American Government and Christianity - America's Christian Roots

Probe Ministries ^ | 2004 | Kerby Anderson

[Tailgunner Joe]

John Adams was the second president of the United States. He saw the need for religious values to provide the moral base line for society. He stated in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.{1}

In fact, John Adams wasn't the only founding father to talk about the importance of religious values. Consider this statement from George Washington during his Farewell Address:

And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.{2}

Two hundred years after the establishment of the Plymouth colony in 1620, Americans gathered at that site to celebrate its bicentennial. Daniel Webster was the speaker at this 1820 celebration. He reminded those in attendance of this nation's origins:

Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.{3}

Religion, and especially the Christian religion, was an important foundation to this republic.

Christian Character

It is clear that the framers of this new government believed that the people should elect and support leaders with character and integrity. George Washington expressed this in his Farewell Address when he said, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports."

Benjamin Rush talked about the religious foundation of the republic that demanded virtuous leadership. He said that, "the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid on the foundation of religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."{4}

He went on to explain that

A Christian cannot fail of being a republican . . . for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self- denial, and brotherly kindness which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy. . . . A Christian cannot fail of being useful to the republic, for his religion teaches him that no man "liveth to himself." And lastly a Christian cannot fail of being wholly inoffensive, for his religion teaches him in all things to do to others what he would wish, in like circumstances, they should do to him.{5}

Daniel Webster understood the importance of religion, and especially the Christian religion, in this form of government. In his famous Plymouth Rock speech of 1820 he said,

Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. . . .Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.{6}

John Jay was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers and became America's first Supreme Court Justice. He also served as the president of the American Bible Society. He understood the relationship between government and Christian values. He said, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."{7}

William Penn writing the Frame of Government for his new colony said, "Government, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad."{8}

The founders believed that good character was vital to the health of the nation.

New Man

Historian C. Gregg Singer traces the line of influence from the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century in his book, A Theological Interpretation of American History. He says,

Whether we look at the Puritans and their fellow colonists of the seventeenth century, or their descendants of the eighteenth century, or those who framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we see that their political programs were the rather clear reflection of a consciously held political philosophy, and that the various political philosophies which emerged among the American people were intimately related to the theological developments which were taking place. . . . A Christian world and life view furnished the basis for this early political thought which guided the American people for nearly two centuries and whose crowning lay in the writing of the Constitution of 1787.{9}

Actually, the line of influence extends back even further. Historian Arnold Toynbee, for example, has written that the American Revolution was made possible by American Protestantism. Page Smith, writing in the Religious Origins of the American Revolution, cites the influence of the Protestant Reformation. He believes that

The Protestant Reformation produced a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of man. The English Colonies in America, in turn, produced a new unique strain of that consciousness. It thus follows that it is impossible to understand the intellectual and moral forces behind the American Revolution without understanding the role that Protestant Christianity played in shaping the ideals, principles and institutions of colonial America.{10}

Smith argues that the American Revolution "started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg." It received "its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and much of its social theory from the Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660.{11}

Most people before the Reformation belonged to classes and social groups which set the boundaries of their worlds and established their identities. The Reformation, according to Smith, changed these perceptions. Luther and Calvin, in a sense, created a re- formed individual in a re-formed world.

Key to this is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer where each person is "responsible directly to God for his or her own spiritual state.... The individuals who formed the new congregations established their own churches, chose their own ministers, and managed their own affairs without reference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy."{12}

These re-formed individuals began to change their world including their view of government and authority.

Declaration of Independence

Let's look at the Christian influence on the Declaration of Independence. Historian Page Smith points out that Thomas Jefferson was not only influenced by secular philosophers, but was also influenced by the Protestant Reformation. He says,

Jefferson and other secular-minded Americans subscribed to certain propositions about law and authority that had their roots in the Protestant Reformation. It is a scholarly common-place to point out how much Jefferson (and his fellow delegates to the Continental Congress) were influenced by Locke. Without disputing this we would simply add that an older and deeper influence -- John Calvin -- was of more profound importance.{13}

Another important influence was William Blackstone. Jefferson drew heavily on the writings of this highly respected jurist. In fact, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were among Jefferson's most favorite books.

