Lingering Paganism in the US

There are plenty of misguided conservatives in the United States who believe that their confederation is the most outstanding example of Christianity in world history. One must have a highly selective reading of history to come to that conclusion. We have discussed some aspects of paganism in the States in past essays, but there is more that could, and should, be said in that regard.

In particular, we would like to focus on the symbols on the coinage of the US over the centuries. But before looking at them, we quote a short section from a previous essay to provide the proper context for what follows:

‘After 1770, writes Albanese, “songs began to appear which celebrated the Goddess [of Liberty]” and “preachers took up the cause of the Goddess in their turn.” For example, Jacob Duché, the Chaplain to the Continental Congress who delivered its opening prayer, gave a sermon explaining how Liberty “true to her divine source, is of heavenly abstraction” and that both Liberty and the “divine virtue” which is her “illustrious parent” come to dwell “in the hearts of all intelligent beings” where “they ought jointly to be worshipped.”

‘The sign and sacrament of this veritable cult of the Goddess Liberty was the Liberty Tree in Boston . . . . As Oliver’s brother wrote, Liberty Tree had been “consecrated as an idol for the mob to worship” and was the place for imposing the discipline of the “Tree of Ordeal [on those] whom the Rioters pitched upon as State delinquents.” In addition to being both a totem and locus of the power of Liberty, Liberty Tree was a place of worship where revolutionary liturgies were enacted. In Providence, Rhode Island a Liberty Tree was dedicated during a ceremony in which the participants laid their hands on the sacred object as a local minister invoked the worldwide unity of a kind of mystical body of Liberty . . . .

‘The “sacred elm,” writes Albanese, became “a kind of transcendent cosmo-historical tree around which the other Liberty Trees and liberty signs of the colonies took root . . . Like the sacrament it was, Liberty Tree was the reality which oriented the patriots, yet it pointed beyond itself to another source of power”—the power invoked by Paine with his talk of remaking the world and regenerating man in a disquieting analogy to the working of divine grace’ (Christopher Ferrara, Liberty: The God That Failed, Tacoma, Wash., Angelico Press, 2012, pgs. 150-1).

In this atmosphere, legislation was passed by the US Congress for the design of coined money to be used in the States:

‘The Coinage Act of 1792 specified that all coins have an “impression emblematic of liberty,” the inscription “LIBERTY,” and the year of coinage on the obverse side. The Act required that the reverse of gold and silver coins have a representation of an eagle and the inscription, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” . . .

‘The face of Lady Liberty appeared on our circulating coins for more than 150 years. When considering options for our first coins, Congress debated over whether to feature George Washington and later presidents. Many believed that putting the current president on a coin was too similar to Great Britain’s practice of featuring their monarchs. Instead, Congress chose to personify the concept of liberty rather than a real person.

‘The figure of Liberty, often with a cap and pole, had been a symbol used during the American Revolution. Because of Liberty’s origins as a Greco-Roman goddess, early coin designs portrayed her with classical style clothes, facial features, and symbols.’

It is quite inexplicable that the MOST CHRISTIAN COUNTRY would pass legislation that would place a pagan symbol on the confederation’s currency rather than a Christian symbol of some kind: the Cross, the Bible, an image of Christ or a saint, etc. And note well that there was no outcry over this amongst the peoples of the States: The pagan goddess of Liberty remained on US money for decades, including through the great Protestant ‘revivals’ of the 19th century. And when the goddess was eventually removed in the 20th century, it was replaced by the divinized/apotheosized presidents of the US (like the pagan Roman emperors before them), who were nominally Christian yet in reality quite un-Christian in their beliefs and affiliations – Washington and Franklin Roosevelt the Freemasons, Jefferson the rewriter of the Holy Gospels, the creator of a new Christianity, Lincoln the demagogue and opportunist, the Puritan Gnostic. M. E. Bradford goes so far as to call Lincoln a blasphemer, and adds:

‘ . . . we should take seri​ously the reports of members of his cabinet and leaders of the Republican Party in Congress that he saw in the Union victory at Antietam a direct communication from on high.[74] Prior to that event, his language echoes Cromwell’s in the period leading up to the execution of Charles I. As did his prototype, the Emancipator declares that he has “preconsulted nothing” and that “whatever shall appear to be God’s will, I will do.”[75] And again, after the decision has been made, he sounds the Crom​wellian note, echoing Old Noll’s disclaimer, “I have not sought these things; truly, I have been called unto them by the Lord.”[76] Long before Lincoln in his Second Inaugural discusses the providential meaning of the chapter of history completed at Appomattox and sets himself as the “godded man,” beyond most of the radical Republicans in his understanding of these events as part of “universal history,” the direc​tion of the United States toward whatever is meant by “finish the work” has fallen into the hands of “God’s new Messiah,” the “homemade Jesus” of the Lincoln myth.[77] Lin​coln’s apotheosis through martyrdom served only to put a divine seal of approval on his understanding of himself. Or so we should be persuaded by what his fellow Americans made of the assassination and funeral, coming as they did at the end of a civil war[78] and sur​rounded as they were in a language promising salvation through social and political change.[79]’

Thus, the symbols and icons of ‘Christian America’.

