A Series, Founders & Religion
jal...@cox.net
#1
The American Historical Review Vol. 104 # 3 June 1999.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/104.3/br_36.html
Allen Jayne. Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy,
and Theology. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 1998. Pp. xiii, 245.
$39.95.
This book is a clear, concise, and accurate account of the philosophical
and religious views that inspired Thomas Jefferson to compose the United
States' formative document. Allen Jayne leaves no doubt that the "Nature's
God" found in the Declaration of Independence, the deity who provides the
American colonists with their right to rebel against the British
government, is the rationalist God of deism, not the personal God of
Abraham.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Second, the contributions of religion, especially Protestantism,
to the shaping of American society must be put into clearer perspective. In
the generation that produced the Constitution, only about ten percent of
the population were church members, and "in 1800 there were fewer churches
relative to population than at any other time before or since"' Whether one
seeks to explain this by the rural nature of American society and the
relative lack of clergy, or the attraction to natural, as opposed to
revealed religion, the low level of church membership is a sobering fact."
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985) pp 30
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alt.bible,alt.christnet.philosophy,alt.christnet.theology,alt.religion.christian
Re: School Prayer Continued
"Richard Weatherwax" <Weath...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
A better question is:
Who was the first Christian President?
Washington is somewhat of a mystery. Although he often attended
church services, it is known that he always left before communion.
One of his pastors stated, "Washington was a Deist."
Adams, Jefferson, and Madison were absolutely not Christian.
John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, were both
Unitarians who leaned towards Deism.
My source, "The Religious Beliefs Of Our Presidents" by Franklin Steiner
(not yet published, list both Adams as Unitarians. If you have other
information, please list it.
"When the crisis came, Jefferson, Paine, John Adams,
Washington, Franklin, Madison, and many lesser lights
were to be reckoned among either the Unitarians or the
Deists. it was not Cotton Mather's God to whom the
author of the Declaration of Independence appealed, it
was to 'Nature's God.' From whatever source derived, the
effect of both Unitarianism and Deism was to hasten the
retirement of historic theology from its empire over the
intellect of American leaders, and to clear the atmosphere
for secular interests"
-- The Rise of American Civilization,"
by Charles A. and Mary R. Beard. (Vol. I., p. 449.)
It seems absurd that you would call Jefferson a Christian when you
admit that he did not accept Christ as the son of God.
We went over the issue of whether Thomas Jefferson called himself a
Christian or not in another thread. It turns out that the person claiming
Jefferson said it, was using an out of context passage from one of
Jefferson's letters. In context, you could see that Jefferson only meant
that he was a Christian because he followed the real Jesus Christ while all
those who claimed to be Christians were following a Christ who was not
real.
James Madison's religious views are unknown.
He was a strong advocate of
freedom of religion, but he kept his mouth shut on his own religion.
I have read some of his private letters. I have seen nothing where he
declares himself to be a Christian. If you have seen anything else, then
present it.
He did not attend church except special affairs at St. John's Church in
Washington D.C.
Technically, a congregational church is any local church in which is
independent of any other religious body although many of them may share a
common creed. A definition which includes Unitarians.
Unitarianism began as a reaction against the Trinity, but most of them have
now dropped all religious dogma and have accepted freedom of conscience.
It is up to the individual's own conscience to decide what to believe.
Even an atheist can belong.
Even though you appear to have done far more reading on these men than I
have, you really have not been able to say any more than they "seems to be
.
. . " A major problem here is that we are talking about politicians.
John Adams once complimented George Washington by saying, "He knew when to
keep his mouth shut." Many politicians follow that rule. If a politician
is speaking to a group of Christians, that politician "seems to be" a
Christian. If that same politician is speaking to a group of atheist, that
politician "seems to be" an atheist. There are few groups of atheists,
therefore the politician will lean towards sounding like a Christian.
A reference to God in a political speech does not mean that the speaker is
religious. Even in private letters it may not mean anything. There are
numerous phrases with references God that are casually thrown around, but
which does not mean that the speaker is a Christian, e.g. "God be with
you", "God help me", "God willing".
Trying to determine a person's religion by their background or training is
also dangerous. It is often that background or training which causes a
rejection of that religion.
There is an inconsistency among many of the contributors to this newsgroup.
If I refer to Torquemada as a Christian (which he unquestionably was), I
will get arguments claiming that Torquemada was not a Christian. When I
claim that Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian, there are angry posters
who state that he was.
I go by the simple dictionary definition of a Christian: "a person
professing belief in Jesus as the Christ, or in the religion based upon the
teachings of Jesus." I find no place where any of these men have made such
a profession, therefore their Christianity is in doubt.
Some of these men, like Jefferson and Paine, are definitely not Christian.
Weatherwax
**********************************************************
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Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 14:43:42 GMT
Actually, Adams was considered to be a Universalist, with some Deist
leanings. He began as a Calvinist.
Faith of Our Fathers, Religion and the New Nation. Edwin S. Gaustad, Harper
& Row, (1987) pp 85 - 97 should be good.
For Washington:
Well the book I have been citing:
George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller, Southern Methodist
University Press: Dallas TX (1962)
Then:
Faith of Our Fathers, Religion and the New Nation. Edwin S. Gaustad, Harper
& Row, (1987) pp 71 - 85 has some good material
And don't forget this:
"Though the cool deism of Washington can hardly be distinguished in broad
outline from that of Jefferson, the public reaction to the two men and
their religious views differed sharply. Only Jefferson was denounced as the
'howling atheist,' never Washington. Only Jefferson was attacked as the
enemy of the churches and the clergy, never Washington. A curious public
probed and punches Adams, Franklin and Jefferson regarding their Christian
convictions, but never Washington."
Faith of Our Fathers, Religion and the New Nation. Edwin S. Gaustad, Harper
& Row, (1987) pp 77
There is at least one letter where he gets down on his son for being such
a
orthodox Christian.
The founders were not as easy to classify as you would like to think and
try so hard to tell others.
They were complex, as most humans are, and that complexity extended to
their religious beliefs and thoughts as well.
Dana
<jal...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:1mjn3vc04cqcmqruj...@4ax.com...
--
"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 of the gift of 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;
that His justice cannot sleep forever."
THOMAS JEFFERSON
--
"The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the
affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we
imagine we no longer need His assistance." -Benjamin Franklin
--
"You can't have national morality apart from religious principle." -George
Washington
--
"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." -John Quincy Adams
--
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty... Can the liberties of a nation
be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a
conviction... That these liberties are the gift of God? The bible is the
cornerstone for American liberty." -Thomas Jefferson
jal...@cox.net
And to his son a few months later, Adams expressed amazement that, after
all that had been written by samuel Clarke, Daniel Waterland, and Joseph
Priestly, John Quincy persisted in holding to the Athanasian creed.(18)
FOOTNOTE:
(18) JA to John Quincy Adams, November 3, 1815; Adams Papers, reel 122 On
January 3, 1817, John Quincy Adams wrote his father that all his "hopes
of a future life" were "founded upon the Gospel of Christ." Nor, he added,
would he "cavil or quibble away" was seemed to him clear assertions by
Jesus that he was God."You see my orthodoxy grows upon me." Adrienne Koch
and William Peden, eds., The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy
Adams (New York, 1946), 291-92
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Faith of Our Fathers, Religion and the New Nation,
Edwin S. Gaustad, Harper and Row, (1987) pp 90
==================================================
A Ceremonial Pattern. It was the ceremonial pattern of the English
coronation with which Lee and his committee members were most familiar. The
coronation, however, was not really "a civil but an important religious
ceremony."(36) Indeed, it was none other than the archbishop of Canterbury
who placed the crown upon the head of King George III in 1761. Prayers were
an integral part of the coronation service in England.(37) It was only
natural that men who were familiar with English protocol should seek to
imitate, at least in part, this most impressive of ceremonials.(38)
Of course, not everyone in America was enamored with kingly
ceremony or other rituals which smelled of royalty. The well known debate
over the proper title for the new leader demonstrated the strong
convictions which this issue engendered. Some congressmen, like Maclay of
Pennsylvania, not only objected to bestowing a special title on the leader
but also found ceremonies III general objectionable. Maclay recorded his
unreserved views on this subject in his diary. "I have had full opportunity
of observing the gentlemen of New England," he wrote, "and sorry indeed am
I to say it, but no people in the Union dwell more on trivial distinction
and matters of mere form. They really seem to show a readiness to stand on
punctillio and ceremony.(39)
Compared to the coronation of King George in 1761, Washington's
first inauguration was anything but ceremonious. On the day of the
inauguration the joint committee appointed to escort the new leader to
Federal Hall arrived at Washington's place of residence more than an hour
late. While the escort was in route, Chancellor Robert Livingston
discovered that there was no Bible at Federal Hall. An aide ran to St.
John's Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons to secure a copy of the holy book.
When Washington arrived at Federal Hall there was more confusion. No one
had planned the last few steps leading up to the administering of the oath.
Finally, Washington took matters into his own hands and, along with Samuel
Otis and Robert Livingston, stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the
crowd.
Washington placed his hand on the Bible and repeated the oath of
office. "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of
the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." As
the last word still lingered in the air, Washington added spontaneously, "I
swear, so help me God." The impromptu phrase did not, however, originate
with Washington. The new president borrowed this response, it seems, from
the English coronation service.(40) Following the administering of the oath
to the king, the newly-crowned sovereign would kneel at the altar and place
his hands upon the Bible. He would then say, "The things which I have here
before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God."(41)
The sovereign of England would then kiss the Bible. This was exactly what
Washington did following his impromptu exclamation.
FOOTNOTES:
36. W. J. Passingham, A History of the Coronation (London: n.p., n.d.), p.
18.
37. At the coronation of King George III in 1761 no less than six prayers
were read as part of the service. For a detailed description of this
service as well as the complete texts of the prayers offered see Richard
Thomson, ed., ll Faithful Account of the Processions and Ceremonies
Observed in the Coronation of the Kings and Queens of England (London: n.
p., 1820), pp. 48-62.
38. For other aspects of the English coronation see B. Wilkerson, The
Coronation in History (London: George Philip and Son, 1953); William Jones,
Crowns and Coronations (London: Chatto and Windus,1883); Lewis Broad,
Queens, Crowns and Coronations (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1952); the
Reverend Robert H. Murray, The King's Crowning (London: John Murray, 1936);
and E. C. Ratcliff, The English Coronation Service (London: Skeffington and
Son, 1937).
39. Maclay, Journal, p. 5.
40. Though "so help me God" was a common expression associated with the
taking of an oath, there is strong circumstantial evidence that the
antecedent rhetorical form was the coronation service. First, Washington
not only spoke the words used in the coronation, but he also followed the
words by kissing the Bible, just as George III did in 1761. These words and
actions had been associated with the coronation since the installation of
James I in 1603 (see Jones, Crowns and Richard Henry Lee, was familiar
with the coronation service and thus would have known the correct
procedure. Since Lee was at the center of the fight to include divine
service as part of the inauguration, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize
his influence on these "religious" elements which served as an addendum to
the oath.
41. See Thomson, ed., A Faithful Account, p. 55.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: "From Duche to Provoost: The Birth Of Inaugural
Prayer", by Martin J. Medhurst. Journal Of Church And State, Vol. 24,
No. 3, Autumn 1982, pp 585-587)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: "Paul Browning" <ps...@home.com>
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ism,alt.religion.deism
Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 02:56:58 GMT
Washington, like many of our founding fathers was a Deist, not a Christian.
Unlike Thomas Jefferson--and Thomas Paine, for that matter--Washington
never even got around to recording his belief that Christ was a great
ethical teacher. His reticence on the subject was truly remarkable.
Washington frequently alluded to Providence in his private correspondence.
But the name of Christ, in any correspondence whatsoever, does not appear
anywhere in his
many letters to friends and associates throughout his life. (Paul F.
Boller, George Washington &
Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 74-75.)
... if to believe in the divinity and resurrection of Christ and his
atonement for the sins of man and to participate in the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper are requisites for the Christian faith, then Washington, on
the evidence which we have examined, can hardly be considered a Christian,
except in the most nominal sense. (Paul F. Boller, George Washington &
Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 90.)
As President, Washington regularly attended Christian services, and he was
friendly in his attitude toward Christian values. However, he repeatedly
declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his
wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary.... Even on his
deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and
expressed no wish to be attended by His representative. George Washington's
practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not
himself a Christian. In the enlightened tradition of his day, he was a
devout Deist--just as many of the clergymen who knew him suspected.
(Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, New
York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 174-175.)
Paul S. Browning Jr.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Path: From: Napoleon Bean <bim...@boom.com>
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Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 17:42:38 -0700
Gardiner wrote:
> I wonder if you can back your "understanding" up with something that
> Washington wrote identifying himself as a Deist? It can't be done.
>
> On the other hand, it's pretty easy to show you some stuff he wrote which
> identified him otherwise.
>
> see http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw3g/004/284.gif
>
> Furthermore, according to Washington's membership at Truro Parish, he was
> required to swear upon an oath that he subscribed to the Doctrine and Disciple
>
> of the Anglican Church, which oath Washington swore on August 19, 1765. That
> doctrine included the following precepts:
>
> ******
>
> I suppose one could say that Washington was not the kind of man who took
> "oaths" very seriously, or that he was not very concerned with his integrity
> or honor; but that has not been the general opinion of the scholars who have
> studied him.
Now for the reality check:
(1) One of the first laws passed in colonial Virginia was that anyone
who
came into the colony or found there who was not Christian was subject to
enslavement.
This naturally provided a potent incentive for anyone who was not Christian
to pretend to be one.
(2) The Anglican church was the state religion of colonial Virginia.
Everyone had to pay taxes to support it, whether they were Anglicans or
not. Religious oaths of adherence to the Anglican religion were required
for anyone to hold any public office of any consequence.
Source: St. George Tucker's Annotated Blackstone's Commentaries (1803)
Go to http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law.html
Tucker was chair of the school of law at William & Mary University in
1803. Although probably too young to have participated in the revolutionary
struggle, he was a contemporary of most of the founding generation. He
probably was actually acquainted with many of the founders, since so many
of them were Virginians, their state being the most populous of those in
the new republic. Tucker reflected revolutionary ideology in his
condemnation of religious oaths, observing that they were oftentimes
proforma rather than sincere, and they demeaned churches by holding out
worldly rewards for membership. From that, IF Washington ever took any
Christian oath (no direct proof), it is reasonable to assume that it had as
much meaning in colonial
Virginia by 1765 as singing the national anthem does at an American sports
event today.
In any event, a quarter century passed before Washington became the
first U.S. president. It might be hard for a bible-thumper to understand,
but normal humans often do change their minds about their beliefs as they
go on in life. To reason otherwise would be to also suppose (for example),
that anyone who believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny never abandons
such convictions. Such reasoning would also support a contention that "born
again" Christians are all liars. What illogical humbug!
(4) Any supposition Washington was Christian is at best supported by
only the most slender of reeds. He attended Episcopal services in the
company of his wife, who was Episcopalian. She took communion but he never
did. He also attended the services of several other Christian sects,
starting a custom which continues through today by U.S. presidents to show
respect for (not affiliation with) the various faiths, including
non-Christian ones. Inquiries early on were put
to the pastors of the various churches Washington had attended as to
whether he had ever took communion, all stated he never did, one
volunteered it was because Washington was a Deist.
Source:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_3.html
Washington was acutely conscious of being the unifying figurehead of
his just-born nation and felt it his obligation to maintain strict public
neutrality. Yet there is no evidence that he ever worshipped in a private
service, or for that matter even indicated to his closest acquaintances
(other than doubtless his wife) what his religious beliefs were if any
except possibly that one Episcopal pastor. Unfortunately, it cannot be
determined whether Washington's Deism was something he himself disclosed to
the pastor, whether that was the pastor's conclusion, and if the latter
what factual support there was for it.
Signs that point in opposite directions point nowhere. One might as
well post that Washington had to be a Christian because he kept slaves,
which was perfectly permissible under biblical law.
*************************************************************
From: Napoleon Bean <bim...@boom.com>
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Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:19:44 -0700
Gardiner wrote:
> Napoleon Bean wrote:
> >
> > (1) One of the first laws passed in colonial Virginia was that anyone who
> > came
> > into the colony or found there who was not Christian was subject to enslavement.
> >
> > This naturally provided a potent incentive for anyone who was not Christian
> > to pretend to be one.
>
> Perhaps in 1607, but by Washington's time there were sure a lot of people in
> Virginia who were not Anglicans and who were not enslaved either. Therefore,
> your reasoning is out to lunch. Washington didn't have to swear to be a good
> Anglican or fear being a slave. Are you kidding??
Well, if I was out to lunch on that one you must be there picking up
the tab. There were
many Christians of differing persuasions in Virginia by Washington's time--
since when have
Anglicans ever had a monopoly claim on the title "Christian," as opposed to
a monopoly on some
governments such as colonial Virginia's? Yeah, perhaps my mention of that
law was a bit
tenuous. By the relevant time, there were plenty of Africans available for
enslavement, their
skin color was an easy mark of status, they could be born Christian and it
changed their status
not one whit. No need to try to enslave native Americans (which never
worked out for a number
of reasons), conduct inquisitions of whites, or shanghai Jews or Moslems by
then. Although
Christians of sects other than the one in power were persecuted,
imprisoned, and killed in the
Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut in the 17th century, I am unaware of
anything on a comparable
scale occurring in colonial Virginia.
> > (2) The Anglican church was the state religion of colonial Virginia.
> > Everyone
> > had to pay taxes to support it, whether they were Anglicans or not. Religious
> > oaths of adherence to the Anglican religion were required for anyone to hold any
> > public office of any consequence.
>
> So, what you are alleging is that Washington perjured himself in order that he
> might aspire to high political office? Are you saying that you would swear to
> believing a grand hoax if that might advance your political status? I
> wouldn't; and I don't think that I am a man of principles any more than Washington.
>
> > Source: St. George Tucker's Annotated Blackstone's Commentaries (1803)
> > Go to http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law.html
>
> The Virginia Constitution of 1776, article 16, disestablished the Anglican church.
[my note, the Virginia Constitution of 1776 did not, in reality
disestablish the Anglican Church. Article 16 that Gardiner was referring to
here was in the Declaration of Rights was not part of the Virginia
Constitution of 1776. ]
My speculation on this point in my previous post, which is reasonable
given the historical
evidence available, stands if nothing more is offered. The very reason the
revolutionaries
detested religious oaths was that they compromised the integrity of good
people or deterred
them from holding public office, while demeaning the purpose of belonging
to the particular
faith which the oaths were supposed to benefit. Most of these
revolutionaries were in fact
Christians themselves. What is interesting is that you NOW identify
Washington's Christian oath
as having been made in 1763 (not 1765), which puts it closer to when
Washington began his
service in the colony's legislative house of burgesses. I would like you
if you could to
provide identifiers as to where this oath paper is (a web source would be
dandy) so I might
determine myself how close a correlation there might be. By your new date,
Washington was still
in his early thirties. No reflection on you, but usenet does teach one to
be wary of
uncorroborated assertions, particular when inconsistencies appear. And do
you have evidence of
any earlier Christian oaths of his that cannot be plausibly related to his
decision to enter
Virginia politics?
> Furthermore, his signature is also found in the Church Records of Truro Parish
> under the following inscription: "I, A.B., do declare that I will be
> conformable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as by law established"
>
> No proof that he ever took a Christian oath, huh?
First, and perhaps a quibble, the closest equivalent today to a such
declaration under oath
would have "I, the undersigned..." not "I, A.B...." The use of "John Doe"
as a generic
substitute for a real name had been in common use for quite some time by
then at least in
England in legal writings, according to Blackstone's Commentaries (which
went into its first
printing about this same time). So too in those days there was a more
attention to phrasing
technicalities than substance in legal writings (the opposite is true
today). So I can only
wonder if in fact this was an oath punishable as perjury under the law in
Virginia at that
time, or merely what had become by then an acceptable no-risk semblance of
one. Whether there
were requirements imposed by the Crown in the colonial charter bearing on
this is something I
would like to check.
But whatever the date of the "oath paper" and its content, which I will
grant you whatever
you think they are at this juncture only for discussion's sake, they do not
settle the primary
point. If you interpret my previous observations as being an argument that
if Washington took
that oath he lied (a strawman, for reasons previously given), I could with
as much logic
construct a strawman of my own-- are you saying Washington violated this
oath to the Church of
England when he disaffiliated himself from it prior to 1776 or even up to
the day the Paris
Peace Treaty was inked? For to rebel against England was also to reject
its particular
Anglican brand of Christianity, since its government and church were also
legally and
functionally intertwined.
But I am curious as to why you seem to attach so much significance to
this oath-- is it
based on the charming notion that Washington never lied? It can't be based
on the old cherry
tree saw, which has been determined to have never been more than an
invention.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/GW/moral.html
It can't be based on his generalship. Washington proved himself to be so
adept at deception
that his British opposites charged more than once he was a man with no
honor. It can't be
based on the fact that Washington was a human being, and as such could not
possibly have lived
a full life with a perfect track record for truth. Is it because-- despite
its circumstances--
to entertain the idea that if he was anything less than completely sincere
and serious about
that oath it must mean he was either non-Christian or a sinner? The moral
version of the
"Hobson's Choice"-- the forced choice between evils-- has attracted much
study over the
centuries by ethicists of all religious stripes and (yes) even secular
humanists. Even for
many Christians, the resolution of such a dilemma explains why, for
example, Samson's suicide
in bringing down the Philistine temple was no sin. A more modern and
verifiable example: Many
Christian Danes wore Stars of David during nazi occupation to impede the
roundup of Jews-- they deliberately lied about their religious beliefs, but
would anyone reasonable dispute that that
was among Christianity's finest moments? [I do not mean to suggest
Anglicans and nazis are
"soul mates," even if the former over the centuries have had a few of their
own murderous
rampages.] What I do mean to state is that it would be wrong to suppose
Christians would be of
one mind about whether the moral issues posed by a government religion--
whose tenets are not
universally shared by the governed-- will invariably be clear-cut. Would
you really think less
of Washington the man-- as opposed to the icon-- if (hypothetically
speaking) you knew he swore
an Anglican oath with no sincerity, but only after a principled analysis of
any moral dilemma
posed-- and even if you might have come to a different decision? If the
moral course is so
easily charted at all times in human affairs, one wonders why so many
religions-- Christianity
included-- have struggled as mightily as they have to chart it
consistently.
