Mercedes Schneider writes in this post about two ministers whom she heard on the radio. One spoke mockingly about separation of church and state. The other spoke about the importance of overcoming division. Mercedes transcribed their speeches. In this post, she focuses on the calming words of the second minister. And she helpfully reminds us of the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Ninth Amendment undercuts the cramped views of the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority, which has claimed that the rights not listed (“enumerated”) in the Constitution do not exist.
The Ninth Amendment says:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Schneider begins:
I did a double-take on the idea that there is an organized push to enable states to formally declare Christianity as an official state religion. That’s what this is: A far-right attempt to pee on the telephone pole of America, thereby marking it “for Christians only” and further exacerbating division in our country In the Name of Jesus.
I write this as a Christian: Such efforts stoke self-righteous egos and sow dangerous discord.
So, as I was flipping channels on my TV on July 03, 2022, hearing a Southern Baptist pastor mockingly use the phrase “separation of church and state” caught my attention. Sure enough, the point of his sermon was to promote a return to Christianity as the established religion on the state-level.
I recorded his sermon and transcribed it in order to write about it on this blog in a future post (not this one). It is a harsh, hard, self-centered promotion that I have some more work on editing and proofing prior to posting.
The point of this post is to present the words of another pastor, one I heard as I was recovering from the awfulness of transcribing the harsh, self-absorbed guy. This second pastor, Andy Stanley, who founded North Point Ministries in Atlanta, has a refreshingly different message, which he happened to deliver on the same day (July 03, 2022), and which shows that not all Christian pastors with major platforms are buying into the terrible divisiveness of some state-by-state, Christain Nationalism.
Keep reading. You will find this post of great interest.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
On this subject of Christianity, I’m with Oscar Wilde:
If you don’t have anything nice to say, come on over. I’ll put the kettle on.
But, ofc, the many, many, many “Christianities” all most all are only remotely related to and completely misrepresent anything that this Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth had to say two thousand years ago. He was a pretty awesome fellow and so radical in his thinking that when he finally showed up in Jerusalem, the authorities put him to death after only three days.
cx: almost all
Thanks, Bob. I find myself wondering”WWJD?” when I see the hatefulness of some of those who claim to be Christians.
IKR? Well observed.
Christian nationalism tends to treat other Americans as second-class citizens.
It sows seeds of division and exclusion among people. Religion sorts people into groups by ideological similarities. There is little room for disagreement. Since it is mostly a belief held by white Christians, it excludes large numbers of black and brown people. Some white Christians feel threatened by the changing demographics in this country, and their response is to grab power by any means necessary. This is not a Christian concept.
It is likely that DeSantis will trounce any opponent for governor in Florida. He will emerge as the preferred candidate of the Republican party. A recent poll in New Hampshire showed DeSantis leading Trump. if the primary were held today. In 2024 Democrats, if they had something akin to a strategy, would associate DeSantis with the divisive, racist, white Christian nationalist movement.
He now has an enormous war chest, and it’s getting bigger each day. I live in Flor-uh-duh. I can’t fire up the Internet without being besieged with surveys asking my opinion of DeSantis. Preparing the supporters versus enemies lists?
Diane and All The Ninth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution:
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
. . . big difference between “retained by the people” and “not existing.” CBK
“The Ninth Amendment undercuts the cramped views of the Supreme Court’s reactionary majority, which has claimed that the rights not listed (‘enumerated’) in the Constitution do not exist.”
Very good point, but sadly it doesn’t matter when the Supreme Court majority are ideological extremists.
retired teacher Wow. When THAT “doesn’t matter” to SCOTUS, we’re done. CBK
The Supreme Court will be dominated by there’s extremists for at least the next 20 years. The odious Clarence Thomas is the only one likely to shed his mortal coil. The rest were chosen because they are relatively young.
I’m still angry at RBG for not retiring at the beginning of Obama’s second term. She was then 85 and a cancer survivor. Her vanity got the best of her.
Had she been replaced, the reactionaries would have 5 seats and a majority, but one death would change that.
Diane I’ve felt the same about RGB. CBK
Exactly, CBK!!!!! Well observed. Important.
Diane and All Reading some of the SCOTUS decisions makes me wonder if anyone on SCOTUS has actually read the 9th Amendment. What do they think “retained by the people” actually means? Like, perhaps, having an abortion, or sleeping with whom we choose? And to follow their logic, where does it say SCOTUS itself can “pee on the Constitution”? CBK
It’s amazing to me that no major political figure or legal analyst has drawn attention to the 9th Amendment. Only Mercedes.
