Democracy - How Long?

The following article has been passed around by e-mail for some time now, and I wanted to post it here. Whether it is completely accurate or not makes little difference; it should catch our attention and cause us to ponder the thought it provokes.

How long can the USA continue as a nation?

"HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?

This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming.I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.

How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.""A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.""From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.""The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;

2. From spiritual faith to great courage;

3. From courage to liberty;

4. From liberty to abundance;

5. From abundance to complacency;

6. From complacency to apathy;

7. From apathy to dependence;

8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:

Gore: 19

Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:

Gore: 580,000

Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:

Gore: 127 million

Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:

Gore: 13.2

Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years."

How long do we have as a nation? Only God knows. We do however need to be in much prayer and be diligent to get to the voting booth on election day, and always let our voice be heard.

Democracy - How Long?

The following article has been passed around by e-mail for some time now, and I wanted to post it here. Whether it is completely accurate or not makes little difference; it should catch our attention and cause us to ponder the thought it provokes.

How long can the USA continue as a nation?

"HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?

This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming.I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.

How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.""A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.""From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.""The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;

2. From spiritual faith to great courage;

3. From courage to liberty;

4. From liberty to abundance;

5. From abundance to complacency;

6. From complacency to apathy;

7. From apathy to dependence;

8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:

Gore: 19

Bush: 29

Square miles of land won by:

Gore: 580,000

Bush: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:

Gore: 127 million

Bush: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:

Gore: 13.2

Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years."

How long do we have as a nation? Only God knows. We do however need to be in much prayer and be diligent to get to the voting booth on election day, and always let our voice be heard.

Before There Ever Was a USA

Before there ever was a United States of America there was Christmas. Christmas was being celebrated by Christians many years before the USA was ever conceived in the minds of men.
I am taking a break from blogging until after the beginning of 2008. The Lord willing I will return after Januar 01, 2008.
Remember Christ is in Christmas. So let us put Him first all for the rest of the year, and then the whole New Year of 2008.
God Bless you all.
T.A.

Before There Ever Was a USA

Before there ever was a United States of America there was Christmas. Christmas was being celebrated by Christians many years before the USA was ever conceived in the minds of men.
I am taking a break from blogging until after the beginning of 2008. The Lord willing I will return after Januar 01, 2008.
Remember Christ is in Christmas. So let us put Him first all for the rest of the year, and then the whole New Year of 2008.
God Bless you all.
T.A.

The Bible's Impact 3

This is the concluding remarks in Mark Noll's artilce in the Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

"THE AMERICAN BIBLICAL TRADITION The King James Version used to be our common text."

"Yet if the KJV was sometimes abused, nearly universal use also meant that its spiritual themes of reproof and liberation, its stories of human sin and divine grace, also exerted a great influence for good. In the 1890's Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other aggreived feminists published "The Woman's Bible" in an effort to counter interpretations of Scripture that had done women harm. When they asked others to comment, Frances Willard of the Women's Christian Temperance Union made a telling response: 'No such woman, as Mrs Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her heart aflame against all forms of injustice and of cruelty... has ever been produced in a country where the Bible was not incorporated into the thoughts and affections of the people and had not been so during Many generations.'

It was the KJV that Willard meant as the Bible 'incorporated' in American consciousness 'during many generations.' Today the legacy of the KJV remains fixed in the common speech, even if awareness of the languages's debt to this translation is fading (another KJV word). Whether any modern translation of the Scriptures, or any other moral guide, can anchor the culture as the KJV once did, is a question worth serious consideration in the run-up of 2011 and the 400th anniversary of this unsurpassed cultural force."

Mr. Noll, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, recently lectured on "The King James Version in American History" at the Library of Congress."

The value of the KJV has not been exaggerated in this article by Mr. Noll. The Word of God is important in every age. Versions of Scripture which leave out verses important for teaching the place of faith and baptism will be weak in promoting morality, and holiness before holy God. Though I am not a KJV only man, the KJV is the only version I place the utmost confidence. I will use other versions as commentaries, but the KJV is the one which I have the most peace using in study and preaching.

The Bible's Impact 3

This is the concluding remarks in Mark Noll's artilce in the Opinion Journal from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

"THE AMERICAN BIBLICAL TRADITION The King James Version used to be our common text."