> > In any event, a quarter century passed before Washington became the first
> > U.S.
> > president. It might be hard for a bible-thumper to understand, but normal
> > humans
> > often do change their minds about their beliefs as they go on in life.
>
> Nelly Custis lived at Mt. Vernon with Washington until the day of his death.
> This is what Nelly had to say about the "changes" in Washington's Christian beliefs:
>
> "I should have thought it the greatest heresy to doubt his firm belief in
> Christianity. His life, his writings, prove that he was a Christian... Is it
> necessary that any one should certify, 'General Washington avowed himself to
> me a believer in Christianity?' As well may we question his patriotism, his
> heroic, disinterested devotion to his country."
Nelly, born 1779, was a probably a devout Episcopalian, she was a
grandchild of
Washington's spouse by a previous marriage, the Washingtons assumed a
parental role after her
parents died and she probably loved George and Martha as much as she would
parents. There are, however several curious aspects to her quotes you
mention. First (and I am SURE this was just inadvertence), you managed to
omit some significantly damaging parts to her statement, such as "I never
witnessed his private devotions. I never inquired about them" and "He
communed with his God in secret." She actually had nothing to offer in
terms of direct observation to settle
the question of whether his convictions were Christian or something else,
and what she did say
doesn't make much sense-- how could she personally "know" while disclaiming
any way of
acquiring such knowledge? And this is again remarkable since she lived with
the Washingtons for
so long. This is one of these situations where the absence of evidence you
normally expect to
find is more significant than the evidence that turns up. And her bias,
however innocent and
well-intentioned, is also plain: "(S)he (Martha Washington) and her husband
were so perfectly
united and happy that he MUST have been a Christian." Now, I am not versed
in Episcopal church history, but I would be surprised if its doctrine in
that century entertained for a moment that any non-Christian, however
otherwise eminently qualified, could ever reach heaven. I do know the
Roman Catholic Church did not officially concede that until this century.
Thus if Nelly
believed her stepdad had to be in heaven, she had to believe he was
Christian-- did the times
and her faith allow any other option? From what I've learned about Nelly
she was a decent,
likable person, hardly the sort to engage in any knowing mendacity. But her
account hardly
convinces, if anything it moves speculation in the opposite direction. If
Washington conducted
himself as a devout Christian, the same conduct also can be said to
"demonstrate" his private
convictions were something different. And of course, few on either side of
the question would
agree with Nelly's pronouncement that direct evidence of Washington's
Christian beliefs is
unnecessary-- on what other evidence is verifiable, it is. I am not playing
favorites here, you
have noted the reliability issues I identified with an Episcopal minister's
emphatic
pronouncement that Washington was a Deist.
> > (4) Any supposition Washington was Christian is at best supported by only
> > the most
> > slender of reeds. He attended Episcopal services in the company of his
> > wife, who was Episcopalian. She took communion but he never did. He also
> > attended the services of several other Christian sects, starting a custom which
> > continues through today by U.S. presidents to show respect for (not affiliation
> > with)
> > the various faiths, including non-Christian ones. Inquiries early on were put
> > to the
> > pastors of the various churches Washington had attended as to whether he had
> > ever took communion, all stated he never did, one volunteered it was because
> > Washington was a Deist.
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_3.html
> Not every minister was asked. There are primary accounts of Washington
> receiving communion while with the troops in battle.
Oh, really? Please enlighten me. I've only found one, at a web site
of a non-profit
organization which presumably has no psychic investment in either its truth
or falsity.
http://community.libertynet.org/~iha/valleyforge/youasked/060.htm
http://community.libertynet.org/~iha/valleyforge/washington/prayer.html
That one account, allegedly by a Presbyterian minister who witnessed it, is
highly dubious
employing usual tests of reliability. This minister purportedly
recollected seeing Washington
receive communion in front of all his officers during the revolutionary
war. With all those
people standing about witnessing this, it is decidedly strange that this
single eyewitness
account attributed to this minister did not surface until sometime after
1846 (about 60 years
later), the deification of Washington having commenced in earnest decades
before, questions of
his piety having been a subject of continuous public interest, and nobody
else in that supposed
crowd of witnesses seems to have ever mentioned it. The most likely
explanation is that this
account was as much a well-meaning fabrication as the old cherry tree saw
was.
At the sites referenced, there are also a couple of accounts of
Washington sneaking into the
woods alone on the eve of battle and talking to God out loud. The
credibility problems with
these are multiple and at times amusing, but even what was purportedly
overheard of his side of
the conversations with God hardly carried any Christian earmarks ("God of
the Armies" indeed--
sounds more like General Patton at prayer). Perhaps too he developed some
kind of prayer
laryngitis between then and when Nelly entered the picture. Suffice it to
say that in 1918 the
Valley Forge commission reviewed all available evidence purporting to
"prove" Washington prayed at Valley Forge upon petition of a patriotic
organization for a "prayer marker" and found there was nothing credible to
support the conclusion that Washington did. And it seems there were other
rascals wandering around in early 19th century America claiming to have
special knowledge about Washington. Mark Twain gives us an amusing account
of some more.
http://rowlf.cc.wwu.edu:8080/~stephan/webstuff/twain.html
> If you allege that Washington rarely ever prayed as well (a subject you
> probably don't want to touch), the evidence is overwhelming that Washington
> was a fervent prayor.
I have no problem with it one way or the other, but I hope you have
something other
than what I have previously mentioned. I ran across an argument that
because Washington
showed no reluctance to invoke a generic God in public, it is unlikely that
he was
sneaking around praying privately. There is sense to that observation.
Obviously Martha
and Nelly wouldn't have been upset if they had happened to come upon
Washington in
Christian prayer. There is a difference between privacy and the total
secrecy he supposedly
engaged in to pray in his own household! If he was a "closet praying," the
more plausible explanation is that Washington didn't want his wife or Nelly
to freak out about the substance of it. Today, most folks would think the
"prayer behavior" Washington supposedly engaged in with espionage or drug
problems. But can you identify any "other" Christian contemporary of his
who went to the extremes Washington supposedly did to hide the "fact" he
was "praying" from other Christians?
The subject of this thread was whether Washington was a Christian. I
never alleged he was
an atheist, a Deist, or for that matter a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, a
Taoist, a Hindu, a
pantheist, an ancestor worshipper, or a cargo cultist-- but do I have to go
on now and list
every set of convictions I never alleged he had? My position remains that
the inferences to be
drawn from equivocal evidence are simply too speculatory to resolve the
matter. I do not know
whether Deists once adopted a prayer like posture to meditate (even if the
"lotus position" or
whatever is more popular today) or whether they too engage in "re-linking"
comparable to
Christian prayer. But one of the most famous paintings of Washington
supposedly praying hardly
depicts a typically Christian prayer posture.
Of course, usenet is structured such that hyperbolic assertions always
get the most
attention, so it is understandable if more balanced ones are tried to be
treated as such at
times.
> > Washington was acutely conscious of being the unifying figurehead of his
> > just-born
> > nation and felt it his obligation to maintain strict public neutrality. Yet
> > there is no
> > evidence that he ever worshipped in a private service, or for that matter even
> > indicated
> > to his closest acquaintances (other than doubtless his wife) what his religious
> > beliefs were
>
> Good point. His wife knew. And when he died his wife "resigned him without a
> murmur into the arms of his Savior and his God, with the assured hope of his
> eternal felicity."
Why did you somehow neglect to mention that these were Nelly's words,
NOT Martha Washington's? You weren't actually attempting such a tacky hat
trick were you? Tsk, task. Nelly was NOT present when Washington died.
http://www.libertynet.org/iha/valleyforge/served/martha.html
In any event, unless there has been a major revamping of Christian
doctrine that somehow
has eluded my notice, Joshua the Christened One (i.e., "Jesus Christ" as
known today) is the
Savior of all, not just those who have recognized it. Sorry, no "smoking
gun" here, even if
Nelly could be her own corroboration.
Got anything else?
By the way, what "happened" to Washington's baptismal and/or
confirmation "records?" Why
did he die without benefit of clergy?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jal...@cox.net
FEBRUARY 1, 1800
Doctor Rush tells me that he has it from Asa Green, that when the clergy
addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was
observed in their consultation, that he had never, on any occasion, said a
word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and
they thought they should so pen their address, as to force him at length to
declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However,
he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every
article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over
without notice. Rush observes, he never did say a word on the subject in
any of his public papers, except in his valedictory letter to the Governors
of the States, when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he
speaks of "the benign influence of the Christian religion."
I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets
and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington
believed no more of that system than he himself did.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Entry by Thomas Jefferson in his Anas. February 1
1800, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Selected and Edited by Saul K.
Padover , The Easton press. (1967) pp 217-218)
=====================================================
From: jal...@pilot.infi.net
Newsgroups:
alt.history,alt.history.colonial,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.religion.christian,alt.deism
Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:12:50 GMT
>:|Gardiner <Gard...@pitnet.net> wrote:
>:|Nelly Custis lived at Mt. Vernon with Washington until the day of his death.
>:|This is what Nelly had to say about the "changes" in Washington's Christian beliefs:
[From me:]
Glad you bought this up:
The book that I have referred to time and time again regarding Washington
mentions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
-
On May 24, 1774, the Virginia Assembly, whose sessions Washington was
attending in Williamsburg, voted to observe a day of fasting, humiliation,
and prayer on the first day of June to demonstrate its sympathy with
Massachusetts on the day that the Boston Port Bill went into effect.
Washington, accordingly, noted in his diary on June 1: "Went to Church and
fasted all day.""' Here, as elsewhere, there have been attempts to read
profound spiritual significance into Washington's notation. "Will the
reader mark especially die latter clause of this note," exclaimed one
writer.
He went to church in conformity with the order passed by the
house of burgesses. But not only so-he did that also which,
perhaps, was not known to any mortal; which was known only
to Cod,-he faded all day. Who is not struck with the sincerity
and piety of this account?
And another writer referred to the seven words in Washington's diary as
"seven lights, the seven golden candles so to speak, that throw a most
penetrating light into the deeper and spiritual life of this great man."
But Washington's action on that day, like that of other Virginians, was
of course politically, not religiously, motivated. As to Washington's
behavior in church, Eleanor Parke ("Nelly") Custis, Martha Washington's
granddaughter, who resided at Mount Vernon for many years and attended
church with the Washingtons, declared: "No one in church attended to the
services with more reverential respect."
William White, who officiated at Christ Church in Philadelphia during
and after the Revolution and who was one of the chaplains in Congress
during Washington's presidency, made a similar comment. Washington, he
assured an inquirer in 1832, was "always serious and attentive" in church.
But he added that he never saw Washington kneeling during the services."'
Nelly Custis also declared that Washington "always stood during the
devotional parts of the service."
Regarding the Lord's Supper, we have the firsthand testimony of three
witnesses in a position to know what they were talking about-Nelly Custis,
Bishop White, and Dr. James Abercrombie, assistant rector of Christ Church
in Philadelphia--that Washington was not in the habit of partaking of the
sacrament. "On communion Sundays," according to Mrs. Custis, "he left the
church with me, after the blessing, and returned home, and we sent the
carriage back for my grandmother.'"" In 1835, Bishop White, in answer to
Colonel Hugh Mercer's question as to "whether General Washington was a
regular communicant in the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia," replied: "In
regard to tile subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say, that
General Washington never received the communion, in tile churches of which
I am parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant."" And
Dr. Abercrombie had an even more interesting story to tell about Washington
and the sacrament. It appeared in his letter to Origen Bacheler in 1831 and
Bacheler, for obvious reasons, chose not to make it public:
. . . observing that on Sacrament Sundays, Genl Washington immediately
after the Desk and Pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the
congregation, always leaving Mrs. Washington with the communicants, she
invariably being one, I considered it my duty, in a sermon on Public
Worship, to state tile unhappy tendency of example, particularly those in
elevated stations, who invariably turned their backs upon the celebration
of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the
President, as such, he received it. A few days later, in conversation with,
I believe, a Senator of the U.S., he told me he had dined the day before
with the President, who in the course of the conversation at the table,
said, that on the preceding Sunday, he had received a very just reproof
from the pulpit, for always leaving the church before the administration of
the Sacrament; that he honored the preacher for his integrity and candour;
that he had never considered the influence of his example; that he would
never again give cause for the repetition of the reproof; and that, as he
had never been a communicant, were he to become one of them, it would be
imputed to an ostentatious display of religious zeal arising altogether
from his elevated station. Accordingly, he afterwards never came on the
morning of Sacrament Sunday, the' at other times, a constant attendant in
the morning."
Abercrombie's report that Washington "had never been a communicant,"
together with the statements of Mrs. Custis and Bishop White, surely must
be regarded as conclusive. It is reluctant testimony and as such carries a
high degree of credibility. Neither White nor Abercrombie had anything to
gain by their revelations; -Abercrombie, indeed, was admittedly displeased
by Washington's behavior. But like Bird Wilson, they seem to have believed
(as Wilson told Robert Dale Owen) that "truth..s truth, whether it makes
for or against us" and one can only respect them-and Washington-for their
candor." By contrast, the various stories collected by the pietists to
Prove that Washington received the sacrament at Morristown and elsewhere
are based on mere hearsay statements made many years after washington's
death.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963) pp 32-35
==========================================================
He (Washington) did not, as Jared Sparks and many other writers after him
have asserted--as an instance of his "lively interest in church
affairs"--serve in two parishes at the same time.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963) pp 27
===============================================================
Washington transacted business on Sundays, visited friends and relatives,
traveled [in fact, he was once detained --by the "Sabbath police" for
traveling on Sunday when he was President] and sometimes went fox-hunting
instead of going to church.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963) pp 29
=============================================================
Washington's earliest biographers-even those who refused to place any
credence in Parson Weems's imaginative little improvisations about
Washington's piety-assumed, without laboring the point, that Washington was
a Christian. Aaron Bancroft (1807) declared simply Washington was Christian
in "principle and Practice," and John Marshall (1804-7) said briefly:
"Without making ostentatious profess ions of religion, he was a sincere
believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man." ,The doubts
raised by Robert Dale Owen Frances Wright in the
1830's seem to have had little immediate effect on biographers. Jared
Sparks (1837) and Washington Irving (1855-59), while making no use of
Weems's sentimentalities as source material for describing Washington's
religious life, also regarded his Christianity as unquestioned.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: George Washington & Religion, by Paul F. Boller JR.
Southern Methodist University Press. (1963) pp 67
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
He [Madison] never became a member of the Episcopal Church, yet attended
its services and treated the clergy of Orange County with kind respect. He
relished Voltaire's devastating jibes at religion, yet frequently in his
career he had the cordial support of various religious groups.
It seems probable that Madison had a deep personal attachment to some
general aspects of Christian belief and morality. The importance of this
personal faith both to Madison's relationship to religious groups
throughout his public career, and in his crucial formulation of the
American doctrine of the free conscience, form the remaining and more
familiar parts of the story of James Madison and religion.
One of the most striking features of Madison's life was the warm feelings
of mutual respect which generally existed between him and a wide variety of
religious groups. There were exceptions, of course. Madison showed his
suspicion of some of the less sophisticated sects in a comment to Bradford
in 1774 which Hunt omitted from his edition of Madison's Writings.
I agree with you that the world needs to be peopled, but I should be sorry
if it should be peopled with bastards as my old friend Dod [ clergyman
friend from Princeton] seems to incline. Who could have thought the old
monk had been so lecherous! I hope his religion, like that of some
enthusiasts, was not of such a nature as to fan the amorous fire.*
*Madison to William Bradford, Orange County, April 1, 1774, cited in Brant
I, p 115
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: James Madison and Religion A New Hypothesis, by
Ralph L. Ketcham. James Madison on Religious Liberty, Edited, with
introductions and interpretations by Robert S. Alley. Prometheus Books,
Buffalo N.Y. (1985) pp 184)
=================================================================
"Second, the contributions of religion, especially Protestantism,
to the shaping of American society must be put into clearer perspective. In
the generation that produced the Constitution, only about ten percent of
the population were church members, and "in 1800 there were fewer churches
relative to population than at any other time before or since"' Whether one
seeks to explain this by the rural nature of American society and the
relative lack of clergy, or the attraction to natural, as opposed to
revealed religion, the low level of church membership is a sobering fact."
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985) pp 30
=============================================================
". . . Despite being the first Trinitarian to occupy the office, Jackson
refused to issue fast-day proclamations or to view with any sympathy the
religiously inspired movement to stop Sunday mail delivery. If Jackson went
too far with his democratic rhetoric in equating the voice of the people
with the voice of God, such an equation, he felt, did not diminish God. But
certain religious leaders viewed with suspicion the eager support Jackson
received from certain agnostics and atheists.
During this Jacksonian era a number of Christian denominations, now
organized on a national level, attempted to establish the boundaries of the
First Amendment by arguing that the no-establishment clause was designed
only to prevent one sect from being preferred over another, which was the
specific language found in many state constitutions. Such a reading would
leave the federal government free to support Christianity in general.
Religious interest groups seeking to gain specific recognition of the
nation's obligation to God in the Constitution, or in government's action
under it, is no recent-day phenomenon.
Early in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, this battle surfaced
in a proposal to prohibit the delivery of mails on the Sabbath. Early
practice under the Constitution had produced Sunday service, but protest
from religious groups increased when the practice was codified by
legislation in 1810 and 1825. The flood of petitions Congress received in
opposition continued to mount, and in the Senate the matter was referred to
the committee on the post office and post roads. Senator Richard M. Johnson
of Kentucky produced for the Senate's consideration an eloquent defense of
the restricted power of the federal government to accommodate such
requests. Also, he stressed the need to respect the religious diversity of
the nation. The bid to stop the mails on Sunday failed, and despite the
disappointment of many, the state legislatures of Indiana, Illinois, and
Alabama sent memorials to Congress applauding its decision to repulse
sectarian influence on its councils and preserve both the letter and spirit
of the Constitution ."
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985) pp 30
===================================================================
At the time of the Revolution most of the founding fathers had not put
much emotional stock in religion, even when they were regular churchgoers.
As enlightened gentlemen, they abhorred "that gloomy superstition
disseminated by ignorant illiberal preachers" and looked forward to the day
when "the phantom of darkness will be dispelled by the rays of science, and
the bright charms of rising civilization." At best, most of the
revolutionary gentry only passively believed in organized Christianity and,
at worst, privately scorned and ridiculed it. Jefferson hated orthodox
clergymen, and he repeatedly denounced the "priestcraft" for having
converted Christianity into "an engine for enslaving mankind, . . . into a
mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves." Although few of
them were outright deists, most like David Ramsay described the Christian
church as "the best temple of reason." Even puritanical John Adams thought
that the argument for Christ's divinity was an "awful blasphemy" in this
new enlightened age. When Hamilton was asked why the members of the
Philadelphia Convention had not recognized God in the Constitution, he
allegedly replied, speaking for many of his liberal colleagues, "We
forgot."(11)
FOOTNOTE
(11) Nicholas Collins, "An Essay on those inquiries in Natural Philosophy
which at present are most beneficial to the United States of America,"
American Philosophical Society, Trans., II (1793), vii; George H. Knoles,
"The Religious Ideas of Thomas Jefferson," Mirsissippi Valley Historical
Review, XXX (1943-44), '94·: He"'y May, The Enlightenment in America (New
York, 1976), 72-73; Bufler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 195-96, 214-15; Trevor
Colbourn, ed., Fame and the Founding Fathers: Essays by Douglass Adair (New
York, 1974), 147n.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Radicalism of the American Revolution, by
Gordon S. Wood, Alfred A. Knopf, N Y (1992) pp 330)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
jal...@cox.net
George Washington
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html
George Washington
(1732-1799; "Father of His Country"; 1st U.S. President, 1789-1797)
The following year [1784], when asking Tench Tilghman to secure a
carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate,
he [Washington] remarked: "If they are good workmen, they may be of
Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans,
Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists." As he told a
Mennonite minister who sought refuge in the United
States after the Revolution: "I had always hoped that this land might
become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and
persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong...."
He was, as John Bell pointed out in 1779, "a total
stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited
Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of
another." (Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 118.
According to Boller, Washington wrote his remarks to Tilghman in a
letter dated March 24, 1784; his remarks to the
Mennonite--Francis Adrian Van der Kemp--were in a letter dated May 28,
1788.)
Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the
consciences of men from oppression, it is certainly the duty
of Rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to
their stations, to prevent it in others. (George Washington,
letter to the Religious Society called the Quakers, September 28,
1789. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich, eds., The
Harper Book of American Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p.
500.)
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was by the
indulgence of one class of the people that another enjoyed the
exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government
of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to
persecution no assistance, requires only that those who live under its
protection should demean themselves as good citizens in
giving it, on all occasions, their effectual support. (George
Washington, letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue Jews,
Newport, Rhode Island, August, 1790. From Gorton Carruth and Eugene
Ehrlich, eds., The Harper Book of American
Quotations, New York: Harper & Row, 1988, p. 500.)
Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which
are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear
to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be
deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal
policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have
reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we
should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch
as to endanger the peace of society. (George Washington,
letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792; from George Seldes, ed.,
The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey:
Citadel Press, 1983, p. 726.)
In the Enlightened Age and in this Land of equal Liberty it is our
boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection
of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the
highest Offices that are known in the United States.