I see the 9th amendment is basically a “rule of construction,” i.e. a rule that tells you how to read the document (here, the Constitution). For example, there’s a rule of construction called “ejusdem generis,” which basically means that where a general term (for example, “sports”) is followed by specific examples of the term (for example, “hockey,” “football,” “baseball,” and “basketball”), the general term should be construed as limited to the specific examples. Because of this rule of construction, contracts often include language stating something to the effect that the rule of esjudem generis shall not apply to limit the scope of general terms. This is what the 9th Amendment does — you had some federalists concerned that the act of expressly listing a set of “rights” in the Bill of Rights could be read to mean that those enumerated rights were the full, exhaustive list of rights retained against the federal government. The 9th Amendment says you can’t read the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that way.
What specific rights does the 9th Amendment actually protect? I don’t think that’s clear. (It’s certainly not clear to me.)
I’d say the 9th Amendment protects unenumerated rights, like the right to privacy, the right to marry whom You want, the right to have a private relationship with a person of your choice, and a right to make your health decisions with your doctor, unencumbered by politicians.
Diane I think you are right. “Retained by the people” implies a positive reading of freedom of whatever the people choose. It’s the essence of a Constitution that breathes and so is “living.” It seems to me they are saying presently that if it’s not a defined and stated right, then there are none to be retained by the people.
I used to respect for the Supreme Court. If I understand originalism rightly, they have misconstrued what is originally in the Bill of Rights–the essence of freedom as a positive thing, and democracy/republic as power in the people. CBK
Flerp thank you for this explanation of a point of law.
It seems to me that if rights are not enumerated and not stated but referenced in such a general way . . . that what does NOT offend stated law, and where what does offend that law is offered remedy through the courts, is NOT to be even addressed by the court. It seems to me that such treatment is the essence of freedom . . . it suggests a shift of power from the courts to the people themselves.
If so, then without the law, the courts cannot say what the people can and cannot do insofar as what we choose to do or not do is not governed by the law. The idea of protected rights doesn’t even come into it unless you read it as “hands off.” In fact, the phrase “protected by the courts” tacitly gives over to the courts the freedom that is at the heart of the Constitution and the enumerated rights themselves. It seems to me that the present reading forgets that freedom is a positive thing on the side of the people; and that the phrase “retained by the people” secures that idea–that there is something to be retained . . . and not a negative reading.
Further, the question then becomes, if unstated rights are to be “retained by the people,” then the elected legislatures of states make laws only at the behest of the people . . . it puts the idea of “sacred trust” right back in their laps.
In other words, when you say: “What specific rights does the 9th Amendment actually protect? I don’t think that’s clear. (It’s certainly not clear to me.)” THAT’s exactly the point. If it were clearly stated, it would imply an infringement on the freedom to choose inferred in the phrase “retained by the people.”
It also seems to me that underneath the whole thing is a philosophical problem with powerful people not knowing what people will and won’t choose to be and do, and then not having the power to over-control “the people’s” freedoms. . . . SCOTUS . . . poor babies. CBK
Perhaps ironically (or maybe it’s not ironic), the 9th Amendment seem to require an “originalist” lens. If a right was “retained by the people” ~1790, it had to exist as of that date. Did an individual right to abortion, free from undue state interference, exist prior to 1790? I don’t know the history that well but from the little I’ve read, it seems there would be a respectable argument there.
FLERP I’ll have a better look at what originalism means, especially for this court. But on its face, it seems to me that, as applied to the law in any particular country, it would start at the inception of that country as a “constituted” country and as its own formal legal apparatus was written down, and as “we” began to implement it. Much is drawn from English law and goes way back, of course, but nothing happens in an historical vacuum. It just wasn’t formalized as U.S. Constitution and its laws.
There is some irony, I think, in the fact that the U.S. Constitution itself is a “breathing/ living” document . . . originally. CBK
I predict you will be posting many, many stories like this in the coming years. The current Court views the Constitution and it subsequent history (constitutional law) as either inconveniences to be ignored or dogma as they choose to interpret it.
All laws pass through the personal filters of those writing or interpreting the law. That is why we need balance on the Supreme Court.
retired teacher Your reflections about balance on SCOTUS reflect some of what’s in the Federalist Papers, I believe it’s Federalist 8 and 10, but not sure about that . . . I’ll check.
