:|I appreciate that you replied. Now I realize you're not just tossing
:|information out there alone; that you are available for comment. I'll
:|keep reading your posts.
:|
:|Thank you,
The following is the type of interaction I enjoy however there aren't many
on here anymore knowledgable enough to post as R Gardiner posted and I
replied to nor willing to take the time and effort to post such detailed
information
From: ***@exis.net
Newsgroups:
alt.history,soc.history,soc.history.war.us-revolution,alt.history.colonial,alt.deism,alt.religion.deism
Subject: Original Gardiner, the beginning
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 16:46:59 GMT
NUMBER 3 in this series. My full reply to Gardiner's position
3/7/99
:|In regards to the fascinating new book on the founding of the U.S., found at http://www2.pitnet.net/Gardiner/nbh.html
:|
:|>
:|> I just visited the site and the way it looks to me is the book makes the
:|> claim that America owes its existence to Christianity and that
:|> Christianity permeates the founding of our country. If this were true
:|> Jesus would at least be mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or
:|> the Constitution. Jesus and the Bible are NOT mentioned in either one.
:|> The Declaration mentions God only in Deistic terms. And that's what
:|> Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and many other key founders were - Deists.
:|>
:|> Bob
:|
[Gardiner wrote ]
:|Dear Bob,
:|
:| I perceive you are a committed deist, and I don't want to quarrel with
:|you about the merits of your religion, but your assertions about American
:|history are wrong-headed and unsupportable.
:|
:|
:| 1) Neither Jefferson nor Paine were part of the assembly of founders
:|who wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
[I wrote]
This is true, So, what is your point?
:|
:| 2) Paine was a first generation immigrant to the U.S. at the behest of
:|Benjamin Franklin, and although his book, COMMON SENSE, was a best seller as a
:|political tract, his views on religion led him to be labelled an infidel by
:|the majority of the key founders. As an immigrant it is not fair to say that
:|Paine's perspective was the product of six generations of life in the American
:|Colonies.
This is irrelevant
:|His religious perspective did not represent the consensus of the
:|colonists.
:|In key places such as Princeton, all students had to refute Paine
:|as a part of their graduation requirements.
Evidence?
:|
:| 3) The following "key founders" were strongly Christian, and by that,
:|
Before we get into all this let me post the following:
********************************************************************
As students of the separation debate quickly discover, the
"quotation war" between accomodationists and separationists tends to
produce a lot more heat than light. There are at least two reasons for
this. First, most quotations are ripped out of the context of the documents
from which they are quoted, which leads to misinterpretation and
misrepresentation. Second, it's easy to read too much into a quotation,
especially if the quotation does not directly address the claim one is
attempting to prove. The best historical studies on church/state separation
take these issues into account when drawing conclusions from quotations; we
hope we have done the same in this webpage.
Having said this, we want to argue that there are some systematic problems
with way many accomodationists use quotations. In particular, we believe
that many of their quotations are not sufficient to establish their primary
claim that the framers intended the Constitution to favor either
Christianity or theism, or provide aid to religion. In what
follows, we present some guidelines accomodationists should follow if they
want to successfully use quotations to prove their points.
Quote the framers, and not just famous early Americans:
If you want to prove something about what the framers of the constitution
believed, you have to quote the framers themselves, and not just famous
Americans that lived around the turn of the 19th century. Many
accomodationists, for example, are fond of quoting the famous lawyer and
statesman Daniel Webster, who was a staunch proponent of Christian
influence in government, but Webster played no role whatsoever in the
formation of the Constitution (he did not even begin to
practice law until 1805, 14 years after the ratification of the Bill of
Rights). Webster's opinions may have been well-articulated, but they are
not the same as the views of the framers.
Quote supporters of the Constitution, not detractors:
If you want to find out how the Constitution was understood in 1787, quote
people that supported the Constitution, and not those who thought the
Constitution was evil. Patrick Henry, for example, made a number of
statements suggesting that our nation was founded on belief in God, and
that it was important to acknowledge God in civic affairs, but Henry lost
the battle to put religion in the Constitution. More to the point, Henry
was an anti-federalist, and vigorously opposed the Constitution when
Virginia discussed ratification. [In addition, Henry very much favored
establishments of religion, he butted heads with James Madison on this
issue and LOST] Quoting Henry to prove things about the constitution is
like quoting the chairman of the Republican National Committee to prove
things about the platform of the Democratic party.
Recognize that being sympathetic to religion is not the
same as being sympathetic to accomodationism: While many of the framers
were devoutly religious men, not all devoutly religious men were
accomodationists. It is not sufficient to quote a framer saying that
religion is good, or even that religion is important to government; one can
believe these things and at the same time believe that the government has
no business supporting religion. Jefferson, for example, believed that a
generalized belief in a future state of rewards and punishments was
important to maintain public morality, but he was staunchly opposed to
government support of religion. If the sum of your case in favor of
accomodationism is that the framers were religious people, you have no case
in favor of accomodationism.
States are not federal government: Accomodationists are
fond of quoting state constitutions, state laws, and state practices in
their efforts to support their claims about the federal government. But the
First Amendment originally limited only Congress, not the states. State
practices, in other words, tell us nothing about what is legal for the
federal government. Jefferson, for example, made official declarations of
days of prayer as Governor of Virginia, but refused to do the same as
President on the grounds that the First Amendment limited him in ways that
the Virginia State Constitution did not.