(George Washington, letter to the members of the New Church in
Baltimore, January 27, 1793. Quoted in Richard B. Morris,
Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries,
Harper & Row, 1973, p. 269.)
... Bird Wilson, Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, was one of
the first openly to challenge in public the pietistic picture
of Washington that was being built up by [Mason Locke] Weems and his
followers. In a sermon delivered in October, 1831,
which attracted wide attention when it was reported in the Albany
Daily Advertiser, Wilson stated flatly that "among all our
presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of
religion, at least not of more than unitarianism."
Washington, he went on to say, was a great and good man, but he was
not a professor of religion; he was really a typical
eighteenth-century Deist, not a Christian, in his religious outlook.
(Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, pp. 14-15.)
... Like his father before him, he [George Washington] served actively
for many years as one of the twelve vestrymen for Truro
parish, Virginia, in which Mount Vernon was located. According to
Charles H. Callahan, "The regularity of his attendance at
the meetings of the vestry and the progress of church work throughout
the parish during his incumbency is a striking testimonial
of the religious zeal and activity of him and his associates."
Actually, under the Anglican establishment in Virginia before the
Revolution, the duties of a parish vestry were as much civil as
religious in nature and it is not possible to deduce any exceptional
religious zeal from the mere fact of membership. Even Thomas Jefferson
was a vestryman for a while.* [Boller's footnote is
shown at the end of this selection.] Consisting of the leading
gentlemen of the parish in position and influence (many of whom,
like Washington, were also at one time or other members of the County
Court and of the House of Burgesses), the parish
vestry, among other things, levied the parish taxes, handled poor
relief, fixed land boundaries in the parish, supervised the
construction, furnishing, and repairs of churches, and hired ministers
and paid their salaries. *As Bishop William Meade put it,
somewhat nastily, in 1857: "Even Mr. Jefferson, and [George] Wythe,
who did not conceal their disbelief in Christianity, took
their parts in the duties of vestrymen, the one at Williamsburg, the
other at Albermarle; for they wished to be men of influence."
(William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 2
vols.; Philadelphia, 1857, I, 191). (Paul F. Boller, George
Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press,
1963, p. 26.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
... if to believe in the divinity and resurrection of Christ and his
atonement for the sins of man and to participate in the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper are requisites for the Christian faith, then
Washington, on the evidence which we have examined, can
hardly be considered a Christian, except in the most nominal sense.
(Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas:
Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 90.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[on Washington's first inaugural speech in April 1789] . .. That he
was not just striking a popular attitude as a politician is
revealed by the absence of of the usual Christian terms: he did not
mention Christ or even use the word "God." Following the
phraseology of the philosophical Deism he professed, he referred to
"the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men," to
"the benign parent of the human race." (James Thomas Flexner, George
Washington and the New Nation [1783-1793],
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970, p. 184.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Washington's religious belief was that of the enlightenment: deism. He
practically never used the word "God," preferring the
more impersonal word "Providence." How little he visualized Providence
in personal form is shown by the fact that he
interchangeably applied to that force all three possible pronouns: he,
she, and it. (James Thomas Flexner, George Washington:
Anguish and Farewell [1793-1799], Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1972, p. 490.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No citizens ... were more sensitive to Washington's role as an
upholder of liberties than the religious minorities. These groups
were less anxious to cultivate what they had in common with other
Americans than to sustain what kept them apart. Washington
recognized this, just as he recognized the tenacity of regional and
economic interests, and he took pains to explain precisely
what national unity meant to him. He carried to his countrymen a
vision of "organic" rather than "mechanical" solidarity, a union
based on difference and interdependence rather than uniformity of
belief and conduct. Washington's understanding of the kind
of integration appropriate to a modern state was not shared by the
most powerful Protestant establishments, the New England
Congregationalists and Presbyterians; but other religious groups could
not have been more pleased.... Acknowledging in each
instance that respect for diversity was a fair price for commitment to
the nation and its regime, Washington abolished
deep-rooted fears that would have otherwise alienated a large part of
the population from the nation-building process. For this
large minority, he embodied not the ideal of union, nor even that of
liberty, but rather the reconciliation of union and liberty.
(Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol,
New York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 85-86.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
George Washington's conduct convinced most Americans that he was a
good Christian, but those possessing first-hand
knowledge of his religious convictions had reasons for doubt. (Barry
Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an
American Symbol, New York: The Free Press, 1987, p. 170.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Following a tradition transmitted from Cicero, through Machiavelli, to
their own contemporaries like Paine and Jefferson, the
less pious men of the time saw in religion a necessary and assured
support of civil society. Although guided in their own conduct
by secular traditions, they felt that only religion could unite the
masses and induce their submission to custom and law. So they
joined their orthodox countrymen in attributing to the hero [George
Washington] a deep religious devotion. (Barry Schwartz,
George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, New York: The
Free Press, 1987, p. 173.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As President, Washington regularly attended Christian services, and he
was friendly in his attitude toward Christian values.
However, he repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he
take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he
waited for her outside the sanctuary.... Even on his deathbed,
Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and
expressed no wish to be attended by His representative. George
Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and
superficial because he was not himself a Christian. In the enlightened
tradition of his day, he was a devout Deist--just as many
of the clergymen who knew him suspected. (Barry Schwartz, George
Washington: The Making of an American Symbol, New
York: The Free Press, 1987, pp. 174-175.)
*******************************************************
In the last years of Washington's Presidency, Thomas Paine published The
Age of Reason, his extended attack on orthodox religious beliefs and on the
Bible. In doing so, he spoke for the most advanced liberal thinkers of his
day. Eight American editions of his book appeared the first year. Though
stating their opinions less bluntly, Franklin and Jefferson and perhaps a
majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence basically
agreed with Paine. Paine was not the atheist he has been called, but a
deist, believing in God the First Cause, who worked solely through the laws
of nature.
For ordinary folk the idea of God the Great Watchmaker frozen in the
immutable laws of His clockwork universe was not enough. They felt the need
of a comforting and personal God attainable beyond the reasoning mind.
Where intellectuals turned to Unitarianism--a polite amalgam of deism and
Congregationalism--the masses sought the heady evangelism of the Baptists
and the Methodists, which itself seemed a democratic form of religion.
Itinerant preachers carried the gospel message beyond the Appalachians to
the remote and lonely regions of the frontier. At camp meetings, in the
light of flaring bonfires, they prayed and sang the gospel hymns and
shouted their simple message of sin and repentance until the more fervent
among them fell to the ground in spasms of emotion.
While New England was shifting from the rigidities of Calvinism to
Unitarianism, the South, under the influence of its "peculiar institution,"
was moving toward a revival of Calvinist theology, buttressed by
evangelism, in which there was no room for deviation or ranging thought.
I,iberalism in theology could lead to embarrassing questions about slavery,
and the South, in sensing this danger, closed theological ranks. As for the
Negroes, by the time of the Revolution they had begun to drift into
separate churches conducted with primitive evangelistic zeal by their own
clergy.
The religiousness of the century's end, known as the Second Awakening--the
first, or Great Awakening, had been initiated by Jonathan Edwards fifty
years earlier-- though in a sense the ordinary man's reaction to the
detached intellectuals of the Enlightenment, was above all an indication
that the United States was in the main still religious-minded.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The American Heritage, History of Making the Nation
1783-1860, American Heritage/Bonanza Books N.Y. (1987) pp 77-78)
-----------------------------------------
Deist, or Unitarian, or Quaker, or indifferent, it is a general accepted
fact that four, maybe as many five or six of the first presidents were not
all that orthodox in their religious convictions.
The same can be said for a fair numbor of other leaders or influential men
of the founding period and periods that immediately followed.
By the late 1820s and there was real concern by many of the religious
conservatives/tradionalists about the rapid secularization of the nation
and its institutions. Men such as the Rev Jasper Adams, Supreme Court
Justice Joseph Story and others published material in the early 1830s
designed, in part, to try and reverse the trends they saw taking place.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nonetheless, disestablishment was an accomplished fact, a social
symptom of declining interest in organized Christianity. Church-going in
Virginia had long been on the decline as communicants found more reasons
for attending Sunday horse races or code fights than for being in pews. In
1784 a foreign traveler in Richmond noted that the village had only "one
small church, but [it was] spacious enough for all the pious souls of the
place and the region. If the Virginians themselves did not freely and
openly admit that zeal for religion, and religion generally, is now very
faint among them, the fact might easily be divined from other
circumstances" (Schoepf, Travels in the Confederation, 11, 62).
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The papers of James Madison, Volume 8, March 10,
1784- March 28, 1786. Edited by Robert A. Rutland, William M.E. Rachal.
The University of Chicago Press, (1973) pp 295-298
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . While at least thirteen of JM's petitions were circulated (and in
time bore 1,552 signatures), another (and still anonymous) petition writer
found that his attack on the "Teachers of Christian Religion" measure
gained more widespread support. Twenty-nine petitions, signed by 4,899
Virginians, came from the pen of this unknown opponent of a church-state
tie. These petitions were based on an argument that carries beyond JM's-the
General Assessment bill was not only contrary to the Virginia Declaration
of Rights and to the enlightened republicanism pronounced there, but the
proposed act was in conflict with "the Spirit of the Gospel." Whoever wrote
this petition, which was easily the most popular of the several circulating
protests, was clearly an active Christian who believed the General
Assessment bill would do nothing to check "that Deism with its banefull
Influence [which] is spreading itself over the state" (Vi: Westmoreland
County petition).
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The papers of James Madison, Volume 8, March 10,
1784- March 28, 1786. Edited by Robert A. Rutland, William M.E. Rachal.
The University of Chicago Press, (1973) pp 295-298
------------------------------------------
jal...@cox.net
From Henry May, The American Enlightenment, Oxford, 1976, page 72, we
find this about George:
"George Washington, who was older than Madison or Jefferson, was more
completely shaped by colonial Virginian culture. In religion as in
style of life he was a man of the Moderate Enlightenment, a good deal
like an English country gentleman of the early eighteenth century. A
frequent but not regular churchgoer, a vestryman and a pewholder but
apparently not a communicant, Washington was to sprinkle his official
papers with references to 'the great Disposer of events,' 'the father
of Lights,' etc. There is no reason whatever to question the genuiness
either of his belief in an overruling providence or his nobly expressed
belief in religious liberty (not, as he pointed out to Jews of Newport,
toleration). Only once was Washinhgton to refer to 'the divine Author
of our Blessed Religion,' though he frequently used the
word 'Christian' in a favorable sense. Conservative by temperment,
decorous, open-minded, with a strong sense of duty and little interest
in theology, Washington throughout his life reflected virtues, with few
of the vices, of the Anglican past, thereby baffling the more strenuous
pietists and skeptics of the future."
I think I've posted this paragraph before. It can be taken many ways.
Deistic phrases in his writings along with more Christian style
phrases. But then Washington was a consumate politician.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The elimination of religious tests for public office by the Constitutional
Convention of 1787 represented a major achievement for the future course of
American church-state relations. Article V1 not only removed the basis for
any preferential treatment of one religion over another for holding public
office, but also denied the right of any preferential status of religion
over nonreligion in matters of one's political participation in the life of
the Republic. William Lee Miller appropriately noted in his recent
historical review of religion and the Constitution, The First Liberty:
Religion and the American Republic, that "in the framing of Article VI
...the new nation was electing to be nonreligious in its civil life." On
the subject of religion, Miller finds "more striking than what the Federal
Constitution did include is what it did not." Unlike other legal documents
of the period and throughout history, there art no references in the
Constitution to the Deity, to God, to "Providence." or even to the Creator,
as in the case of the Declaration of Independence, which, unlike the
Constitution, was not a formal legal document.
The prohibition of any religious test for public office came not only out
of a religious pluralism that was rampant at the time of the nation's
founding, but also out of the concept of the new Republic as a secular
state. The very exclusion of any religious test for office was itself a
profound acknowledgment of the secular character of the new Republic, to
use Miller's phrase, "to be nonreligious in its civil life."
The secular state, by its very nature, is a limited state in which
the people have denied the jurisdiction of civil authority over religious
affairs. The secular state is not born out of hostility to religion, any
more than Article VI, as noted earlier, is to be viewed as adverse to
religion. In the words of America's most distinguished church historian of
the nineteenth century, Philip Schaff, the Constitution is neither hostile
nor friendly to any religion; it is simply silent on the subject, as lying
beyond the jurisdiction of the general government."
As a secular state, America is a nation in which neither religion nor
irreligion enjoys any official status and where no church or religion is to
enjoy any advantages or to suffer any disadvantages because of an
establishment of religion. Religious identity is made irrelevant to one's
rights of citizenship, e.g., the right to vote and to hold public office.
One's religion or irreligion may not be made the basis of political
privilege or discrimination. At a time when there is a resurgence of the
notion of a "Christian America" in the body politic, the Bicentennial of
the Constitution is an especially appropriate time to reflect on the
meaning and significance of church and state in American public life. In
doing so, proper attention needs to be given to the importance of Article
VI in America's body politic md nationhood. In recent years, the growing
tendency of candidates for public office to stress their religious
credentials, to use religion to serve their own political purposes, and to
use political means for the advancement of religious interests needs to be
seen in the context of America as a secular state--"to be nonreligious in
its civil life."
In the light of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there is something
awry, if not ominous, to be found in the words of a presidential aspirant
for 1988 declaring, " We have enough votes to run the country, and when the
people say,'We've had enough,' we're going to take over." These words
become completely incongruous when placed alongside the presidential oath,
"to defend the Constitution of the United States." Likewise, there is more
than mere arrogance to be attributed to the questions distributed by the
Freedom Council last fall to congressional candidates in the fourth
congressional district of North Carolina: "Are you a born-again Christian?"
"is Jesus Lord of your Life?" "Do you believe the Bible is the infallible
Word of God?" Similarly, the distribution of millions of copies of the
magazine, The Candidates' Biblical Scoreboard, by Christian Voice, in an
effort to report its "Christian" ratings of political candidates, is more
than divisive in the political process. It is contrary to both the letter
and the spirit of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. It
is also a manipulation of religion to serve political ends.
Today, there are those revisionists of American history who look back to a
"Christian American" that never was, but which they now seek to restore.
There are still others who today bemoan America as a secular state and "the
naked public square," at a time when religious membership is at an all-time
high and religion is perhaps more pervasively popular, even visible, in
American public life and the mass media than ever before. Increasing
attention is being given to the religious identity of candidates for public
office, and candidates in turn, are more than willing to give at least
their rhetorical support to religion and religious values. Today, there are
those who celebrate what they call a "post-secular America" and "the
collapse of the 200-year hegemony of the secular Enlightenment" as they
anticipate the "rightful place" being given to Judeo-Christian values in
the public square and in the nation's public life.
While the right of religion to be involved in the public square
and in the body politic is well established in America, even "unquestioned"
in the words of the United States Supreme Court this involvement is always
to be in the context of America's being a secular state and public policy's
being established on the basis of a "secular purpose," again to use the
language of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Americans would do well to
remember particularly in the face of a religious resurgence in American
public life, that more than one hundred million Americans are without
any Christian or Jewish affiliation, for whom Article V1 is as important
guarantee for their right of full political participation in American
democracy.
(Source of Information: Editorial" No Religious test Shall Ever Be
Required: Reflections on the Bicentennial of the U. S. Constitution., James
E, Wood, Jr. Journal of Church and State. Volume 29, Spring. 1987, Number 2
pp 206-208)
************************************************************
[ William Lee Miller, who has made a special study of the
role of religion in the nation's founding, summarized the
conclusion of that study in these striking words:
Did "religious freedom" for Jefferson and Madison extend
to atheists? Yes. To agnostics, unbelievers, and pagans? Yes. To
heretics and blasphemers and the sacrilegious? Yes. To "the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan, the
Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination?" Yes. To Papists?
Yes. To "irreligion"? Yes. To people who want freedom from
religion? Yes. To people who want freedom against religion?
Yes.(9)
(9) William Lee Miller, "The Ghost of freedoms Past," in The Washington
Post National Weekly Edition (13 October 1886), p. 23. ]
*****************************************************************
Let's look at some of what is said in the book cited by Gardiner
The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Charles B. Sanford.
University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, (1984 --third paperback
printing, 1992)
------- ------- ------- --------
PREFACE
"Even scholars who are familiar with Jefferson's deism, Unitarianism,
and enthusiasm for Bible study do not seem to appreciate the importance
of his religious beliefs to his political philosophy and career."
PAGE 5 [What follows is the "conservative Unitarian," comment
including the part about who actually made the comment which Gardiner
"forgot" to include.]
" His great-grandson described Jefferson's religion as that of a
"conservative Unitarian . . . "
PAGE 14
"In summary, we may conclude that Jefferson, in his college years, began
an involvement with Enlightenment and deistic writers which deeply
influenced him toward a liberal, intellectual, moralistic, personal, and
humanitarian view of government, society, and religion. This study
continued all of his life and is reflected in his choice of favorite
quotations and the books in his extensive library."
PAGE 20
"In private, deists like Jefferson and Paine had some reservations about
the Old Testament and did not hesitate to correct the biblical account
of creation in the light of Newtonian science and emerging
anthropology."
PAGE 48
"Daniel Boorstin is closer to the truth than Trainer when he emphasizes
that Jefferson and the American deists took man's relation to nature
rather than to god as their starting point."
PAGES 85 -92 beginning with the sub heading "JEFFERSON WAS DEIST"
and including sub headings, "GOD, SEEN IN THE CREATION." "GOD, THE
CREATOR OF MAN," "ONE GOD, NOT THREE," "JEFFERSON WAS A THEIST."
PAGE 92
"He followed and promulgated the ideas of the English deists,
particularly their belief in a creator of the universe, known by reason,
in opposition to orthodox Christian theism based on revelation,
theology, and mysticism."
PAGE 92
"Jefferson may thus well be called a deist."
PAGE 105
"Privately discussing religion with interested friends, though, he was
just as vehement as Paine or Rousseau in separating what he called 'the
grain from the chaff," "the gold from the dross," and 'the diamond from
the dunghill' in biblical passages."
PAGE 130
"Another of the important teachings of christ about God, according to
Jefferson, was the belief in one God. The phrase frequently used by
Jefferson was the 'Deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth,' which he used
in contrast to 'atheism,' meaning belief in no god, and 'theism,' by
which he meant orthodox Trinitarianism. Jefferson argued that the belief
of deism in the 'unity of the creator was the pure doctrine of Jesus
also.'"
PAGE 155
""I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could
be intended. All of our other passions, within proper bounds, have a
useful object, but what is the use of grief in the economy [of life]?'"
"That question came from the deistic faith, which Jefferson and
Adams shared, that everything in nature and human experience had a good
purpose, since everything came from the good design of the perfect
Creator, God."
PAGE 173-177 (Just a small sampling here, be sure to read the all five
pages to put it in proper context.)
FROM PAGES 173-174
Conclusions about Jefferson's Religion
Was Jefferson really as radical in his religion as his opponents
declared or as some modern scholars indicate? In answer to the charge
that he was an "atheist, deist, or devil," he was not an atheist, he was
a deist, and personal morality and honor were important elements in his
character. He was strongly influenced by the liberal religious ideas of
the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, particularly the deism of
Scottish philosophers, beginning with the stimulation he received from
his favorite college professor, William Small, and continuing through a
lifetime of study of the books he acquired for his library."
An evaluation of Jefferson's deism indicates that his beliefs about
God were not as radical as those of many of his contemporaries.
Jefferson defended his French philosopher friends who were atheists
as being honorable men, hut he did not share their views that the
universe could have always existed without a Creator. Jefferson
believed in God as the planner, architect, first cause, and master
builder of the universe. He went further and believed that God continued
to guide, modify, and sustain his creation.
=====================================================
jal...@cox.net
James Kent, (1763-1847) a close friend of U S Supreme Court Chief Justice
John Marshall and U S Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story,
Attorney, Jurist, public official, first Professor of Law at Columbia
University, Judge on the New York State Supreme Court, and its chief
Justice, Author of the Commentaries on American Law, (1826-1830) author of
the infamous People v Ruggles decision in 1811, and along with Joseph
Story, called by some "Father of American Jurisprudence."
While James Kent disliked Thomas Jefferson, in part for Jefferson's
attacks on the Federalist judiciary but also because of the perceived
threat of Jeffersonian irreligion to public order and morality, his own
personal views regarding religion may not have been so different from
Thomas Jefferson.
"He despised Popery; scorned the fanaticism of certain of the Protestant
sects; and once, in the privacy of his club, had spoken of Christianity
itself as a vulgar superstition from which cultivated men were free. (209)
If he still held that opinion, then his comments on religion from the bench
were sincere only as they expressed an aristocratic conviction that
religious faith is useful as a buttress to social order. To the theory of
the case his hatred of Jefferson and his constant fear of Jacobinical
commotion lend support. Be his private beliefs what they may, whether he
was at heart a child of the Enlightenment or not, as a judge he reverenced
the Virgin and valued so highly the religion of her Son as to write it into
the law of the land."
(209) When visiting French Canada, Kent made caustic comments on the
Catholic religion. He called the "naked" image of Christ on the cross
"disgusting." Once, in describing an enthusiastic Protestant parson, he
called him "a pale distressed looking zealot." For his remark about
Christianity as a vulgar superstition, see William Dunlap's Diary,
September 30, 1797 supra cit.
James Kent, A Study in Conservatism, 1763-1847, by John Theodore Horton. Da
Capo Press, N Y (1969, Copyright 1939, The American Historical Association)
p. 192-93.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the very least, the above shows the common trend that people in the
public light have of saying and doing one thing in public while frequently
believing and saying totally different things in private.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The] manifest object of the men who framed the institution of this
country, was to have a State without religion and a Church without
politics--that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an
engine for the purposes of the other.... For that they built up a wall of
complete partition between the two. (Jeremiah S. Black, noted
constitutional advocate, Essays and Speeches, D. Appleton and Co., 1885. As
quoted by Leo Pfeffer, "The Establishment Clause: The Never-Ending
Conflict," in Ronald C. White and Albright G. Zimmerman, An Unsettled
Arena: Religion and the Bill of Rights, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, p. 72.)
jal...@cox.net
Unitarian Universalist Origins Our Historic Faith
Mark W. Harris
Unitarians and Universalists have always been heretics. We are heretics
because we want to choose our faith, not because we desire to be
rebellious.