But it’s about how the true/good works itself out in the arguments between factions so that, the hope is that truth/good will emerge through the process. It’s less about compromise than it is about the honing of all arguments to a higher position–dialectic.
Those paragraphs in the Federalist Papers really stood out for me. What’s different now is that there so much lying, disingenuousness, and outright self-dealing making it much harder for truth/good to get through to the making of laws based on truly democratic principles; or so that we need too many laws where they finally quash-from-above, the freedoms we love but can so easily lose. CBK
In a perfect world “justice would be blind.” In our society we are not that evolved, but we should keep aspiring to be fair and honest.
I agree that personal experience will always have a role, but the mark of a true representative of the people is one who can understand their needs, balance it with what government’s role should be, and do so with fairness even if the experience is completely outside and alien to their person. It is why, after a number of years of not being aware of it, that I realize that abortion is something I should have little-to-no role in ever being involved, nor should the government that represents me.
The biggest problem we face is one that the founders, framers, and most of American humanity could never have envisioned just a few short years ago: We have a large portion of the population that is hostile to the Constitution and democracy. It was never imagined that the opposite of a sense of civic virtue would ever dominate a large portion of the electorate nor that they would have a disproportionate number of places in elected offices. Like Weimar, we are elected people through a process they would, if they had their druthers, eliminate once they take the oath of office.
GregB It’s more than this, but as long as so many people think that the U.S. Government is just another business in competition with other businesses, they will remain hostile to it. <–it’s a powerful piece of propaganda that has done its work. My view is that, regardless of all that is good about public education (and it is), our failure in it is manifest in that lacking and now distorted understanding of how government works.
Basically, however, if people can say the word, but don’t know what a democracy is and how their government is foundational and, in fact, sets the conditions for everything else, including the business world, then they will remain hostile to it, even though in fact they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Such ignorance breaks the flow of democracy, the break creates a political vacuum, and all sorts of nefarious opportunists are always there to fill the gap. CBK
Greg-
Your comment at 1:57, July 10. in the thread at the July 8, 2022, “Andrew Van Wagner…” post is brilliant. If this blog was what I thought it was, Diane would express the thoughts in the part of your comment that begins, “When formal religions seek special favors…” My entire perception was shaken to the core by what I read in responses to you and me in comments that followed that post. The right wing replies to the original, innocuous quoting of Jefferson and a Decree of Opposition to Communism exposed a fatal condition for U.S. democracy.
In a much earlier thread, you said the protection that one conservative religion gets is not denial, it is acquiescence. I just couldn’t accept that framing until the July 10 post. Your commitment to fighting against the country’s path toward Germany and Italy’s fascism is shown in your willingness to answer every false charge made at this blog, especially like those in the “Andrew Van Wagner” thread. I admire your willingness to call out the deliberate lies because, when they are spread, they advance democracy’s enemy.
It has taken me longer than it should have to accept that if public education was losing ground to privatization and it’s only enemy was the almost 50 state Catholic Conferences, the Pahara Institute-like effort at Notre Dame’s ACE and all of those associated with Koch who favor Catholic schools, there would be no roadblocks.
Those who talk a good game about abhorring fascism remain silent about the loss of public schools to Catholic religious training (36% of private schools are Catholic and 30% of them are single sex), remain silent about women and girls having their rights taken away by Catholic doctrine (Rev. Schrenck’s conclusion) and, remain silent about Catholic organization employers (the U.S. 3rd largest employer) exempted from civil rights laws
Greg, I think you are among the smallest of minorities who are willing to confront the threat. If it was otherwise, the future I see would not be so bleak.
So glad people specially Christians become aware of the terror that Christian Nationalism can bring. Not to mention the injustice and blind conviction. As a Christian I pray that more Christians can see this. God values each individual not political demands
To my mind, a true Christian is compassionate, is understanding, recognizes the rights and beliefs of others and does not denigrate his/her fellow man/woman. I may sound as though I belong in Camelot, but it is a goal to which one can aspire. I have seen so little of this in current politics and in society as a whole lately. The depths that some of our “leaders” are willing to plunge is frightening, especially as they appear to want to take the rest of us down with them.
It is truly amazing how many people in positions of power in government seem to have not read the Constitution at all, yet they pontificate as though they are experts in Constitutional Law.