In his section on the "Nature of Laws in General," Blackstone wrote, "as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature."{14}

In addition to the law of nature, the other source of law is from divine revelation. "The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures." According to Blackstone, all human laws depended either upon the law of nature or upon the law of revelation found in the Bible: "Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws."{15}

Samuel Adams argues in "The Rights of the Colonists" that they had certain rights. "Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these: First, a Right to Life; second, to Liberty; third, to Property; . . . and in the case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent."{16} This concept of natural rights also found its way into the Declaration of Independence and provided the justification for the American Revolution.

The Declaration was a bold document, but not a radical one. The colonists did not break with England for "light and transient causes." They were mindful that they should be "in subjection to governing authorities" which "are established by God" (Rom. 13:1). Yet when they suffered from a "long train of abuses and usurpations," they believed that "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish [the existing government] and to institute a new government."

Constitution

The Christian influence on the Declaration is clear. What about the Constitution?

James Madison was the chief architect of the Constitution as well as one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. It is important to note that as a youth, he studied under a Scottish Presbyterian, Donald Robertson. Madison gave the credit to Robertson for "all that I have been in life."{17} Later he was trained in theology at Princeton under the Reverend John Witherspoon. Scholars believe that Witherspoon's Calvinism (which emphasized the fallen nature of man) was an important source for Madison's political ideas.{18}

The Constitution was a contract between the people and had its origins in American history a century earlier:

One of the obvious by-products [of the Reformation] was the notion of a contract entered into by two people or by the members of a community amongst themselves that needed no legal sanctions to make it binding. This concept of the Reformers made possible the formation of contractuals or, as the Puritans called them, "covenanted" groups formed by individuals who signed a covenant or agreement to found a community. The most famous of these covenants was the Mayflower Compact. In it the Pilgrims formed a "civil body politic," and promised to obey the laws their own government might pass. In short, the individual Pilgrim invented on the spot a new community, one that would be ruled by laws of its making.{19}

Historian Page Smith believes, "The Federal Constitution was in this sense a monument to the reformed consciousness. This new sense of time as potentiality was a vital element in the new consciousness that was to make a revolution and, what was a good deal more difficult, form a new nation."{20}

Preaching and teaching within the churches provided the justification for the revolution and the establishment of a new nation. Alice Baldwin, writing in The New England Clergy and the American Revolution, says,

The teachings of the New England ministers provide one line of unbroken descent. For two generations and more New Englanders had . . . been taught that these rights were sacred and came from God and that to preserve them they had a legal right of resistance and, if necessary a right to . . . alter and abolish governments and by common consent establish new ones.{21}

Christian ideas were important in the founding of this republic and the framing of our American governmental institutions. And I believe they are equally important in the maintenance of that republic.

Notes

1. John Adams, October 11, 1798, in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts. Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams - Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustration (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1854), Vol. IX, 228-229.
2. George Washington, Farewell Address (September 19, 1796). Address of George Washington, President of the United States, and Late Commander in Chief of the American Army. To the People of the United States, Preparatory to His Declination.
3. Daniel Webster, December 22, 1820. The Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1853), Vol. I, 48.
4. Benjamin Rush, "Thoughts upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic," Early American Imprints. Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 8.
5. Ibid.
6. Webster, The Works of Daniel Webster, 22ff.
7. John Jay, October 12, 1816, in The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, ed., (New York: G.P Putnam & Sons, 1893; reprinted NY: Burt Franklin, 1970), Vol. IV, 393.
8. William Penn, April 25, 1682, in the preface of his Frame of Government of Pennsylvania. A Collection of Charters and Other Public Acts Relating to the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1740), 10-12.
9. C. Gregg Singer, A Theological Interpretation of American History (Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press, 1964), 284-5.
10. Page Smith, Religious Origins of the American Revolution (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 1.
11. Ibid, 2.
12. Ibid., 3.
13. Ibid, 185.
14. William Blackstone, "Of the Nature of Laws in General," Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, Section II.
15. Ibid.
16. Samuel Adams, "The Rights of the Colonists" (Boston, 1772), The Annals of America, Vol. II, 217.
17. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1987), 94.
18. James H. Smylie, "Madison and Witherspoon: Theological Roots of American Political Thought," American Presbyterians, 112.
19. Smith, Religious Origins, 3.
20. Ibid., 4
21. Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 1928), 169.

[malakhi]

Hi Bella, I was thinking of you when I posted "it takes a village". :o)

[NCPAC]

"Believing in traditional moral valuses doesn't, of itself, make you a conservative."

Can I get an "Amen!?"