"Heresy" in Greek means "choice." During the first three centuries of the
Christian church, believers could choose from a variety of tenets about
Jesus. Among these was a belief that Jesus was an entity sent by God on a
divine mission. Thus the word "Unitarian" developed, meaning the oneness of
God. Another religious choice in the first three centuries of the Common
Era (CE) was universal salvation. This was the belief that no person would
be condemned by God to eternal damnation in a fiery pit. Thus a
Universalist believed that all people will be saved. Christianity lost its
element of choice in 325 CE when the Nicene Creed established the Trinity
as dogma. For centuries thereafter, people who professed Unitarian or
Universalist beliefs were persecuted.
This was true until the sixteenth century when the Protestant Reformation
took hold in the remote mountains of Transylvania in eastern Europe. Here
the first edict of religious toleration in history was declared in 1568
during the reign of the first and only Unitarian king, John Sigismund.
Sigismund' s court preacher, Frances David, had successively converted from
Catholicism to Lutheranism to Calvinism and finally to Unitarianism because
he could find no biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.
Arguing that people should be allowed to choose among these faiths, he
said, "We need not think alike to love alike."
In sixteenth-century Transylvania, Unitarian congregations were established
for the first time in history. These churches continue to preach the
Unitarian message in present-day Romania. Like their heretic forebears from
ancient times. these liberals could not see how the deification of a human
being or the simple recitation of creeds could help them to live better
lives. They said that we must follow Jesus, not worship him.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Unitarianism appeared
briefly in scattered locations. A Unitarian community in Rakow, Poland,
flourished for a time, and a book called On the Errors of the Trinity by a
Spaniard, Michael Servetus, was circulated throughout Europe. But
persecution frequently followed these believers. The Polish Unitarians were
completely suppressed, and Michael Servetus was burned at the stake.
Even where the harassment was not so extreme, people still opposed the
idea of choice in matters of religious faith. In 1791, scientist and
Unitarian minister Joseph Priestley had his laboratory burned and was
hounded out of England. He fled to America where he established American
Unitarian churches in the Philadelphia area.
Despite these European connections, Unitarianism as we know it in
North America is not a foreign import. In fact, the origins of our faith
began with some of the most historic congregations in Puritan New England
where each town was required to establish a congregationally independent
church that followed Calvinist doctrines.
Initially these congregational churches offered no religious choice
for their parishioners, but over time the strict doctrines of original sin
and predestination began to mellow.
By the mid-1700s a group of evangelicals were calling for the revival
of Puritan orthodoxy. They asserted their belief in humanity's eternal
bondage to sin. People who opposed the revival, believing in free human
will and the loving benevolence of God, eventually became Unitarian. During
the first four decades of the nineteenth century, hundreds of these
original congregational churches fought over ideas about sin and
salvation, and especially over the doctrine of the Trinity. Most of the
churches split over these issues. In 1819, Unitarian minister William
Ellery Channing delivered a sermon called "Unitarian Christianity" and
helped to give the Unitarians a strong platform. Six years later the
American Unitarian Association was organized in Boston, Massachusetts.
Universalism developed in America in at least three distinct
geographical locations. The earliest preachers of the gospel of universal
salvation appeared in what were later the Middle Atlantic and Southern
states. By 1781, Elhanan Winchester had organized a Philadelphia
congregation of Universal Baptists. among its members was Benjamin
Rush, the famous physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
At about the same time, in the rural, interior sections of New
England, a small number of itinerant preachers, among then Caleb Rich,
began to disbelieve the strict Calvinist doctrines of eternal punishment.
They discovered from their biblical studies the new revelation of God's
loving redemption of all. John Murray, an English preacher who
immigrated in 1770, helped lead the first Universalist church in
Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the battle to separate church and state.
From its beginnings, Universalism challenged its members to reach out
and embrace people whom society often marginalized. The Gloucester church
included a freed slave among its charter members, and the Universalists
became the first denomination to ordain women to the ministry, beginning in
1863 with Olympia Brown.
Universalism was a more evangelical faith than Unitarianism. After
officially organizing in 1793, the Universalists spread their faith across
the eastern United States and Canada. Hosea Ballou became the
denomination's greatest leader during the nineteenth century, and he and
his followers, including Nathaniel Stacy, led the way in spreading their
faith.
Other preachers followed the advice of Universalist publisher Horace
Greeley and went West. One such person was Thomas Starr King, who is
credited with defining the difference between Unitarians and Universalists:
"Universalists believe that God is too good to damn people, and the
Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned by God." The
Universalists believed in a God who em-braced everyone, and this
eventually became central to their belief that lasting truth is found in
all religions, and that dignity and worth is innate to all people
regardless of sex, color, race, or class.
Growing out of this inclusive theology was a lasting impetus in both
denominations to create a more just society. Both Unitarians and
Universalists became active participants in many social justice movements
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker was a prominent abolitionist,
defending fugitive slaves and offering support to American abolitionist
John Brown.
Other reformers included Universalists such as Charles Spear who
called for prison reform, and Clara Barton who went from Civil War "angel
of the battlefield" to become the founder of the American Red Cross.
Unitarians such as Dorothea Dix fought to "break the chains" of people
incarcerated in mental hospitals, and Samuel Gridley Howe started schools
for the blind. For the last two centuries, Unitarians and Universalists
have been at the forefront of movements working to free people from
whatever bonds may oppress them.
Two thousand years ago liberals were persecuted for seeking the
freedom to make religious choices, but such freedom has become central to
both Unitarianism and Universalism. As early as the 1830s, both groups were
studying and promulgating texts from world religions other than
Christianity. By the beginning of the twentieth century, humanists within
both traditions advocated that people could be religious without believing
in God. No one person, no one religion, can embrace all religious
truths.
By the middle of the twentieth century it became clear that Unitarians
and Universalists could have a stronger liberal religious voice if they
merged their efforts, and they did so in 1961, forming the Unitarian
Universalist Association. Many Unitarian Universalists became active in
the civil rights movement. James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist
minister, was murdered in Selma, Alabama, after he and twenty percent of
the denomination's ministers responded to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call to
march for justice.
Today we are determined to continue to work for greater racial and
cultural diversity. In 1977, a women and religion resolution was passed by
the Association, and since then the denomination has responded to the
feminist challenge to change sexist structures and language, especially
with the publication of an inclusive hymnal. The denomination has affirmed
the rights of bisexuals, gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons,
including ordaining and settling gay and lesbian clergy in our
congregations, and in 1996, affirmed same-sex marriage.
All these efforts reflect a modern under-standing of universal
salvation. Unitarian Universalism welcomes all to an expanding circle of
understanding and choice in religious faith.
Our history has carried us from liberal Christian views about Jesus
and human nature to a rich pluralism that includes theist and atheist,
agnostic and humanist, pagan, Christian, Jew, and Buddhist. As our history
continues to evolve and unfold, we invite you to join us by choosing our
free faith.
http://www.uua.org/info/origins.html
http://www.jjnet.com/famousuus/history.htm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Within the ample eighteenth-century sources at hand, two pairs of
theological views on religious liberty were critical to constitutional
formation: those of congregational Puritans and those of Free Church
Evangelicals. Two pairs of contemporaneous political views were EQUALLY
influential: Those of Enlightenment thinkers and those of Civic
Republicans. . . James Madison's early writings on religious liberty had
the strong flavor of Witherspoon, his teacher at princeton; his political
speeches often pulsed with republican sentiments; his later writings,
particularly after his presidency, were increasingly firm Enlightenment
stock.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion and the American Constitutional
Experiment, Essential Rights and Liberties. John Witte Jr. Westview Press,
(2000) pp 24)
=====================================================
"Mr. Jefferson and Wythe, who did not conceal their disbelief in
Christianity, took their parts in the duties of vestrymen. . . . "(19)
"Of James Madison, Bishop Meade wrote:
His religious feeling . . . seems to have been short lived. His political
associations with those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in
his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to
general suspcion."(20)
Of the many who had infidel principles were Edmund Randolph(21) and Charles
Cotesworth Pinckney" (22)
FOOTNOTES:
(19) Meade, William, Old churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia.
(Philadelphia, 1857) pp191;
(20) Meade, pp 100
(21) Moncure Daniel Conway, Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the
Life and papers of Edmund Randolph (1888), pp 156
(22) Herbert M. Morals, Deism in America EB, XXI, 617
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Thomas Jefferson versus Religious oppression, by
Frank Swancara, University Books, N Y (1969) pp 130
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When we turn from religions liberty to the repudiation of: special
state aid, we enter a more. complicated area. That section of Puritanism
which championed religious liberty in the seventeenth century had divided
into, a right and left wing as regards the relation. of the church to the
state, a division which was important; in Witherspoon's day and also in
ours.
The left wing held for a rigid separation of church and state,
based on a theological compartmentalization of the spheres of creation (or
nature) and of redemption (or grace) The state belonged to the sphere of
nature and was to be shaped solely by natural law with no regard for
Scripture or church. There could he no such thing as a "Christian state."
There should be no religious tests for the franchise and no ecclesiastical
intervention in political matters. The state, on the other hand, most
respect the sphere of the church and redemption as outside its
jurisdiction. Such was the sscheme of Roger Williams in Rhode Island, and
of John Lilburne and John Goodwin in Old England. This became the main
stream of Baptist thought in England and the colonies and has remained so
ever since.
A different but equally important pattern of thought had emerged at
the Westminister Assembly, especially m the manifesto of the Congregational
minority there. It was actually put into effect in the 1650's by Cromwell,
but was then of course rejected at the Restoration of the Stuarts and the
old episcopal establishment. Like the separationists, this scheme fervently
supported religious liberty. Cromwell's regime gave greater scope to
religious liberty than any other major European state previously had done.
But this tradition refused to give up the notion of the bearing of
Christian revelation on political life. Cromwell conceived his government
to be generically Christian, but without giving state aid to any
ecclesiastic constitution preferentially. As he administered the pariah
system, benefices were held by ministers of Congregational, Presbyterian,
Baptist and Episcopal persuasions indifferently. To this extent it was
multiple establishments, based on the novel conception of a number of
equal and independent denominations cooperating to shape Christian nation.
The state represented all collectively and equally on the basis of what
was called "the common light of Christianity,
The state constitutions of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New
Hampshire sad Maryland represented substantially this position in the
1780's. Public provision conld be made for school teachers and religious
ministrations or whatever denomination the several towns might wish and in
some eases at least, dissenting minorities were exempt from taxation.
Nearly half of the states of the new republic maintained multiple
establishments of this general type and the Congress provided something of
the sane sort for the Northwest Territory of of which Five mid-Western
states have since been erected
**[NOTE]**
In Virginia, on the other hand where the Anglican establishment
Had been less generous to dissenters than the Congregationalists of New
England, it was rather the radical separationist view which triumphed under
the leadership of Madison and Jefferson. And this Virginia struggle was
the immediate background of the drafting of the First Amendment.
** [NOTE]**
Where do the American Presbyterians fit into this picture? Although
they rejected state support or church ministrations their general outlook
seems still to have been that of the Cromwellian "common light of
Christianity." If we are to take Witherspoon's lectures on moral philosophy
as a commentary on his preface to the Form of Government, the repudiation
of special state aid does not imply a strict separationism of the Roger
Williams or Baptist type. Whereas it is one of the most important duties of
the civil magistrate to protect the rights of conscience, he is also, m
Witherspoon's view duty bound to punish profanity and impiety. He should
encourage piety by his own example, attending to public and private
worship, avoiding swearing and blasphemy.(5) In Witherspoon's mind, the
state was still called to give aid to Christianity in general in these
ways. It was not expected to be neutral as between the religious and the
irreligious. And, in. his discussions of the system of state aidfor public
worship suiting the great body of citizens with full liberty for
dissenters, Witherspoon observes mildly, "there is much reason for this"
Clearly Witherspoon's devotion to the mechanism of separation is vastly
less intense than air commitment to religious liberty. The main point is to
secure freedom and non-preferential treatment for all religious bodies and
views. Separation was valued, not as an end in itself, but, as a means to
the end of religions liberty.
Footnote:
(5) Lectures on Moral Philosophy (ed. Collins), pp. 111-13.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: John Witherspoon on Church and State, by James
Hastings Nichols. JOURNAL OF PRESBYTERIAN HISTORY, 42, (1964)
pp 171-73)
**********************************************
In 1787, prudence dictated that the Virginian be more reticent
than Hume, Smith, and Voltaire. By that time, Madison had already himself
become an encourager "of free inquiry" and an enemy to what the majority of
his contemporaries would have considered "serious religion." Political
action required discretion. The divines influential in the various states
would not have looked kindly on the proposed constitution had they
recognized that it embodied a strategy for reducing the various sects to a
"pure and rational religion" of the sort favored by "wise men"-even in
wholly pagan times. His reticence notwithstanding, Madison's purpose and
that evidenced by Hume, Smith, and Voltaire were one and the same. As he
conceded some three decades later in a letter to a prominent American lew,
the Virginian had not only long been inclined to consider "the freedom of
religious opinions & worship as equally belonging to every sect." He had
"ever regarded . . . the secure enjoyment of" that freedom "as the best
human provision for bringing all either into the same way of thinking, or
into that mutual charity which is the only substitute."(95) For Madison and
for Jefferson, freedom of conscience was as much a matter of policy as a
matter of principle. Like the author of the Declaration of Independence,
the father of the American Constitution was a Deist who looked for moral
and political guidance, not to the Holy Scriptures, but to the "law of
nature and of nature's God."(96) If his stratagem was successful, his
fellow citizens would someday be unable to distinguish the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob from the God of the philosophers; and when that day came,
the danger posed by parties of principle would disappear altoeether.(97)
Madison could take it for granted that religious factions were
entirely artificial because in antiquity there had been no parties of
abstract, speculative principle apart from the completely powerless
philosophical sects. Had it not been for the peculiar character of
Christianity, circumstances in modern times would have been much the same.
And even then, where good fortune and good policy combined to disarm
superstition, civil strife was most likely to arise in a fashion perfectly
familiar to the ancients.
In Madison's view, factions should normally spring into existence
because men (and the rich and the poor in particular) have conflicting
material interests. It was with this in mind that he developed the most
controversial and original aspect of his argument for the extended
republic. Alexander Hamilton had remarked on the scope given to "commercial
enterprise" in America by "the diversity in the productions of different
States."(98) Madison's sanguine experience with religious diversity in
Virginia enabled him to see that the economic diversity noted by Hamilton
could be politically advantageous as well.(99)
FOOTNOTES:
(95)· WrJM VIII 411--13: Letter to Mordecai M. Noah on 15 May 1818.
(96). It can hardly be fortuitous that, in critical documents, both resort
to the language of Deism. Cf. PTI 1 413-33 (esp. 423, 429): The
Declaration of independence with Madison, The Federalist 43 (297) See also
WrJM IX 573-607 (esp. 590, 599): Notes on Nullification, 1835-36-where "the
law of nature & of nature's God" turns out to be an extrapolation from
Thomas Hobbes's "natural right of self-preservation." For another
circumstance in which Madison appealed to "nature and nature's God," see
WrJM V1 332-40 (at 340): Address of the General Assembly to the People of
the Commonwealth of Virginia, 23 January 1799. At Princeton. if Madison
perused all of the books that Dr. Witherspoon assigned, he will have
encountered The Being and Attributes of God by Newton's Dr. Clarke. His own
testimony suggests that he was swayed from religious orthodoxy at about the
time of the Revolution by renewed study of the work. Fitty years later, he
would still endorse "reasoning from the effect to the cause, `from Nature
to Nature's God,' " and he evidently hoped that the students at the
University of Virginia would learn to do the same. Note the inclusion of
Clarke's work on the list that Madison drew up in 1824 Of theological works
appropriate for use at the university (WrJM IX 203-7n) and see WrJM IX
229--71: Letter to Frederick Beasley on 20 November 1825 Though Madison was
outwardly observant, he never joined any church, and his heterodoxy was
widely suspected at the time. For further discussion, see Brant, James
Madison I 68-71, 85· 1"-22, 127-31, 1II 268-73, and Ralph Ketcham, "James
Madison and Religion--A New Hypothesis," Journal of the Presbyterian
Historical Society 38, no. 2 (June 1960): 65-90, and James Madison: A
Biography (New York 1971) 55-58, 61, 66, 162-68. Ketcham demonstrates
Madison's inierest in metaphysical guestions but provides no evidence to
support his assertion that the mature Madison should be considered a more
or less orthodox Christian. In fact, given the political circumstances, the
absence of substantive evidence suggests the opposite opinion, for it is
far easier to explain the reticence of a statesman who holds unorthodox
opinions than to account for the silence of a politician whose views accord
well with those of his compatriots. In any case. as Madison's private
correspondence indicates, his motive for entering the fray on behalf of
freedom of conscience and against the establishment of religion was
from the outset political and not religious. Note that, from at least one
political perspective, Deism is the functional equivalent of atheism: see
Hobbes, De cive IIl.xv. 14, and consider 1I Prologue, note 46, above.
(97)· See J. G. A. Pocock, "Religious Freedom and the Desacralization of
Politics: From the English Civil Wars to the Virginia Statute," in The
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom 43-73
(98). The Federalist 11 (71)·
(99). On this point, see Lance Banning, "James Madison, the Statute for
Religious Freedom, and the Crisis of Republican Convictions," in The
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom 109-38.
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Republics Ancient and Modern, Inventions of
Prudence: Constituting the American Regime, By Paul A. Rahe, Volume III,
The University of north carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London (1994) pp
53-54
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
jal...@cox.net
The religious differences of the American people gave rise to a
pluralistic society. Any talk of a Protestant America not only neglects
those who were not of that faith, but also obscures the vital and important
differences among Protestants in colonial society. More than anything else,
these differences ensured religious liberty in the new nation. This was the
conclusion reached by James Madison, often called the father of the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who felt that words on paper were less
a guarantee of liberty than the American population's religious diversity.
This fact, buttressed by philosophical beliefs in the rights of the
individual, insured religious freedom. When Madison was defending the
Constitution drafted at Philadelphia, he saw a broader cultural pluralism,
drawn from the religious differences of the people, as the brightest hope
of the new republic. Broadly diverse interests, he believed, guaranteed
that no single interest would be able to control or oppress the others.
Before the American past can be surveyed, some of the debris that
clutters the landscape must be cleared. First of all, using the terms
Church and State in the United States is quite misleading. Although a few
state establishments of religion survived the Revolutionary era, they, even
in their restricted sphere, bore little resemblance to the established
churches in Europe. In reality, there was no Church in the geographical
area that became the United States; that is, there was no single
institution that defined religious belief and prescribed the forms of its
exercise. In the European model, the Church as an institutionalized
authority coexisted with the civil authority; they reinforced each other.
The American experience with religion made such institutionalization
impossible. To endow the term, Church, with some overarching theological
significance and then juxtapose it with the authority of the State, is to
talk in terms of abstractions that have no grounding, legal or practical,
in American society. Understanding the nature of the conflict between
religious belief and practice and civil authority in the United States
cannot be aided by archaic formulations.
Second, the contributions of religion, especially Protestantism, to
the shaping of American society must be put into clearer perspective. In
the generation that produced the Constitution, only about ten percent of
the population were church members, and "in 1800 there were fewer churches
relative to population than at any other time before or since"' Whether one
seeks to explain this by the rural nature of American society and the
relative lack of clergy, or the attraction to natural, as opposed to
revealed religion, the low level of church membership is a sobering fact.
Compare, for instance, that figure with the present one, which approaches
two-thirds of the population. But such statistics, while giving pause to
hasty generalizations about religion in the nation's formative period,
ignore important Protestant influences upon the nation. From the time of
the Puritans to the present, the country has been viewed in missionary
terms. Whether such a perception is now desirable is another question, but
its evolution and longevity cannot be ignored.
What Protestantism did was synthesize, from diverse sources, a view
of man that it endowed with a religious mission. Man was a dignified
creation, an individual worthy of respect, who must be educated to read
God's word and do His bidding on earth. So thrust out into the world,
Protestant man succeeded. However, his very success produced a paradox,
which has been explained as follows:
Since early colonial times, religion has been engaging American
history in a special way. Instead of commanding that society conform to a
preplanned City of God, the American way has been to marshal campaigns to
inaugurate in this or that dimension of the common life a yearning to turn
holy hopes into earthly fruition. This religion has been predominantly
Christian and mainly Protestant during the three formative centuries of the
Angle-American experience. . . .
What is remarkable is not the failure but the success of religious
efforts to inspire hopes and summon energies for sanctifying the arenas of
common life in America. Once won, however, the spoils of each such campaign
belonged not to religious institutions but to society at large. In that
sense the unintended but nevertheless salutary effect of religion on
American history has been to make a nation profaned . . . outside of
religion's temple. Being without land of its own, as it were, organized
religion realized in frustration that the improvements it made belonged to
all America.(2)
Whatever the arena, education, personal morality, individual
participation in the political and social processes, etc., religious
motivation produced profound secular results. Surveying these results, many
religious leaders were dismayed: seeking the City of God, they had played
an important part in bringing forth the City of Man. In the process of
strengthening man's body, mind, and will, his soul had been neglected.
Their negative reaction shifted attention from the substantial
contributions religion had made and fueled attempts to obtain from the
profane society some recognition, if only symbolic, of the sacred.
