VIDEO – CNN “Faces of Faith”: Chris Rodda (MRFF) vs. Ron Crews (CARL) re: Air Force “So Help Me God” oath

Published On: October 28, 2013|Categories: Top News, Video|1 Comment|

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Ms. Chris Rodda, Military Religious Freedom Foundation Senior Research Director, debates Ron Crews (Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty) on the constitutionality and history of the “So Help Me God” oath that was recently made “optional” by the U.S. Air Force Academy.

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  1. Eldon Wedlock October 31, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    MMRF is ‘dead right .on this’

    The reference to a ‘deity’ in ‘oaths’ is a recent invention, Nothing the cleric cites as history bears scrutiny. The 1781 procession in celebration in celebration of Yorktown, to a ‘church’ (more likely a Quaker ‘meeting house’ proves ‘nothing; the US was governed then by the Articles of Confederation., which didn’t work – thus the misnamed ‘Constitutional; Convention.” A Convention was supposed to ‘amend’ the articles, but realized that couldn’t be accomplished, so . . . . We have the Constitution of 1789, (with Art. VI and the “no religious test,’ clause.)

    Some colony/states had ‘official’ religions, based the religious predelicions of the colonists, seeking refuge from the religious swamp of England at the time http://nobigotry.facinghistory.org/content/religion-colonial-america-trends-regulations-and-beliefs

    Only the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the smallest state has longest official name) was a place where ‘religious freedom’ was embraced – even though it’s founder Roger Williams ironically named the his colony, “Providence Plantations” (the Rhode Island part, founded by dissenter/convict Anne Hutchinson, at the invitation of Roger Williams).

    Later the names were conflated and (considerably) shortened, possibly because the geographic reference to the Greek Isle of Rhodes was LESS religiously evocotive, than ‘Providence.’

    Obviously the good pastor interviewed is woefully ignorant of the early secular disputes that led to the (English) colonization of Eastern North America, and Chris could rightfully have given him a lecture (he started, but got cut off) on that history – and the strife that Thomas Jefferson saw it could pose to the unity of the 1789 compromises which led to Art. VI later reinforced by the First Amendment. Eldon Wedlock, Prof. of Law Emeritus.

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