Make sure you have the right time frame: Between 1781
and 1789 the United States operated under the Articles of Confederation,
which contained no provisions for religious liberty. During this time
Congress acted in a variety of ways that might well have violated the First
Amendment. But since the First Amendment was not ratified until 1791, these
actions cannot be used to prove anything about that Amendment, or about the
meaning of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1788 (the first Congress
did not convene under the Constitution until 1789).
So what would a good accomodationist quote look like? Simply
put, it would be an authentic quote from someone who was a framer of the
Constitution, or someone who was qualified to express a learned opinion
about the Constitution, that directly addresses the issue of federal power
over religion under the Constitution and the First Amendment.
We think it's interesting that there are plenty of good
quotations on the separationist side of this this issue. Many framers were
adamant that (in the words of Richard Dobbs Spaight of North Carolina),
"(n)o power is given to the general government to interfere with it
[religion] at all. Any act of Congress on this subject would be an
usurpation."
Conversely, there is almost nothing that meet our standards
on the accomodationist side. We think this discrepancy is both significant
and telling.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
************************************************************************
Not all of the above applies to what follows, but a lot does.
:|Patrick Henry (give me liberty)
Patrick Henry is mentioned above.
:|Samuel Adams (boston tea party)
Something to bear in Mind. The mindset regarding religion carried by many
who lived in or came from one of the New England states was quite different
then the mind set regarding religion of people from most of the other
states. Three of those New England states continued with established
religions long after all other states had ended theirs. (Mass. didn't end
its establishment of religion until the 1830's)
:|Roger Sherman (member of the Dec of Ind committee)
:|James Otis (taxation w/o rep)
:|James Madison (father of the constitution)
Whoa, you will find little if any evidence that Madison was highly
religious, highly Christian, etc.
And as is stated on the section I posted on quotations, it really doesn't
matter how religious or non religious a person was. The founders separated
religion and government.
:|John Hancock (first signer of the Dec.)
:|William Churchill Houston (secretary of the 2nd cont cong)
:|George Wythe (Jefferson's Mentor)
:|John Witherspoon
:|Charles Pinckney
Charles Pinckney offered the clause that directly separated church and
state at the Constitutional convention. He also led the fight in his home
state to disestablish religion in the revised South Carolina Constitution
in 1790.
:| 4) Harvard, William & Mary, Yale, and Princeton were the institutions
:|where most of the founders received their intellectual formation; all of these
:|institutions were traditional orthodox Christian academies until the 19th century.
So?
Jefferson went to W&M, he was one of the major forces for religious liberty
in this nation. He founded a secular University
Madison went to Princeton, and his role in religious liberty in this
country is well documented
:| 5) The two most often quoted sources by the founders were, first, the
:|Bible, and second, William Blackstone's Common Law Commentaries (See Hyneman &
:|Lutz).
You had better go back and read those people's findings again. You are
leaving out a very large part of what they discovered.
On page 17 of Mr. Eidsmoe's advidavit he mentions the work of Dr. Donald S
Lutz and Dr. Charles Hyneman. In Feb past, Tom Peters was preparing for a
debate with some Fundamentalists in Louisville, Ky over one of David
Barton's commercial videos claiming this is a Christian nation, separation
is a myth, etc. On the Video in question which was going to be used as the
focus of the debate, David Barton had made mention of this same material.
Tom Peters asked me via email what I (Jim Allison) knew about this
information, and the following was my answer back to him in regards to that
matter. Uncensored I might add, :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ok here we go, CHRISTIANITY AND THE CONSTITUTION, The Faith of Our
Founding
Fathers, by John Eidsmoe with forward by D. James Kennedy
Page 51
"Two professors (now u know you can't trust professors, LOL) Donald S
Lutz, and Charles S Hyneman have reviewed an estimated 15,000 items, and
closely read 2,200 books (these must be two really old people 2,200 books
closely read? ) pamphlets, newspaper articles, and monographs with
explicitly political content printed between 1760 and 1805. They reduced
this to 916 items, about 1/3 of all public political writings longer than
2000 words.
From these items, Lutz and Hyneman identified 3,154 references to other
sources. The source most often cited by the founding fathers was the bible,
which accounted for 34 percent of all citations. The Fifth book of the
bible, Deuteronomy, because of its heavy emphasis on biblical law, was
referred to frequently.
At the top of page 52 there is a chart and the first line of the chart
shows the percentage the bible was referred to
1760's 24%
1770's 44%
1780's 34%
1790's 29%
1800 - 05 38% for an over all average of 34%
Next in line was enlightenment and it carries an overall average of 22%
Whig is next with an overall average of 18%
Next is Common Law which is listed at 11% followed by
classical at 9% peers at 4% and others at 2%
Where this was published is suppose to have been Donald S Lutz, THE
RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN WRITERS ON LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY POLITICAL
THOUGHT." AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 189 (1984) 189-197.
Ok that's it, there are some other charts listing individual people like
Blackstone, Locke, Hume, Coke Milton etc in the order he claims they were
cited and Blackstone came in second at 7.9% with Montesquieu leading among
individuals with 8.3%..
