Note: If you discount this based upon where it is posted, you do so at your own peril. Please consider not throwing the baby out with the bath water and take it on it's own merits. Having said that, I am not a fan of the philosophy of the website. However, there is much there to learn from for instance, the jaw dropping speech of Secretary of State Rice to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, June 14, 2006. in which she states the usual hypocrisies but with a bent on the God meme.
Ladies and gentlemen, President Bush and I share your conviction that America can and must be a force for good in the world. The President and I believe that the United States must remain engaged as a leader in events beyond our borders. We believe this because we are guided by the same enduring principle that gave birth to our own nation: Human dignity is not a government's grant to its citizens nor mankind's gift to one another; it is God's endowment to all humanity. (Applause.)
These are critical and important and even trying times for America, but it is time when we must affirm what we stand for as a nation and what role we must play in the world. And it's that that I'd like to talk to you about here in Greensboro this morning.
We in America are blessed with lives of tremendous liberty: the freedom to govern ourselves and elect our leaders; the freedom to own property; the freedom to educate our children, our boys and our girls; and of course the freedom to think as we please and to worship as we wish. America embodies these liberties but America does not own these liberties. We stand for ideals that are greater than ourselves and we go into the world not to plunder but to protect, not to subjugate but to liberate, not as masters of others but as servants of freedom. (Applause.)
Our world needs America's leadership now more than ever. As we celebrate our freedom here today, our thoughts turn to the many people throughout the world who are not as fortunate as we are. We're mindful that many men and women beyond our shores still live at the mercy of thieves and thugs and petty tyrants. We're mindful that many still suffer from scourges like poverty and disease that are offensive to human dignity. And of course we're mindful that too many people of faith can only whisper to God in the silent sanctuaries of their conscience because they fear persecution for their religious beliefs. These are tragedies. These are tragedies, but they are also threats in the making. For in today's world, we have learned that whenever freedom and tolerance are on the march, we are secure. But when these ideals are in retreat we are vulnerable. As long as governments practice and propagate hatred, as long as half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, as long as entire countries remain sources of rage and stagnation, our world will neither be stable, nor just. So here, ladies and gentlemen, is the choice before our country, before us as Americans. Will we lead in the world or will we withdraw? Will we rise to the challenges of our time or will we shrink from them? America is a country of vast wealth and power, to be sure. But just as important, we are a nation of great compassion and conscience and democratic principle. So as we consider our future role in the world, we must reflect on some important questions. We must ask ourselves: If not for America, who would rally other nations to conscience to the international defense of religious liberty?
President Bush has made clear that the best relations with the United States are reserved for those governments that respect the beliefs of their people. When you go to a place like China as I have and you sit in a church with Chinese Christians, you cannot help but marvel at their faith and their courage. If America does not rally support for people everywhere who desire to worship in peace and freedom then I ask you: Who will? (Applause.)
We in America are blessed with lives of tremendous liberty: the freedom to govern ourselves and elect our leaders; the freedom to own property; the freedom to educate our children, our boys and our girls; and of course the freedom to think as we please and to worship as we wish. America embodies these liberties but America does not own these liberties. We stand for ideals that are greater than ourselves and we go into the world not to plunder but to protect, not to subjugate but to liberate, not as masters of others but as servants of freedom. (Applause.)
We can place the American Christian Right today within the context of the Gleichschaltung [Nazification of all institutions] of 1933 and the formation of the Protestant Reich Church. I would suggest that the 25 million hard-core fundamentalists forming President Bush's "political base" in the United States—the 16 million Southern Baptists, in particular, and another 9 million Adventists and Pentacostalists, for example—parallel, although in a different form and in a different time, the German Reich Church.
Labels: Dr. Rice, faith based initiatives, fascism, German Reich Church
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