She shoots – she scores. https://t.co/JHgLTQXWHv
— Phil Vischer (@philvischer) June 14, 2021
Jon Meachum: The Constitution is a Calvinist Ducument. The Declaration was an Englightenment one
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/l6vXR5iqReE?start=786″ frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>me to this point so I I do think it’s12:33a it’s a good bright line to draw John12:37Jefferson knew that part and this is in12:40your book all these codes about12:42partisanship I mean he was pretty12:44dedicated to engagement and political12:47issues but what would he think of the12:49type of partisanship we have now at this12:52moment I think he would recognize it12:54honestly he once said divisions of12:58opinion have convulsed human societies13:00since Greece and Rome divisions of13:03opinion were the oxygen of a free13:06government I’m a skeptic of the a13:08prevailing scholarly view that the13:10founders had this vision of a one-party13:14one-party state and we would all be on13:17Olympus with powdered wigs and13:19solving problems they may have had that13:22vision we all had that vision and but13:26they understood reality oh if you if you13:28worry if you’re worried about or if youdoubt me about whether they understoodreality read the Constitution which isentirely about reality constitute ifJefferson was an Enlightenment documentthe Constitution is a Calvinist documentas looms we are all Despres sinful anddriven by appetite and ambition andwe’ve done everything we cansince then to prove them right so I13:55think you know this is a the Hemings the13:59story about Sally Hemings was first14:01publicized in 1802 and we with all love14:07and respect to a net we don’t know that14:09much more than that first piece doing it14:20wasn’t seen as a historical or cultural14:22document it was a partisan attack yeah14:25you know right and and continued during14:27that you know during his presidency and14:29in a few times afterwards there’s been a14:32big debate recently coming out of the14:34New York Times 16:19 project how much do14:37we need to revise our concept of the14:39founding of this nation do you think14:41that makes sense or has it gone a bit14:44too far the pendulum is historians have14:48been writing about this down for quite14:50some time but what we haven’t done as14:54much as to think about what that means14:55for us today14:56that the legacy of slavery is still with14:59us there’s a tendency there has been a15:01tendency on the part of many people to15:03say oh well we knew that but that’s over15:05I think that’s the that’s the15:07contribution of the magazine of 1619 is15:11not to tell us something many things we15:14didn’t know but to say there is a15:17connection to this that is continuing15:20you don’t get rid of hundreds of years15:23of slavery in a century or so and we15:26really don’t get going as legally full15:29citizens until 1965 the passage of the15:32vote15:32that’s not in the history you know15:35that’s a blink of an eye so they even in15:37total blink of an eye in history and15:39thinking that this stuff is all in the15:41past has been the problem and that’s I15:44think that’s what the project was trying15:45to do is to say no this isn’t over John15:50I was struck I believe it was the15:54remarks at the signing of the Civil15:56Rights Act and in July July 2nd 196416:00Lyndon Johnson grounds his remark at the16:04bill signing not on Philadelphia but on16:07Jamestown it which which I was struck by16:11talk about a complicated figure well you16:16know were the Democratic nominee for16:19president is a 77 year old white man who16:25was the vice president of the first16:28african-american president incredibly16:30loyal and eulogized Thurmond and16:33Eastland you know so well if you’re16:36looking for simplicity if you’re looking16:38for straightforward figures good luck16:42I don’t know who they would be I think16:46what an it just said is absolutely16:47essential I have a theory16:49aboard Walter with this I think16:51privately actually that we’re only a 6016:56year old nation right the country we17:01have right now the polity we have which17:04is soon going to be majority diversity17:07whatever phrase it is was really created17:11in 1964-65 not only with the Civil17:16Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act but17:18with the Immigration Act yeah which17:20totally changed the nature of the17:24country and so no wonder this is so hard17:28no wonder we’re having such a ferocious17:30white reaction this is kind of the 1830s17:35in a way and so it’s not to excuse it17:40but I do think it explains it a little17:42bit and this idea of Prague17:45and I know it sounds tinny to people and17:48look if you look like me you can talk17:49about progress right I’m the boring Lee17:52heterosexual white southern Episcopalian17:54right I mean things tend to work out for17:56me in America so I stipulate that but18:00but it’s simply the lesson of history18:04that we are in fact a better country18:09than we were yesterday doesn’t mean18:12we’re perfect doesn’t mean we stop up18:15but our are enough of us devoted to18:21doing all we can as citizens and as18:24leaders to try to create a country that18:27more of us can be proud of and if we are18:30then let’s get to it yeah and and I18:34would throw in women the changing role18:37of women from the 1960s and this is18:39that’s a good point I wouldn’t I agree18:42with 60 years again a short time in18:47history where everything everybody’s18:49sort of in place it’s like Ken Burns18:51said that he found it difficult to call18:53talk about the Golden Age of baseball18:56and there were no black players in the19:00major league how do you how do you do19:02that and this is a similar situation19:04where you have blacks legally allowed to19:08vote and those rights are protected I19:11mean there’s issues with voter19:12suppression but sort of on paper19:14equality is there and it’s hard is19:17wrenching for people who have had you19:20know power who are used to a certain19:23hierarchy a certain way things are were19:25or they think about their grandparents19:27or good old days it’s hard to get used19:29to all of that and so you’re right19:32there’s no wonder that there’s a people19:33Annette gordon-reed Jon Meacham thank19:37you for joining us to be here19:42[Music]19:50[Music]19:53you
What’s So Good About Original Sin?
I would like to entertain the notion that a secularized conception of original sin is plausible, and that believing it might have good effects.
.. In trying to make the world an excellent place for human beings to live by developing and applying ingenious technologies, for example, we may wind up rendering it uninhabitable. Or in trying to keep ourselves safe and secure by stockpiling defensive weaponry, we may annihilate life on earth. There’s really no need for God’s punishment when you’re making your own hellfire.
.. As Paul told the Romans .. , “I do not know what it is that I accomplish” and “what I wish, this I do not do; instead, what I hate, this I do.”
.. There is some level of self-scrutiny too merciless for most of us, some inner corridor too dark. We are mystified, or purport to be, by mass shooters, for example. What could possibly motivate a person to want to kill — everyone? What could turn them so against their own species? I suggest that to answer a question like that we must look within ourselves — at our own violent fantasies, the ways we hate or negate the world, our moments of imagined annihilation of people we fancy to be our enemies, our feeling at times that we are being arbitrarily persecuted or misunderstood.
.. This insight is not the exclusive province of Christian theology. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “I have within me the capacity for every crime.”
.. We may regard a shooter — or a racist, a sexual predator, an addict or someone who commits suicide (as de Cleyre herself tried to do at least once) — as alien. This reinforces, to ourselves and others, our sense of our own sanity and goodness;
.. The doctrine of original sin — in religious or secular versions — is an expression of humility, an expression of a resolution to face our own imperfections.
.. There is much to affirm in our damaged selves and in our damaged lives, even a sort of dignity and beauty we share in our imperfect awareness of our own imperfection, and our halting attempts to face it, and ourselves.
Richard Rohr: We Were Made by Love to Love
God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” —Genesis 1:26
My dear people, we are already children of God; what we will be in the future has not yet been fully revealed, and all I do know is that we shall be like God.—1 John 3:2
.. We have heard the phrase so often that we don’t get the existential shock of what “created in the image and likeness of God” is saying about us. If this is true—and I believe it is—our family of origin is divine. We were created by a loving God to be love in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original sin. Our starting point is “very good” (Genesis 1:31) and surely not “total depravity” or “sinners in the hands of an angry god.” All the good theology in the world cannot make up for a basically negative anthropology.