It is good to come upon a book or article every so often that either confirms or challenges one's thinking. These experiences remind one of the value of a broad-based liberal education and lifelong learning. This is such an article:

http://religiondispatches.org/what-a-forgotten-19th-century-suffragist-can-teach-us-about-womens-rights-vs-the-religious-right/

One often hears the complaint that is phrased something like this: "The only problem with this country is that it is no longer a Christian nation." The assumption is made that the Founding Fathers were devout Christians and the documents they drafted embody Christian thought, morals, and theories of social organization.

The Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine, as a representative selection) were either committed Deists or very sympathetic to that philosophy. During the Age of Enlightenment or Modern Rationalism (17th and 18th centuries), Deists did not identify themselves as Christians nor were they so identified by the various Christian sects of the day. Deism was seen as the antithesis of Christian theology and thought. These are the folks who then drafted the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and much of the federal legislation of this era. Their roles in their respective colonies and later states found them drafting parallel documents and legislation on that level as well.

The above article points out the challenges faced by those during the Third Great Awakening (1850 to 1900), who were genuinely troubled by the absence of Christian underpinnings to the great American experiment in governance. They proposed a revision of the original documents to include specific Christian references. As they read the original documents, they clearly understood them to be irreligious to a fault. It is important that 21st century Americans understand this so that in our search for the intent and design of the Founding Fathers, we do not mistake the 1870's for the 1770's as we struggle to identify the original intent/originality of these documents and not read into them meaning that was never intended.

One might argue that the absence of a Christian component was an honest oversight by the authors of these documents. Such an argument is only valid if one ignores the conflict between Deism and the various Christian hierarchies in both the Old and New Worlds at this time. It also ignores the anti-Catholicism and the Christian denominational factionalism apparent within and among the original colonies during the 18th century. The Christian component is not there, and it is not there by design. The intent of the Founding Fathers was to found a state based on reason guided by that which they considered to be the soundest philosophy of their day. They may have been elitists or starry-eyed dreamers, but they were who they were. Whether we like it or not, we are their heirs; the inheritance is what it is. Our first charge is to do our due diligence and to understand that inheritance in terms which are aligned as closely as possible with the original intent of the authors. If we do so, I am confident we will find that the wisdom and foresight present therein are able to provide us with valuable guidance as we navigate the contemporary challenges of racial and ethnic diversity, multiculturalism, and religious sectarianism.

Its an unclear mystery to me why the term and the concept of "political correctness" evokes such a strident reaction in so many contexts and is seemingly viewed as the embodiment of any and all attacks on the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and unbridled individualism.

Words do matter, despite the parental injunction that "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words won't hurt me." This well-meaning bit of advice was never intended as a license to utilize any term, from the most vulgar to the most sublime, in any and all contexts. It was offered as a cognitive strategy whereby one could look to one's better self before reacting to being verbally bullied, harassed, teased, or put-down.

"Political correctness" has become a phrase like "death taxes." The latter was chosen to refer to estate taxes in a pejorative manner and to make a statement about one's position on the topic in such a way that it establishes a defensive barrier between the speaker and the listener. We are no longer talking about one of the traditional tools organized societies employ in order to carry out its mandate to maintain order and promote the common good. We are talking about "robbing the dead" and making the lives of the aggrieved even more painful than it already is, simply out of spite as it were.

"Political correctness" can easily and advisably be restated as civility, courtesy, and respect. These qualities describing citizen interaction are essential to the proper functioning of society. Courteous and respectful behavior on my part warrants that I address you by the name, pronoun, title, race or ethnicity of your choice. I may not understand your choice; I may not make the same choice as you.  I respect your individuality in the matter within ever evolving formal and informal social norms. There will be those times when I inadvertently make use of the wrong or less desirable term or simply reflect my failure to properly update my vocabulary. These are times for apologies and education--my own. We either reside in diverse communities or our homogeneous communities regularly and intimately interact within a very diverse patchwork of diverse communities. Taking some liberty with the parental injunction about "inside and outside voices," at a minimum we ought to measure our choice and use of terms for appropriateness to the immediate context in which we are speaking. Far better advice would be to make use of the politically correct term in internal and external speech and in any and all social settings.

Refusing to exercise civility, courtesy, and respect can be construed as an attempt to tilt the playing field to one's advantage and the disadvantage of a fellow traveler in this time and place in which we find ourselves and to evoke a previous time and place when our better corporate self was not always adequately in play. As citizens we are charged with the responsibility to make sure that our corporate self continues to be a work in progress and that our individual efforts fall primarily on the positive side of that equation.

I find it highly unusual for a Sunday morning service and Monday Morning Joe to have something in common. I don't recall it ever happening before. But then again these are not usual and customary times.

The Catholic liturgy as part of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council added a list of intercessions called The Prayers of the Faithful at the transition from the Liturgy of the Word to the Eucharistic Liturgy. They usually include pretty staid and standard prayerful requests. Occasionally, a social justice topic will be included. The priest who presided over yesterday's service, typically ad libs one or more intercessions after the lector completes the prepared ones. This particular priests often asks the Good Lord to intercede "to secure our southern and northern borders." When I think of Church sanctioned social justice issues, this particular statement (I hesitate to call it prayerful.) is hardly consistent with the Church's stance on international immigrants and refugees. It has been included enough times, that I am no longer startled by it. Yesterday, I was startled anew. Father asked the congregation to pray that our country be protected from the "shadow government." I admit that I was not paying full attention to his words until I heard the term "shadow government." I then sat up and took notice even though I was standing at the time. Routinely, I have difficulty hearing and understanding this priest despite the presence of a sound system and seemingly adequate volume. I checked with a friend and fellow parishioner after mass to make sure that I heard it correctly. He assured me that I did. He had nothing more to add by way of clarification or explanation.

This morning I was startled again as I caught a bit of Morning Joe before stepping out into the light rain for my morning walk. One of the guests asked Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency, if President Trump's tweets about wiretapping speak to the suggested presence of a "deep government" within the U.S. political and governmental landscape. Michael Hayden did not deny or discount such a supposition. He chose to respond by stating that the term "deep government" is more appropriately applied to such countries as Turkey. That was more or less the entirety of his response. What does that mean? What does that suggest? Do we now have a respected former government official giving credence by way of a wink and a nod to some conspiracy theory? Does this constitute adequate grounds to move this very notion beyond theory to something with greater veracity?