fealty to biblical inerrancy pervasive across American orthodox Christian sects began to gain traction [Which was largely a reaction to scientific discoveries, particularly the old age of the earth and the discovery of common descent as the explanation for the origin of humans.]
In addition, even a deist like Thomas Paine was more than happy to leverage biblical passages to advocate for revolution. Christians of that time also leveraged the Bible to justify their position. I happen to think Romans 13 requires biblical inerrantists loyal to their god to continue to submit to the sovereignty of King George given its specificity relative to the vagueness of the passages exploited by those in favor revolt. However I also observe devout Christians could and did support the revolution without risking hypocrisy to their religious beliefs, they simply weren’t inerrantists.
Michael Heath
July 10, 2012 at 8:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
bachalon tries again:
It depends on the venue, which is critical when discussing Christianity in the public square as opposed to one set of sectarian Christians describing a different sect. We need different definitions of which groups are considered Christian based on the context, public square, sectarian issues, and cultural issues. In the public square our history has been one of growing ecumenicalism which argues against most conservative Christians supporting your claim about them.
In the public square Baptists were accepted as Christians early in the life of the Republic by the protestant mainline denominations with political power, as were Methodists. Catholics in the mid-20th century were the last big ostracized group to eventually be welcomed to the fold and considered fellow Christians by the mid-20th century. They’ve since become close allies given their pioneering of the anti-abortion rights movement and more recently, starting Fox News. Mormons are fast gaining ground now given their enormous contributions to the conservative political movement, both in funding opposition to CA’s Prop 8 and providing positive societal outcome stats which compete with liberal oases. Mainline Christians, the framing Christians of our republic, remain Christians in their more conservative believers’ eyes even as they began to become more liberal both theologically and politically. Though we do so see some Catholics with bumper stickers who object, e.g., “You can’t be Christian and pro-choice“.
The one pervasive* exception seems to be conservative Christians recently having a problem with one black they-think liberal Christian, Barack Obama. It’s the black part they’re objecting to more than anything, equivalent to how they called MLK Jr. a communist because they had difficulty conceding he too was a fellow Christian. However this objection of Obama as a Christian is incoherent, in many ways. Incoherent in this context given they’re not claiming the black churches who are en masse liberal are not Christian; in spite of those churches being filled with Christians far more liberal than Mr. Obama.
* I am arrogantly confident that when the metal hits the road in Nov-12, conservative Christians will predominately come to accept Mitt Romney as a fellow Christian from a public square anad cultural perspective, while still rejecting him from a theological perspective. Even most of the wingnuts in the confederate states will join in.
jnorris
July 10, 2012 at 9:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yep, prohibited by Romans 13. So from the very beginning of the beginning God’s Hand of Protection (patent pending) was lifted from the nation that was not a nation.
meg
July 10, 2012 at 11:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@allenglendenning
We’ve got a few of those here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River
bad Jim
July 11, 2012 at 12:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The religious beliefs of the founders keeps coming up, and it’s a subject upon which our host has some expertise. Perhaps he ought to give us a primer one of these days.
One problem is that deism is now commonly defined as a belief in a distant god no longer involved in the world, but was more loosely used back then to describe a range of unorthodox beliefs, so the term tends to be ambiguous. Early Christians were called atheists because they wouldn’t sacrifice to the gods. Isn’t terminology fun?
Franklin, Jefferson and John Adams are perhaps better described as 18th century Unitarians than deists, since they did believe in a god who affected human affairs, but didn’t accept the divinity of Jesus. What Washington believed isn’t especially clear, but he did say that Christians, Jews, Mahometans and Hindoos, and even the Indians, alike worship the same god, which is a prototypical Unitarian sentiment. He tended to use deistic terms like “Providence” to refer to God. Moreover, he rarely went to church if he had anything better to do, like riding to hounds.
One might think that someone who doesn’t agree that Jesus was the Christ isn’t Christian, but Adams and Jefferson certainly thought they were.
shockna
July 11, 2012 at 12:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Uh huh. So the second we declared independence, it wasn’t a rebellion?
You know, that makes it -really- easy to justify any kind of rebellion. Just “declare independence!” XD
Michael Heath
July 11, 2012 at 5:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
bad Jim writes:
Only those who haven’t sufficiently studied comparative religion and Christianity but mistakenly think they have. There are millions of contemporaneous devout Christians who don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus.
slc1
July 11, 2012 at 8:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Bad Jim @ #22
Moreover, he rarely went to church if he had anything better to do, like riding to hounds.
Washington was a vestryman at the Tuoro Episcopal Church in Alexandria and the Falls Church Episcopal Church in Falls Church. I suspect that his church attendance was subject to the rather long distances (in the late 18th century) between Mr. Vernon and Alexandria/Falls Church.
slc1
July 11, 2012 at 8:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Bad Jim @ #22
In addition, Washington notoriously declined to take communion after the service on those occasions when he went to church.
dingojack
July 11, 2012 at 9:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
According to Google Maps*, Falls Church is about 16.1 miles from Mt. Vernon. (That’s about a two hour ride?)
Dingo
——
* in case you’ve never been to Virginia (like me)
slc1
July 11, 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re dingojack @ 327
Actually, I live a few blocks from the Falls Church. Given the traffic in these parts, in the peak period, it ain’t much less then a 2 hour drive these days.
podkayne
July 11, 2012 at 8:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yet more support of my long standing contention that Washington et al need to be retroactively given a fair trial,found guilty of high treason, and hung, drawn and quartered . At this late stage, reintegrating the US into the Commonwealth at least, but the UK preferably, would be challenging, but well worth it in the long run, considering the general clusterfuck the illegal “country” of the United States has become.
The crux of the issue is that the so called “founding fathers” had no authority to declare independence from anything. And yes, I am serious.
bad Jim
July 12, 2012 at 1:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath, I did stipulate that Adams & Jefferson considered themselves Christians. I’ll note however that the British Unitarian preacher Joseph Priestly, discoverer of oxygen and carbon dioxide and inventor of soda water, had his church and home burned by a mob outraged by his heresy and took refuge in the United States.
According to what I remember from something I read on the American Creation blog, which is devoted to all things relating to religion and the founders, before the revolution Washington apparently attended church monthly, perhaps to fulfill his responsibility as a vestryman, but during his retirement he rarely went. During the war he apparently often went to church, if only for entertainment. Boredom must have been a problem in the Continental Army, which went years between battles.
slc1
July 12, 2012 at 8:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Bad Jim @ #30
Actually, Adams was a Unitarian.
slc1
July 12, 2012 at 8:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Bad Jim
One must take into account that Heath has a rather expansive view as to the definition of a Christian. It is to be noted that his notions are rejected by at least 3 other people on this blog, namely our host, myself, and Prof. David Heddle.