Nadene Goldfoot
“A Judeo-Christian way of life.” What does this really mean?
This past weekend, Flynn attended the ReAwaken America tour in Texas. Speaking before a conservative Christian audience, he stated that the United States of America should have only one religion. ", "If we are going to have one nation under God -- which we must -- we have to have one religion." 
The last time a king and queen of a country that wanted only one religion was their religion, which happened to be the Catholic religion. It was Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain who allowed the Spanish Inquisition to start before 1492 in their country which caused thousands of Jews to have to leave since they refused to be baptized as Catholics. That was the deal, leave or convert.
Forcing baptism or to exile a people started when Rome was particularly concerned that the Iberian peninsula's large Muslim and Jewish population would have a 'heretical' influence on the Catholic population. Rome pressed the kingdoms to accept the Papal Inquisition after Aragon. To be a heretic means :of or relating to adherence to a religious opinion contrary to church dogma : characterized by heresy. Being Jewish was being a heretic. Jews in 115 CE from Cyprus, then in 640, 721, 873 from the Byzantine Empire were forcibly converted to Christianity. We've been there-done that in our history.
They left for Portugal, nearby and in a few years, the Pope's decision reached them and those Jews had to leave again for lands unknown. Whatever Christian country they went to, they found anti-Semitism caused by that original order by the Pope that they could not stay if remaining to be Jewish.
Exiled further started in 1290 in England of Jews, then later, France, Hungary, Austria, and in 1492 180,000 Jews from Spain, while 50,000 converted under threat in order to remain in Spain. Then Lithuania expelled Jews, and Sicily and Sardinia followed along. Portugal did it in 1497, and the Island of Rhodes, Naples, Russia, Moscow and St. Petersburg, with 760,000 Jews living in Russia being forced to re-settle in the Pale of Settlement from 1882 to 1890.
The Spaniards weren't satisfied with kicking out Jews. They refused to allow newly converted Jews to remain because they might practice Judaism in secret. Of course, they did. This was true. You can't FORCE a religion upon people. It doesn't change their viewpoints. To be caught was a death decree including pain and suffering. Jews were placed on the racks and suffered excruciating pain. They were burned alive at the stake.
"The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. The regulation of the faith of newly converted Catholics was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave Castile, resulting in hundreds of thousands of forced conversions, the persecution of conversos and moriscos, and the mass expulsions of Jews and of Muslims from Spain. The Inquisition was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, after a period of declining influence in the preceding century." Then there has been WWII-Hitler's War, who was raised a Catholic. 6 million Jews died from that hatred.
This is how the world has celebrated their Judeo-Christian heritage.
“"A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and says, 'What is this, a joke?'"
Jews today make up only 2% of the American population. The United States has been called a Protestant nation by a variety of sources. In 2019, Christians represent 65% of the total adult population, 43% identifying as Protestants, 20% as Catholics, and 2% as Mormons. People with no formal religious identity form 26% of the total population. Newest count today is: According to a Pew Forum estimate, in 2017 there were 3.45 million Muslims, constituting about 1.1% of the total U.S. population, compared with 70.6% who follow Christianity, 22.8% unaffiliated, 1.9% Judaism, 0.7% Buddhism, and 0.7% Hinduism.
A Judeo-Christian culture seems to recognize the fact that Christianity grew out of Judaism, but our religions are not exactly the same. and our versions of G-d differs. We differ from Protestants and Catholics. Protestants and Catholics worship the same God, but the principles of their faith are different. Five hundred years after the Reformation, there are still painful divisions between Protestants and Catholics. Our Christian neighbors are among those who practice anti-Semitist acts against us. We have Muslim neighbors doing this in Israel.
We Jews pray to ONE G-d, an unseen G-d without a body. Muslims are monotheistic and worship one, all-knowing God, who in Arabic is known as Allah. Followers of Islam aim to live a life of complete submission to Allah. They believe that nothing can happen without Allah's permission, but humans have free will. A number of prayers to Jesus Christ exist within the Roman Catholic tradition. ... but they are usually not associated with a specific Catholic devotion with a feast day. They are therefore grouped separately from the prayers that accompany Roman Catholic devotions to Christ such as Holy Face of Jesus or Divine Mercy. Mormon prayer is a sincere, heartfelt talk with God the Father. Mormons pray only to God; they do not pray to any other being or to anything made by man or God. Some Christians do not accept them as Christians . Some Americans feel that most examples of prayer in the Bible are prayers directly addressed to God. ... We don't go wrong when we pray directly to God the Father. He is our Creator and the one they all should worship. Through Jesus, they have direct access to God. Some are even polytheists or have no religion at all. Americans make up a mixed bag of religious beliefs, so what does only one religion really mean? Is Flynn thinking like King Ferdinand of Spain?
I don't want to get into religious differences, only that our American culture is not of one culture or religion and never was designed to be. It was designed to be accepting of other people's differences, but following the same laws of peace and order amongst each other. This is what has made it so unique. We're made up of a stew of everything and we taste the greatest. That's why we have had so many different people vying to get into this country.
The people here that weren't free to make a choice were taken as slaves and our Civil War of 1860 freed them, but not in the minds of many Southern Americans. They've had a hard time defining our constitution, and I guess even Thomas Jefferson did, too. People often gloss over what they don't want to accept. Now the Blacks have been feeling unaccepted and apart from our American Judeo-Christian culture ever since the war.
It's been a real democratic country. We find we can have one life which is our religious life, and another American life, both protecting each other. What we don't need is someone to try to change our lives to accommodate their off-beat ideas that are exclusive, not inclusive including us all. Killing or colluding against someone because they are different is not accepted in the USA.
I know it has happened but is unAmerican. What Flynn is suggesting is unAmerican. He needs to think more about what being a Lt General of the USA means and what that stands for. A General's job is to defend the USA and that includes its principals and what it stands for.
Resource:
https://beyondpositivethinking.org/the-7-principles-of-our-judeo-christian-heritage/
https://religionnews.com/2021/11/16/mike-flynn-religion-josh-mandel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
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