However, actual Christians who have not departed from the unbroken tradition of the Holy Apostles have a different view of such things. They see the restoration of paganism as being of the spirit of Antichrist. A priest of the Orthodox Church, Fr Athanasius Mitilianaios, commenting on St John the Apostle’s Revelation 17:8-12, says of Gnosticism/Freemasonry:

‘Prophetically, the Spirit of God moved Saint Paul to write, Be aware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principals of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8). Saint Paul is speaking against Gnosticism, this great heresy that preceded Christianity and fought Christianity like nothing else. Freemasonry is one of the children of Gnosticism and contains all the principles and elements of that ancient heresy. Saint Paul gives excellent advice and we need to be careful around the people who support these lodges of idolatry.’

He says further about the reviving of the worship of the pagan gods (it is interesting to note the inspiration of famous US monuments in the context of the following commentary, such as the Lincoln Memorial, which is a copy of an ancient pagan Greek temple, rather than using Christian architecture as models):

‘…many of the secularized Christians will become nostalgic for idolatry. These lovers of idolatry will be amazed while witnessing the strong revival of idolatry. People will say, “Long live the gods of Olympus. Long live the gods of the Roman capital.” Idolatry is rising from the abyss and is openly practiced in Christian lands today. What caused the Christians to slip away from the true faith and live a life of paganism?’

‘In the prelude of the Second Coming of Christ, Saint John says he will come again; the devil will be set free. This sudden loosening of the devil will make the admirers of the Antichrist and idolatry exclaim that idolatry did not die after all.’

‘Idolatry was kept alive among the intellectuals… • They were unable to accept the Cross, the denial of the world in the spiritual sense. • Schooled in Ancient Greek education and philosophy, they became lovers of the ancient spirit of idolatry. • The argued: Christianity prohibits the satisfaction of the senses. There is no reason to abstain from the gratification of the flesh. “Why not enjoy life to the fullest as it comes to us and according to our natural instincts?’

Fr Athanasius also highlights a Greek man very similar to Thomas Jefferson:

‘The spirit of renaissance, or rebirth, was embraced and propagated in Greece by Theophilos Kairis on the island of Syros. He was a clergyman who instituted an orphanage on the island of Andros, which he developed into an academy with hundreds of students. He was the only teacher of mathematics, physics, philosophy, ancient Greek and religion. He attempted to create his own new religion, with new liturgics, new hymns and self-designed prayers. He was steeped in the ideology of renaissance, which was spawned by the Byzantine lovers of idolatry. I brought this to your attention so you would know that idolatry was never really dead.’

This recrudescence of paganism is helped along by the de-Christianizing, secularizing ‘freedom of religion’ so much praised by unthoughtful Christians in the States.

One of the best modern spokesmen for it in the US is another of the apotheosized presidents who appears on US coinage, John F. Kennedy. In a speech he gave on 12 Sept. 1960 to put at ease the distrust of a largely Protestant electorate towards Roman Catholics, then Senator Kennedy made the following remarks:

‘I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

‘I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

‘ . . . Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

‘That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe — a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

‘ . . . I want a chief executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none; who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him; and whose fulfillment of his presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

‘ . . . But let me stress again that these are my views. For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.

‘Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.’

But, returning to Fr Athanasius’s commentary on Revelation (this time on 15:1-4), when we carve out religiously neutral territory, it immediately becomes friendly ground for the devil and his demons:

‘Do not think that the Antichrist will only come in the future and consequently we are somehow immune from his influences. We are always in the climate of antichrist. I must tell you that our civilization, the civilization of humanity in general and the overall shaping of the lifestyle of the world community bears the spirit, the seal, the image and the number of the name of antichrist.

‘ . . . Today’s civilization and its spirit brands not only the God-opposing people, but even those who are seemingly neutral. Christ does not acknowledge a neutral state. “There is no middle ground or a third category. He who is not with me is against me. Therefore, the devil, by creating a neutral state, stands to gain because he knows that this neutral state is outside of Christ. It is a demonic state.”’

In general, the United States are not a haven for Christianity, but rather for the spirit of Antichrist, from which it goes forth unto the uttermost parts of the world to make war on the Lamb and on the saints, and on anything good and virtuous. There are some exceptions here and there, like the Orthodox communities in Alaska and the rag-tag resistors in Dixie. But by and large, most conservatives in the US, by believing lies about Christianity and about their own past, are aiding the forces of Antichrist to grow stronger in the world.