[hadit2here]

TG Joe sez:John Adams was the second president of the United States. He saw the need for religious values to provide the moral base line for society.

It is interesting to see "religious values" so easily perverted into "my particular sect's beliefs and dictates". True, the founders of our country were men of values and beliefs, but they knew the dangers of inscribing any particular religion's brand of thinking into law- or the Constitution. They kept scrupulously- and successfully - from doing that. Remember also, having escaped from the state-established religions of Europe, only 7% of the people in the 13 colonies belonged to a church when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." --George Washington

Not a lot of wiggle room in that statement, and coming from probably one who had some very intimate first-hand knowledge on the subject of which he spoke.

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..." --John Adams, 1797, Treaty of Peace and Friendship

"Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle." -- Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rush, 1813

The Founding Fathers were certainly men of some "spiritual" conviction, as they were products of their time. Pouncing upon every instance of their use of "God" or "religion" and trumpeting it as "proof" that they were in favor of one religion or another - or none- is simply perverting the language of their times. These were men of morals and principles, and I dare say that those morals and priciples have been espoused by every "religion" that has ever been on the face of this earth- before Christ or after. Many "pagan" writings pre-dating Christianity could probably be shown that they supported "good" and "ethical" and "moral" behaviour by their practitioners if viewed in light of the language of the writing's time. Being "good" or "Godly" or "moral" is not a concept exclusive to Christ, christianity as a whole or any modern Christian sect. "Good" men have been around since the start of the human race, as probably have been not "good" men. But to attribute modern Christian dogma or thinking exclusively to the Founding Fathers to try to prove and support one's own religious view is not only dishonest, but probably immoral- and incorrect.

"In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1814

"...we may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1814

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." --Abraham Lincoln

"My husband is not a Christian but is a religious man, I think." --Mary Todd Lincoln

"I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by religious men who are certain they represent the Divine will. ...I hope it will not be irreverent in me to say, that if it be probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me." --Abraham Lincoln

American Faith said: To represent all religions equally would doom this country to secularism. If you truely feared the LORD, you would acknowledge the neccessity for Protestant doctrine in this country's legal system. Otherwise, you open the floodgates to homosexuality, prostitution, paganism, darwinism, satanism, etc.

No, representing all religions equally is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to do. They had experienced first hand what government supported (and proscribed) religion did and wanted nothing of that. And, as far as "opening the floodgates...", well for those who have no heartburn about prostitution (the 'oldest profession'- pre-dating Christ), paganism (actually a religious sect with the same rights as Protestantism), darwinism (actually a theory of biology rather than a religion, although AF would certainly like to demonize it otherwise), satanism (seems the only religion that characterizes/worships Satan as an angel is Christianity), and the many supporters or believers of all the etceteras, would view this "government neutrality" regarding their particular beliefs or vices as a "good thing (tm)". Even if AF, Rev. Falwell, the 700 Club and others don't.

PhillipF stated: In Runkel vs. Winemiller of 1796, the Supreme Court stated...

It seems to me that today, one of our major problems - as far as being a Constitutional Replublic goes - has been the constant degradation of the Constitution itself by "judicial activism", particularly that of the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, when men who hold a particular belief gain a position of influence over the laws, their beliefs tend to become the law, rather than what should have been if viewed apart from those "beliefs". Pointing out Supreme Court decisions that "prove" that the Christian religion is the basis of our form of government doesn't make it so. I'm sure that the poster could have pointed out many other Supreme Court decisions (e.g. Roe v Wade) that didn't uphold his personal religious views, but of course he doesn't.

"To embarass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the oposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked." --engraved in the Minnesota State Capitol Outside the supreme Court Chambers

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison

When judicial appointments are premised on whether the appointee will rule in favor of the PC socialist left or the bigoted, religious zealots on the right, rather than their knowledge of Constitutional law and their upholding the Constitution as written (without adding their own personal "twist" to it), then we get what we have today- the best legislatures and judiciary that money can buy. Which then trashes the very underpinnings of the Republic.

Again, American Faith spews: The intentions of the Founding Fathers make a good history lesson but should not take precedence over what is necessary in this day and age. They were human beings, not gods, and it is wrong to worship every word they spoke as so many do today.

An interesting comment, coming from one who avows to "worship" another being's every word as supposedly written- not contemporaneously, but over ensuing centuries of supposition and rumor. Most of us who feel strongly about the founding principles of this country, don't "worship" their intentions or words, just feel that they are well worth being guided by in establishing and operating a government of dissimilar people.

