by Susan McCreary, Stevensville
While I was watching the news this morning, a word caught my attention that has been widely used over and over, and that word is radicalism. In my 1953 2nd Edition of Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, it defines radicalism as a noun, “state or quality of being radical; also, the doctrines or principles of political radicals.”
When I went online to search, the web site rawstory.com ) Tennessee, ran a story seven days ago. And I was amazed that the story and description fit the freedom loving and lawless loving John Birch Society here in Ravalli County. In Tennessee they claim to be God-fearing. Conservative. Constitutionalist. Ya, that’s the same line we hear here! They call themselves Judeo-Christians, “believing that everything that came before them doesn’t count, and they have no allegiance to the past!”
Jews (Judeo) do not read the New Testament, nor do they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, because to them, their Messiah (Savior) has not yet come.
Jews that do come to believe that Jesus Christ is the long-awaited Messiah are called Messianic Christians (Zola Levitt, Dallas, TX, was such a believer).
Strange isn’t it, the United States of America, with the Second Colonial Congress officially signing the Declaration of Independence 247 years ago this July 4th, 2023, was the beginning of a new Christian nation. That happened 171 years before Israel became a nation; although since Abraham was given the land by God, it has always belonged to Israel.
The radicalism of the Republican Party is controlled by far right radicals that cannot tolerate any moderate or real conservatives. They behave like they have the authority over those they do not agree with, calling anyone not agreeing with them names to try and “label” them as though they are unfit to even be candidates to be elected to hold an office. I personally know they cling to their “principles” to fend off anyone not agreeing with them.
Those of us who know who founded the U.S. of A. in 1776, follow the wise words of George Washington that went out in a Circular to the States, June 8, 1783: “I now make it my earnest prayer, that God… would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation.”