I have some problems with the above information. All the numbers seems like
just that a lot of numbers but I am not sure any real bridges are
established between them definning exactly what all is considered. We also
are covering a 45 year period of time and only the vague term founding
fathers used. Lower case letters at that for founding fathers so how many
people and who exactly are these people. How many were fire and brimstone
New England preachers of the time frame 1760 to 1780 are there using
speeches delivered from Sunday Pulpits prior to and during the war of
Independence.
How many of these people were the people who really were Founders and were
considered for the time frame of the creation of this government.
Now to be fair he lists 216 items were examined for the 1760s, 544 for the
1770's, 1306 for the 1780's 674 for the 1790's, and 414 for the 1800-05
But again no way of knowing just what those items are or who said them or
wrote them etc.
But here is what I have to offer as rebuttal show and tell again.
if you want to go to which ever one of your libraries (regular or law) that
has them and look at the 12 published volumes of THE DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
OF THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. (Don't be fooled by the numbering,
the books aren't published in a proper order. The published volumes thus
far are 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
if you look at volume 13 you will find on page 601 of the index the heading
Biblical References and it contains 24 page numbers listed for it. Volume
13 contains at least 579 pages of material from the people of those times.
For the three Virginia volumes you will find in the index under Biblical
References 46 page numbers which contain Biblical references on them. These
three books contain at least 1692 pages of historical material from the men
of those times.
So what we find is 67 pages listed as containing some reference to the
Bible out of a total of at least a total of 2271 pages of actual historical
documents, letters, newspaper articles, pamphlets, etc.
You can look at the remaining volumes there and you will find some indexes
don't even list Biblical references but the % doesn't change for the other
volumes that do contain such references.
If you take one of these book to your debate and let people see for
themselves I think the point will be made quite clearly.
(Our Secret, Susan's and mine. We go to Pat Robertson's Regent University,
School of Law and use the law Library there to research a lot of the
material we gather to use against the Christian Coalition, and the
religious right in general. its is such an enjoyable ironic situation.)
Ok first level of stuff from Regent.
While there we found and copied the ten pages that make up the Lutz
article as it appeared when it was published in 1984 in the AMERICAN
POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW.
Some additional light is shed on the information. Some of the material
that was used is given after all and some of it was THE COMPLETE
ANTI-FEDERALIST,
I have researched those six volumes that make up THE COMPLETE
ANTI-FEDERALIST in the past, and am aware of the religious references that
are in those books and was not impressed with their quanity.
Some other anti-federalist material unnamed, and some federalist material
which is unnamed.
It does say that "the proceedings of legislatures and conventions were not
included." it doesn't say why.
Another point made was that, "a citation count need not distinguish between
positive and negative citations."
The bible could have been cited in a positive way or negative way, doesn't
matter it was counted both ways..
Weaknesses of this method is, "that it cannot distinguish among citations
that represent the borrowing of an idea, the adapting of an idea, the
approval of an idea, the opposition of an idea, or an appeal to authority."
The purpose of this research was to try and determine the influence
European writers etc had on American political thought and in regards to
the Bible no real effort was made to determine just why the results or the
actual meaning of the results. But the highest % in regards to the Bible
was in the 1760's to 1780's period, the period of time when the actual
Constitution and BOR was being written debated ratified etc had the lowest
Biblical citations the 1780's and 1790's were 34% and 29% respectively
which was the lowest citation periods. (we know from the experiment above
had that material been included it would have been even lower)
Much of the Bible citations were a result of sermons that were published in
pamphlet forms and handed out much of the pre war of Independence period.
In fact this form of publishing represented about 10% of the total
publishing done in this nation at that time. Of course we have 16 years of
this 45 year period of time (1760 to 1776) with 9 of the colonies still
being under various forms of establishments. This study may give some
insights into what influence the Europeans had on American Political
thought but it is a far cry from giving any meaning or insight as to what
if any accurate meaning the figures they came up with concerning the bible
citation indicated or really meant.
The pattern of citations during the years 1787 and 1788 was, "The Bible's
prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the debate centered
upon specific institutions which the bible had little to say. The
anit-federalists do drag it in with respect to basic principles of
government but the federalists inclination to enlightenment is most evident
here in their failure to consider the bible relevant."
They include a chart here that lists the total for citations for the bible
for 1780's at 34% a repeat of the other chart but it lists only federalists
and anti-federalits and list federalists at 0% and anti-federalists at 9%
apparently whomever made up the other 25% were neither federalists or
anti-federalists. So it makes one think who were they? They didn't appear
to be very political since the two named groups mad up the bulk of the
political thinking of the times.
There is no further additions to the Bible findings added in the conclusion
and that isn't surprising since it was just an interesting sidelight found
while conducting a study of something else totally different.
So depending on exactly what Barton tries to make of this information it
really isn't that important. I also don't particularly like the fact that
so much of the entire political debate as indicated in the 12 volume set of
books appears to have been left out. Those results would have lowered the
overall Bible citation % quiet a bit for that time period. I also cannot
for the life of me recall anything like one third of any possible
citations in the Complete anti federalist being religious in any form There
just wasn't that much in there and I made note of and checked out every
reference to religion that was given in the index for all six volumes.
Anyways that is that.
I just sent you the results of my work with this claim and have only one
more thing to add.
The selection process predetermines the outcomes.
While in the world of scholarship and academia the research that was done
might have been acceptable, I find that the lack of naming the source
material in any better way then they did and the total opposite results to
be found in the books I consulted is disturbing.
