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Title: Obama Rips Bible, Praises Koran
Source:
Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/national-s ... bama-rips-bible-praises-koran/
Published: Feb 7, 2015
Author: Ben Shapiro
Post Date: 2015-02-07 06:32:22 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 215535
Comments: 433
On Thursday, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., President Obama blithely informed his audience that Christians ought not get on their “high horse” about the problem of radical Islam:
Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.
This is historically and philosophically illiterate. Historically speaking, the Crusades were a response to Islamic aggression in Europe and the Middle East; the Inquisition, as Jonah Goldberg points out while quoting historian Thomas Madden, director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University, was designed to regularize executions rather than leaving them to the will of the masses. Christians undoubtedly pursued horrible brutalities against people, including innocent Jews. However, as Goldberg points out, “Christianity, even in its most terrible days, even under the most corrupt popes, even during the most unjustifiable wars, was indisputably a force for the improvement of man.”
Nowhere is that clearer than in Obama’s second example, slavery. Virtually all of the most ardent abolitionists were deeply religious Christians. Hundreds of thousands of American men marched to their deaths singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea / With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me / As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free / While God is marching on.” That was 150 years ago. It’s not exactly the modern Islamic slogan, “Death to the Jews.” Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was, as his name suggests, a reverend. He quoted old black Christian spirituals and the Biblical story of the exodus from Egypt. Christians obliterated slavery. Christians obliterated Jim Crow. Modern slavery is largely perpetrated by Muslims. Modern Jim Crow is certainly perpetrated by Muslims under shariah law.
There is a larger point, here, too: President Obama’s foolish argument suggests that because Christians were brutal a millennium ago, they should shut up about brutalities today. This is somewhat like saying that because someone’s great-great-grandfather held slaves in rural Alabama, that person should shut up about human trafficking in 2015. It’s asinine.
But Obama has a history of insulting Christianity and Judaism while upholding Islam. In 2006, Obama bashed the Bible and religious Christians and Jews in particular:
Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.
He then concluded that religious leaders should not speak out against publicly-funded contraception or gay marriage.
We can get into President Obama’s pathetic Biblical commentary here – his interpretation of Leviticus on slavery is incorrect, Jews still avoid shellfish, the Talmud explains that no child has ever been stoned for rebelliousness, and the Sermon on the Mount is not a pacifist document. Obama’s not Biblically literate – he’s the same fellow who says, “I think the good book says don’t throw stones in glass houses.”
He said in The Audacity of Hope that he would define Biblical values however he chose, stating that he is not willing “to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.” Both are, in fact, parts of the Bible. Citing the Sermon on the Mount to justify civil unions for homosexuals, as Obama has done, is not in fact Biblical.
But more importantly, Obama’s scorn for the old-fashioned Bible is obvious. That became more obvious in 2008, when Obama told some of his buddies in San Francisco that unemployed idiots “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
The Obama administration has routinely attacked religious organizations and people who violate Obama’s personal political predilections. They’ve attacked all trappings of Christianity as well. Whether they’re using Obamacare to force religious individuals to pay for others’ contraception or toning down the National Day of Prayer instead of holding a public ceremony, whether they’re covering a monogram of Jesus at Georgetown University during a presidential speech or objecting to adding FDR’s D-Day prayer to the WWII memorial, the Obama administration clearly isn’t fond of Christianity.
This contrasts strongly with President Obama’s romantic vision of Islam. He famously called the Muslim call to prayer “the sweetest sound I know.” He said in his first presidential interview, with Al-Arabiya, that his job was “to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.” Weeks later, he said in Turkey, “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.” A few months later, in a speech in Cairo to which he invited the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama said:
I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.
He added that Islam has a “proud tradition of tolerance,” explained, ‘Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace,” and said, “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” He said in his Ramadan message in 2009 that Islam has played a key “role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”
ISIS, Obama has said over and over again, is not Islamic. His administration maintains that America is not at war with radical Islam. He stated before the United Nations in 2012, just weeks after the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya at the hands of Muslim terrorists, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Hillary Clinton allegedly promised Charles Woods, father of one of the slain in Benghazi, that the administration would achieve the arrest of the YouTube filmmaker behind The Innocence of Muslims. The State Department issued taxpayer-funded commercials denouncing that YouTube video. President Obama variously called the video “crude and disgusting” and stated that “its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.” At the UN in 2014, Obama lauded a Muslim cleric who backs Hamas. And, of course, Obama uses Islamic theology to promote his vision of world peace:
All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.