FOOTNOTE
(2) William A. Clebsch, From Sacred to profane America: The Role of
Religion in American History (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 1-2
SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Religion & Constitutional Government in the United
States, A Historical Overview with Sources. John E. Semonche, Signet Books
Carrboro, N.C. (1985) pp 30
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
On Thursday, 4 July 1776, the Declaration was read, and agreed to.
hy Congress:
We hold these truths to be selfevident; that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness. -- That
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their power from the consent of the governed . . .
The words are Jefferson's, the sentiments those of men who had dared to
turn the world upside-down: of Rainborough and Winstanley, of Locke,
Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine. Forty years on, William Cobbett
asserted that, whoever wrote the Declaration, its author was the Thetford
Quaker -- though, on that Thursday morning of 1776, he was two days'
journey from Philadelphia, serving with Washington's army on the approaches
to New York.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Paine, the greatest exile, by David powell, St.
Martin's Press N.Y. (1985) pp 75-76)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Paine's AGE OF REASON was written with the French Revolution in mind.
The context of that book and its thoughts should be seen in that light.
Even Jefferson was not pleased with the violent direction the French
were heading in their revolution. Edmund Randolph's *Reflections . . .*
was written as a rebuttle to Paine. Some Americans were horrified at
the executions and also were more conservative (not totally against
monarchies) than they were during the American Revolution. Some saw
Paine as justifying this violence or inciting it. They weren't as
upset with his material written prior to or during the American
Revolution. There are books on that subject. Paine wrote for the masses
so his propaganda was valued by those who might disagree with some of
what he wrote.
Additionally, the deism in Europe was different from the deism in
England and even America. So people to consider the deism of Voltaire
and Diderot (I think) that was different from the Scottish Deist
Frances Hutchenson from whom Jefferson aquired much of his thoughts on
the moral sense. Then the deism of Hume (Scottish whig) and Bolingbroke
(English Jacobite) which is different from all the others. There was no
single kind of deism. American deism didn't really come into being
until late in the 1790s and it had nothing to do with Paine's AGE OF
REASON.
--
Mike Curtis
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Britannica:
By the end of the 18th century, Deism had become a dominant religious
attitude among intellectual and upper class Americans. Benjamin
Franklin, the great sage of the Colonies and then of the new republic,
summarized in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, a
personal creed that almost literally reproduced Herbert's five
fundamental beliefs. The first three presidents of the United States
also held Deistic convictions, as is amply evidenced in their
correspondence. "The ten commandments and the sermon on the mount
contain my religion," John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1816.
Erm, no it isn't. It is, however, important to realise that "deism"
means something rather difference today than it did in the 18th
century. This is to say that to someone like Adams or Franklin, a
deistic outlook presupposes that there exists a "natural religion,
[i.e.] the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is
inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason,
as opposed to knowledge acquired through either revelation or the
teaching of any church."
These days the "the word Deism [is] used theologically in
contradistinction to theism, the belief in an immanent God who
actively intervenes in the affairs of men. In this sense Deism was
represented as the view of those who reduced the role of God to a mere
act of creation in accordance with rational laws discoverable by man
and held that, after the original act, God virtually withdrew and
refrained from interfering in the processes of nature and the ways of
man. "
(again, quotations from Britannica]
It may well be that they were not deists in this second sense, but in
the first - they subscribed to the idea of a natural, intrinsic
religion. Which in some senses is about as far from Christianity,
particularly Protestant Christianity, as you can get.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the time frame 1760 to, oh say, 1840, in the colonies and then this
country, if a person was religious but was not "orthodox Christian," was
not Jewish, Hindoo, Mahometan, Buddhist or any of the other religions of
Japan, China, India, etc. Was not Catholic or Quaker, though many didn't
consider either of these to be valid religions.
What would one most likely be called or thought to be, in the language and
mind sets of the day?
One scholar has this to say about it:
The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Charles B. Sanford. University
of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, (1984 --third paperback printing, 1992)
PAGE 85
"To most religious people including Jefferson's enemies, there was little
difference between being atheist, deist, or infidel. AIl were suspected of'
being nonbelievers, opponents of Christianity, and dangerous to society."
"But in the intellectual sense of one who believed in tne Deity, as
opposed to the atheist who did not, Jefferson was a staunch
deist.; His religious thought is steeped in the ideas of the English
deists, . . . "
PAGE 91
It is a moot question whether Jefferson was a deist or a theist in his
belief about God. He has been called both. Part of the confusion comes from
the fact that the terms deist and theist are often used interchangeably,
though they had distinct, if varying, meanings.
Early in the Enlightenment, the term theism was used to denote the
ideas of those who believed in God as the Creative Power behind the
universe, in contrast in atheism, which denoted the ideas of those who did
not. The term is derived from the Greek word for God, theos. Jefferson,
accordingly, used theist to describe one who believed in a "first cause"
behind the creation, in contrast to the atheist who instead believed in the
"unceasing motion of matter." Later in the movement, the term deism came to
describe the ideas of those who believed in a great, unknown Power behind
the creation, and the term theism was left for the thoughts of the medieval
theologians and those: who believed in orthodox, revealed religion.
Jefferson, thus, employed the term deism for the belief in one God, Creator
of man and the universe, in contrast to orthodox, Christian, Trinitarian
theism. He even went so far as to characterize Jesus' teachings as "pure:
deism," and the teachings of the Jews as "degraded deism," though both
might more properly be termed theistic.
To be theologically accurate, the distinction between dpi.st and
theist, as it finally developed in philosophy, was based on whether
man could know the attributes of God, and whether God continued
to be active in His creation. The deist believed in a Creator of the
universe who had determined the scientific laws by which it operated but
did not interfere in the operation of those laws. The deist also held that,
although something could be sensed about the greatness, intelligence and
wonder of the Creator from the creation, there was much that was beyond the
comprehension of man, particularly about the characteristics and final
purposes of the Creator. The theist believed that man could know God and
His nature and purposes not only by reasoning from the creation but by
faith, devotion, and mysticism as well and that the Creator continued to
guide and direct his creation. Immanuel Kant made the distinction,
'The deist believes that there is a God; the theist believes that there
is a living God.'
=======================================================
To complicate matters even more, there were some very real similarities
between such thought generally labeled as deist, Unitarian, and even some
connections to some of the Quaker thinking.
At various times throughout the time frame given all three of the above
were condemned by the "orthodox Christians."
To add to the fun, various Christian denominations viewed each others as
nonbelievers as well at various times. :o)
Bottom line is, there were a number of men of those times, including
founders, who did not fit or qualify as "orthodox Christians" yet were
religious, in their own minds, in their own ways.
They might accurately be called deists, or Quakers, or Unitarian, some
would call them atheists, or infidels.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: Jeff Sinclair <jeffrey...@my-deja.com>
Newsgroups:
soc.history.war.us-revolution,alt.history.colonial,sci.skeptic,alt.deism
Subject: Re: The Founders were Deists?? NOT!
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2000 07:47:16 GMT
Gard...@pitnet.net wrote:
> Robert L. Johnson wrote:
> >
> > Thank you very much for these great quotes! They are a gift! I often
> > wondered what it was that the founders had that is lacking today -
it's
> > DEISM!
> >
> > Sincerely, Robert L. Johnson
> > http://www.deism.com
>
> WRONG!!
>
> The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Unitarianism
>
> Thomas Paine and Deism
>
> Thomas Paine is sometimes grouped with the Founding Fathers. During
the
> Revolution he wrote very important tracts which unquestionably fueled
the
> Revolutionary spirit in the colonies. Among these tracts were Common
Sense and
> The American Crisis. Neither of these tracts gave the readers any
reason to
> believe that Paine's religion was unorthodox in any way. Long after
the
> Revolution, Paine wrote a book in which he identified himself as
a "Deist."
> The book was published in 1794 and entitled The Age Of Reason.
>
> What is seldom noted about this book is that most of the Founding
Fathers
> disapproved of it. Even those who held unorthodox religious views like
> Benjamin Franklin and the "Unitarians" denounced Paine's book.
<<snip of multiple quotes denouncing Paine's "Age of Reason">>
The reason that Paine's _Age of Reason_ was attacked was not because
people such as Franklin or Adams objected to his religious views.
Remember that Paine's religious beliefs had already been known to be
unorthodox and that he had still been very influential in affecting
American political thinking during the Revolutionary years. The
founding fathers had made it very clear that even unorthodox beliefs
such as Paine's were protected by the constitution, which declared that
the government was officially neutral regarding religion and the
America was not to be officially a Christian nation as Thomas Jefferson
noted:
"The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which
had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the
latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with
some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular
proposition proved that it's protection of the opinion was meant to be
universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure
from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was
proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should
read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of
our religion"; the insertion was rejected by great majority, in a proof
that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and
the Infidel of every denomination."
[From Jefferson's autobiography]
The source of the opposition to Paine came from the misperception that
_the Age of Reason_ constituted an attack on Christianity and on the
personal faith of many of the founders, as he took to task many of the
contradictions within the Bible:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/paine.htm
"WRITINGS. If Paine's writings had been only political, he would have
been held in honor as a bold and vigorous friend of human liberty. He
was extraordinarily fertile in ideas, and broad-minded and progressive.
He was in fact a great genius. His power of speech has always been
admired. To him is to be traced the common saying, "These are the times
that try men's souls," which is the opening sentence of the first
number of _The Crisis_ (which was printed in the Pennsylvania Journal,
December 19, 1776). His pamphlet, _Common Sense_ (January, 1776), was
one of the memorable writings of the day, and helped the cause of
Independence. His _Rights of Man_; being an Answer to Mr. Burke's
Attack on the French Revolution is a complete statement of republican
principles. But it is as the author of _The Age of Reason_, an
uncompromising attack on the Bible, that he is most widely known,
indeed notorious. The first part of this work was handed by him, while
on his way to prison in the Luxembourg, to his friend Joel Barlow, and
appeared, London and Paris, March 1794; the second part, composed while
in prison, December, 1795; the third was left in manuscript. "His
ignorance," says Leslie Stephen, "was vast, and his language brutal;
but he had the gift of a true demagogue,--the power of wielding a fine
vigorous English, a fit vehicle for fanatical passion." Paine was not
an atheist, but a deist. In his will he speaks of his "reposing
confidence in my Creator-God and in no other being; for I know no
other, nor believe in any other." He voiced current doubt, and is still
formidable; because, although he attacks a gross misconception of
Christianity, he does it in such a manner as to turn his reader, in
many cases, away from any serious consideration of the claim of
Christianity. His _Age of Reason_ is still circulated and read. The
replies written at the time are not. Of these replies the most famous
is Bishop Watson's (1796)."
Why Gardiner would go to great lengths to attack Paine, who was no
longer influential in governmental circles, in a transparent effort to
argue that this constitutes evidence that the founders must have
intended this no be an officially Christian nation, when the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights says clearly that the government is
to be neutral on matters of religion, is beyond me. Unless, of course,
one considers this as the empty propaganda used to support the idea of
an officially Christian nation that it is.
jal...@cox.net
Any of the following URLs that have separated be sure to make them whole on
one line again before trying to click on them
[17% churched #1]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1915158611d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=36F16525.86C1F77F%40pitnet.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[17% churched #2]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1915158611d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=3702a96a.27748344%40news.pilot.infi.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ 17% churched #3]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3626370080d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=36f6ca17.12723584%40news.pilot.infi.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[17% Churched #4]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3626370080d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=36f79838.23034413%40nntp.ix.netcom.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[17% churched # 5]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2764349343d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=36F4A147.46F60107%40pitnet.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[17% Churched # 6]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3088339445d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=36f824aa.4092319%40news.pilot.infi.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=tklonsccvt8cdj77o710kog6o396hdh96o%404ax.com
George Washington and Religion
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/religiongw.html
Six Historic Americans George Washington
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_remsburg/six_historic_americans/chapter_3.html
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND DEISM
http://www.deism.com/washington.htm
George Washington's, Silent Lack of Piety
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/washington.htm
What Was Washington's Belief? by Franklin Steiner
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/steiner0.htm#WASHINGTON
http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9710.htm
George Washington's Attitude Towards Religion
http://www.bessel.org/gwrelig.htm
[Nellie #1 --- 8-27-00]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl676151689d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=7v4iqsgne7n0s8gii8dsufg0m8adttbb63%404ax.com
[ Nellie #2 --- 8-26-00]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2496782560d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=oehfqsc5cgpimoc04fu3ues8gtbnpi27m3%404ax.com
[Nellie #3 --- 8-26-00]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2496782560d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=1XUp5.11972%24Xg.240374%40news-east.usenetserver.com
[Nellie #4 --- 8-27-00]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2184778732d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=WGaq5.24672%24Xg.668492%40news-east.usenetserver.com
[Nellie #5 --- 8-30-00
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2184778732d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=N0hr5.36056%24IM3.804901%40news-east.usenetserver.com
[Nellie #6 --- 8-26-00
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2184778732d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=8o9p4s%24rkv%241%40nnrp1.deja.com
[Madison --- 5/18/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2293211412d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=jo4ceuscvq4regicu74ef8m9j04p5h9lu4%404ax.com
[Washington-Bean, --- 5/16/20]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl206590337d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=lsh8eucp8ttc9smndpcqdnne9d4um7c1dm%404ax.com
[Founders in general, long long post but most complete probably thus far
--- 5/19/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl783259543d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=9creeugfmesftrah9m1epc0qac46rj0j8l%404ax.com
[Moral intregity, sep c&s, --- 5/16/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2625133586d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=2th8euo0hqpbv5lt5603a3cl07emm3r42s%404ax.com
[Madison, very general, reply to his reply to my long Madison --- 5/19/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2293211412d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=q0jfeu8qhogq06b0liaanlshdh6kfjggg9%404ax.com
[Mostly Jefferson, primary/secondary evidence, including old reply to
Gardiner---5/14/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3825310418d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=53i2eu0fuv023s9r7r3itsg4839javqgiu%404ax.com
[Jefferson, primary/secondary material --- 5/16/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3825310418d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=27nceuor6e8g3dctnk6iqjt7d55brhavgv%404ax.com
[Mostly Jefferson --- 5/15/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3825310418d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=olj4eu8mi4g43qjcq3g0fmck5atv7ojntg%404ax.com
[Deism definitions from others --- 5/15/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl671253268d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=p0k4eucgchct6dgf9lm19hovts9t687ivn%404ax.com
[Thomas Paine --- 5/17/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2727323779d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=hin9eu86hf9i9t4dtdv2apnqccqm6f8m03%404ax.com
[George Washington --- 5/17/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2727323779d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=q0p9eu0qfsbcir7sj5ikeuo0mtuk7c5rh6%404ax.com
[Orthodox and addressign other so called errors of mine --- 5/19/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2727323779d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=08ffeuolg7b4ennn70oign8m3mhmg9dcu7%404ax.com
[Jefferson, more of the correting so called erros of my, more attempts by
postr to creat mountian out of a spec --- 5/20/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl146791123d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=vbtheuc3vacrqkh94pt41drcgjhldag3gf%404ax.com
[Constitution-Charter-Grant, --- 5/20/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl146791123d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=ddtheuc184uorjhg2kaf72o0jd4hiq2uvm%404ax.com
[Very short founders in general, James Kent --- 5/14/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2588822828d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=dsm1eugg233r5efcr61lpf0ahlai9rm5kp%404ax.com
[Founders in general, long --- 5/16/02]
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1890475978d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=pgd7eu4qt7i4a8kuaak2b6abmmt2g3u0b6%404ax.com
[Kent, URLs to web site for comments of other founders, etc --- 5/14/02
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1890475978d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&selm=o7n1eug0rcng1n5p7jd2kjhstb6o4dan6e%404ax.com
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4gnmfu8pjh8nt62nl3s371rovl8ebbqf14%404ax.com&output=gplain
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L.O.C. EXHIBIT (update)
Newsgroups:
soc.history.war.us-revolution,alt.history.colonial,alt.atheism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,
soc.history,alt.deism,alt.atheism,alt.religion.deism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.history
Subject: L.O.C. EXHIBIT (update)
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:14:18 -0400
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d11tqs02s7dubb5jkbu3r1su3plnfaoq3c%404ax.com&output=gplain
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.soncom.com/psonnek/quotes.html
BANK OF WISDOM - Rare Books on CD-ROM
http://www.bank-of-wisdom.com/
Especially CD #7 - America - The Historic Facts, and
CD #9 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson.
From CD # 7
THE RELIGIOUS CORRESPONDENCE of THOMAS JEFFERSON
(In Context)
"REBELLION TO TYRANTS is OBEDIENCE TO GOD" Motto on Jefferson's seal
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qtable.htm
http://community.libertynet.org/~iha/valleyforge/youasked/060.htm
http://community.libertynet.org/~iha/valleyforge/washington/prayer.html
http://rowlf.cc.wwu.edu:8080/~stephan/webstuff/twain.html
George Washington
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html
Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
52. Freedom of Religion
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Real Jefferson on Religion by Robert S. Alley
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/alley_18_4.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson's Abridgement of the Words of Jesus of Nazareth Compiled
While President of the United States, Introduction and copyrighted by Mark
A. Beliles, (1993)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jefferson's Extracts from the Gospels "The Philosophy of Jefferson" and
"The Life and Morals of Jesus." Dickenson W. Adams, Editor, The Papers of
Thomas Jefferson, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N J (1983)
(Bs2549. J5 J43 1983
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson and His Library: A Study of His Literary Interests and of
the Religious Attitudes Revealed by Relevant Titles in his Library, Charles
B. Sanford, (Hamden, Conn, 1977)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson Versus Religious Oppression, by Frank Swancara, University
Books N.Y. (1967)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Jefferson Bible, with the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas
Jefferson, O.I.A. Roche, ed. With intro by Henry W. Foote (New York, 1964)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Religion of Thomas Jefferson. Henry W. Foote (Boston, Ma. Beacon Press
1960)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In God We trust; The religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding
Fathers, Norman Cousins, (New York: Harper, 1958).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom, Advocate of Christian
Morals, Henry W. Foote, (Boston, 1947)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, including the Jefferson Bible, :The Life
and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Ed. Edward Boykin, New York, 1941
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME ADDITIONAL REFERENCES and a good source for comparisons between
European and American forms of enlighttenment (Deism, etc)
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Gordon S Wood, University
of North Carolina Press (1998)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Radicalism of the American Revolution Gordon S Wood, Vintage Books,
(1991)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventing America, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Garry Wills ,
Vintage Books (1979)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn, The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (1992)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Republics Ancient and Modern, Inventions of Prudence: Constituting the
American Regime, By Paul A. Rahe, 3 Vols. The University of North Carolina
Press, Chapel Hill & London (1994)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some additional information :
How often did the founders quote the Bible?
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg9.htm
Madison's letter to Jasper Adams
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/jasper.htm
Jefferson on religion flourishing on its own merits
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/merits.htm
Thomas Jefferson on church and state
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qjeffson.htm
Rufus King's views on Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qking.htm
John Leland on Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qleland.htm
Madison on church and state
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qmadison.htm
George Mason's views on Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qmason.htm
Charles Pinckney and Separation of Church and State.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qpinck.htm
Edmund Randolph's views on Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qrandolf.htm
What about quotations that appear to oppose separation?
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/quote4.htm
What the founders believed about separation of church and state
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/quoteidx.htm
Noah Webster's views on the Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qwebstrn.htm
Study Guide for Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd1.htm
A Study Guide for the Words/Concept: "Separation of Church and State"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd3.htm
A Study Guide to the History of United States Symbols and Mottos
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd5.htm
Representative Tucker on the Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/basic2a.htm
A Critical Response to Bernard Katz On Our Founding Fathers by Robert
Nordland
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/nordland.htm
Madison's Arguments Against Special Religious Sanction of American
Government (1792)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/madlib.htm
Madison's vetoes: Some of The First Official Meanings Assigned to The
Establishment Clause
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/madvetos.htm
Treaty of Tripoli, 1796: Little-Known U.S. Document Signed by President
Adams Proclaims America's Government Is Secular
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tripoli1.htm
"Does the 1796-97 Treaty with Tripoli Matter to Church/State
Separation?"; Speech given to the Humanists of Georgia on
June 22, 1997 and at the 1997 Lake Hypatia Independance Day
Celebration, by Ed Buckner, Ph.D.
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html
"Is The United States a Christian Country?" by Rev. James W.
Watkins
http://www.mainstreamop.org/church2.htm
"The Government of the United States of America is not, in any
sense founded on the Christian Religion "; by Jim Walker.
or
"Little-Known U. S. Document Signed by President Adams Proclaims
America's Government is Secular "; by Jim Walker.
[sometimes the top link doesn't work, so if you have trouble with
it try the bottom.]
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
"Joel Barlow And The Treaty With Tripoli: A Tangled Tale Of Pirates, A Poet
And The True Meaning Of The First Amendment" by Rob Boston, Church &
State Magazine, June, 1997
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston4.htm
In God We Trust
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/motto.htm
Some Thoughts on Religion and Law
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/bthot-lr.htm
Religious Freedom vs Religion
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/batte-rf.htm
All Those Christian Presidents
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/hayes.htm
Is it true that Madison said "Our future is staked on the 10
commandments?"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/misq1.htm
Is it true that Madison said "Religion is the foundation of
government?"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/misq2.htm
Did John Quincy Adams ever say that the American Revolution
"connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with
the principles of Christianity?"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/misq5.htm
The Supreme Court has Declared that the United States is a
Christian Nation.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg7.htm
Did Montesquieu base his theory of separation of powers on the
Bible?
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/montesquieu.htm
The word Religion does not mean Christian
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/minor.htm
Holy Trinity and the Christian Nation Dicta
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/trinity.htm
Getting to Know Supreme Court Justice David J. Brewer
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/brewer.htm
"The Year of Our Lord" and separation.
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg10c.htm
Federal officials take their oaths upon a Bible, and use the words
"so help me God."