"Yet if the KJV was sometimes abused, nearly universal use also meant that its spiritual themes of reproof and liberation, its stories of human sin and divine grace, also exerted a great influence for good. In the 1890's Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other aggreived feminists published "The Woman's Bible" in an effort to counter interpretations of Scripture that had done women harm. When they asked others to comment, Frances Willard of the Women's Christian Temperance Union made a telling response: 'No such woman, as Mrs Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her heart aflame against all forms of injustice and of cruelty... has ever been produced in a country where the Bible was not incorporated into the thoughts and affections of the people and had not been so during Many generations.'

It was the KJV that Willard meant as the Bible 'incorporated' in American consciousness 'during many generations.' Today the legacy of the KJV remains fixed in the common speech, even if awareness of the languages's debt to this translation is fading (another KJV word). Whether any modern translation of the Scriptures, or any other moral guide, can anchor the culture as the KJV once did, is a question worth serious consideration in the run-up of 2011 and the 400th anniversary of this unsurpassed cultural force."

Mr. Noll, professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, recently lectured on "The King James Version in American History" at the Library of Congress."

The value of the KJV has not been exaggerated in this article by Mr. Noll. The Word of God is important in every age. Versions of Scripture which leave out verses important for teaching the place of faith and baptism will be weak in promoting morality, and holiness before holy God. Though I am not a KJV only man, the KJV is the only version I place the utmost confidence. I will use other versions as commentaries, but the KJV is the one which I have the most peace using in study and preaching.

The Bible's Impact 2

The following is the second part from an article by Mark A. Noll's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday July 7, 2006. I give you only a portion:

"Because the KJV was so widely read for religious purposes, it had also become a source of public ideals. Because it was so central in the churches, and because the churches were so central to the culture, the KJV functioned also as a common reservoir for the language. Hundreds of phrases (clear as crystal, powers that be, root of the matter, a perfect Babel, two-edged sword) and thousands of words (arguments, city, conflict, humanity, legacy network, voiceless, zeal) were in the common speech because they had first been in this translation. Or to be more precise, because they had been in the KJV or in the earlier translations, like those of John Wycliffe's followers (1390s) and William Tyndale (1520s), that King James' translators mined for their own version.

But during the past half-century, we have come into a new situation. For believers who read the Bible because they think it is true, a welter of modern translations compete for the space once dominated by the KJV. For the public at large, the linguistic and narrative place that for more than two centuries had been occupied by the KJV is now substantantially filled by the omnipresent electronic media. The domains that have been most successfully popularized by television, the movies and the internet are sport, crime, pornography, politics, warfare, medicine and the media itself. Within these domains there is minimal place for biblical themes of any sort, much less the ancient language of the KJV.

For some purposes, it is well that the KJV has lost its hold. Roman Catholics and Jews were once victims of coercive discrimination when they were forced to recite the Protestant translation of the Bible in the nation's public schools. And at many moment, like the Civil War, free use of this one version made it all too easy to transgress the boundary between the proper business of the churches and the proper business of the public sphere."

I personally know of no time when Catholics and Jews were "forced to recite" a protestant translation of Scriptures in public schools. They at any point should have had the freedom to leave the classroom or the room where the recitation was taking place.

The Bible in the KJV has been a prominent part in making this nation a nation with morals, the further we get from the Bible the further we will get from God Himself.

The Bible's Impact 2

The following is the second part from an article by Mark A. Noll's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday July 7, 2006. I give you only a portion:

"Because the KJV was so widely read for religious purposes, it had also become a source of public ideals. Because it was so central in the churches, and because the churches were so central to the culture, the KJV functioned also as a common reservoir for the language. Hundreds of phrases (clear as crystal, powers that be, root of the matter, a perfect Babel, two-edged sword) and thousands of words (arguments, city, conflict, humanity, legacy network, voiceless, zeal) were in the common speech because they had first been in this translation. Or to be more precise, because they had been in the KJV or in the earlier translations, like those of John Wycliffe's followers (1390s) and William Tyndale (1520s), that King James' translators mined for their own version.

