Jerry Pattengale wrote a bit of a review of the novel on higher education that Erin Crisp and I wrote, How Angie Saved Chicken U. It has an ISBN but is not quite up on Amazon yet. Since he mentions the long-term novel I have been writing on Fridays/Saturdays, I thought I would give continued proof of concept. :-) Here's from this morning:
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Matt had met with Dr. Baine. Now it was Brad’s turn to meet with Dr. Todley, the history professor. As before, the group came up with some questions for Brad to cover. As with Dr. Baine, I would go too as a second witness.
Brad wanted to know more about why he shouldn’t vote for a third-party candidate or why he had to vote at all. April wanted to know more about the “separation of church and state.” Dr. Todley didn’t seem too concerned about it to her. Jessica wondered if there were any scenario when he might vote for a Democrat.
Matt didn’t really have any questions. He just wanted Brad to get Dr. Baine into trouble about abortion.
Dr. Todley was happy to meet. He did not yet have any of the group in class, but he saw these issues as extremely important and wanted to influence as many students as he could to vote Republican. For him, the future of America as a Christian nation was at stake.
“So your ‘lunch bunch’ has some questions about the debate?” He took the lead.
“Yeah, we wanted to follow up with both you and Dr. Baine to hear more about your thoughts on the election. I come bearing questions,” Brad said.
“I hope they’re not Trojan questions,” he said with a completely straight face. Brad did not realize he had echoed the Greek story of the Trojan horse. It leaped out of his subconscious like the Greeks hiding inside the horse.
“No, my questions won’t jump out and attack you by surprise,” Brad smiled. He looked down at the paper where he had written down the questions.
“Why don’t you just give me the paper and I’ll go down the list?”
“Sure, if you can read my handwriting,” Brad said and handed him the paper.
“Separation of church and state,” his eyes fixed on the second question. “No such thing,” he said firmly.
“You all need to take my American history class next semester. There are all kinds of lies they teach you in the public school about American history, and that’s one of them. The phrase ‘separation of church and state’ appears nowhere in the Constitution or the official founding documents of the United States.
“In fact, as late as 1877 the state of New Hampshire required that all state representatives be Protestants. Until 1833, any elected official in Massachusetts had to confess their belief in the Christian religion.”
“So where does the idea come from?” Brad asked.
“It’s a misinterpretation of the first amendment. What it says is that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ It’s about there not being an official religion of the nation as a whole. It was never meant to cut religion out of all public life. And nothing in the Constitution prohibits the individual states from having Christianity as their official religion.”
Brad didn’t really know enough about it to ask detailed questions or what pushback a different history professor might make.
“So is there any limit to what Christian laws the government might make?” ...
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