As far as establishing a viable, long-term form of government that would withstand assaults by the very "Christian" zealots and others who would attack it, I'll put my faith in the Founding Fathers anyday, as opposed to the bigotry and zealotry that has been the history of "Christian" religions.

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity." --Thomas Paine

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church." --Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason. [Gee, do you think that ol' Tom read that passage in the Sermon on the Mount that goes something like: When you pray, do not pray in public as the Pharisees do, but go to your room and pray in secret, for the Father hears in secret.]

"The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion." --Thomas Paine

"The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed." --Thomas Paine

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, 1820

"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words." --Thomas Jefferson

american spirit asks: How can people who take an oath of office to protect and defend this country allow this cultural coup d'etat to happen?

Are we to assume that is a purely rhetorical question, and not an outright indication of the extremely low level of your IQ? Apparently you have never heard of:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton (1887)

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -- Daniel Webster

american spirit continues... and even worse, we're letting them get away with it.

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." --Benjamin Franklin

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves. -- Thomas Sowell (1992)

PhillipF said: Do those actions and statements by Jefferson in any way resemble the so-called "Separation of Church and State" myth perpetuated by the A.C.L.U.? Not a chance. The A.C.L.U. is a communist front group, which means they are faithless, which means they have absolutely no problem with lying to promote their agenda and to trick the people out of their rights.

I can understand your heartburn over the ACLU. A lot of people, on all sides of the issues, seem to have problems with individual cases brought by the ACLU. I am probably one of those, though for differing reasons than PhillipF. The only comfort I take in the fact that the ACLU p*sses off a lot of people is that fact that they p*ss off a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. It could be a case of "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" or it could be that if they are upsetting people on all sides of the issues, then maybe there is something to their agenda- although I personally rather think they have been taken over by the liberal leftist PC socialists, just as Christianity has been taken over by the arrogant, bigoted Bible thumping zealots. But then, again, that's just my view.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Christianity has always been run by Bible thumping zealots. As for arrogant and bigoted, some people say that about President Bush.

[hadit2here]

I got the rope sez: The same scripture that was read by our founders.

Uh, maybe, but apparently not with the same conclusions as you. Oh, but don't take my word for it:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short

"The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words." --Thomas Jefferson

"The New Testament, they tell us, is founded upon the prophecies of the Old; if so, it must follow the fate of its foundation." --Thomas Paine

"I am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, and highest sense. But I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his followers, the papists, so long as they tell me, through all their councils, theologians, and canon laws that their conscience orders them to burn my wife, strangle my children, and cut my throat when they find their opportunity." --Abraham Lincoln

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity." --Thomas Paine, Age of Reason

"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did." --Benjamin Franklin, letter to his father, 1738

"I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, 1789

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize [sic], every expanded prospect." --James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1,1774

"...It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses..." --John Adams, "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788]

My how they do so properly and clearly express themselves, don't they? Hardly any "filtering" or interpretation is needed to understand their writings. Unless, of course, one is a moron and requires Pat or Jerry or Hal or one of the others to "interpret" those writings to get the "real" or "correct" meanings out of them.

Sorry, but I fall on the right hand side of the IQ Bell curve distribution and don't need no steenkeen interpretation.

[Tailgunner Joe]

In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the necessity of a public religion . . . and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

...in 1787 when Franklin helped found the college which bore his name, it was dedicated as "a nursery of religion and learning" built "on Christ, the Corner-Stone." - LINK

Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.”

“Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus.”

"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." [Letter to Benjamin Rush April 21, 1803]

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.” [Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781]

“It [the Bible] is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." [Jan 9, 1816 Letter to Charles Thomson] - LINK

[hadit2here]

Regarding your quotes by Franklin and Jefferson, they in no way show that either of these men were either enamoured of or inclined toward the zealoted extremism that seems typical of today's "charismatic" Christians. "Christian religion" to them was equated with "moral" and "ethical" beliefs, not the perversions of Christ's words by todays televangelists and those who blindly follow them. Taking the Founders words and twisting them to make them coincide with modern spin/propaganda/extremism is not only dishonest, but immoral.

