Discussion:
To Do by Nov. 7 - Rally and recruit liberal Christians with Thomas
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j***@yahoo.com
2006-08-18 02:04:34 UTC
Permalink
Having trouble finding a nationally recognized liberal who can appeal
to Christians?
Try Thomas Jefferson. This letter between Jean Esch and Ray Dubuque
contains several valuable links. Help us make America the Land of our
Founding Fathers' vision... Use Jefferson's religion to circle back
and bite Karl Rove in his pseudo-Christian behind.
Sincerely, Jean

Link to Golden Rule campaign flier - explained below: esp WI, TN, SD,
ID, SC, VA
http://www2.jsonline.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=36703&forumID=60&catID=17
---------------------------------------------
Ray, first thank you for being the only person to write back to me in
over 100 requests for help. I have explored your site more and think it
is wonderful. The testimonial by A.J. in Michigan could have been
written by me...Nov. 25, 2005

"I became so offended and embittered by the pray-pay-and-obey churches
and ask-no-questions preachers (the only ones available to me at the
time) that I turned against religion in general and Christianity in
particular. You proclaim a Christianity I could live with - or could
have lived with."
A. J. (Upper Peninsula, Michigan)

But finding your site didn't make me sleep any better Ray, here's why.
I can't reach A.J. I'm still totally alone and afraid to email you
with my real name. (Jean Esch is a decendent of Boston's Silence
Dogood, get it?) You are reaching 2000 viewers a day. If they are all
different people, that is 700,000 a year. Not even a million. Your web
site doesn't reach out and stick anything on peoples doors. That is
what the fundamentalists are doing, And they are winning. Look at
this NYTime survey of belief in evolution. The United States ranks
lower than every European country except muslim Turkey. 700,000 people
can easily be burned at the stake, That's what I fear the way we are
headed in the U.S. now.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/sciencespecial2/20050815_EVO_GRAPHIC.html

I'm sure you must be busy, but there was nothing in your email that
showed you looked at the flier I tried to show you. I'll summarize it
quickly, and attach it. I downloaded it from OnWisconsin.com. My virus
checker said it was clean.

TJsNickel.pdf is a religious flier that tells a testimonial of a born
Again Christian who grew up and stopped believing in miracles. The
turning point was when a kid people picked on in school for being gay
committed suicide. He doesn't go to church anymore because he can't
find a church that seperates belief in doing good deeds from belief in
dogma, and living to get a reward, or avoid a punishment. He wants to
go to church. But there are no churches that he can believe in.
Recently, he discovers Jefferson's Bible (maybe from your site, - see,
you are doing good) and he says here is a man who said "I am a sect by
myself, as far as I know" And he says "you are not alone anymore
Thomas Jefferson, I believe in your sect."

And then this is the really cool part. Some people say Jefferson was a
Unitarian, but the name isn't catchy. reminds me of belief in
unicorns. So he invents a new name for Jefferson's sect. "The Church
of the Golden Rule." Who can criticise that? And then he builds this
starter kit for the Church of the Golden Rule. The old foundation,
imperfectly recorded but familiar... the Bible and the life of Jesus,
the new sacred texts.. Jefferson's Bible and Jefferson's preserved
handwritten letters. A church logo featuring Matthew 7:12 and an Acorn
representing the Golden Rule. And a starter set of Jefferson quotations
to show how Jefferson believed in what Jesus taught was the best
morality for mankind. But what people have added to the story of Jesus
is largely counterproductive myth.

Last part, and this is the most important. People who believe in the
Church of the Golden rule are supposed to hang the logo as a banner. (
I suppose privately until the numbers grow) gather up like believers in
their community to form a congregation - and "start doing all the good
things that churches do". This is the problem with liberal Christians,
If the fundamentalists are out there feeding the poor and giving kids
swimming and horseback riding lessons, building schools in South
America, providing daycare to working mothers... all kinds of good
things, While the liberal christians do nothing but talk about how
smart they are on the web. Well, who is percieved as the good church?
Liberal christians have to form a Church that is attractive and active.
Thatr is the big message in TJsNickel.pdf And they have to recruit
door to door to draw in new members. I think you might have some
potential recruiters. I just don't know were else to look. I'm getting
nowhere by writing to people I don't know.

Thank's again for writing back,
Jean

P.S. I'm sending a CC to the email address in the flier.