Many on the right are the “Onward Christian Soldiers” type of Christian instead of the turn the other cheek variety.
“When asked which commandment was the most important, Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39).
“When you replace hate with love, and anger with kindness, you’ll feel closer to God and notice more peace in your life.
“Jesus taught the Golden Rule during His Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
“In other words, treat others the way you want to be treated. As you do so, you will strengthen your relationships and be happier.”
I think if we apply just those those two to all who claim to be Christians, we will unmask the frauds, the false prophets.
Beautifully observed, Lloyd!!!
Amen
The Bible is silent on abortion:
The 9th Amendment gives Clarence Thomas the constitutional right to live in an interracial marriage and gives women the constitutional right to abortion: The 9th Amendment says that rights do not have to be stated in the Constitution in order to be rights: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Americans have long claimed to right to and the practice of abortion. Benjamin Franklin, key Founding Father of America, shaper and signer of our Constitution, published a handbook titled “The American Instructor” that featured a long, detailed section on do-it-yourself abortion and conception prevention. The book was very popular throughout America and the prevention of and termination of pregnancies was widely practiced throughout America, especially in rural areas where an unwanted pregnancy could mean financial ruin in those days.
The current Supreme Court ruling on abortion not only violates the 9th Amendment, it violates the religious rights of many citizens: The Bible gives commandments on a very, very long list of more than 600 laws on everything from divorce to gluttony — yet the Bible says nothing about abortion. Why is that? If abortion was even as important as gluttony, it would have been mentioned in the Bible.
But,the Bible is silent on abortion: Out of more than 600 laws of Moses, which includes the 10 Commandments, NONE — not one — comments on abortion. In fact, the Mosaic law in Exodus 21:22-25 clearly shows that causing the abortion of a fetus is NOT MURDER. Exodus 21:22-25 says that if a woman has a miscarriage as the result of an altercation with a man, the man who caused miscarriage should only pay a fine that is to be determined by the woman’s husband, but if the woman dies, the man is to be executed: “If a man strives with a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet there is no harm to the woman, he shall be punished according to what the woman’s husband determines and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if the woman dies, then it shall be life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Ex. 21:22-25. So, the Bible orders the death penalty for murder of a human being — the mother — but not for the death of a fetus, indicating that the fetus is not yet a human being.
There are Christian denominations that allow abortion in most instances; these denominations include the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA. The United Methodist Church and Episcopal churches allow abortion in cases of medical necessity, and the United Universalist Association also allows abortion.
Most of the opposition to abortion comes from fundamentalist and evangelical Christians who believe that a full-fledged human being is created at the instant of conception. In short — it is a religious BELIEF and religious beliefs cannot be recognized by the government under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution. Moreover, the belief that a fetus is a human person, complete with a soul, is a Christian interpretation of the Jewish Bible — the Old Testament. But, Jewish scholars whose ancestors wrote the Old Testament and who know best what the words mean say that is a wrong interpretation of their writings.
Christians largely base their view that a fetus is a complete human being and that abortion is murder on the Jewish Bible’s Psalm 139: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb…You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.”
Who better to translate the meaning of Psalm 139 than the Jews who wrote it? And Jewish scholars point out that Psalm 139 merely describes the development of a fetus and does not mean that the fetus has a soul and is a person. In fact, the Jewish Talmud explains that for the first 40 days of a woman’s pregnancy, the fetus is considered “mere fluid” and is just part of the mother’s body, like an appendix or liver. Only after the fetus’s head emerges from the womb at birth is the baby considered a “nefesh” – Hebrew for “soul” or “spirit” – a human person.
I am not pro-abortion — I am PRO-CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, and until a fetus is in its 24th week of development the mother has the unquestionable constitutional right to decide what happens to the fetus. After the 24th week, society may have a legitimate legal interest in the fetus. What that interest is, to what extent it reaches, and how to encode that interest into law isn’t easy and will require a great deal of debate in society in general and in Congress, not the states, because it is a national constitutional right that is being dealt with.