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." --Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

"It is an established maxim and moral that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him." --Abraham Lincoln

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right." --Sir Laurens van der Post

[Tailgunner Joe]

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship." - Patrick Henry

"The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament." - Samuel Adams

"Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." - John Jay - LINK

[Tailgunner Joe]

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." --George Washington

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion..." --John Adams, 1797, Treaty of Peace and Friendship

---

The historical record from the foregoing quotes from past Presidents, leaders, Congressmen, Jurists and court decisions, seems firmly on the side of those claiming that America was born and maintained as a Christian nation whose laws, morals, and customs derive from Christian (and Jewish) scriptures. The opponents of this view, however, point to the first sentence of Article 11 of the obscure Tripoli Treaty of 1797 as seeming conclusive proof that America was never a Christian nation. Before discussing that critical sentence, the treaty itself should be read in context with all of the Barbary treaties.

The Barbary States on the coast of North Africa, comprising the Moslem States of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, attacked ships in their coastal waters which would not pay tribute, and held captives for ransom. The European nations had treaties with those states, under which, in exchange for tribute, shipping was protected. After the Revolutionary War, our new nation followed the lead of those European nations and entered into similar treaties. Breach of those treaties by the Barbary nations led to the Barbary wars in 1801.

The first treaty was with Morocco in 1786, negotiated by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. It was written in Arabic with an English translation. The treaty language assumes that the world was divided between Christians and Moors (Moslems), e.g. "If we shall be at war with any Christian Power ... .", "... no Vessel whatever belonging either to Moorish or Christian Powers with whom the United States may be at War ... .", "...be their enemies Moors or Christians." These along with numerous references to God, e.g., "In the name of Almighty God,", "... trusting in God ...", "Grace to the only God", "...the servant of God ...", "... whom God preserve ...". are the only references to religion in this treaty of Peace and Friendship.

The next was the Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers in 1795,written in Turkish. The only reference to religion was in Article 17 which gave the Consul of the United States "... Liberty to Exercise his Religion in his own House [and] all Slaves of the Same Religion shall not be impeded in going to Said Consul's house at hours of prayer... ." The Consul's house was to function in lieu of a Christian church.

The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation with Tunis in 1797 was in Turkish with a French translation. It begins "God is infinite.", and refers to the Ottoman Emperor "whose realm may God prosper", and to the President of the United States "... the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah, ...." Other than a reference to "the Christian year", there is no further mention of religion.

The Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli was signed in 1796 in Arabic, and was later translated into English by Joel Barlow, United States Consul General at Algiers. Except for the typical phrases "Praise be to God" and "whom God Exalt", there is no reference to religion other than the aforesaid remarkable Article 11, which reads,

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan (sic) nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

The treaty, with this language, was submitted to the Senate by President Adams, and was ratified. Thus, opponents of the 'Christian nation' concept point to this seemingly official repudiation of the very idea. Yet the language is less a repudiation of the role of Christianity in the nation's heritage than a reminder that there was no national established church in the United States as there was in the European states with which Tripoli had previously dealt. This provided reassurance to the Moslem Bey and his religious establishment that religion, in of itself, would not be a basis of hostility between the two nations. None of the other similar treaties with the Barbary states, before or after this treaty, including the replacement treaties signed in 1804 after the Barbary Wars, have any language remotely similar.

And there is a deeper mystery: As noted in a footnote at page 1070 of the authoritative treatise by Bevans, Treaties and other International Agreements of the United States of America, citing treaty scholar Hunter Miller.

"While the Barlow translation quoted above has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since 1797, most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase 'the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.' does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point" (Emphasis added)

In sum, the phrase was no doubt an invention of Mr. Barlow, who inserted it on his own for his own, unknown, purposes. It was duly ratified without question by the United States Senate, which would no doubt be hesitant to object to any phraseology which was represented as desired by the Bey of Tripoli, with whom the United States wanted peaceful relations.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Locke explained that the "law of nature" is God's general revelation of law in creation, which God also supernaturally writes on the hearts of men. Locke drew the idea from the New Testament in Romans 1 and 2. In contrast, he spoke of the "law of God" or the "positive law of God" as God's eternal moral law specially revealed and published in Scripture. - LINK

[Tailgunner Joe]

Jerry Falwell, who said that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11, agrees with you.

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen." - Jerry Falwell

Don't you at least think it's ironic that the same people who ask "why they hate us," and "why didn't they fly planes into buildings in Texas" don't realize that it's their own left wing depredations that the fundamentalist muslims hate?

You may not agree with him, but it is wrong to mock the faith of millions of people who believe that whatever happens is God's will. Our leaders and the leaders of nations throughout history have struggled with such great questions.