All three religions do have access to holy sites now, in Jewish-run Jerusalem. They did not when Muslims ruled Jerusalem. But facts have no bearing in the fantasy world of the president.
Perhaps one final contrast tells the tale. In 2012, according to the Washington Post. “U.S. troops tried to burn about 500 copies of the Koran as part of a badly bungled security sweep at an Afghan prison in February.” Two American soldiers were shot in the aftermath. This prompted President Obama to apologize profusely to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, writing him a letter stating, “We will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, including holding accountable those responsible.”
Three years earlier, members of the military burned Bibles printed in Pashto and Dari. CNN reported that they had been discarded “amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans.” The Bibles were burned rather than sent back to their source organization because the military worried they might be re-sent to another outlet in Afghanistan. There was no apology to the church that printed the Bibles, or to Christians more broadly.
Sure, radical Muslims around the world, supported by millions of their compatriots and friendly governments, are murdering innocents. But it’s Christian aggression that forces Muslims to burn other Muslims alive in Muslim countries. (1 image)
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we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.
They burned him alive in an iron cage, and as he screamed and writhed in the agony of hell they made a sport of his death. After listening to one newscast after another rightly condemn the barbaric killing of that Jordanian air force pilot at the bloody hands of ISIS, I couldn’t sleep. My mind kept roaming the past trying to retrieve a vaguely remembered photograph that I had seen long ago in the archives of a college library in Texas. Suddenly, around two in the morning, the image materialized in my head. I made my way down the hall to my computer and typed in: “Waco, Texas. Lynching.” Sure enough, there it was: the charred corpse of a young black man, tied to a blistered tree in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt. Next to the burned body, young white men can be seen smiling and grinning, seemingly jubilant at their front-row seats in a carnival of death. One of them sent a picture postcard home: “This is the barbeque we had last night. My picture is to the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe.” The victim’s name was Jesse Washington. The year was 1916. America would soon go to war in Europe “to make the world safe for democracy.” My father was twelve, my mother eight. I was born 18 years later, at a time, I would come to learn, when local white folks still talked about Washington’s execution as if it were only yesterday. This was not medieval Europe. Not the Inquisition. Not a heretic burned at the stake by some ecclesiastical authority in the Old World. This was Texas, and the white people in that photograph were farmers, laborers, shopkeepers, some of them respectable congregants from local churches in and around the growing town of Waco. Here is the photograph.  Charred corpse of Jesse Washington among the ashes (NAACP)  Take a good look at Jesse Washington’s stiffened body tied to the tree. He had been sentenced to death for the murder of a white woman. No witnesses saw the crime; he allegedly confessed but the truth of the allegations would never be tested. The grand jury took just four minutes to return a guilty verdict, but there was no appeal, no review, no prison time. Instead, a courtroom mob dragged him outside, pinned him to the ground, and cut off his testicles. A bonfire was quickly built and lit. For two hours, Jesse Washington — alive — was raised and lowered over the flames. Again and again and again. City officials and police stood by, approvingly. According to some estimates, the crowd grew to as many as 15,000. There were taunts, cheers and laughter. Reporters described hearing “shouts of delight.” When the flames died away, Washington’s body was torn apart and the pieces were sold as souvenirs. The party was over. Many years later, as a young man, I visited Waco’s Baylor University, often referred to as the Texas Baptist Vatican. I had been offered a teaching position there. I sat for a while in the school’s Armstrong Browning Library, one of the most beautiful in America, containing not only the works of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the acclaimed Victorian poets, but also stained glass windows, marble columns, and elegant ceilings that bring to mind the gorgeous interior of Michelangelo’s Laurentian library in Florence. Sitting there, I found it hard to reconcile the beauty and quiet of that sanctuary with the photograph that I had been shown earlier by a man named Harry Provence, publisher of the local newspaper. Seeing it, I realized that as young Jesse Washington was being tortured, students his own age, some of them studying for the ministry, were just finishing their spring semester. In 1905, when another black man had been lynched in Waco, Baylor’s president became a leader of the anti-lynching movement. But ugly memories still divided the town. Jesse Washington was just one black man to die horribly at the hands of white death squads. Between 1882 and 1968 — 1968! — there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the US. About a quarter of them were white people, many of whom had been killed for sympathizing with black folks. My father, who was born in 1904 near Paris, Texas, kept in a drawer that newspaper photograph from back when he was a boy of thousands of people gathered as if at a picnic to feast on the torture and hanging of a black man in the center of town. On a journey tracing our roots many years later, my father choked and grew silent as we stood near the spot where it had happened. Yes, it was hard to get back to sleep the night we heard the news of the Jordanian pilot’s horrendous end. ISIS be damned! I thought. But with the next breath I could only think that our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us. This post first appeared on BillMoyers.com.