Ray Dubuque <***@LiberalsLikeChrist.Org> wrote:
Thanks for writing, Jean, and for doing battle against the "Religious
Right", which of course in neither. We "Liberals Like Christ" have
been engaged in this battle for 10 years and if you will read our
http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/testimonials.htm page, you will see that
many really like our approach.
Ray Dubuque, creator of
http://www.JesusNoRepublican.Org/ which shows why Jesus would abhor
today's Republican Party, &
http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/ which shows why Liberal Democrats
are more like Christ than are Conservative Republicans &
http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ which shows why the Roman Catholic
Church should stop following the "Vicar" and get back to following
Jesus Christ !

----- Original Message -----
From: Jean Esch
To: ***@LiberalsLikeChrist.Org
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 5:20
Subject: Ray Please, please help - Rally the "Golden Rule" Christians


From: Jean Esch
Date: Wed, Aug 16 2006 10:52 am

Groups: alt.politics, talk.politics.misc, alt.impeach.bush

Ray, I found you in a Liberal Christian flier. (see explanation below)
Do you know about this idea to counter the fundamentalists with a
Golden Rule church flier?
If you print the flier it is just like I find on my door every few
weeks. Except its LIBERAL Christian instead of fundamentalist.
What a simple idea? If you look at the flier on the computer, it is a
"how to manual" of liberal Christian resources. Every image or
quotation has a link behind it. Your site came up under a quote by
Thomas Jefferson on page 3.
One, you might be thrilled, but two, it's a flier that is the type
wavering fundamentalists might read. They are sure not going to come
to site called "Liberals like Christ" because the minister told them
to. Hate to make a pun, but it's the "missing link".
Follow the link below and check it out. If you can't find it write
back to me, I've got it downloaded. TJsNickel.pdf. Somebody has done a
lot of work putting this together. He, (or they?) are pleading for help
with distribution. Do you have a mailing list to pass it on? Jean
Esch.


Link to Golden Rule campaign flier - explained above
part of a debate with a Born Again Christian who probably thinks
burning gays at the stake is" God's loving way" to save more souls from
hell
I wish I was joking - read TreeGo's compassionless Dark Ages logic
yourself
http://www2.jsonline.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=36703&forumID=60&ca...
Faith requires acceptance of things unseen - things that can't be
counted or proven. Faith is not scientific. It is its own realm.
Fundamentalism leads to the distrust of science and nonsense like
"intelligent design," denial of evolution and the condemnation of
stem-cell research. You don't have to abandon common sense to be
religious.
The mutual hatreds that are now spreading and inflaming the world are
fueled by a perversion of religion and spirituality. Mel Gibson's
idiotic anti-Semitism, like bin Laden's hatred of America and like
the Hindus' and Muslims' mutually murderous attitude is all part of
the same rejection of a loving God.
Yes, I agree with you - but it does no good to the world if we who
agree with each other only talk to each other. Here is a link to
someone who wants to talk directly to the fundamentalists. He won't
reach them all, but he might open the minds of a few. He is a former
member. He knows their language, both in words and imagery - help
spread his word.

It is tragic that Thomas Jefferson felt just like we do and he was
confident that the "light of science" would guide the world a more
tolerant form of religion. (see the last words of Jefferson at the
very end of the flier) How long will it take?

Maybe the internet is more powerful than the pen of Jefferson. Follow
the link:
Spread the message... that is what I am doing. Find more like us...
please.

Link to Golden Rule campaign flier - explained above: esp WI, TN, SD,
ID, SC, VA
http://www2.jsonline.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=36703&forumID=60&catID=17
Matthew Johnson
2006-08-21 01:10:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by j***@yahoo.com
Having trouble finding a nationally recognized liberal who can appeal
to Christians?
Try Thomas Jefferson. This letter between Jean Esch and Ray Dubuque
contains several valuable links. Help us make America the Land of our
Founding Fathers' vision... Use Jefferson's religion to circle back
and bite Karl Rove in his pseudo-Christian behind.
It amazes me that someone astute enough to recognize Rove's appeals to religion
as fake, 'pseudo-christian' cannot see that Jefferson's religion is equally
fake.

It no longer surprises me, but it still amazes me.
--
-------------------------------
Subducat se sibi ut haereat Deo
Quidquid boni habet tribuat illi a quo factus est
(Sanctus Aurelius Augustinus, Ser. 96)
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