The following are random thoughts generated while reading “Solomon’s Builders: Freemasons, Founding Fathers and the Secrets of Washington D.C.”
Before I get started let me remind you once again that I no longer consider myself christian nor do I find that the “Bible” contains authoritative truth for me. Having said that, these two facts do not mean that I still don’t ask myself biblical questions based on my knowledge and understanding of Christian dogma. Today is one of those days.
I remember pretty clearly the day that the World Trade Center towers came down. Even I, a non practicing christian at the time, immediately felt as if something just happened of “Biblical Proportions” and, for about seven years following I became an ultra conservative “Christian” of sorts. I will discuss that more in my memoir “The Story of Me”.
Soon after 9/11 however, I began hearing christians quote a famous biblical prophecy, “Behold! Behold! Babylon has fallen and has been laid low and all the nations weep at her destruction.”. The implied connection was that the United States was the modern day equivalent of “Babylon” mentioned in the Book of Revelations and that the twin towers coming down was a prophesied judgment from God and signaled the end was near.
Christians can be a confusing lot. To equate the United States with modern day Babylon is to suggest that the United States is a wicked nation in opposition to God. No other city save Jerusalem is mentioned as much in the Bible and Babylon almost always stands in opposition to God and Israel. How therefore is it that OTHER christians refer to the United States as a “christian” nation who proudly declares, “In God We Trust” and refers to itself in it’s pledge as “one nation under God” yet also say it’s modern Babylon? To understand this I think a brief history of ancient Babylon and the Founding Fathers of America are in order.
It’s ok to groan, I get it.
It is an established fact that many of the founding fathers of the United States were members of a society known as Freemasonry (a society formed in 1717 in part upon the principle of free men and freedom of religion). Their influence and political and religious ideas form a big part of the basis of our modern government.
Most people in America, I would venture to say, are proud of the concept of freedom, especially of religion. Americans take pride in the fact that ALL religions are accepted here and that you will not be persecuted by your government simply because you believe in a different god than someone else. Having said that, it is my firm conviction that freedom of religion is a very UNBIBLICAL concept and the God of the Bible most CERTAINLY does not believe in freedom of religion. If you know anything about the Bible, when God agrees to be Israel’s God he demanded they put to death anyone worshipping another God and to tear down any idols and objects of worship belonging to other gods. You didn’t see temples to other gods in Jerusalem.
Ancient Babylon, however, was much more like modern America and nothing like ancient or even modern Jerusalem. Historical evidence supports the fact that ancient Babylon was once called in Sumerian times Ka-dingirra or “The Gate of the Gods” and they had four major temples devoted to four different gods as well as I believe twelve or thirteen gates into the city, each gate named after a different god. In Babylon, literally no one’s god was better than another and everyone was “free” to worship which ever god they choose. Again, this is technically Americas position too. You are free to worship whom you choose.
So perhaps you can see why some christians made the connection that the United States and it’s position that all gods are equal is more like ancient Babylon than ancient Jerusalem (the city of God). In Jerusalem the worship of other gods would never be permitted and you would be put to death if caught worshipping another god.
It has always struck me as odd when some christians maintain the belief that the United States is a “christian” nation that needs to return to its christian roots. If one understands that Christianity came out of Judaism and that presumably the God of Israel is the same God of Jesus, well it doesn’t make sense that a christian nation would believe in freedom to worship any God you choose.
As an aside, early Christians know as Gnostics came to the conclusion that the God of Israel was NOT in fact the same God that Jesus worshipped. I could also make an argument that Freemasons have a lot of gnostic beliefs so maybe that’s how they reconciled freedom of religion being ok in God’s book. The God of Jesus, they might believe, is ok with the worship of other gods but not that “jealous God” of the Old Testament.
The point of today’s post, loosely inspired by the book Solomon’s Builders is simply that the United States was founded on ideals that one could argue are extremely unbiblical (i.e. that all gods are equal in importance). I am convinced that the God of Israel would not have tolerated today’s American society. I simply cannot ignore my feelings about this every time someone refers to the United States as a “christian” nation.
Rant over