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#16. To: Gatlin, aka Dog Whistler (#1)
In case you're under the delusion you're ANY kind of American patriot, here's a subtle hint: YOU'RE NOT.
How much are you paid to toot your .goob dog-whistle and troll LF? Was it more than at LP? Do you buy the donuts for the local ACLU and SPLC meetings?
#17. To: Liberator (#16)
| This week, President Obama met with Muslim leaders in a private political meeting for the first time in his six-year presidency. The meeting set off predictable angry reactions from the political right, with Fox News’ Sean Hannity even saying he wished Obama had demanded that the leaders publicly denounce radical Islam. Obama further raised the hackles of the Christian right when he said at the National Prayer Breakfast that no religion has a monopoly on violence, saying, “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. Slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.” The reaction to these comments was apoplectic. Rush Limbaugh called it an “insult” to Christianity; the Tea Party News Network said Obama threw “Christians under the bus”; the Daily Caller surmised that Obama’s remarks were designed to “curb” criticism of Islam. All of these critics failed to engage with the substance of what Obama was saying. The president was not attacking Christianity, he was simply noting that just as ISIS may be using the name of Islam to rally followers to its violent agenda, extremists within the Christian faith have done the same thing historically. Violence has been in the mainstream of Christianity throughout history. If anything, Obama didn’t go far enough in his remarks. Christianist violence isn’t a relic of the Crusades; it continues today, and in many of its forms is just as violent as what we are seeing from ISIS. |
#18. To: Gatlin (#17)
Oh I'm sorry -- Am I actually suppose to respond to your Botware program?
*snicker*
#20. To: Liberator (#18) (Edited)
Oh I'm sorry -- Am I actually suppose to respond to your Botware program?*snicker*
No, all you have shown that you can actually do, is name call. Carry on with what you do best and I will carry on with what I am doing.
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Exactly who did the massacring here is still a matter of debate. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is the death toll: four ATF agents and 80 followers of Vernon Howell, a.k.a. David Koresh, and his splinter group of Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists. It happened in early 1993 when the ATF raided, then besieged, then attacked the fortified compound that the Koreshians called Mount Carmel. All that was left was a smoking ruin. There are no signs of the compound any more; the only remnant is a hole, formerly a swimming pool that was used as a bunker during the siege. A little chapel has been built out by the road by the Koreshians and their supporters, incorporating an infrequently-open museum of Davidian history that censures everyone for the bloodshed. Up a dirt road is a grove of young trees planted in rows, one for each Branch Davidian killed. For several years each had a little granite marker at its base with a victim's name and age and the same date of death: April 20, 1993 (The stones were later mortared into a single memorial). When we visited, a rusting motorcycle stood off to one side, choked with weeds -- David Koresh's? We couldn't say, because our only company was a friendly dog and a lot of grasshoppers. The surviving Koreshians have erected monuments to everyone who died, to eliminate any lingering animosity. Across the dirt road from the trees is a memorial to the ATF officers who were killed in the February 28, 1993 raid, which kicked off the 51 day siege and the eventual storming of the compound. And there's another monument to the people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing, two years to the day after the massacre at Mount Carmel. According to John Anderson, who we encountered at his House Of Horrors attraction north of town, "Some folks believe Oklahoma City happened because of Waco." He also told us that the current Branch Davidian leader, Charles Pace, runs the local health food store, and that the Branch Davidians are "very peaceful people." This may be true, but we were getting this information from a guy who runs an attraction with a giant, laughing skull on the side of its building. Pace has organized about a dozen surviving Davidians into a new church: The Branch, The Lord Our Righteousness. For years he has been trying -- thus far without success -- to turn the massacre site into a visitor destination, with an amphitheater, a biblical petting zoo, a museum and gift shop, a wellness center, a deli, an organic farm, and a model of the tabernacle that housed the Ten Commandments. The intent has always been to de-emphasize the massacre. All parties seem to want very hard to forget about the whole thing. |
Show where any of this is wrong.
#21. To: Gatlin (#20)
SPEAK, MAN!