Of course there is also the issue of who cited anything and how often did
people cite anything.
That wasn't addressed and is important to know.
I suppose that cites on 67 pages out of roughly 2100 pages pertaining to
the bible might represent 34% of the total cites to be found in those 2100
pages. But what does it mean if that was the case. It means people didn't
cite anything much and the bible even less. No conclusions such as Barton
might be trying to form or might want to imply to others is gonna be
supported by that information.
(BTW one additional item. In those 67 pages the reference might have only
been ne single sentence on the entire page, it doesn mean all that was
contained on that page was about the Bible.)
**********************************************************************
And
Separation of Church and State Home Page
How often did the founders quote the Bible?
Research by Jim Allison and Tom Peters.
In the first version of his videotape, America 's Godly Heritage, David
Barton makes reference to two University of Houston researchers who studied
the most frequently cited authors in the writings of the founding fathers.
According to Barton, these researchers concluded that 94% of all the
citations found in these writings were either to the Bible, or to authors
who based their conclusions on the Bible. This, he concludes, demonstrates
the profound influence of the Bible on the Constitution.
While Barton doesn't name the researchers in his videotape, he refers to
them in his recent book, Original Intent. Barton's reference is to The
Origins of American Constitutionalism (hereafter, Origins), a 1988 book by
political scientist Donald Lutz. On pages 136-149 of Origins, Lutz
summarizes the results of a 1984 paper in which he and colleague Charles
Hyneman analyze some 15,000 items of American political commentary
published between 1760 and 1805 ("The Relative Influence of European
Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought," The
American Political Science Review, 78 (1984), pp. 189-197; hereafter,
Relative Influence). The purpose of the paper was to determine the sources
that most influenced the development of American political thought during
our nation's founding period.
Does Lutz's and Hyneman's research support Barton's conclusions about the
Bible and the Constitution? In some ways, the answer is "yes." In
particular, Lutz and Hyneman demonstrate that the Bible was the most
frequently quoted source between 1760 and 1805, and he concludes that
future research on the development of American political thought should
include increased attention to "biblical and common law sources" (Relative
Influence, p. 190). It is perfectly reasonable that Barton would use this
evidence to support his argument, and we have no quarrel with that aspect
of Barton's case.
But this isn't all that Lutz concludes. Lutz also devotes a full section of
his article to political writings about the Constitution, and these data
largely refute Barton's conclusions. Needless to say, Barton doesn't report
these data, despite their relevance to his argument. Additionally, Barton
attributes to Lutz and Hyneman conclusions they do not reach about the
importance of the Bible during the founding period. Accordingly, Barton's
treatment of Lutz's data is both selective and dishonest.
Let's begin with Barton's 94% figure. In the videotape, Barton breaks it
down as follows: 34% ofthe founder's quotations were taken directly from
the Bible, and 60% were from authors that base their conclusions on the
Bible. The 34% figure, at least, is accurate; this corresponds exactly to
Lutz's and Hyneman's conclusions with respect to the total percentage of
citations between 1760 and 1805. But where does the 60% figure come from?
Not from the paper; Lutz and Hyneman provide no category of citations that
even remotely corresponds to "authors that base their conclusions on the
Bible." Rather, the 60% figure is manufactured by Barton himself on the
basis of his own reading of other authors that scored highly in Lutz and
Hyneman's survey people like Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Locke. You would
not know this from the videotape, which reports the 60% figure as if it
were the conclusions of Lutz and Hyneman themselves. [Note: there are a
number of problems with this 60% figure. In particular, Barton overstates
the degree to which these authors used the Bible in reaching their own
conclusions. We'll do an article on this issue at a later time.]
Beyond this, what exactly does this 94% figure prove? Barton wants us to
think that because the founders quoted at length from the Bible, or people
that quoted the Bible, the Constitution must somehow embody Biblical law,
be "based" on the Bible. or otherwise have the Bible in mind. But this
doesn't follow; the fact that the Bible was frequently quoted is not the
same thing as saving it was quoted for the purpose of creating a legal code
or the Constitution, Indeed, Lutz's and Hyneman's data suggest that the
Bible was for the most part irrelevant to the Constitution, and that what
connections there were between the Bible and the Constitution are not of
the type that support Barton's claims.
First, Barton does not report the most relevant evidence from Lutz's
article: in addition to their general citation count from 1760 to 1805,
Lutz and Hyneman compile a count specific to political debate on the
Constitution between the years 1787 and 1788 (the years corresponding to
the drafting and ratification of the Constitution). According to Lutz, this
sample "comes close to exhausting" the literature written on the
Constitution during this period (Relative Influence, p. 194). If the
founders believed that the Bible was truly relevant to the Constitution,
Biblical citations should appear in abundance in this sample, but, they
don't. On the contrary, Biblical citations are virtually nonexistent in
this sample. According to Lutz, federalist (i.e., pro-Constitution) writers
never quoted the Bible in their political writings between 1 787 and 1 788.
Conversely. anti-federalist writers quoted the Bible only 9% of the time.
According to Lutz:
The Bible's prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the
debate centered upon specific institutions about which the Bible has little
to say. The Anti-Federalists do drag it in with respect to basic principles
of government, but the Federalist's inclination to Enlightenment
rationalism is most evident here in their failure to consider the Bible
relevant....The debate surrounding the adoption of the Constitution was
fought out mainly in the context of Montesquieu, Blackstone, the English
Whigs, and major writers of the Enlightenment (Relative /nfluence, pp.