But during the past half-century, we have come into a new situation. For believers who read the Bible because they think it is true, a welter of modern translations compete for the space once dominated by the KJV. For the public at large, the linguistic and narrative place that for more than two centuries had been occupied by the KJV is now substantantially filled by the omnipresent electronic media. The domains that have been most successfully popularized by television, the movies and the internet are sport, crime, pornography, politics, warfare, medicine and the media itself. Within these domains there is minimal place for biblical themes of any sort, much less the ancient language of the KJV.

For some purposes, it is well that the KJV has lost its hold. Roman Catholics and Jews were once victims of coercive discrimination when they were forced to recite the Protestant translation of the Bible in the nation's public schools. And at many moment, like the Civil War, free use of this one version made it all too easy to transgress the boundary between the proper business of the churches and the proper business of the public sphere."

I personally know of no time when Catholics and Jews were "forced to recite" a protestant translation of Scriptures in public schools. They at any point should have had the freedom to leave the classroom or the room where the recitation was taking place.

The Bible in the KJV has been a prominent part in making this nation a nation with morals, the further we get from the Bible the further we will get from God Himself.

The Bible's Impact

The following is a quote by Mark A. Noll's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday July 7, 2006. I give you only a portion:

"THE AMERICAN BIBLICAL TRADITION The King James Version used to be our common text.

In 1911 the English-speaking world paused to mark the 300th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, with American political leaders foremost in the chorus of exaltation. To former president Theodore Roosevelt, this Bible translation was "the Magna Carta of the poor and the oppressed...the most democratic book in the world." Soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson said much the same thing: "The Bible (with its individual value of the human soul) is undoubtedly the book that has made democracy and been the source of all progress.'

'Americans at the time mostly agreed with these sentiments, because the impact of the KJV was everywhere so obvious. It was obvious for business, with major firms like Harper & Brothers having risen to prominence on the back of is Bible publishing. It was obvious in the physical landscape and in many households because of the widespread use of Bible names for American places (95 variations on Salem) and the nation's children (John, James, Sarah, Rebecca). It was obvious in literature, as with the memorable opening of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: 'Call me Ishmael." And it was obvious in politics, with no occasion more memorable than March 4, 1865, when four quotations from the KJV framed Abraham Lincoln's incomparable Second Inaugural Address: Genesis 3:19 ('wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces'); Matthew 18:7 ('woe unto the world because of offences!'); Matthew 7:1 ('judge not that we be not judged'); and Psalm 19:9 ('the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether')."

Now where our friend Mark A. Noll, or Mister Lincoln got that quote from Genesis 3:19, I havn't got a clue. It is certainly a misquote of the text, and from something other than the KJV.

The Bible's Impact

The following is a quote by Mark A. Noll's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Friday July 7, 2006. I give you only a portion:

"THE AMERICAN BIBLICAL TRADITION The King James Version used to be our common text.

In 1911 the English-speaking world paused to mark the 300th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, with American political leaders foremost in the chorus of exaltation. To former president Theodore Roosevelt, this Bible translation was "the Magna Carta of the poor and the oppressed...the most democratic book in the world." Soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson said much the same thing: "The Bible (with its individual value of the human soul) is undoubtedly the book that has made democracy and been the source of all progress.'

'Americans at the time mostly agreed with these sentiments, because the impact of the KJV was everywhere so obvious. It was obvious for business, with major firms like Harper & Brothers having risen to prominence on the back of is Bible publishing. It was obvious in the physical landscape and in many households because of the widespread use of Bible names for American places (95 variations on Salem) and the nation's children (John, James, Sarah, Rebecca). It was obvious in literature, as with the memorable opening of Herman Melville's Moby Dick: 'Call me Ishmael." And it was obvious in politics, with no occasion more memorable than March 4, 1865, when four quotations from the KJV framed Abraham Lincoln's incomparable Second Inaugural Address: Genesis 3:19 ('wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces'); Matthew 18:7 ('woe unto the world because of offences!'); Matthew 7:1 ('judge not that we be not judged'); and Psalm 19:9 ('the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether')."

Now where our friend Mark A. Noll, or Mister Lincoln got that quote from Genesis 3:19, I havn't got a clue. It is certainly a misquote of the text, and from something other than the KJV.