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The Christian
Pat Swindall grew up in a common American family inasmuch as they considered themselves Christian. Now, what exactly is a Christian? Considering Christianity’s many denominations, simply affixing a sectarian label falls short of accurately describing someone’s religiosity. Therefore, understanding an individual’s religiosity requires understanding the individual’s doctrines of faith.
Swindall, while still in law school at the
Pat’s new walk led him to believe in a literal translation of scripture. This literal translation of scripture allows for metaphors. Nevertheless, "literal" means: (1) God is a conscious spiritual entity living and interacting in human lives; (2) Jesus Christ (born of a virgin) is His Son and is also a living, spiritual, interacting conscious entity and is man’s link to God; (3) Jesus Christ literally existed physically and performed miracles of healing and resurrections. Further, He literally faced crucifixion, voluntarily sacrificed Himself to God for man’s sins. He then rose from the dead, escaped His tomb, appeared to His apostles, then ascended into heaven to be with the Father; and (4) the third person of the Holy Trinity (Holy Spirit) then came upon the earth to comfort and aid Jesus’ believers. Therefore, to Pat, "Creator" and "Nature’s God" mean Yahweh, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit interchangeably.
Pat claims not only that there are Biblical
solutions for
The Christian Right
Merely defining the "Christian Right" could prove a task. It is not a political party per se. Nor is it a particular group, organization or religious denomination. It is best described as a movement. Its advocates and activists can be found living next door, working in the next office, or soliciting your vote in an upcoming campaign. The Christian Right is best understood by understanding three national organizations headed by D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. Commonly, the political candidates they support are found in the Republican Party. A widespread fear of the movement’s foe is that the Christian Right’s ultimate end is to mandate its own breed of morality and Christianity on an unwilling American populace. Its advocates are often considered by non-Christians, and even many Christians, as fanatical.
Pat’s history of disagreement with the Christian Right would surely inspire any contemplative critic to remove any "religious fanatic" label from Pat. He has criticized the Christian Right in numerous areas which meet concerns of average non-theists, and many Christians.
He fully recognizes non-Christians co-exist
in
One example is his opposition to "blue
laws" (laws imposing Christian values). Swindall does not drink alcohol.
That is not because he finds it a sin to do so. He prefers to be under the
influence of the Holy Spirit instead of distilled spirits. However,
as he presented over the air on
·
· ...Whether we like it or not, the perception among many in this country is that the Christian Right, [and I assume based on all that I’ve read about what the Christian Right is supposed to be that I am a part of it, and probably, if you’re listening to this broadcast you are as well] is to be feared because its real agenda is to use civil government to impose on individual citizens in this country a certain brand of morality. Now, I personally believe that that is a misguided interpretation, but I do think that there have been certain actions politically over the last several decades that have fueled the flames of anticipation and fear among many in the electorate, and it’s something that needs to be addressed....
He then quoted Al Hunt. "I think there is a real yearning among even many Republicans for someone who will stand up to the self-righteous and frequently hypocritical moral right. John McCain’s the man to do it."
He continued with:
·
· In other words, what Al Hunt and others are saying is, "Someone needs to take the Christian Right on and beat ‘em." Well, what is it about Christian involvement in politics that has fueled that type of fear and hatred? And I think part of it is honestly a lack of wisdom on the part of politically active Christians in terms of what the objectives are and a failure on many occasions to look at Scripture for guidance in terms of what is the appropriate role of civil government....
...Let’s go through history. If you go back into just our recent past during this century, you will see that Prohibition certainly fits into that category. There is nothing that I have found in Scripture that says that there is anything inherently evil in alcohol. Yet, literally, millions of man-hours went into the political effort to pass Prohibition. I believe that Prohibition failed to work because it was not Biblically sound to begin with. That’s not to say that individual Christians ought not to examine whether or not it is appropriate for them to be under the influence of anything other than the Holy Spirit. But I don’t think you can make an across-the-board statement that alcohol is inherently evil and ought to be banned by civil government....
...Now let’s go a little further back into history. How many blue laws have been passed in past decades? Laws that say on the Sabbath- Sunday- certain activities can’t take place? That’s not biblical. Certainly not if you go by the fact that the Sabbath was the seventh day which would not be Sunday anyway, but also, as I read Scripture, when Christ died, Christians celebrated that occasion of His having arisen by recognizing Sunday as a day of worship. But I don’t believe you can strain Scripture to say that that means that civil government ought to shut down all activities on Sundays, and I can understand why there would be resentment among many, including Christians, when they could not do certain things on Sunday. For example, I’ve known a number of professional athletes who have been committed Christians who have to work on Sunday.... I think the basic principle is valid, but we needn’t have civil government imposing that type of legislation, and that’s where we’ve gone astray....
...More recently, I
talked about the incident yesterday where Judge Moore, Roy Moore in
...There are very appropriate areas for civil government to be involved, not the least of which is to protect innocent human life and to protect property. And yet, we have, while we’ve focused on some of these symbolic battles, failed to understand that gradually Congress has enacted tons of legislation that enables the federal government to seize private property without any due process of law whatsoever. Now that’s a battle worth fighting, because it is substantive, not merely symbolic. To make a long story short, I think that some of the fear that is now being expressed by non-believers is justified in that we have not been very wise in the causes that we have chosen, nor have we been very wise in terms of our approach....
...It [law] is not to cause people to act more religious.... And I think that’s part of where we’re getting into trouble is, we’re actually in many ways forgetting what Christ spent a lot of time and verbiage on in terms of taking on the Pharisees for their appearances of religiosity. And I think that what a lot of Christians are trying to do today is to give America this cosmetic appearance of Christianity, and the truth is that if a nation prays, if a nation recites a vow, in this case say to the flag, that we’re "one nation under God," the mere fact that we say it doesn’t make it so....
...Last night...it hit me just totally out of the blue, that the problem we’re having in this county is in large part the result of our failure to understand that we are to proclaim Christ in all we do; that is, individually we have that calling. We’re to do it irrespective of the arena. We’re to do it with our friends. We’re to do it with our workmates. We’re to do it in the public square. But that is not to be confused with this whole notion of trying to force others to do likewise. And what I really think has happened, as Christians have been engaged in the political processes is, we have ceased to talk about Christ even as we have public opportunities to do so and to contextualize some of the arguments that we’re making in the context of our faith, of our belief in Jesus Christ, and I’ve been watching many people whom I respect and I know have a personal walk with Christ go on national television and never talk about that dimension of their faith and why it impacts what they’re doing. And it’s a form of deism, I really believe...
...And let’s
face it, if you go back through history, not just American history, but history
in general, there’s plenty of precedent to fuel those [Christian] fears. Certainly if you go back and look at the Crusades. I was
watching ...a documentary about some tribes out of
...Isn’t it tragic that at a time when this country in particular so needs to hear the truth about who Christ is, that we tend to talk more about rules and regulations and behavior than about the person who is capable of changing all that? And the truth is we focus too much on symptoms and not enough on the underlying root problems....
Fundamentalist Christian libertarians carry the prohibition reality on to drug use in general. Also, unlike Swindall, they include homosexuals, prostitutes and gamblers as persons free of civilly mandated morality. That is not to say they encourage or condone such behavior. More on Swindall and libertarianism will be covered later.
Pat Swindall is good at unintentionally upsetting people. Non-Christians fear his Christian fundamentalism, while some Christians are displeased at him for not supporting their totalitarian Christian agenda. Now, how did his political and religious view manifest while in Congress?
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