194-195, emphasis ours).
Additionally, Barton omits Lutz's breakdown of sources for his 34% figure.
Three fourths of the Biblical citations in Lutz's 1760 to 1805 sample come,
not from secular sources, but from reprinted sermons (one of the most
popular types of political writing during these years). Conversely the
Bible accounts for only 9% of all citations in secular literature, about
equal to the number of citations from classical authors (Origins, p. 140).
Hence, were it not for the political activity of religious clergy, the
Bible would be tied for fourth place among source citations during 1760 and
1805.
Interestingly, Barton's reference to Lutz's work in Original Intent is not
to Lutz's article, but to Origins, Lutz's later book. Lutz's book reports
his 1984 data in abbreviated form, and does not refer to his citation count
for the years 1787 to 1788, or the conclusions he draws from that count. A
reader that simply follows Barton's citations, in other words, would be
ignorant of this data. At the same time, no reader of Lutz book would
likely come away with the feeling that the Constitution was written with
the Bible particularly in mind. As Lutz documents, by the time of the
Constitution, American political theory was a rich tapestry of ideas drawn
from many different sources; the Bible and colonial covenant theology were
simply two of many influences that played in the minds of the American
founders.
In the end, Lutz's work is far more supportive of separation than of
accomodationism. Did the founder's quote the Bible in their political
writings? Of course they did, and there is nothing remarkable about that
fact. Lutz's data suggest that, whatever the cultmal influence of the
Bible, it did not play much of a role in the construction of the
Constitution. On the contrary, the Constitution is a secular document
concerned with the nuts and bolts issues of how to create a workable nation
in a land of economic, cultural, and religious diversity. It simply did not
touch on matters relevant to the Bible.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
**********************************************************************
:|Blackstone was a full fledged believer in revealed religion (i.e., the
:|bible),
Irrelevant
His works that were cited were Commentaries on the Laws of England.
There was only one chapter or so that had anything to do with Religion, and
one must remember, England had an established church. reliigon and
government were very much in a union with each other.
and most of his content was rooted in medieval (Catholic) political
:|philosophy (e.g., the Magna Carta).
I don't even know what that is suppose to mean.
:|What's more, the entire Common Law
:|tradition was rooted in orthodox Christianity.
The above is disputed, Disputed in fact by Thomas Jefferson, who presents a
great deal of evidence showing that Christianity is not part of the English
Common Law
:| 6) The First Great Awakening was the generation in which the founders
:|were born and reared. The First Great Awakening was led by Jonathan Edwards,
:|George Whitefield, and John Wesley...their views permeated the colonies; and
:|they were hardly deists!
:|
In 1776 only 17% of the American population was churched.
In 1800 when the government began functioning in Washington D C there was
only one church in D C and it had less then 20 members. The following year
the church had shut its doors.
:|
:| GEORGE WASHINGTON: I am quite aware that his religious sentiments are
:|a great matter of controversy. You mentioned in your post your interest in
:|Boller's book on Washington. The most celebrated biography of Washington is
:|Mason Weems' THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1809; this book portrays
:|Washington as a committed orthodox Christian. E.C. McGuire published The
:|Religious Opinions and Character of Washington in 1836; it debunks the
:|"Washington the Deist" myth. Finally, I refer you to William J. Johnson,
:|GEORGE WASHINGTON THE CHRISTIAN (1919).
:| In a nutshell, there are an abundance of documents authored by
:|Washington which prevent an honest historian from classifying Washington as a
:|deist. One example of this is the following prayer: "O most Glorious God, in
:|Jesus Christ my merciful and loving Father, I acknowledge and confess the weak
:|and imperfectconfess my guilt, in performances of the duties of this day...for
:|the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me, for his sake,
:|ease the burden of my sin...direct me to the true object Jesus Christ, the
:|way, the truth, and the life...These weak petitions I humbly implore thee to
:|hear and accept and ans. for the sake of thy Dear Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
:|
:|Bob, it'll take some manipulation of words to derive DEISM from that prayer!!
The historical facts are that Washington was not a very committed
Christian. The common accepted preception is, he shared Deist thought,
was a Mason, fully believed in religious freedom and equality and attended
church regularly at times in his life and very infrequent at other times.
he was never known to partake of communion, his wife would but Washington
would leave first.
Do you have a original cite for the above "prayer"
Without an original cite it is meaningless. Second hand sources that do not
provide original sources cites are highly suspect.
:|
:| JOHN ADAMS: a graduate of Harvard, a place steeped in Puritanism; like
:|Washington, he used some deistic language, but his explicit creed (1813) was
:|as follows: "My religion is founded on the hope of pardon for my offenses."
John Adams was not an orthodox Chrisitian. He was a combination Unitarian,
Deist, with some holdover Calvinist thoughts at times.
You will find as many writings of his that are highly critical and blasting
organizied religion aas you will find support of religion in general.
:|It
:|was his son, John Quincy Adams who made this bold statement in 1821: "The
:|highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one
:|indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
:|
THE ABOVE IS A BOGUS QUOTE
******************************************************************************
Did John Quincy Adams ever say that the American Revolution "connected in
one indissoluable bond the principles of civil government with the
principles of Christianity?"