After the Union army was defeated at the Battle of Bull Run, President Abraham Lincoln declared a National Day of Prayer and Fasting:

It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action.

And whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessings of God, united, prosperous and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war, it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as a nation and as individuals, to humble ourselves before Him and to pray for His mercy...that the inestimable boon of civil and religious liberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored.

After losing the Second Battle of Bull Run, Lincoln wrote his famous Meditation on the Divine Will:

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.

I am almost ready to say this is probably true -- that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.

President Lincoln is quoted making this statement to Eliza Gurney on October 6, 1862:

If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way, this war would have ended before this. But we find it still continues; and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of His own, mysterious and unknown to us; and though with our limited understanding we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that He who made the world still governs it.

We are indeed going through a great trial -- a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happened to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought His aid.

Near the end of 1862, Lincoln made this tremendous statement to Reverend Byron Sunderland:

The ways of God are mysterious and profound beyond all comprehension -- 'Who by searching can find Him out?' God only knows the issue of this business. He has destroyed nations from the map of history for their sins. Nevertheless, my hopes prevail generally above my fears for our Republic. The times are dark, the spirits of ruin are abroad in all their power, and the mercy of God alone can save us.

Here is the text of Lincoln's Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, issued March 30, 1863:

Whereas, the Senate of the United States devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation:

And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history: that those nations only are blessed whose God is Lord:

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisement in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the view of the Senate, I do, by this proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be hard on high and answered with blessing no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. By the President: Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln remained steadfast in his faith even when General Robert E. Lee led his army of 76,000 men into Pennsylvania. He explained to a general wounded at Gettysburg:

When everyone seemed panic-stricken...I went to my room...and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed...Soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul that God Almighty had taken the whole business into His own hands...

On November 19, 1863, Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. The entire speech is only 267 words and is engraved on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In it, he talks about America as a nation under God:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

During the war, Lincoln overheard someone remark that he hoped "the Lord was on the Union's side." Lincoln responded with this sharp rebuke:

I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.

[jimt]

You see my dilemma. I either believe you, or I believe a long history of founding father letters and activities, congressional resolutions, and supreme court rulings, from the beginning of our nation until 1947. It is a tough decision.

When you cherry pick them to support your viewpoint it is not.

There was a motion made to insert the words "Our Lord, Jesus Christ" after the word "Creator" when the language of the Declaration was being debated. The founding fathers VOTED IT DOWN. They did so because they were creating a government suitable for all men. There is no reference to "God" or "Jesus" anywhere in the Constitution. There is a specific prohibition against religious tests of any sort.

[jimt]

Your #103 was quite well done.

[risk]

TG, any attempt to link the beliefs and writings of devout men of the Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers, or anyone else contributing to the founding documents of this great nation to the notion that Christianity (of any sect) were established as our form of government are destined to fail. This we know because the Founding Fathers, down to a man, knew that the state could not declare a preference for a religion and govern its people equally. The two notions are as foreign as night and day. The United States of America must never announce that it has a government that by law is Christian. To do so would undermine its commitment to form a more perfect union, representing the aspirations and beliefs of all Americans.

For the state to announce primacy in sectarian beliefs is for it to expose itself to massive upheaval, the spiritual oppression of its people, and abuses in the name of abstract beliefs that can't be reasoned or explained. If the state takes a position on religion, religion becomes a fixed entity with the bulwark of state force behind it. The state becomes an arbiter of religious truth. The state becomes a deadly force preventing believers from declaring their own interpretations of religious truth. I do not believe that you want this. I believe you have been manipulated by profiteering and power-hungry people into believing it.

To reply to your next message, I did not, and I would not mock honest faith. But Falwell and the other two TV "ministries" I mentioned have made a mockery of their professed faiths with profit-mongering, pandering to the fears of innocent Christian people, and attempting to influence government in ways that clearly betray the founding principles of this great nation.

I apologize to you if I have attempted to dash one of your intellectual guiding lights without due patience and kindness. But these men do not speak for me. I think they speak for their pocketbooks. And I think millions of Christians around this great country know that. These men pose as devout, but their words and their deeds betray their lack of foresight. It's clear to me that they find great profit in misleading Americans politically.