THE COURT BENDS THE FACTS: The University of London scientist whose research is cited by the Supreme Court in its ruling to take away abortion rights says that his research has been misinterpreted by Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s activist conservative majority. Neuroscientist Dr. Giandomenico Iannetti says that the Court is ABSOLUTELY WRONG to say that his research shows that a fetus can feel pain when it is less than 24 weeks of development. “My results by no means imply that,” Dr. Iannetti declares. “I feel they were used in a clever way to make a point.” And Dr. John Wood, molecular neurobiologist at the University, points out that all serious scientists agree that a fetus can NOT feel pain until at least 24 weeks “and perhaps not even then.” Dr. Vania Apkarian, head of the Center for Transitional Pain Research at Chicago’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that the medical evidence on a fetus not feeling pain before 24 weeks or longer has not changed in 50 years and remains “irrefutable”.
LIFE OF WOE: In its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling upholding abortion rights, the Supreme Court set “viability” — the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the womb — as the dividing line after which some restrictions can be imposed on abortion rights. The pending ruling by current activist conservative majority on the Court will do away with the concept of viability, yet even with all of today’s medical miracles to keep a prematurely born or aborted fetus alive, of all the tens of thousands of cases, 90% OF FETUSES BORN AT 22 WEEKS DO NOT SURVIVE, and data shows that the majority of those that manage to be kept alive live the rest of their lives with a combination of BIRTH DEFECTS that include mental impairment, cerebral palsy, breathing problems, blindness, deafness, and other disorders that often require frequent hospitalizations during their lifetimes.
quikwrit “The Bible is silent on abortion.” I hate to throw a kink in that idea, but it’s more complicated than that. There IS “Thou shalt not kill.” And so, in our country, we also have laws against murder.
It follows that if life starts at inception, as many think, then abortion is murder; and, by THAT presumed meaning of abortion, it falls under both Biblical and U.S. law.
FYI: I’m glad I don’t have to make such decisions, but in the very unique question of abortion, my view is that the choice still belongs to the woman. A country’s laws need to stay out of it; and for Biblical law, it’s between the woman and her God, whatever stand she takes in her religious life if she has one.
As an aside, I think presently that the Court is not only arrogant, it’s stupid. To me, they’ve lost any sense of credibility. CBK
Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education.
The Supreme Court said that it had no constitutional authority to judge this. That is correct. It is up to the states and the citizens of that state to decide weather it be at conception, 15 weeks, 24 weeks, pain, birth or post natal. If you have a problem with the laws of your state, do something about it. Kindly let the others decide for themselves.
I defy any and all to explain what exactly “authentic christianity” is.
I’ll wait for a rational, logical, well-supported answer, but I and the rest of humanity will be gone by then.
Talk about pie in the sky. . . . . .
Duane Your question, as always, is masked by a false simplicity . . . meaning that it has more depth than, upon first reading, we might commonly recognize.
But I think the answer is open-ended, as our existence in life probably seems to most of us as we peer into the inevitability of our own deaths, because that’s where our religious meaning and our questions operate regardless of what we call them.
It may come clearer in the moment, however, by a negative analysis of whatever concrete situations or persons’ activities are repugnant to us as they compare badly with many of the founder’s sayings and surrounding texts, not only of Christianity but, by analogy, of similarly authentic notions derived from other founders and other texts . . . and not unlike our understanding of whether someone or situation is, in fact, fulfilling the spirit of the battered, but I think not yet dead, U. S. Constitution and ITS surrounding documents.
In other words, most of us can probably more easily understand what is NOT authentically Christian than perhaps what IS authentically Christian, especially since it is so much easier to see what people DO than to peer into someone’s heart, attitudes, intentions, and thoughts that define for us, at any one moment, what kind of person we really have chosen to be. As a general idea, and to perhaps avoid the charge of avoidance itself, I understand Jesus’ words as about calling and not about force. He was a great teacher.
I, for one, appreciate your question and will consider it long after I press the “Post” button. I thank you for it, Catherine
Thanks for your response, Catherine.
Duane You’re welcome. Certainly, it’s not a new question for me; but I am glad to have it re-newed. CBK
Authentic Christianity is what my mother did all her life. Unfortunately, her son has mostly been a rascal.
Hmmm. . . do you accept Bierce’s definition of “rascal”? “RASCAL, n. A fool considered under another aspect.”
No true Scotsman.
Okay, that brings us either up or down depending upon how one defines what a “true Scotsman”. Somehow I think we have the same problems as in defining “authentic Xtianity”.
Fox News, 7-11-2022
“Catholic Vote Launches $3 Mil Midterm Ad Campaign Aimed at Kicking Catholic Dems Out of Office”
Catholic Vote really likes Hungary’s strongman, Orban.