Research by Jim Allison.
In the first edition of his videotape, America's Godly Heritage, David
Barton quotes John Quincy Adams as follows:
The highest glory of the American Revolution is this; it connected in
one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the
principles of Christianity.
While the quote doesn't appear in any of Barton's later works, it does turn
up in another popular Christian book, William J. Federer's, America's God
and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations, p. 18. Federer provides a date for
the quotation (July 4, 1821), and gives the source as follows:
John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution 1860
(reprinted NY: Burt Franklin, 1860; 1970), p. XXIX.
We recently located this source and now suspect that John Quincy Adams
never uttered these words. Here's what we found:
Pages X through XXXVIII of the Thornton book are a historical introduction
to the subject of religion in the New England States, with a special focus
on the state of Massachusetts. Throughout this introduction, Thornton
quotes various early Americans on the subject of religion. At least some of
the quotations are footnoted, and all of them appear to be enclosed in
quotation marks. Sometimes portions of the quotations are italicized for
emphasis.
The words attributed to John Quincy Adams appear on page XXIX. None of
these words are placed in quotation marks. Rather, the sentence reads as if
Thornton is making his own conclusion about what John Quincy Adams
believed. Thornton's sentence reads as follows:
The highest glory of the American Revolution, said John Quincy Adams,
was this: IT CONNECTED IN ONE INDISSOLUBE BOND, THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL
GOVERNMENT WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIANITY (emphasis in the original).
No footnote for these words is given. Nor are the words attached to a date.
Hence, if these words are a quotation from Adams? it is impossible to trace
them back from Thornton's book to an original source. Elsewhere in the book
Adams' father (John Adams) is quoted properly, i.e., with footnotes and
quotation marks.
It appears, in other words, that somewhere down the line Thornton"s
conclusions about John Quincy Adams were passed off as Adam's own remarks.
In Federer's case, his reproduction of the quotation doesn't edit out the
words "said John Quincy Adams" and replace them with ellipses; either he
knowingly misreports Thornton's words, or he didn't check his sources for
accuracy. It is, of course, possible, that the printer made a mistake and
forgot the quotation marks but, until somebody can locate the original
source of the quote, there is no ground whatsoever to treat these words and
Adams' own. The quote should be regarded as bogus.
Please note: even if Adams did say these words it wouldn't bolster the
accomodationist's case; as we suggest elsewhere, Adams would simply be
wrong to argue that the federal Constitution embodies the principles of
Christianity. It doesn't, and Adams' saying so doesn't prove a thing.
Rather, the real importance of this quote is as a demonstration of just how
far some popular Christian authors will go to prove their case. Nothing in
the Thornton book justifies taking the "indissoluble bond" quote as John
Quincy Adams' own words, but because it says something the right wants to
hear, the words are pressed into service anyway. This isn't good
scholarship, and the consumers of Barton and Federer's work should be aware
of just how poor their research is.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
***********************************************************************
:| BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: Of all the founders, Franklin is most deistic. I
:|will grant him to your cause, with Paine. But you need to be honest enough to
:|admit that Franklin, as an 81 year old man at the Constitutional Convention
:|was too feeble to provide the erudition he possessed as a younger man.
:|Further, you must admit that Franklin was steeped in Puritanism and
:|Presbyterianism...he studied for the ministry, he wrote a defense of
:|Predestination, and he was a huge fan of Christianity, even though he demurred
:|from its precepts. Although Franklin explicitly identified with the Deists
:|(per AUTOBIOGRAPHY), Puritanism ran through his blood. That is why Franklin is
:|perhaps the one individual in America most closely identified with "the
:|Protestant Work Ethic."
:|
:| THOMAS JEFFERSON: You might think it outrageous to say that Jefferson
:|had a Christian view of law and rights. You will point out that Jefferson was
:|very clearly outside the mainstream in his views of Christ as Savior. He did
:|not believe Jesus was God. If he did not have an orthodox view of the
:|Christianity, how could he have a Christian view of law and rights?
:| Regardless of whatever his personal views of religion were,
:|Jefferson's political writings were saturated with ÒChristianÓ ideas. This is
:|a result of Jefferson's immersion in a Christian culture. Whether he
:|personally confessed Jesus as his savior is of little issue in terms of
:|whether his theories were Christian. Jefferson adopted, by osmosis, much of
:|the general Christian world-view of his mentors. Armchair historians easily
:|forget Jefferson's cultural context; Jefferson's educational training did not
:|occur in the classroom of Deists in Paris, but at the feet of clergymen in
:|Virginia. From the time he was nine years old until the time he was sixteen,
:|he was tutored by two orthodox ministers: Rev. James Maury and Rev. William
:|Douglas. When he studied law at William and Mary he was not the pupil of
:|Voltaire. His mentor was Mr. George Wythe, "a devout Christian and by no means
:|a deist." And although the same cannot be said of Jefferson, it is recorded
:|that Jefferson admired Wythe's Christian virtue. Jefferson called Wythe "my
:|second father, my earliest and best friend." Though Jefferson became a
:|Unitarian who was quite fond of the French deists, he was instilled with
:|orthodox Christianity in his formative years. Despite his private doubts about
:|the deity of Christ, as a statesman he complied with tradition, referring to
:|Jesus as "Our Savior" and "Lord" in the ordinary Christian sense (see the
:|Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom). In other words, as a son of a
:|Christian culture, JeffersonÕs blood was Christian. And that blood permeates
:|the concepts set forth in his political writings.