Selected phrases they use may be attributed to Lincoln, Locke, or Livius, but this does not make them honest ministers. They've found formulae that invoke strong emotions among certain of the devout, but this in no way proves their sincerity. If they were sincere, they would defend the notion that government needs to keep out of the business of organized religion. For organized religion to flourish, government should not interfere.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>You did, PF. Let me quote you again:

>>Our grave mistake was allowing that communist front group, the ACLU, have a voice in public policy.

>>To disallow them from having a voice in public policy would be to censor them.

Nonsense. Preventing the A.C.L.U. from expressing its view(s) is censorship. Preventing it from having a voice in public policy means ensuring its ideology does not influence public policy. No comparison.

[PhilipFreneau]

When you cherry pick them to support your viewpoint it is not. There was a motion made to insert the words "Our Lord, Jesus Christ" after the word "Creator" when the language of the Declaration was being debated. The founding fathers VOTED IT DOWN. They did so because they were creating a government suitable for all men. There is no reference to "God" or "Jesus" anywhere in the Constitution. There is a specific prohibition against religious tests of any sort.

Now you are cherry picking. For example:

Oliver Ellsworth, a Connecticut delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in explaining to the people the clause that prohibits a religious test for public office, stated, "A test in favor of any one denomination of Christians would be to the last degree absurd in the United States. If it were in favor of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Quakers, it would incapacitate more than three-fourths of the American citizens for any public office and thus degrade them from the rank of freemen."

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, in his 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution, stated essentially the same thing with: "The real object of the [first] amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government..."

No offense, but I tend to believe the understanding of those two over any new-fangled interpretation.

Story also wrote, "The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues;- these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community..."

And, "Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, . . . did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty."

And, "Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation..."

[Tailgunner Joe]

Humane Laws are measures in respect of Men, whose actions they must direct, howbeit such measures they are as have also their higher Rules to be measured by, which Rules are two, the Law of God, and the Law of Nature; so that Laws Humane must be made according to the general Laws of Nature, and without contradiction to any positive Law of Scripture, otherwise they are ill made. - John Locke, Two Treatises on Government

Lastly, those are not all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all; besides also, those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of toleration. - John Locke, Essay on Toleration

[risk]

None of this proves that American government is an establishment of Christianity. No one here is disputing our godly foundations and the firm belief that our Founding Fathers had in a higher power from whence notions of freedom and respect for indvidual free will eminated. The Founding Fathers took great pain to avoid excluding one set of beliefs or another from valid representation by government, again and again affirming that the citizen's own private beliefs were best left to himself. Moreover, a given inspiration for the Constitutional thinkers, such as Locke's comments on atheists, in no way suggests that the laws of the United States cannot apply to people who profess to not believe in God. To suggest as much would have been a clear violation of the notion that a man's current beliefs were his own private matter.

None of your posts have proven that we have a Christian establishment. They prove that our Founding Fathers accepted that notions of freedom and self-will had emerged from religious beliefs, but in our founding documents they did not name those specific doctrines from biblical sources, nor did they ascribe our law to a particular text in the bible, nor did they in any way suggest with the Constitution that we were to be governed by any man's understanding of a particular Judeo-Christian doctrine.

In any case, the status quo represents my viewpoint. You need to change more than just my mind about this. But I will resist the religious establishment of Christianity in any government with every possible effort that I can make because I believe that is the path that best protects religious freedom. If you can change my mind, I would join you. But my thinking is firmly based on tenets of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, during which man came to understand that linkage between government and religion were an anathema to freedom of conscience and thought.

I recognize valid concerns in your comments, and others on this thread. But you are cheating our great legacy of religious freedom to accomplish short term goals of professed morality, attempting to find a legal if not actual match to your own beliefs in government. History has proven again and again that you would fail in your efforts, left unchecked. There can be no utopia on earth. There can be no "kingdom of Christ" in men's works.

Fighting the oppression offered by ACLU zealots with attempts to undermine separation of religion and state will not accomplish your true aims. They are a stop gap measure at best, and will net you and your countrymen only grief and sorrow. To truly understand how pernicious the ACLU and their ilk is, one must realize that they are the ones who have given the theocrats the tools they need to undermine the most important tenet of American government: freedom of individual conscince. Both the theocrats and the militant atheists are guilty of breaking down something that our government would collapse without. It is a shame. In all candor, I mistrust your camp much less than I mistrust theirs. I think the real battle for the nation's future is in your camp's vision for America. It is you and your fellow theocrats who would eventually find the power to sweep away the core defenses of religious freedom -- all in the name of a false liberty. And that is why I debate this more often with you and not with them.