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/arg11.htm
Benjamin F. Underwood: The Practical Separation of Church and State
(1876)
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/uwood.htm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
===================================================================== =
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qtable.htm
==============================================
jal...@cox.net
#9
[ William Lee Miller, who has made a special study of the role of
religion in the nation's founding, summarized the conclusion of that
study in these striking words:
Did "religious freedom" for Jefferson and Madison extend to
atheists? Yes. To agnostics, unbelievers, and pagans? Yes. To heretics
and blasphemers and the sacrilegious? Yes. To "the Jew and the Gentile,
the Christian and the Mohametan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every
denomination?" Yes. To Papists? Yes. To "irreligion"? Yes. To people who
want freedom from religion? Yes. To people who want freedom against
religion? Yes.(9)
(9) William Lee Miller, "The Ghost of freedoms Past," in The Washington
Post National Weekly Edition (13 October 1986), p. 23. ]
**********************************************
This could be viewed as a very short summation of freedom of and freedom
from religion
Convinced that religious liberty must, most assuredly, be built into the
structural frame of the new [state] government, Jefferson proposed this
language [for the new Virginia constitution]: "All persons shall have full
and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to
frequent or maintain any religious institution": freedom for religion, but
also freedom from religion. (Edwin S. Gaustad, Faith of Our Fathers:
Religion and the New Nation, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, p. 38.
Jefferson proposed his language in 1776.)
===========================================================
JEFFERSON
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be;
sincerely attached to his doctrines"
Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of
Jesus."
Jefferson to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am, therefore, of his theology" ["his" referring to "that sublime
reformer of the Jewish religion"]
Jefferson to Ezra Stiles, June 25, 1819
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Insofar as a Christian is defined as a disciple of Jesus Christ, Jefferson
owned that designation frequently:
------------ ------------ -----------
-------------
"Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under
my observation, none appear so pure as that of Jesus."
Jefferson to William Canby, Sept. 18, 1813
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"the greatest of all the reformers of the depraved religion of his own
country, was Jesus of Nazareth... a system of the most sublime morality
which has ever fallen from the lips of man."
Jefferson to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"his [Jesus'] doctrines... composed the most beautiful morsel of morality
which has been given to us by man."
Jefferson to William Short, April 13, 1820
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I concur with the author in considering the moral precepts of Jesus as
more pure, correct, and sublime than those of the ancient philosophers...
the morality of Jesus, as taught by himself, and freed from the corruptions
of later times, is far superior."
Jefferson to E. Dowse, April 19, 1803
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I place him among the greatest reformers of morals that have ever existed"
Jefferson to Charles Clay, Jan. 29, 1815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[in the New Testament] the world will at length see the immortal merit of
this first of human sages."
Jefferson to F.A. Van Der Kemp, April 25, 1816
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cloidheamh <moc.nsm@neirbopf> wrote:
>:|On Thu, 09 May 2002 10:59:05 GMT, jal...@cox.net wrote:
>:|>A lot of people do not seem to know or understand that Thomas Jefferson was
>:|>quite religious.
>:|
>:|Define 'religious'. According to some people all the posters on this
>:|newsgroup are 'religious'.
I could care less about what some people say or think.
Jefferson was not a atheist.
In his own particular way he was quite religious.
>:|And since I stated that he was a deist, it follows that I would agree
>:|that he was religious.
If that is the case, what is the point of your reply?
BTW, Jefferson would have qualified as a deist far more in his early life
than in his later life.
At no point beyond perhaps his teen years, if even then, would he have
qualified as a "orthodox Christian" as that term was used and understood in
his day.
He was raised in the belief of the Church of England, he basically rejected
that and what followed would have qualified him as a Deist. (it must be
understood that American Deism was not exactly the same and those forms one
might encounter in Europe. Though several scholars have stated that
Jefferson probably was more in liner with the European forms that were most
Americans, even he wasn't totally in harmony with them)
IN the late 1790s and into the early 1800s Jefferson moved more in line
with that brand of Unitarianism that was written about and taught by J
Priestily, though he didn't totally embrace those teaching either.
As he once wrote, he was a sect of one. he had his own unique beliefs.
>:|
>:|> He just didn't buy into the orthodox Christian version of
>:|>who god was, what god was, how many made up that god, etc.
>:|>
>:|
>:|He didn't 'buy into' any version of a Christian God. Unless by
>:|'Christian God' you mean an inaccessible entity that does not concern
>:|itself with the universe and has absolutely no connection to the
>:|Bible.
Ahhhh, many Deists did not buy into the clockmaker thinking.
To be sure, there was forms of deism that stated that God make the
universe , etc, etc, etc, and then stepped back and allowed it to run and
function according to the universal laws that s/he/it, had incorporated
into the creation. But that was not the thinking of all forms of deism.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jefferson would not qualify as a "Christian"
according to the standards of his day as exhibited in the various religious
tests and oaths required.
Notice how he qualifies:
Jefferson to Charles Thomson (1/9/1816).
"To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the
genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in
which
he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference
to
all others"
Jefferson to Rush (4/21/1803)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"A change from what? the priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to
ascribe to me religious, or rather anti-religious sentiments, of their own
fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against the act of Virginia
for establishing religious freedom. they wished him to be
thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their
religious dictations."
"I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never
attempted to make a
convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I have ever judged of the
religion of others by their lives, and by this test, my dear Madam, I have
been satisfied yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of
such exemplary virtue and correctness."
"But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a
declared assent to all their
interested absurdities, My opinion is that there would never have been an
infidel, if there had never been a priest."
To Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, August 6, 1816.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and a belief
that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? It
is idle to say, as some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same
evidence of the fact as of most of those we act on, to wit: their own
affirmations, and their reasonings in support of them. I have observed,
indeed, generally, that while in Protestant countries the defections from
the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries
they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known
to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have
had some other foundation than love of God. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to
Thomas Law, June 13, 1814.
ME 14:138
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... If we did a good act merely from the love of God and
a belief that it is
pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the
Atheist? It is idle to say, as
some do, that no such thing exists. We have the same
evidence of the fact as
of most of those we act on, to wit: their own
affirmations, and their reasonings
in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally,
that while in Protestant
countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity
of the priests is to
Deism, in Catholic countries they are to Atheism.
Diderot, D'Alembert,
D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the
most virtuous of
men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other
foundation than love of
God. (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13,
1814. From
Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The
Shaping of the
American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George
Braziller, 1965,
p. 358.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.soncom.com/psonnek/quotes.html
"If not an absolute atheist, he had no belief in a future existence. All
his ideas of obligation or
retribution were bounded by the present life."
[President John Quincy Adams on Thomas Jefferson, 1831]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jefferson thought that Jesus was the greatest teacher of moral
philosophy (superior to the Greek philosophers); but he felt that all
the descriptions of Jesus's miracles, of his virgin birth, of his
divinity: was ignorant nonsense.
The 'Jefferson Bible' reflects this belief.
From,
"The Writings of Thomas Jefferson" , published by G. P. Putnam's Sons,
in 1894.:
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the
Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed
with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
"...If we could believe that he (Jesus) really countenanced the
follies, the falsehoods, and the charlatanisms which his biographers
(Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) father on him, and admit the
misconstructions, interpolations, and theorizations of the fathers of
the early, and the fanatics of the latter, ages, the conclusion would
be irresistible by every sound mind that he was an imposter."
From,
a letter from Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush:
".... They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very
different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who
know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am
indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am
a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely
attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to
himself every human excellence; & **believing he never claimed any
other.**.."
(Emphasis is mine)
"... Like Socrates & Epictetus, he (Jesus) wrote nothing himself.
But he had not, like them, a Xenophon or an Arrian to write for him.
On the contrary, all the learned of his country, entrenched in its
power and riches, were opposed to him, lest his labors
should undermine their advantages; and the committing to writing his
life & doctrines fell on the most unlettered & ignorant men; who
wrote, too, from memory, & not till long after the transactions had
passed.
According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and
reform mankind, he (Jesus) fell an early victim to the jealousy &
combination of the altar and the throne, at about 33. years of age,
his reason having not yet attained the maximum of its energy, nor the
course of his preaching, which was but of 3. years at most, presented
occasions for developing a complete system of morals.
Hence the doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a
whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us
mutilated, misstated, & often unintelligible.
They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of
schismatising followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating
& perverting the simple doctrines he taught by engrafting on
them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into
subtleties, & obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good
men to reject the whole in disgust, & to view Jesus himself as
an impostor.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, a system of morals is
presented to us, which, if filled up in the true style and spirit of
the rich fragments he left us, would be the most perfect and sublime
that has ever been taught by man... "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jefferson claimed to be a Christian, but he did qualify that comment:
In a letter to Dr. Rush, April 23, 1803, Jefferson outlines his views
on the comparative merits of Christianity in syllabus form, stimulated
by Dr. Priestley's treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared.":
APRIL 21, 1803
TO DOCTOR BENJAMIN RUSH
Washington, April 21, 1803
DEAR SIR,In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings
of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis
through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was
sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, I
would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and
reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to
me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of
Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of
Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any
one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all
others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never
claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I
could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has
been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it
expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment
of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley, his
little treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared." This being a section
of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of
reflection while on the road, and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to
arrange in my mind a syllabus, or outline of such an estimate of the
comparative merits of Christianity, as I wished to see executed by some one
of more leisure and information for the task, than myself. This I now send
you, as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And
in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant
perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new
misrepresentations and calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication
of my religious tenets to the public; because it would countenance the
presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal,
and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the
rights of conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves
every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions
of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances,
become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example
of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by
answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between God and
himself.
Accept my affectionate salutations.
[WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE ENTIRE SYLLABUS]
Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared
with those of others
In a comparative view of the Ethics of the enlightened nations of
antiquity, of the Jews and of Jesus, no notice should be taken of the
corruptions of reason among the ancients, to wit, the idolatry and
superstition of the vulgar, nor of the corruptions of Christianity by
the learned among its professors.
Let a just view be taken of the moral principles inculcated by the most
esteemed of the sects of ancient philosophy, or of their individuals;
particularly Pythagoras, Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca,
Antoninus.
I. Philosophers. 1. Their precepts related chiefly to ourselves, and the
government of those passions which, unrestrained, would disturb our
tranquillity of mind.(1) In this branch of philosophy they were really
great.
2. In developing our duties to others, they were short and defective. They
embraced, indeed, the circle of kindred and friends, and inculcated
patriotism, or the love of our country in the aggregate, as a primary
obligation: towards our neighbors and countrymen they taught justice, but
scarcely viewed them as within the circle of benevolence Still less have
they inculcated peace, charity and love to our fellow men, or embraced with
benevolence the whole family of mankind.
II. Jews. 1. Their system was Deism; that is, the belief in one only God.
But their ideas of him and of his attributes were degrading and injurious.
2. Their Ethics were not only imperfect, but often irreconcilable with the
sound dictates of reason and morality, as they respect intercourse with
those around us; and repulsive and anti-social, as respecting other
nations. They needed reformation, therefore, in an eminent degree.
III. Jesus. In this state of things among the Jews, Jesus appeared. His
parentage was obscure; his condition poor; his education null; his natural
endowments great; his life correct and innocent: he was meek, benevolent,
patient, firm, disinterested, and of the sublimest eloquence. The
disadvantages under which his doctrines appear are remarkable.
1. Like Socrates and Epictetus, he wrote nothing himself.
2. But he had not, like them, a Xenophon or an Arrian to write for him. I
name not Plate, who only used the name of Socrates to cover the whimsies of
his own brain. On the contrary, all the learned of his country, entrenched
in its power and riches, were opposed to him, lest his labors should
undermine their advantages; and the committing to writing his life and
doctrines fell on unlettered and ignorant men; who wrote, too, from memory,
and not till long after the transactions had passed.
3. According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and
reform mankind, he fell an early victim to the jealousy and combination of
the altar and the throne, at about thirty-three years of age, his reason
having not yet attained the maximum of its energy, nor the course of his
preaching, which was but of three years at most, presented occasions for
developing a complete system of morals.
4. Hence the doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a
whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated,
misstated, and often unintelligible.
5. They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of
schismatizing followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and
perverting the simple doctrines he taught, by engrafting on them the
mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and
obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the
whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an impostor.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, a system of morals is presented to
us, which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he
left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by
man.
The question of his being a member of the Godhead, or in direct
communication with it, claimed for him by some of his followers, and denied
by others, is foreign to the present view, which is merely an estimate of
the intrinsic merits of his doctrines.
1. He corrected the Deism of the Jews, confirming them in their belief of
one only God, and giving them juster notions of his attributes and
government.
2. His moral doctrines, relating to kindred and friends, were more pure
and perfect than those of the most correct of the philosophers, and greatly
more so than those of the Jews; and they went far beyond both in
inculcating universal philanthropy, not only to kindred and friends, to
neighbors and countrymen, but to all mankind, gathering all into one
family, under the bonds of love, charity, peace, common wants and common
aids. A development of this head will evince the
peculiar superiority of the system of Jesus over all others.
3. The precepts of philosophy, and of the Hebrew code, laid hold of
actions only. He pushed his scrutinies into the heart of man; erected his
tribunal in the region of his thoughts, and purified the waters at the
fountain head.
4. He taught, emphatically, the doctrines of a future state, which was
either doubted, or disbelieved by the Jews; and wielded it with efficacy,
as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral
conduct.
FOOTNOTE:
(1).To explain, I will exhibit the heads of Seneca's and Cicero's
philosophical works, the most extensive of any we have received from the
ancients. Of ten heads in Seneca, seven relate to ourselves, viz. de ira,
consolatio, de tranquilitate, de constantia sapien tis, de otio sapientis,
de vita beata, de brevitate vitae; two relate to others, de clementia, de
beneficiis; and one relates to the government of the world, de providentia.
Of eleven tracts of Cicero, five respect ourselves, viz. de finibus,
TuscllIana, academica, paradoxa, de Senectute; one, de officiis, relates
partly to ourselves, partly to others; one, de amicitia, relates to others;
and four are on different subjects, to wit, de natura deorum, de
divinatione, de fato, and somnium Scipionis. [Jefferson's footnote.]
Selected writings Koch pp 519-21
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as
far as I know. I am not a Jew, and therefore do not adopt their theology,
which supposes the God of infinite justice to punish the sins of the
fathers upon their children, unto the third and fourth generations; and the
benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion (Jesus of Nazareth) has
told us only that God is good and perfect, but has not defined him. To Ezra
Stiles (President of Yale), TJ to Stiles --- 25 June 1819 --- Bergh 15:203
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the
genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything
rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. -Thomas
Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819 Bergh 15:219-22
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But the greatest of all reformers of the depraved religion of his
own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the
rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the
dress of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from
the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality
which has ever fallen from the lips of man .., The establishment of the
innocent and genuine character of this benevolent morality, and the
rescuing it from the imputation of impostore, which has resulted from
artificial systems, invented by ultra Christian sects* ...is a most
desirable object.* Jefferson's footnote: "The immaculate conception of
Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous
powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in
the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration,
election. orders of the Hierarchy, etc. -T. J."
To Short, October 31, 1819.
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl259.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of the following can be found on a CD that you can order from
BANK OF WISDOM - Rare Books on CD-ROM
http://www.bank-of-wisdom.com/
Especially CD #7 - America - The Historic Facts, and
CD #9 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson.
From CD # 7
THE RELIGIOUS CORRESPONDENCE of THOMAS JEFFERSON
(In Context)
"REBELLION TO TYRANTS is OBEDIENCE TO GOD" Motto on Jefferson's seal
Compiled by Emmett F. Fields
Table of Contents
DATE To/from Page
1763 - July 15. John Page 1
1786 - August 13. George Wythe 2
1786 - August 20. Comte De Mirabeau 4
1786 - Decenber 17. Charles Thompson 5
1787 - July 23. Mrs. John Bolling 6
1787 - August 10. Peter Carr 7
1788 - February 2. William Rutledge 10
1788 - July 31. James Madison 11
1789 - January 8. Dr. Price 13
1789 - June 18. James Madison 15
1789 - March 13. Francis Hopkinson 17
1789 - June 18. James Madison 18
1794 - May 1. Trench Coxe 20
1798 - March 2. James Madison 21
1798 - March 29. James Madison 21
1799 - January 26. Elbridge Gerry 22
1800 - January 27. Joseph Priestley 26
1800 - January 31. Bishop James Madison 27
1800 - May 26. Peter Carr 28
1800 - August 13. Uriah Mcgregory 29
1800 - May 26. James Monroe 30
1800 - August 14. Jeremiah Moor 31
1800 - September 23. Benjamin Rush 32
1801 - January 10. Dr. Hugh Williamson 34
1801 - March 6. John Dickinson 35
1801 - March 21. Joseph Priestley 36
1801 - March 23. Moses Robinson 37
1801 - March 29. Elbridge Gerry 38
1801 - May 3. Gideon Granger 39
1801 - July 21. Pierpont Edwards 40
1801 - August 26. Levi Lincoln 41
1801 - December 5. Rev. Issac Story 42
1802 - January 1. Levi Lincoln 43
1802 - January 1. Danbury Baptist 43
1802 - June 19. Joseph Priestley 44
1803 - April 9. Joseph Priestley 46
1803 - April 19. Edward Dowse 47
1803 - April 21. Benjamin Rush 48
1803 - April 23. Benjamin Rush 51
1803 - May 20. Gideon Granger 52
1804 - January 29. Joseph Priestley 53
1804 - May 21. Henry Fry 54
1804 - June 17. Henry Fry 55
1805 - February 8. C.F.C. De Volney 56
1807 - February 11. Thomas Seymour 58
1807 - July 9. Thomas Cooper 59
1807 - November 18. Capt. John Thomas 59
1808 - January 23. Rev. Samuel Miller 60
1808 - October 17. Baltimore Baptist 61
1808 - October 18. Ketocton Baptist 62
1808 - November 21. Six Baptists Assoc. 63
1808 - December 9. Methodist Episcopal Ch. 64
1809 - January 21. Thomas Leiper 65
1809 - February 4. New London Methodist 66
1809 - April 7. Gov. James Jay 67
1809 - May 19. John Wyceh 67
1809 - June 13. Wilson C. Nicholas 68
1809 - September 27. James Fishback 70
1810 - January 19. William Baldwin 71
1810 - January 19. Samuel Kercheval 71
1810 - October 9. Capt. Isaac Hillard 73
1811 - April 13. Gen. Thaddeus Kosciusko 73
1811 - April 15. Dupont De Nemours 74
1811 - May 26. Anne C. Bankhead 75
1811 - August 4. James Ogilvie 76
1812 - June 11. John Adams 77
1912 - December 27. Dr. Robert Patterson 80
1813 - June 10. John Adams (from) 80
1813 - June 14. John Adams (from) 82
1813 - June 15. John Adams 83
1813 - June 28. John Adams (from) 84
1813 - July 9. John Adams (from) 87
1813 - July 14. Dr. Samuel Brown (from) 89
1813 - July 16. John Adams 90
1813 - July 18. John Adams (from) 92
1813 - August 22. John Adams 93
1813 - September 14. John Adams (from) 95
1813 - September 18. William Canby 98
1813 - September 22. John Adams (from) 99
1813 - October 13. John Adams 101
1813 - October 28. John Adams 104
1813 - November 15. John Adams (from) 107
1813 - December 3. John Adams (from) 109
1813 - December 6. Baron Von Humboldt 112
1813 - December 25. John Adams (from) 114
1814 - January 24. John Adams 117
1814 - January 31. Samuel Greenhow 121
1814 - February ?. John Adams (from) 122
1814 - February 10. Thomas Cooper 125
1814 - March 17. Horato G. Spafford 126
1814 - April 28. Chev. Luis De Onis 127
1814 - June 13. ? 128
1814 - July 5. John Adams 131
1814 - July 16. John Adams (from) 134
1814 - September 26. Miles King 137
1815 - January 29. Charles Clay 138
1815 - March 13. P.H. Wendover 140
1815 - June 22. John Adams (from) 142
1815 - August 24. John Adams (from) 145
1816 - January 9. Charles Thompson 147
1816 - January 10. Horato Gates Spafford 148
1816 - January 21. Thomas Ritchie 150
1816 - February 2. John Adams (from) 151
1816 - March 2. John Adams (from) 153
1816 - April 8. John Adams 155
1816 - April 25. F.A. Van der Kemp 158
1816 - May 3. John Adams (from) 159
1816 - May 6. John Adams (from) 162
1816 - August 1. John Adams 164
1816 - August 6. Mrs. M. Harrison Smith 165
1816 - August 9. John Adams (from) 166
1816 - November 11. Mathew Carey 168
1816 - November 12. George Logan 168
1817 - January 11. John Adams 169
1817 - January 29. Charles Thompson 170
1817 - March 16. Francis A. Van der Kemp 171
1817 - May ?. George Ticknor 172
1817 - May 1. Francis A. Van der Kemp 173
1817 - May 5. John Adams 174
1817 - May 14. Marq. De La Fayette 176
1817 - May 18. John Adams (from) 177
1817 - May 26. John Adams (from) 179
1817 - June 16. Albert Gallatin 180
1818 - February 9. Francis A. Von der Kemp 182
1818 - April 11. Albert Gallatin 185
1818 - May 28. Rabbi Mordecai M. Noah 187
1819 - June 25. Ezra Styles 187
1819 - October 31. William Short 188
1820 - March 14. John Adams 191
1820 - April 13. William Short 193
1820 - May 16. Gen. Robert Taylor 195
1820 - August 4. William Short 197
1820 - August 14. Thomas Cooper 200
1820 - August 15. John Adams 203
1820 - November 4. Rev. Jared Sparks 206
1821 - January 22. John Adams 207
1821 - February 22. Joseph C. Cabell 208
1821 - February 27. Timothy Pickering 209
1821 - September 24. John Adams (from) 210
1822 - June 5. Rev. Thomas Whittemore 211
1822 - June 26. Benjamin Waterhouse 212
1822 - July 19. Benjamin Waterhouse 213
1822 - November 2. Thomas Cooper 214
1822 - December 8. James Smith 216
1823 - April 11. John Adams 217
1823 - May 29. Michael Megear 220
1823 - May 30. James Cooper 221
1823 - August 15. John Adams (from) 222
1823 - December 2. John Fry 224
1823 - December 4. William Carver 224
1823 - December 11. Thomas Cooper 225
1824 - January 10. Thomas Jefferson Grotjan 226
1824 - January 11. Francis A. Van der Kemp 227
1824 - January 18. John Davis 228
1824 - February 25. Isaac Engelbrecht 230
1824 - March 24. Augustus B. Woodward 230
1824 - June 5. Maj. John Cartwright 232
1824 - October 15. Edward Everett 236
1825 - January 8. Benjamin Waterhouse 238
1825 - February 21. Thomas Jefferson Smith 239
1825 - January 23. John Adams (from) 240
1826 - June 24. Roger C. Weightman 241
Appendix
An Act for Establishing Elementary Schools 277
Anas, The 283
Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, The 243
Doctrines of Jesus 286
Gazzett (Newspaper) 284
Gazzett Report, ** Part of 297
Notes of an Interview by Samuel Wuitcomb 288
Notes on Religion 268
Notes on Virginia 261
Syllabus of an Estimate of the Merit of the Life and Morals of Jesus,
(The so-called 'Jefferson Bible') 299
Thoughts on Lotteries 291
To the President and Directors of the Liberary Fund 285
Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law? 255
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Newsgroups:
alt.history.colonial,alt.atheism.satire,alt.athiesm,alt.history,alt.religion,alt.religion.christian,aus.religion,fr.s
oc.religion,alt.religion.christian.biblestudy,alt.religion.christianity,alt.religion.jehovahs-witn,es.charla.religi
on,alt.bible,alt.christnet.philosophy,alt.christnet.theology,alt.religion.christian
Subject: Re: George Washington not Christian
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 16:02:04 GMT
jal...@cox.net
>:|Not one of these quotes is properly cited and is probably an invention
>:|of lying, deceitful religious fundamentalists.