:|
You will have to do better then the above. You really seem to be working
hard at trying to claim Jefferson as one of your own.
Solid examples would go much father in trying to establish your claims. Do
yoo have any examples of his writings etc that would do this?
:| Critics like yourself, both Christian and non-Christian, have often
:|insisted that the U.S. Constitution is not "Christian" because it nowhere
:|refers to "our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Over the years there have been
:|repeated efforts by some Christian groups to make the Constitution "Christian"
:|by an amendment that would change the preamble to include a reference to "our
:|Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This cosmetic change would add ecclesiastical
:|language almost as a decoration. It would have no material effect on any of
:|the concepts in the document. Yet it is supposedly required in the eyes of
:|some to make the Constitution "Christian." The issue is one of surface versus
:|substance. It is the substance of the document that makes it a product of Christianity.
:| In the Puritan outlook, Christian jargon was not the key. The content
:|and the underlying concepts were the key. The fact that terms such as
:|"federalism" and "due process of law" had an explicit Christian heritage, and
:|that the entire Constitution rested on a Puritan view of the ordinary
:|depravity of man was the kind of evidence that was relevant to showing the
:|Christian impact on the Constitution.
:| The language of the Founders was creator-oriented because it dealt
:|with civil government, law, and individual rights. The Founders did not apply
:|redeemer-oriented language--Christian jargon--to these documents of public
:|law, because Calvin, Luther, and dozens of other Protestant political
:|theorists called it a corruption of the gospel. By using creator-oriented
:|language, the founders were squarely within the mainstream of the English
:|Common Law heritage. And they were completely in harmony with the traditional
:|Puritan use of legal terms and rights terms.
:| In the Puritan approach, concepts were very important. Some concepts
:|dealt with law. Others dealt with rights. By 1776, the Puritans were fully
:|convinced that concepts about the equality of all human beings, individual
:|inalienable rights, and government by the consent of the governed were fully
:|biblical ideas. It is not surprising in light of the Puritan impact, that
:|these ideas were foundational to the American colonial outlook at the time of independence.
:| These were not Enlightenment concepts or Deistic concepts. They were
:|Puritan concepts, and fully Christian. And they were more than just Puritan
:|concepts. They were part of that broader stream of Christian thought in which
:|the Puritans stood. Where the colonies were concerned, the concepts were
:|Puritan for the simple fact that for decades the Puritans were purveyors of
:|these concepts and were intellectual leaders prior to 1776. The concepts were
:|Christian even though they were expressed in natural terms rather than
:|ecclesiastical language. In the Puritan approach to the creator-redeemer
:|distinction, natural language was the right language to use.
:| To the critics, however, naturalistic language is automatically
:|suspect. Such language could not be "Christian" because it does not sound
:|religious enough. People are prone to test the founding documents not by their
:|concepts and content, but by whether they used Christian jargon. If redemptive
:|language was not used, many simply assume that the documents were not
:|"Christian." That is not only a foolish and narrow-minded approach to
:|evaluating the founders and their writings, it leads to a patently erroneous conclusion.
There is much that could be offered to the above but for this installment I
will only add the following:
******************************************************************************
Did Montesquieu base his theory of separation of powers on the Bible?
Barren Charles Louis Joseph de Secondat Montesquieu was a nobleman who
wrote extensively about political theory. In his famous work The Spirit of
the Laws, Montesquieu became the first to articulate in a detailed way the
doctrine of separation of powers (i.e., the theory that liberty is best
protected when government distributes executive, legislative, and judicial
power among three branches of government, so that no one branch can control
all three). By all accounts America's founding fathers were deeply
influenced by Montesquieu; citations to Montesquieu pop up with great
frequency in the political discourse of revolutionary America, and his
work was a major justifrcation for the structure of the American
Constitution.
In his book America's God and Country (p. 453), William Federer claims
that Montesquieu based his theory of divided powers on two Biblical
passages: Isaiah 33:22, and Jeremiah 17:19. The Isaiah passage reads as
follows:
The LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king.
The Jeremiah passage reads:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who
can know it?
According to Federer, the Jeremiah passage provides the motive for
separated powers; since the heart is wicked it's best to divide powers to
minimize the amount ofpower that any one individual person can possess. The
Isaiah passage, on the other hand, provided Montesquieu with the structure
for a divided government. Federer references these verses to page 457 of
Anne Cohler's 1989 translation of The Spirit of the Laws, These same
verses are also referred to by David Barton in his work The Myrh of
Separation, pp. 195-196. Unlike Federer, harvever, Barton does not
explicitly claim that Montesquieu based his work on these verses, and does
not provide relevant citations to Montesquieu's text.
The problem with Federer's argument is that it is not true. Montesquieu
develops his argument for separation of powers in Book XI of The Spirit
ofthe Laws, and nowhere in this book does he reference Isaiah, Jeremiah, or
am other book of the Bible. On the contrary. Montesquieu's examples in
this section are all drawn from contemporary European and pre-Christian
Roman and Germanic histoly. Nor can we find references to Isaiah and
Jeremiah elsewhere in the book. While Montesquieu does occasionally
reference the Bible in The Spirit ofthe Laws, these references are mostly
to the Pentateuch, and are never to the prophetic books of the Old
Testament.