However, I have also spent a good deal of energy fighting the ACLU online, and you can verify that for yourself. Again, both the theocrat camp and the militant atheist camp are working overtime to destroy America in the name of a soulless vision for its future. Both abandon any vestige of what our Constitution provides. Both would lead to the downfall of our nation and the oppression of millions of its citizens. Neither may be trusted.

[Tailgunner Joe]

My thinking is firmly based on tenets of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, during which man came to understand that linkage between government and religion were an anathema to freedom of conscience and thought.

Our form of government may separate denominations from the state but it does not separate religion or God from the State. If it did then we must ban God from our money and our pledge, ban Christmas and Thanksgiving as National Holy Days, smash the crosses off the war memorials, and smash the statue of Moses holding the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court

My quotes from Locke were meant to show that your side cannot claim him as an advocate of the "Separation of Church and State." This nation was founded on the Laws of Nature and Nature's God. Self-government and religious toleration is God's design. Those are the principles of Locke.

There can be no "kingdom of Christ" in men's works.

There can be no king but King Jesus.

Fighting the oppression offered by ACLU zealots with attempts to undermine separation of religion and state will not accomplish your true aims.

Please don't try to speak for me. Nothing you've posted has refuted anything in the article nor anything I've posted.

[hadit2here]

Again, no matter how you twist the words or quotes of the Founders to prove your idea of the religious base of the country, "Law of God" and "Law of Scripture", "Maker" or "Creator" and similar wordings were not testaments to their fanatical belief in the modern day "Christian" god, nor in much of the modern day Christianity. As I said previously, they in no way show that either of these men were either enamoured of or inclined toward the zealoted extremism that seems typical of today's "charismatic" Christians. "Christian religion" to them was equated with "moral" and "ethical" beliefs, not the perversions of Christ's words by todays televangelists and those who blindly follow them. (You know who you are.)

You can beat your drum of proselytization all you want and parrot all your Probe Ministries, or 700 Club or American Family propaganda to try to prove what wasn't really there, but it will never change the fact that "Christianity" and "Jesus" were specifically excluded from the founding documents exactly for those reasons. The founders knew that "[but to] ...touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes." (John Adams). And I really don't think he was describing that in a nice way.

Christian ideas were important in the founding of this republic and the framing of our American governmental institutions. And I believe they are equally important in the maintenance of that republic.

I agree completely with those words, I just disagree that the term "Christian" in today's society means the same thing as the Founders felt when they used it. In fact, I would suspect that John Adams probably had evangelical extremists and zealots such as yourself in mind when he wrote the above words about the hornets.

As fierce and rebellious as the Founding Fathers were, they were also schooled and genteel, ethical and moral, well aware of the niceties and courtesies that should be extended to other fellow human beings. I can pretty much guess that when they claim that the rights enumerated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights were "God given" and endowed by their "Creator", their concept of "God" and "Creator" was a far cry from your modern televangelist-wrought, sadistic and retributive "God".

"The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world. I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I desire to lessen it in any way; but I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it. I mean real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit, not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing, and reading, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity" --Benjamin Franklin, 1753, letter to Rev. George Whitefield

Why is it when I see droves of people in congregations with eyes closed, tears running down their cheeks and hands waving above their heads as some preening, blow dried, fire and brimstone spewing evangelist spouts extremist exhortations and biblical admonitions to them, another image of multitudes of arms raised high in the air in acknowledgment of his "Vaterland Uber Alles" comes to mind? I know, unfair... it's just what jumps into my head when I see them. Sorry. "Mindless Automatons" is a phrase that usually accompanies it.

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches." --Benjamin Franklin

Year ago, I drove cab for some time as a living. One of the experiences that helped shape some of my thoughts on formal religions was when I was dispatched- regularly- to different churches to pick up a churchgoer and take them home. I spent some time sitting, waiting for the "fare" and watching the congregants come out of the churches, get into their cars and damn near run over anybody that got in their way. In fact, I have seen more courtesy in shopping center parking lots by the general public, than from church people who have just been "saved" and obviously have no need to extend any courtesy or good to their fellow man. I have seen nothing that has much changed what I learned from those times, long ago.

"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man." --Thomas Paine

"...to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." --Thomas Paine, "The Crisis"

Since I see no reason to give out medicine for the dead, or to subject myself to swarms of hornets, I am out of here also...