>:|
>:|whythele...@bwaa.com (Dana) writes without sources again, not
>:|rrealizing that nobody (except fundies) is going to tae anything he says
>:|seriously without citation.
>:|
>:|"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 of the gift of 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; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
>:|THOMAS JEFFERSON
>:|--
A article about slavery, Had nothign at all to do with religion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>:|"The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the
>:|affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we
>:|imagine we no longer need His assistance." -Benjamin Franklin
irrelevant, his speech didn't convinve his fellow delegates to have morning
prayers or appoint a chaplain
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>:|--
>:|"You can't have national morality apart from religious principle."
>:|-George
>:|Washington
bogus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>:|--
>:|"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." -John Quincy Adams
Bogus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
jal...@cox.net
>:|
>:|"JV" <head...@webtv.net> wrote in message
>:|news:29326-3E3...@storefull-2351.public.lawson.webtv.net...
>:|> Not one of these quotes is properly cited and is probably an invention
>:|> of lying, deceitful religious fundamentalists.
>:|
>:|
>:|Bush is giving millions to religion in a form of Faith Based
>:|Initiative.Doesn't looks like he cares much.
>:|Whatcha gonna do about it?
>:|
It will be challenged again and again in courts. There has already been one
court challenge in which Faith Based crap lost;
A Baptist minister and follow warrior with Jefferson, Madison and others in
the struggle for religious freedom gave this advice about electing public
officials: "...guard against those men who make a great noise about
religion..."
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/leland5.htm
Faith-Based Charities unconstitutional, says the father of the Constitution
and Bill of Rights
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/faith.htm
jal...@cox.net
>:|Keep em coming jalison....:-))
Oh, I do.
>:|
>:|----------
>:|
>:|Article 6:3 of the US Constitution:
>:|
>:|"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of
>:|the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,
>:|both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by
>:|OATH or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but NO RELIGIOUS TEST
>:|shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust
>:|UNDER THE UNITED STATES.
>:| ----------
>:|
>:|Western Intellectual history
>:|http://www.historyguide.org
>:|
>:|World Cultures
>:|http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/WORLD.HTM
>:|
>:|World History
>:|http://www.fsmitha.com
>:|
>:|The Biological Basis of Morality
>:|http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm
>:|
>:|Separation of Church and State Page:
>:|http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
>:|
>:|The Exodus is just a fable
>:|http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbBreakingIllSpecial1.html
jal...@cox.net
>:|
>:|<jal...@cox.net> wrote in message
>:|news:1mjn3vc04cqcmqruj...@4ax.com...
>:|--
>:|"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 of the gift of 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;
>:|that His justice cannot sleep forever."
>:|
>:|THOMAS JEFFERSON
The essay on slavery
[emphasis added by me]
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the
most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part,
and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to
imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of
all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do
what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his
philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion
towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is
present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child
looks on, catches the lineaments of his wrath, puts on the same airs in
the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions
and thus nursed, educated and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be
stamped by it with odious peculiarities.
The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals
undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execrations should the
statesman be loaded who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample
on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into
enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patriae of the
other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any
other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for
another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute
as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the
human race or entail his own miserable condition on the endless
generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their
industry is also destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for
himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true that, of the
proprietors of slaves, a very small proportion are ever seen to labor.
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 THE GIFT OF GOD? That they
are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country
when I reflect that God isjust: that his justice can not sleep forever:
that considering numbers,nature and natural means only, a revolution of the
wheel of fortune, anexchange of situation is among possible events: that
it may become probable by supernatural interference!
The Almighty has no attributes which can take side with us in such
a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject
through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way
into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the
origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating,
that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way,
I hope, preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation;
and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent
of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Where the text can be found: Andrew McLaughlin's Source Problems in United
States History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918), pp. 379-380. Paul
Leicester Ford's Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal edition, vol. IV, pp.
82-84.
=====================================================
>:|"The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the
>:|affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we
>:|imagine we no longer need His assistance." -Benjamin Franklin
Irrelevant, was dismissed by his fellow delegates and no morning prayers
were ever held.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>:|--
>:|"You can't have national morality apart from religious principle." -George
>:|Washington
Gee, the usual invalid cite, thus the quote has to be considered invalid
until someone provides a valid and complete cite.
>:|"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." -John Quincy Adams
Bogus quote
Did John Quincy Adams ever say that the American Revolution
"connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with
the principles of Christianity?"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/misq5.htm
Since Dana likes to play the quote game:
(1) Study Guide to Quotes:
Quotes in General
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd7a.htm
Problematical Separationist Quotes
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd7b.htm
Problematical Religious Right Quotes And Arguments
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd7c.htm
(2) Ed and Michael Buckner have compiled an extensive collection of
Quotations Supporting the Separation of Church and State. In stark contrast
to many conservative Christian publications, these quotes are authentic,
accurate, and in context. This page is maintained by the Internet Infidels.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_buckner/quotations.html
[Now, I will tell you ahead of time there is one quote found at the above
mentioned site that is improperly cites. It is cited as appearing in a
letter between Jefferson and Madison when in fact it actually appeared in a
letter from Jefferson to another person. The quote is correct, the citing
was incorrect. if you ask nicely, I will even show you the quote I refer
to. ]
jal...@cox.net
>:|
>:|
>:|JV wrote:
>:|
>:|> This is good:
>:|>
>:|> Faith-Based Charities Unconstitutional, says the father of the
>:|> Constitution and Bill of Rights
>:|> http://members.tripod.com/~candst/faith.htm
>:|>
>:|> Researched by Jim Allison
>:|>
>:|> FEBRUARY 21, 1811
>:|> VETO MESSAGES.
>:|> FEBRUARY 21, 1811.
>:|>
>:|> To the House of Representatives of the United States:
>:|>
>:|> Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act incorporating
>:|> the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria, in the
>:|> District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the House of
>:|> Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections:
>:|>
>:|> Because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are
>:|> limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious
>:|> functions, and violates in particular the article of the Constitution of
>:|> the United States which declares that "Congress shall make no law
>:|> respecting a religious establishment.''
>:|>
>:|> The bill enacts into and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings
>:|> relative purely to the organization and polity of the church
>:|> incorporated,
>:|
>:|That is separation of church and state. That does not support the atheists'
>:|cause of separtion of religion and state.
Can we say dishonest?
First of all, what do atheists have to do with church state separation?
I am assuming that you are aware of the fact that the founders who
supported strict separation probably were not atheists. I am assuming that
you are aware of the fact that most people, ordinary people, judges,
lawmakers, etc over the past 200+ who have supported, pushed for and
advocated strict separation of church state were not atheists. I am even
assuming the fact you are well versed enough in this subject to know that
the vast majority of court cases brought in the church state arena were not
brought by atheists. Instead, they were brought by people who were
religious, and in many if not most cases were members of some Christian
sect, denomination, religious society, etc.
Thus, I always wonder abut people who resort to half truths or outright
falsehoods, to labels designed to appeal to emotions rather than fact.
Secondly, you elected to misrepresent by not including all of the
information, i.e. his reasons for the vetoes.
Let us look at those reasons, both of them:
VETO MESSAGES.
FEBRUARY 21, 1811.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act incorporating the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of
Alexandria, in the District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the
House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the
following objections:
Because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are
limited by the essential distinction between civil and
religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the
Constitution of the United States which declares that "Congress
shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.''
[HERE IS THE FIRST]
The bill enacts into and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings
relative purely to the organization and polity of the church incorporated,
and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the
same, so that no change could be made therein by the particular society or
by the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it
recognizes. this particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious
establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given to certain
articles in its constitution and administration. Nor can it be considered
that the articles thus established are to be taken as the descriptive
criteria only of the corporate identity of the society, inasmuch as
this identity must depend on other characteristics, as the regulations
established are generally unessential and alterable according to the
principles and canons by which churches of that denomination govern
themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions contained in the
regulations would be enforced by the penal consequences applicable to a
violation of them according to the local law.
[HERE IS THE SECOND]
Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to
provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of
the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision
is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to
religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public
and civil duty.
James Madison.
Source of Information: A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, Vol. II, Bureau of National Literature,
NY, pp 474-475
Editor's Note: Madison vetoed the legislation because it crossed the line
of separation between church and state and thus would be a precedent for
giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into
effect a public and civil duty.
DO PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE SECOND ONE, THE ONE YOU ELECTED TO
IGNORE. Isn't it remarkable how it is right on all fours, i e on point to
faith based charities crap?
>:|To be against the establishment
>:|of a national church
Certain people keep trying to give life to the Myth that the establishment
clause only pertained to a national church. They say it a lot, as you just
did, but no one provided any valid real evidence that supports that myth.
Can you provide any valid primary source information that shows that was
the one and only intent, function, etc of the Constitutional principle of
church state separation?
If you can't, that is more evidence of what one could call being dishonest.
" In recent discussions of religious freedom and Church-State separation in
the United States attention has been so much centered constitutionally on
the Bill of Rights that the importance of this Provision in the original
Constitution as a bulwark of Church-State separation has been largely
overlooked. As a matter of fact it was and is important in preventing
religious tests for Federal office--a provision later extended to all the
states. It went far in thwarting any State Church in the United States; for
it would be almost impossible to establish such a Church, since no Church
has more than a fifth of the population. Congress as constituted with men
and women from all the denominations could never unite in selecting any one
body for this privilege. This has been so evident from the time of the
founding of the government that it is one reason why the First Amendment
must be interpreted more broadly than merely as preventing the state
establishment of religion which had already been made almost impossible."
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: CHURCH AND STATE IN THE
UNITED STATES, VOLUME I, Anton Phelps Stokes, D.D., LL.D,
Harper & Brothers Publishers (1950) page 527)
>:|is a far cry from banning Christian symbols and the
>:|like from public life as per the advocacy of atheistic totalitarians.
More of the crap, appealing to emotions. Misrepresentations, falsehoods,
and not a bit of it backed up with evidence.
What else is new?
RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/08-1995/religion.html
Religion in the Public Schools: A Joint Statement of Current Law
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/jnt-sta.htm
WORK PLACE RIGHTS [Religious]
http://www.aclj.org/resources/workrts/index.asp
===============================================
>:|> Article 6:3 of the US Constitution:
>:|>
>:|> "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of
>:|> the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,
>:|> both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by
>:|> OATH or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but NO RELIGIOUS TEST
>:|> shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust
>:|> UNDER THE UNITED STATES.
>:|
>:|"The federal test ban, however, was not driven by a general
>:|renunciation of religious tests as a matter of principle.
>:|The fact that religious tests conformed to popular
>:|wishes is confirmed by their inclusion in almost all
>:|state constitutions of the revolutionary era.
>:|Interestingly, religious liberty and nonestablishment
>:|provisions coexisted with religious test oaths in many
>:|state constitutions. This suggests that the founding generation
>:|did not consider these concepts incompatible. Furthermore,
>:|some delegates at the Philadelphia Convention who
>:|endorsed the federal ban had previously participated in
>:|crafting religious tests for their respective state constitutions.
>:|How can this apparent contradiction be reconciled? The
>:|Constitution of 1787, as a matter of federalism, denied
>:|the federal government all jurisdiction over religion,
>:|including the authority to administer religious tests.
>:|There was a consensus that religion was a matter
>:|best left to individual citizens and to their respective
>:|state governments. Many in the founding generation
>:|supported a federal test ban because they valued
>:|religious tests required under state laws, and they
>:|feared a federal test might displace existing state test
>:|oaths and religious establishments. Even among the most
>:|ardent proponents of Article VI, few denied the advantage
>:|of placing devout Christians in public office. The issues
>:|warmly debated were federalism and the efficacy of a
>:|national religious test for attaining this objective."
>:|(Baylor Law Review Fall, 1996
>:|48 Baylor L. Rev. 927
>:| In Search of a Christian Commonwealth: An
>:|Examination of Selected Nineteenth-Century
>:|Commentaries on References to God and the Christian
>:|Religion in the United States Constitution
>:|Daniel L. Dreisbach )
(1) Separation of church and state, the principle, where can it be found,
or can it be found in the Constitution?
One might consider the following:
====================================================================
Directly, the unamended constitution, Article VI, Section III
" but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any
office or public trust under the United States."
-----------------------------
"The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test shall
ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under
the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose
of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an
invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object;
to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and
state in the national government.
(COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, by Supreme Court
Justice Joseph Story, Vol III, (1833) pg 705)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) Madison's vetoes: Some of The First Official Meanings Assigned to The
Establishment Clause
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/madvetos.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3) James Madison on Separation of Church and State
Direct references to separation to be found in the writings of James
Madison
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/qmadison.htm
Direct references to separation to be found in the writings of James
Madison:
" To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina
I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to
the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem
Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the
practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to
the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United
States, I could not have other wise discharged my duty on the occasion
which presented itself"
(Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).
" The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated
hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions
with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of
the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly
increased by the total separation of the church from the State."
(Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).
" Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and Gov't in the
Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by
Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents' already furnished
in their short history"
(Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).
"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation
between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have
no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done,
in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity
the less they are mixed together"
(Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).
" I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case,
to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the
civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on
unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other
or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded
against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way
whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting
each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others".
(Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1833).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(4)
APRIL 14, 1800
THE GAZETTE
PHILADELPHIA
MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 14.
The condition of Church and State in America is such as to fill
every considerate mind with the most unhappy sensations. In spite of that
vanity and fastidiousness which led the Federal Convention, in founding
their government, to preclude any connection, it will appear in the end,
even by our own deplorable example, that a strict and indissoluble alliance
of religion to government has been ordained in the nature of things. Though
formally sundered by Constitution and laws; together they decline and
together (it would seem) they are likely to perish. (SOURCE OF INFORMATION:
THE GAZETTE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 14, 1800 JAN 1, 1800 TO DEC 31,
1800 MFILM N.S. 10953 AP2.05
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(5) Some Thoughts on Religion and Law
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/bthot-lr.htm"
=====================================================
Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach
B.A. University of South Carolina
D.Ph. Oxford University
J.D. University of Virginia
Professor Dreisbach's principal research interests include American
constitutional law and history, First Amendment law, church-state
relations, and criminal procedure. He has written extensively on these
topics, including two books and numerous articles in scholarly journals.
Courses that Professor Dreisbach teaches include American Legal Culture,
Issues in Civil Justice, Civil Justice Systems and the Constitution, and
The Constitution and Criminal Procedure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book would be a take off on an article he wrote on the same topic that
was published
"Sowing Useful Truths and principles": The Danbury Baptists, Thomas
Jefferson and the "Wall of Separation", By Daniel L. Dreisbach, Journal Of
Church and State, Volume 39, Summer 1997, Number 3, pp 486-490
Daniel L. Dreisbach has been perhaps one of the leading accommodationist,
non-preferentialist authors of the past fifteen years or so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If, as nonpreferentialists suppose, the views of James Madison, the
legislative history of the establishment clause, and its original meaning
support the constitutionality of impartial government aid to religion, then
the guiding light of history burns incandescently on behalf of
nonpreferentialism. But they are wrong in thinking that they have a prop in
Madison. They misconstrue the legislative history of the clause. And they
mistakenly connect an establishment of religion with only a national church
or a national religion. A good nonpreferential scholar, Daniel L.
Dreisbach, declared that because the framers sought to "proscribe the
establishment of a national church," the conclusion reasonably follows that
the national government is "not foreclosed from extending general benefits
to religion if administered on an equal basis and in a manner that did not
infringe on the free exercise rights of any religious group."4 Dreisbach
even endorsed the view that the Constitution allows "the promotion of a
generalized or nondenominational form of Christianity . . . ." Dreisbach
failed to indicate which clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to
extend general benefits to religion or to Christianity. None does.
4. Dreisbach, Real Threat and Mere Shadow, p. 65; chap. 6 is entitled "The
Prohibition of the Establishment of a National Church."
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.114
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other books by Daniel Dreisbach:
Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia
Daniel L. Dreisbach (Editor), Garrett Ward Sheldon (Editor)
Paperback, June 2000
Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the
Church-State Debate Daniel L. Dreisbach (Editor), J. Adams
Hardcover, Paperback, February 1996
Real Threat and Mere Shadow, Daniel L. Dreisbach
Paperback, September 1987
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Heritage Foundation, Free Congress Foundation.
He is definitely a favorite on the conservative and religious right
circuit.
Dreisbach does seem to be a bit obsessed with Jefferson's letter to the
Danbury Baptist Assoc. He has, thus far at least written one of more
articles on it and now a book as well.
However, I wonder how that addresses the following:
(1) Neither Thomas Jefferson nor his letter created, invented, etc church
state separation
(2) Rehnquist, Wallace v. Jaffree, A rebuttal-- [Tue, 14 Jan 2003]
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=n1382vklsnf363pgo26sgkfpn92ukhspds%404ax.com&output=gplain
(3)
Study Guide for Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd1.htm
A Study Guide for the Words/Concept: "Separation of Church and State"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd3.htm
jal...@cox.net
>:|Baylor is a BAPTIST school that has a stake in overthrowing the
>:|establishment clause. They want a God Government. Baptists are wacked
>:|out on having the government be their pack-mule for GAWD.
Baylor is also the home of the Journal of Church and State, published by
J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies.
The Journal of Church and State is edited by Derek H. Davis, who is a
lawyer, among other things and gives fair treatment to all sides but who
personally is a separationist.
J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies
http://www3.baylor.edu/Church_State/
jal...@cox.net
=====================================================
Dr. Daniel L. Dreisbach
B.A. University of South Carolina
D.Ph. Oxford University
J.D. University of Virginia
Professor Dreisbach's principal research interests include American
constitutional law and history, First Amendment law, church-state
relations, and criminal procedure. He has written extensively on these
topics, including two books and numerous articles in scholarly journals.
Courses that Professor Dreisbach teaches include American Legal Culture,
Issues in Civil Justice, Civil Justice Systems and the Constitution, and
The Constitution and Criminal Procedure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel L. Dreisbach has been perhaps one of the leading accommodationist,
non-preferentialist authors of the past fifteen years or so.
===============================================
BOOKS
Real Threat and Mere Shadow, Daniel L. Dreisbach, Paperback,
September 1987
Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the
Church-State Debate Daniel L. Dreisbach (Editor), J. Adams Hardcover,
Paperback, February 1996
[ also a blurb on line
Religion and Political Culture in Jefferson's Virginia, Daniel L.
Dreisbach (Editor), Garrett Ward Sheldon (Editor) Paperback, June 2000
Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and
State, Daniel L. Dreisbach
July 2002
-------------------------------------------------------------------
ARTICLES
The Constitution's forgotten religion clause: Reflections on the
Article VI, Religious Test Ban.
Daniel Dreisbach, Journal of Church and State, Vol 38, Spring 1996, Number
2, pp. 261-297
In Search of a Christian Commonwealth: An Examination of Selected
Nineteenth-Century
Commentaries on References to God and the Christian Religion in the United
States Constitution
Daniel L. Dreisbach, Baylor Law Review Fall, 1996 48 Baylor L. Rev. 927
"Sowing Useful Truths and principles": The Danbury Baptists, Thomas
Jefferson and the "Wall of Separation", By Daniel L. Dreisbach, Journal Of
Church and State, Volume 39, Summer 1997, Number 3, pp 486-490
A Godless Constitution?: A Response to Kramnick and Moore by Daniel
L. Dreisbach (1997)
http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=25
Religion and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the
Church-State Debate by Daniel L. Dreisbach, editor
http://www.atheistalliance.org/bookshelf/rv-dreisbach1.html
The "Wall of Separation between Church and State".....A
Misunderstood Metaphor by Daniel L. Dreisbach, Tuesday, Meridian Magazine.
