On the other hand if we eliminate everything, or at least constantly  
change,  in the interest of keeping current and modern, we will have  
no traditions.

For the record I am not an evangelical or a fundamentalist. I was  
raised an Episcopalian.

James Brothers, RPA
[log in to unmask]



On Feb 26, 2007, at 19:52, Hardin, David wrote:

> It strikes me that this tempest over the Wren Chapel
> cross is yet another example of the kind of
> emotional, hot-button issue that conservatives
> love, that makes great editorial fodder, and that
> makes for a catchy bumpersticker, but as usual wilts
> under reasonable scrutiny.  Why does the fact that
> the cross has been there for a "some time" mean that
> it must stay there?  Tradition?  If tradition is a
> valid argument, let's restore the ducking stool at
> Witch Duck and ban celebrations of Christmas.  If
> religious tradition is immutable, why are we
> discussing the removal of a cross and not a statue
> of the Virgin Mary?  Come to think of it, why don't
> we return the chaple to it's rightful owner - the
> Church of England?  I believe Madison had it right
> in his "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious
> Assessments" that religion's dabbling in the state
> and vice versa serves neither one well.  My support
> of church/state separartion is grounded in that
> treatise.  I do have an additional guide: those red
> words in my NIV New Testament which strongly suggest
> that the divine and the profane state should remain
> seperate realms.  Jesus rebelled against an
> established religious authority which was entwined
> with the state; one wonders why so many modern
> evangelicals and fundamentalists seek exaclty the
> opposite.  Is the Gospel so weak that it needs the
> crutch of government endorsement?  I think not.  The
> Diety who created all reality is not going to wither
> away and die if a nineteenth century cross is
> removed from a many-times-over "restored" Wren
> Chapel.
> ________________________________
>
> Dr. David S. Hardin
> Assistant Professor of Geography
> Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
> Longwood University
> Farmville, Virginia 23909
> Phone: (434) 395-2581
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> ********************
> "For as Geography without History
> seemeth a carkasse without motion,
> so History without Geography
> wandreth as a Vagrant without a
> certaine habitation."
> John Smith, 1627
>
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