Defend your divisive ways, your socialist-statist-fascist propaganda, your obvious (compensated) task as a forum-kindler of trollish proportions. Are you compensated with little multi-colored shiny stars to stick on your bulletin board? Or just, "ATTA BOY!!"?
Tick-tick....
#23. To: Liberator (#21)
SPEAK, MAN!
Defend your divisive ways...
Tick-tick....
“We have already seen a number of Christian atrocities, not only in considering the Crusades and other wars including wars fought on God's behalf, but in considering forced conversions, Christian vandalism, persecution and slavery . Christians also have a poor record in facilitating the worst forms of colonialism. Here we look at just one example, probably the most extreme: The Congo Free State.”
Source: http://www.b ad newsaboutchristianity.com/gh5_atrocities.htm.
Did this NOT happen?
#52. To: Gatlin, Liberator, GarySpFc, Murron (#23)
“We have already seen a number of Christian atrocities, not only in considering the Crusades and other wars including wars fought on God's behalf, but in considering forced conversions, Christian vandalism, persecution and slavery . Christians also have a poor record in facilitating the worst forms of colonialism. Here we look at just one example, probably the most extreme: The Congo Free State.”
You miss the overarching point. Those who murder and enslave are not following Christ's commands. Jesus Christ preached the Law of Grace:
Matthew 5:
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
#59. To: redleghunter, Liberator, GarySpFc, Murron (#52)
“We have already seen a number of Christian atrocities, not only in considering the Crusades and other wars including wars fought on God's behalf, but in considering forced conversions, Christian vandalism, persecution and slavery . Christians also have a poor record in facilitating the worst forms of colonialism. Here we look at just one example, probably the most extreme: The Congo Free State.”You miss the overarching point. Those who murder and enslave are not following Christ's commands. Jesus Christ preached the Law of Grace…
So those who called themselves “Christians” and committed atrocities that solely occurred on “command of church authorities” or were committed in the name of “Christianity” were deemed NOT to be “Christians....by whom?
If it is to accepted that those who committed heinous barbaric acts deemed themselves to be “Christians” but were not really “Christians”….can it not also be said that those who deem themselves to be “Muslims” and commit violent acts are not “Muslims?”
That be the case, then why do so many have so much trouble with Obama’s regime refusing to use the term or categorize the radical extremists: “Islamic Terrorists?”
Listed below are only some of the 20th century church atrocities that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity.
It is said: “As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....” |
#102. To: Gatlin (#59)
So those who called themselves “Christians” and committed atrocities that solely occurred on “command of church authorities” or were committed in the name of “Christianity” were deemed NOT to be “Christians....by whom?
By Christ Jesus:
Matthew 25:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
#139. To: redleghunter (#102)
So those who called themselves “Christians” and committed atrocities that solely occurred on “command of church authorities” or were committed in the name of “Christianity” were deemed NOT to be “Christians....by whom?By Christ Jesus:
If it is to accepted that those who committed heinous barbaric acts deemed themselves to be “Christians” but were not really “Christians”….can it not also be said that those who deem themselves to be “Muslims” and commit violent acts are not “Muslims?”
That be the case, then why do so many have so much trouble with Obama’s regime refusing to use the term or categorize the radical extremists: “Islamic Terrorists?”
#153. To: Gatlin (#139) (Edited)
Gatlin, maybe you will understand this:
Lee, Robert Edward (January 19, 1807–October 12, 1870), was a Confederate General during the Civil War. He was the son of the Revolutionary leader, “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, and the son-in-law of George Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis. Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Ann Randolph, inherited the 1,100 acre Washington estate directly across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. Tutored and home-schooled as a child, Robert E. Lee excelled at West Point, and distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War. From San Antonio, Texas, he engineered the American troops’ passage across the difficult Mexican mountains so they could quickly take Mexico City.
Lee was against slavery and a number of years before the war he freed his own slaves. He was so highly respected, that when war looked imminent, President Abraham Lincoln offered him the Field Command of the U.S. Army. He struggled all night with his decision, finally resolving to the obligation of loyalty to his home state and the South. He resigned from the U.S. Army and in a letter to his sister, explained:
With all my devotion to the union and the feelings of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.
On December 27, 1856, Robert E. Lee wrote to his wife:
Slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any country.… I think, however, a greater evil to the white than to the black race …
The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small part of the human race, and even among the Christian nations what gross errors still exist!