[Church of the Latter-Day Saints Magazine] February 4, 2002
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/030130churchandstate.html
CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY
VOLUME 16 WINTER 1999 NUMBER 3
CONTENTS
What the Wall Separates: A Debate on Thomas Jefferson's "Wall of
Separation" Metaphor
Daniel L. Dreisbach 627. John D. Whaley
http://www.law.umn.edu/journals/constcom/v16n3.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Invites to speak at The Heritage Foundation, Free Congress
Foundation. He is definitely a favorite on the conservative and religious
right circuit.
Dreisbach does seem to be a bit obsessed with Jefferson's letter to
the Danbury Baptist Assoc. He has, thus far at least written one of more
articles on it and now a book as well. However, I wonder how that
addresses the following:
(1) Neither Thomas Jefferson nor his letter created, invented, etc
church
state separation
(2) Rehnquist, Wallace v. Jaffree, A rebuttal-- [Tue, 14 Jan 2003]
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=n1382vklsnf363pgo26sgkfpn92ukhspds%404ax.com&output=
gplain
(3) Study Guide for Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd1.htm
(4) A Study Guide for the Words/Concept: "Separation of Church and
State"
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/studygd3.htm
================================================
8. Dreisbach, Daniel L. Real Threat and Mere Shadow. Westchester,
Il., Crossway Books, 1987. On page xiv, Dreisbach implies that President
Thomas Jefferson's (1802) "wall of separation," upon which the Everson
(1947) and McCollum (1948) courts stood when documenting the historical
definition of the Establishment Clause, "was constructed to delineate
jurisdictional lines of authority between the federal and state
governments." This a lucid example of "history by omission" and "the
intellectually dishonest practice of selectively recounting only those
historical facts which could be read" to support a history revisionist's
effort to misuse history by using only a part of the historical record and
then finishing the sentence with words which do not exist in the document
from which he quotes. Let it be clearly noted, for the record, that
President Jefferson, in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, deliberately
described the "wall of separation" as "between Church & State"--not
"between the federal and state governments," as Dreisbach writes. The
simple problem is that to Dreisbach "the meaning of the First Amendment is
ambiguous" (p.22) --obviously. Now an example of how Dreisbach would reword
the First Amendment: he says (p. 69) that to nonpreferentialists--such as
he is--the purpose of the Establishment Clause was to "prohibit the
establishment of a national (or federal) church and implicitly to restrict
Congress from granting any religious sect or denomination a preferred legal
status." Again, for the record, let it be clearly noted that the word
following "establishment of" in the Establishment Clause is "religion"--not
"national (or federal) church . . . religious sect or denomination," as
Driesbach prefers. The solution, then, is to understand the "voice of the
framers,"in the terms
in which the Establishment Clause is written, as well as in historical
context. Everyone agrees that the Bill of Rights restricted the power of
the federal government. The Establishment Clause restricted Congress in
terms of an establishment of "religion"--just as it is written. For
example, from history, in Virginia on October 25, 1779, James Henry
presented the conservative demands in his bill "concerning religion."
This bill . . . marks the great
effort of the conservative party to re-establish . . . a general
assessment and a regulation of religion. . .
. The bill reads: . . .
The Christian Religion shall in all times coming be deemed and held to
be the established Religion of
this Commonwealth; and all Denominations of Christians demeaning
themselves peaceable and
faithfully, shall enjoy equal privileges, civil and Religious. . . .
Whenever free male Persons not under twenty one Years of Age,
professing the Christian Religion,
shall agree to unite themselves in a Society for the purpose of
Religious Worship, they shall be
constituted a Church, and esteemed and regarded in Law as of the
established Religion of this
Commonwealth, . . .
Every Society so formed . . . shall entitle them to be incorporated
and esteemed as a Church of the
Established Religion of this Commonwealth.
The above example is quoted from pages 58-59 of a history first published
by the Virginia State Library in 1910 as written by H. J. Eckenrode in the
book Separation of Church and State in Virginia, (reprinted in 1971 by Da
Capo Press). It is a clear illustration that "in the minds of the framers,"
like James Madison, there was the idea of an "Established Religion" which
was defined in terms of all Christian churches, not just one, single,
official, national denomination or church. The James Henry idea of
establishing Christianity as the state religion was rejected in Virginia,
and Dreisbach is wrong when he writes (p. 74) that "the final draft [of the
Establishment Clause] fulfilled Madison's objective to proscribe . . . a
federal church." James Madison never used the words "a federal church," and
there is no mention of "Christianity" in the Constitution for the United
States of America. That which is prohibited in the Establishment Clause is
an establishment of "religion"--religion is what it says, religion is what
it means, religion is the only word which is compatible with thereof in the
free exercise clause, and it does not take a Rhodes scholar to understand
it. President Madison understood it when in February 1811 he vetoed bills
relating to an Episcopal and a Baptist church as violations of the
Establishment Clause.
HISTORY REVISIONISTS by Gene Garman
http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/revis.html
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
At the same time as Madison chaperoned Jefferson's bill for
religious freedom through the Virginia legislature, Madison also introduced
other measures proposed by Jefferson's committee on the revision of the
laws. They recommended a bill to protect the property of the Anglican
church; a bill to punish anyone who disturbed public worship and to punish
violators of the Christian sabbath; and a bill for fixing a date of fasting
and prayer, which was not enacted. Accordingly, at this date and at a state
level, Jefferson and Madison were by no means absolutists on the question
of separation of government and religion. On the other hand it is
preposterous to regard the bill for the protection of church property as a
bill that "advantaged a single sect," given the fact that "sect" was being
disestablished. Jefferson had supported disestabhshment as early as June
1776 when he drafted three versions of a state constitution, each including
a clause guaranteeing that no person should be compelled "to frequent or
maintain" any religious service or institution .54 Moreover, the engine
behind the bill to punish disturbers of the religious peace was the
protection of religious liberty. Sunday laws were common throughout the
country; and Jefferson himself, as wartime governor of Virginia, had
proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer. In 1802, in his address to the
Danbury Baptists, when he urged a "wall of separation between Church and
State," he relied on the establishment clause to justify his refusal as
president to recommend a day of thanksgiving prayers.55 By then his views
seemed to support separation more consistently even at a state level.
54.Jefferson Papers, 1:344, 353, 363.
55. Daniel L. Dreisbach, Real Shadow and Mere Threat. Religious
Liberty and the First Amendment (Westchester, Ill., 19 87), pp. I 19 -z6,
surveys Jefferson's views, although Dreisbach twists the data to support
his nonpreferential beliefs, as when referring to the bill that advantaged
one sect only. He insists that the other bills provide a context for the
great Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, but he ignores entirely the
context of widespread evangelical support for a wall of separation that
divided the spiritual and secular dimensions, discussed in this chapter,
and he ignores Jefferson's "Query VII on Religion," in
Jefferson's Note on Virginia, edited by William Peden (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
1955), pp. 157-612. Dreisbach also slants the data on Jefferson and
Education, pp. 131-32.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.69-70n.)
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
If, as nonpreferentialists suppose, the views of James Madison, the
legislative history of the establishment clause, and its original meaning
support the constitutionality of impartial government aid to religion, then
the guiding light of history burns incandescently on behalf of
nonpreferentialism. But they are wrong in thinking that they have a prop in
Madison. They misconstrue the legislative history of the clause. And they
mistakenly connect an establishment of religion with only a national church
or a national religion. A good nonpreferential scholar, Daniel L.
Dreisbach, declared that because the framers sought to "proscribe the
establishment of a national church," the conclusion reasonably follows that
the national government is "not foreclosed from extending general benefits
to religion if administered on an equal basis and in a manner that did not
infringe on the free exercise rights of any religious group."4 Dreisbach
even endorsed the view that the Constitution allows "the promotion of a
generalized or nondenominational form of Christianity . . . ." Dreisbach
failed to indicate which clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to
extend general benefits to religion or to Christianity. None does.
4. Dreisbach, Real Threat and Mere Shadow, p. 65; chap. 6 is
entitled "The Prohibition of the Establishment of a National Church."
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.114
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Second, the nonpreferentialists stress the "a" in Madison's
recommended amendment without considering that it did not pass the House.
The amendment as adopted bans any law "respecting the estabIshment of
religion." It does not refer to "a religion" or "a national religion." The
reference is to religion in general. The nonpreferentialist argument is
founded on a discarded proposal rather than the constitutional text.
Nevertheless, Madison had an interpretation of "national religion," as we
shall see, that undoes the nonpreferentialist argument.
Third, "the" is not "generic"; it is specific. Contrary to Robert
Cord, Daniel Dreisbach, and the others, the employment of "the" instead of
I4an" as the article preceding "establishment of religion" would not have
broadened the establishment clause. Fourth, "the" can be as singular as "a"
or "an." But those are quibbles.
A more important objection to the nonpreferentialist emphasis on
the definite article in the establishment clause derives from the attempt
to construe it literally or strictly. That which is inherently ambiguous
cannot be strictly construed. Worse still, strict construction of the First
Amendment, if ever taken seriously, would lead to the destruction of basic
rights. Strict construction often leads to narrow-mindedness. Consider the
exact language of the amendment: "Congress shall make
no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press The
framers of the amendment deliberately used different verbs in the freedom
of religion and freedom of the press clauses. That is a matter of
considerably greater semantic importance than the difference between "an"
and "the" in the establishment clause. If the framers meant what they said
and said what they meant, then Congress may abridge the free exercise of
religion so long as Congress does not prohibit it. The point is that
contrary to Rehnquist and company, the principles embodied in the First
Amendment's clauses, not some misunderstanding based upon a grammarian's
niceties, command our constitutional respect.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.117-18)
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Black magic-not historical evidence, grammatical analysis, or
logical deductions-black magic and only that can turn the First Amendment
into a repository of government power. Plainly it limits power. The fact
that Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy as
well as outstanding constitutional scholars like Charles Antieau, Walter
Berns, or Daniel Dreisbach could even think that the First Amendment
permits government aids to religion shows how desperately unable they were
to control their policy preferences, which they read back into the past and
into the words of the amendment.' Antieau sought to avoid dogmatism when he
declared that all historical interpretations of the establishment clause
seem reasonable and that all are "conjectural."'? Some interpretations,
however, are more reasonable than others and less conjectural.
Indeed, it is a fact, not an interpretation, that the unamended
Constitution vests no power over religion and that the First Amendment
vests no power whatever. It is a fact that the framers of the Constitution
insisted that no limitations on the government's power over religion were
necessary, because the government possessed only delegated authority, plus
the authority necessary to execute the delegated powers; under no
circumstances, argued the framers, could the government legislate on the
subject of religion. They believed that nonexistent powers could not be
exercised or abused, thus making all provisions against such a possibility
superfluous. They believed that no need existed to declare that things
shall not be done which there is no power to d o.'$ They believed that the
government, having no authority over religion, was powerless, therefore,
even if the First Amendment never existed, to enact laws benefiting
religion, with or without preference.
When introducing the amendments that became the Bill of Rights,
Madison explicitly said that the "great object" was to "limit and qualify
the powers of government" to ensure that powers granted could not be
exercised in forbidden fields such as religion.'' He told Jefferson that a
Bill of Rights should be "so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be
included in the enumeration."8° To argue, as the nonpreferentialists do,
that the establishment clause should be construed to permit
nondiscriminatory aid to religion leads to the impossible conclusion that
the First Amendment added to the powers of Congress even though it was
framed to restrict Congress. It is not only an impossible conclusion; it is
ridiculous. Not one state would have ratified such an
76. Antieau, Downey, and Roberts, Freedom from Federal
Eatablisbment, pp. i6o-63, zo8; Berns, First Amendment, pp. 7, 9.
77. Antieau, Downey, and Roberts, Freedomfrom Federal
Ertablirbment, p. 142.
78. The Federalist, no. 84.
79. "Amendments to the Constitution," Madison Papers, 12:204, June
8, 1789.
80. James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 17, 1788, in ibid., i
1:297.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) pp.140-41)
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Original intent supports nonpreferentialist arguments against
incorporation. Consequently, those who want the Constitution to permit
state benefits to religion rely on original intent, and they break a lance
against reading the First Amendment's establishment clause into the
Fourteenth as a limitation on the states. If the Fourteenth Amendment did
not incorporate the First Amendment, the states would be free from the
restraints of the U.S. Constitution and would be able to enact any measure
concerning religion, subject only to such limitations as nught exist in the
individual state constitutions. Some nonpreferentialists and
accommodationists therefore advocate the overruling of the incorporation
doctrine. In its absence, the establishment clause, said a
nonpreferentialist judge, would "not prohibit the state from establishing a
religion."1 Such views are based on fantasy, self-delusion, and
misconceptions.
To expect the Supreme Court to turn back the clock by scrapping the
entire incorporation doctrine is so unrealistic as not to warrant
consideration. Numerous reactionaries, including former attorney general
Edwin Meese and Professors James McClellan, Robert Cord, Charles Rice, and
Daniel Dreisbach, indulge their emotions when denouncing the Court for six
decades of decisions based on a doctrine that has "shaky" foundations or
for pursuing its "revolutionary course" in making the First Amendment
applicable to the states. Poor historians that they are, the
nonpreferentialists think that the incorporation doctrine originated in
cases beginning with Gitlow v. New York2 in 1925 and that the Court
"arbitrarily" assumed that religious liberty and freedom from
establishments of religion came within the meaning of the "liberty" of the
Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.3 But such extravagance of
language by the nonpreferentialists persuades no one who remembers that the
revolutionists were led not by Chief Justice Earl Warren but by justice
Edward T: Sanford, joined by
fellow conservatives on the Supreme Court, including Justices James C.
McReynolds, George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, Joseph McKenna, Willis
Vandevanter, and William Howard Taft, among others; and the Gitlow Court
was unanimous as to the incorporation doctrine. In 1940 the Cantwell Court,
which incorporated the free exercise clause and, by obiter dictum, the
establishment clause, spoke unanimously through justice Owen Roberts,
one-time nemesis of the New Dea1.4 And in 1947 the Court was unanimous too
when holding that the incorporation doctrine applied to the establishment
clauses.5
As mentioned above, Meese, McClellan, Cord, Dreisbach, and others
erroneously complain that incorporation began belatedly in 1925 with Gitlow
and the free speech clause of the First Amendment.6 In fact, as early as
the late nineteenth century the Court used the incorporation doctrine to
protect property rights; in 1894 the Court read the equal protection clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment to include or incorporate the eminent domain or
takings clause of the Fifth Amendment in order to strike down rate
regulation, 7 and then in 1897 the Court crammed the eminent domain clause
into the Fourteenth's due process clause to achieve the same end .8
Protecting First Amendment freedoms from state abridgment seems no more
radical or arbitrary than protecting property rights. . .
1. Jaffee v. James, 554 FSupl. 1130, 1132 (S.D. Ala. 1983); Wallace
v.Jafree,472 U.S. 38, 45 (1985).
2. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1952). In Gitlow the Court
ruled that the word "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the
First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech, with the result that a
state could not abridge freedom of speech any more than the United States
could.
3. Edwin Meese III, "ABA Washington Speech," July 9, 198 5 (U.S.
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., typescript), pp. 13-14; reported
in Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1985, pt. 1, pp. 1, 6. Meese's speech is
reprinted in Interpreting the Constitution: The Debates over Original
Intent, edited by Jack N. Rakove (Boston, i99o), pp. 13-21. See also James
McClellan, "The Making and Unmaking of the Establishment Clause," in A
Blueprint for judicial Reform, edited by Patrick B. McGuigan and Randall R.
Rader (Washington, D.C., I98I), p. 296; Daniel L. Dreisbach, Real Threat
and Mere Shadow Religious Liberly and the First Amendment (Westchester,
Ill., 1987), pp. 93, 94; Robert L. Cord, Separation of Church and State:
Historical Fact and Current Fiction (New York, 19 8 z), pp. 85-101, a
discussion littered with misconstructions of Court cases; Charles Rice,
"The Bill of Rights and the Doctrine of Incorporation," in The Bill of
Rights: Original Meaning and Current Understanding, edited by Eugene W
Hickock Jr. (Charlottesville, Va., 1991), pp. 11-16.
4. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940).
5. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 US. 1 (1947).
6. Cord, Separation of Church and State, p. 99; Meese, "ABA
Washington Speech," p. 12; McClellan, "The Making and Unmaking," p. 316;
Dreisbach, Real Threat and Mere Shadow, p. 9 3.
7. Reagan v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., 154 U.S. 362, 399 (1894).
8. In Chicago, Burlington &.Quincy RR v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226
(1897), the Court read the Fifth Amendment's eminent domain clause into the
due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court officially dates
the incorporation doctrine with this 1897 case. See Hawaii Housing
Authority v. Midkiff, 104 S.Ct. 2321, 2331 n. 7 (1984). See also Smyth v.
Amen 169 U.S. 466 (1898). In United Rys. v. alert, z8o U.S. 234 (1930), the
Court struck down as confiscatory a government fixed-rate schedule that
allowed a profit of 6.26 percent.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.226-27)
================================================================
While the following is dated 1994 it still has value:
Selected Bibliography
Berns, Walter. The First Amendment and the Future of American
Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 1976. Includes two pertinent chapters by
a good nonpreferentialist scholar.
Andeau, Chester James, Arthur T. Downey, and Edward Roberts.
Freedom from Federal Establishment.- Formation and Early History of the
First Amendment's Religion Clauses. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1964.
A nonpreferentialist legal brief in thesis but much good research.
Buckley, Thomas E., S .J. Church and State in Revolutionary
Virginia, 1776-1787. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977. A
model state study.
Cobb, Sanford H. The Rise of Religious Libery in America. 1902.
Reprint, New
York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1968. Still useful though sometimes
factually unreliable.
Cord, Robert L. Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and
Current Fiction. New York: Lambeth Press, 198 2. Mostly historical fiction
masquerading as scholarship.
Curry, Thomas J. The First Freedoms.- Church and State in America
to the Passage of the FirstAmendment. New York: Oxford University Press,
1986. The best book on the subject. But see my criticisms in this book,
chap. i, notes 24 and 42, and chap. 2, note 6.
Dreisbach, Daniel L. Real Threat and Mere Shadow Religious Liberty
and the First Amendment. Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1987, Splendid
research marred by narrow nonpreferentialist axe-grinding.
Estep, William R. Revolution within the Revolution: The First
Amendment in Historical Context, 1612-1789. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
1990. A short separationist history stressing Baptist contributions.
Ivers, Gregg. Lowering the Wall; Religion and the Supreme Court in
the 1980s. New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1991. A brief and pessimistic
separationist book that has a Chicken Little tone.
Laycock, Donald. " `Nonpreferential' Aid to Religion: A False Claim
About Original Intent," William andMary Law Review, vol. 27 (1986),pp.
875-923. Influential article in legal circles but untrustworthy: loaded
with inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
Malbin, Michael J. Religion and Politics.- The Intentions of the
Authors of the First Amendment. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise
Institute, 1978. A slight nonpreferentialist pamphlet.
McBrien, Richard P Caesar's Coin.- Religion and Politics in
America. New York: Macmillan, 1987. A well-intentioned and intelligent
accommodationist view.
McConnell, Michael. "Accommodation of Religion." In The Supreme
Court Review 1985. Edited by Philip B. Kurland et al., pp. 1-60. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988.
____"Religious Freedom at the Crossroads." In The Bill of Rights.
Edited by
Geoffrey R. Stone et al., pp. 115 -94. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, i '99z. Two essays by the best and most challenging of the
accommodationists. For an effective rebuttal, see Kathleen M. Sullivan,
"Religion and Liberal Democracy," in the same volume, pp. 195-223.
McLoughlin, William G. New England Dissent, 1630-18338: The
Baptists and Separation of Church and State. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1971. Superb scholarship.
Morgan, Richard E. The Supreme Court and Religion. New York: Free
Press, 1972. Perceptive analysis but needs updating.
O'Neill, James M. Religion and Education under the Constitution.
New York: Harper& Bros., 1949. Pioneering nonpreferentialist book.
Pfeffer, Leo. Church, State, and Freedom. Rev ed. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1967. The best separationist study by the distinguished
separationist lawyer.
______Religion, State, and the Burger Court. Buffalo: Prometheus
Books, 198 5 . Updates the preceding book's discussion of judicial
decisions.
Pratt, John Webb. Religion, Politics and Diversity: The
Church-State Theme in New York History. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University
Press, 1967. Worthwhile monograph.
Reichley James. Religion in American Public Life. Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution, 19 8 5. Only partially on First Amendment problems,
but a valuable account sympathetic to accommodationist views.
Souraf, Frank. The Wall of Separation: Constitutional Politics of
Church and State. Princeton, N .J.: Princeton University Press, 1976.
Effective scholarship by a political scientist.
Stokes, Anson Phelps, Chruch and State in the United States, 3
Vols, New York; Harper Bros., 1950, Classic, monumental, comprehensive
study by a moderate preferenialist. Invaluable.
Swomley, John M. Religious Liberty and the Secular State. The
Constitutional Context. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1987. A slight and
shallow separationist account.
Tribe, Laurence. American Constitutional Law. 2d ed. Mineola, N.Y:
Foundation Press, Inc., 198 8. Inexplicably ignorant on the historical
background of the establishment clause but technically outstanding on Court
opinions-for law students.
Whitehead, John W The Rights of Religious Persons in Public
Education. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossways Books, 1991. By the advocate who heads
the Ruthford Institute. Wholly one-sided presentation, important and able,
but ignores contrary views.
Wood, James E., Jr. Religion and the State..- Essays in Honor of
Leo Pfeffer. Waco,Tex.: Baylor University Press, 1984. A large collection
of essays by various separationist scholars.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: The Establishment Clause, Religion and the First
Amendment, Second Edition, Revised, by Leonard Levy, University of North
Carolina Press, (1994) p.261-63)