{"id":7764,"date":"2006-06-24T10:38:14","date_gmt":"2006-06-24T14:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7764"},"modified":"2006-06-24T10:38:14","modified_gmt":"2006-06-24T14:38:14","slug":"this-week-in-god-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/this-week-in-god-23\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in God"},"content":{"rendered":"

First up from the [tag]God[\/tag] machine this week is a story from good ol’ [tag]Florida[\/tag]. In the Sunshine State, the words “[tag]In God We Trust[\/tag]” have appeared on the state seal since 1868, but according to state legislation signed into law this week by Gov. [tag]Jeb Bush[\/tag] (R), that wasn’t good enough. The phrase needed to be Florida’s official motto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The [tag]motto[\/tag] bill resulted from a school project by two fourth grade pupils who discovered there was no state law certifying “In God We Trust.” They approached Rep. Greg Evers, R-Baker, who introduced the bill.<\/p>\n

“First and foremost this [tag]honors the Almighty[\/tag],” Evers said in a statement issued by his office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in a country that pretends to honor the separation of church and state, having laws that use the power of the state to “honor the Almighty” makes perfect sense, right?<\/p>\n

If memory serves, the Supreme Court came up with a test a few decades ago called the “Lemon test,” which said, among other things, that laws had to have a “secular purpose” in order to be consistent with the First Amendment. With this in mind, isn’t Greg Evers effectively admitting<\/i> that his bill is legally problematic?<\/p>\n

And speaking of people with problems, the LA Times had a very interesting story<\/a> this week on religious activists, around the world, who are hoping to hasten the arrival of the end of the world. Seriously.
\n<\/p>\n

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the [tag]end of the world[\/tag]. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.<\/p>\n

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah. For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.<\/p>\n

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the [tag]Great Commission[\/tag]: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus’ message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not just Christians. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when he was mayor of Tehran, spent millions to help welcome the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi. In Jerusalem, some Jewish groups hope to rebuild a temple that would, they believe, clear the path for their own messiah.<\/p>\n

In Mississippi, my personal favorite is revivalist preacher and cattle rancher Clyde Lott, who is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers. As the LAT noted, Lott is trying to “satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.”<\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering, none of the cows qualify, but Lott’s going to keep trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First up from the [tag]God[\/tag] machine this week is a story from good ol’ [tag]Florida[\/tag]. In the Sunshine State, the words “[tag]In God We Trust[\/tag]” have appeared on the state seal since 1868, but according to state legislation signed into law this week by Gov. [tag]Jeb Bush[\/tag] (R), that wasn’t good enough. The phrase needed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}