General Robert E. Lee’s His military expertise was so formidable that, for the first two years of the Civil War, it looked as if the South had won. General Stonewall Jackson’s repeated victories kept pushing the North back until Lee’s troops were dangerously close to attacking Washington, D.C., itself. On December 25, 1862, General Robert E. Lee wrote to his wife from Fredericksburg, Virginia:
My heart is filled with gratitude to Almighty God for his unspeakable mercies with which He has blessed us in this day. For those He granted us from the beginning of life, and particularly for those He has vouchsafed us during the past year. What should have become of us without His crowning help and protection?
Oh, if our people would only recognize it and cease from self-boasting and adulation, how strong would be my belief in the final success and happiness to our country! But what a cruel thing is war; to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world!
I pray that on this day when only peace and good-will are preached to mankind, better thoughts may fill the hearts of our enemies and turn them to peace.
On May 31, 1863, General Robert E. Lee wrote to his wife as he prepared the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia for its next major northern thrust:
I pray that our merciful Father in heaven may protect and direct us. In that case I fear no odds and no numbers.
On April 8, 1864, General Robert E. Lee issued orders for his troops to observe the Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer that had been proclaimed:
Soldiers! Let us humble ourselves before the Lord, our God, asking through Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, beseeching the aid of the God of our forefathers in the defense of our homes and our liberties, thanking Him for His past blessings, and imploring their continuance upon our cause and our people.
General Robert E. Lee wrote:
Knowing that intercessory prayer is our mightiest weapon and the supreme call for all Christians today, I pleadingly urge our people everywhere to pray. Believing that prayer is the greatest contribution that our people can make in this critical hour, I humbly urge that we take time to pray—to really pray.
Let there be prayer at sunup, at noonday, at sundown, at midnight—all through the day. Let us pray for our children, our youth, our aged, our pastors, our homes. Let us pray for our churches.
Let us pray for ourselves, that we may not lose the word “concern” out of our Christian vocabulary. Let us pray for our nation. Let us pray for those who have never known Jesus Christ and redeeming love, for moral forces everywhere, for our national leaders. Let prayer be our passion. Let prayer be our practice.
General Lee once remarked to Chaplain John William Jones regarding the Bible:
There are things in the old Book which I may not be able to explain, but I fully accept it as the infallible Word of God, and receive its teachings as inspired by the Holy Spirit.
General Robert E. Lee was visited in his tent by Chaplain J. William Jones and General Stonewall Jackson’s Chaplain, B.T. Lacey. They told the General that all the chaplains were praying for him. As Jones recorded, tears came to General Lee’s eyes as he said:
Please thank them for that, sir—I warmly appreciate it. And I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation, and need all of the prayers they can offer me.
One night around the campfire, Chaplain Jones overheard some soldiers discussing the recent invention of the theory of evolution, when one soldier replied:
Well, boys, the rest of us may have developed from monkeys; but I tell you, none the less than God could have made such a man as Marse Robert.
Near the final end of the War, after such a tremendous loss of life, one of Lee’s generals suggested rallying more recruits to the Confederate cause. General Lee responded:
General, you and I as Christian men … must consider its effects on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by four years of war. If I took your advice, the men … would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many wide sections.… We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from.2244
General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox, Virginia. Lee took off his sword and handed it to Grant, and Grant handed it back.
The next day, April 10, 1865, General Robert E. Lee issued his final order from his headquarters to the Army of Northern Virginia:
After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.… I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes.… I earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you His blessing and protection.
Robert E. Lee confided:
In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.
In a church service on June 4, 1865, as reported by Colonel T.L. Broun, there was a shock when a Negro advanced to the communion table. But then:
[General Robert E. Lee] arose in his usual dignified and self-possessed manner … and reverently knelt down to partake of the communion, not far from the Negro.
In June of 1865, Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by the U.S. Grand Jury in Norfolk, Virginia. When some friends voiced their indignation, Lee calmly responded:
I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and have never seen the day when I did not pray for them.
After the war, a southern clergyman spoke critically of the recent actions of the federal government. Following a pause, Robert E. Lee asked:
Doctor, there is a good old book which … says “Love your enemies.” Do you think your remarks this evening were quite in the spirit of that teaching?
William J. Federer, Great Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern World History Referenced according to Their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches, Charters, Court Decisions and Constitutions (St. Louis, MO: AmeriSearch, 2001).
Replies to Comment # 153.
Lee was against slavery and a number of years before the war he freed his own slaves.
Lee actually freed his slaves before Grant freed his.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 153.
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