It is difficult to argue that Montesquieu based his theory of divided
powers on Isaiah and Jeremiah when he doesn't quote from these books, and
when he bases his examples on other sources. We corrclude that Federer has
either misunderstood Montesquieu, is simply repeating someone else's
inaccurate argument, or is intentionally misleading his readers.
But what of Federer's reference to page 457 of Cohler's translation of The
Spirit of the Laws? We've located a copy of this work, and this page turns
out to be nothing more than the title page for the fifth section of
Cohler's translation; it has no text except the words "Part 5. We will
charitably assume that the reference is a misprint, but sloppy editing on
Federcr's part does little to convince us that he knows what he's talking
about with respect to Montesquieu. Additionally, Cohler's work contains an
detailed appendix in which she indexes all the sources Montesquieu used in
writing The Spirit of the Laws, and while we find several references to
various books oflhe Bible, there are no references to Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Far from proving his argument Cohler's translation is further proof that
Federer's claim is incorrect..
For what it's worth, we don't think Federer is the originator of the myth
that Montesquieu derived his theory from the Bible. Barton's The Myth of
Separation predates Federer, and Barton makes essentially the same argument
(albeit without footnotes). The idea was probably circulating long before
either Federer or Barton wrote their books. But it makes no difference. It
is a myth. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Montesquieu
derived his ideas from the Bible. The myth should be put to rest
before it does am more disservice.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
________________________________________________________________________
Does the Constitution Embody Christian Thought and Morality?
Contrary to the claims of many accomodationists, virtually nothing in the
Constitution references Christian thought and morality. The only explicit
mention of religion is the article VI declaration that "no religious Test
shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust
under the United Stales. Otherwise, the Constitution is wholly concerned
with the secular issues of defining federal power. and distributing that
power among the various branches of government. Quite against the practice
of state constitutions, the federal Constitution does not quote or refer to
the Bible, does not set up any religion above another, does not refer to
God. and does riot raise or rule upon religious questions. It is a
remarkably secular document for its day and age.
Our e-mail correspondents have occasionally argued that that the structure
of our federal government is derived from the Bible: this claim rests on
little more than wishful thinking. The most inuportant features of our
federal government include (1) a separation of powers among three branches
of government, (2) a bicameral legislature, (3) different modes of
representation in each chamber of the legislature, (4) a limited executive,
(5) and independent judiciary and (G) a complex system of checks and
balances. No model of government found in the Bible corresponds to this
outline. Ancient Israel was governed first by Judges and then by Kings: in
neither system was there separation of powers (i.e., the executive acted as
both lawmaker and judge). nor was there am clear distinction between
secular and religious law. Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find anvthing
like a bicameral legislature, or an independent judiciary. Conversely the
New Testament does not contain a model of government: It simply does not
fanction as a political document in the same way as, eg., the Q'uran does
in Islam.
Some accomodationists claim that founders derived the principle of
separation of powers from Isaiah 33:22, "For the LORD is our judge, the
LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King: he will save us. Apart from the
fact that there is no evidence that this verse was ever referred to by the
founders in this context, this argument fails on it's own assumptions: the
Constitution sets up an elected executive, riot a King. and the tenor of
the verse is anti separation-of-powers; it says that all three branches are
properly united in one person, the LORD. That the founders would read this
verse and derive from it a mandate for divided
powers is neither logical nor plausible.
Nor is there any relationship between the Constitution and the 10
Commandments. The Constitution fairly repudiates the first two commandments
(i.e., it leaves us free to worship other Gods than the LORD, and to make
graven images), and is silent on commandments three through ten. Laws
against blasphemy, Sabbath breaking, dishonoring parents, murder, adultery,
stealing, false witness. and coveting are left entirely to the states.
The secular ethos of the Constitution extends even to the taking of the
oath of office. Quite against the practices of the states, the oath of
offrce described in Article II section 2 of the Constitution is completely
secular; it is described as an "oath or affrrmation." contains no religious
references, and need not be taken on the Bible. The practice of saying "so
help me God" is not required by the Constitution; it is a voluntary
practice initiated by later presidents.
The absence of Christian thought and morality in the Constitution is a
powerful evidence that the founders did not intend to create a Christian
nation. Indeed, a popular early criticism of the Constitution is that it
allowed non-Christians to serve in federal offices. and did nothing to
promote Christianity (see Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore. The Godless
Constitution. ch. 2). If the founders wanted to favor Christianity or
Judeo- Christian morality, they failed utterly in that lask. This should
make us suspect that the Constitution was never intended to set up
Christianity as a preferred religion in the first place.
TOM PETERS, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
********************************************************************
:|
:| In summary, Bob, although deism played a peripheral role in the U.S.
:|founding, its influence pales in comparison to the central role of orthodox
:|Christianity. You can find a discounted copy of the book at http://www2.pitnet.net/Gardiner/nbh.html
:|
:|Thanks for your response and I'd be glad to continue this dialogue further...
:|
Kewl then I can assume you will respond to this?
=================================================================
Gardiner did respond to the above and we have crossed keybds semi regular
ever since 1999.
He hasn't shown up yet this year so maybe he has finally had enough