Re: Government churches should be constitutionally rabid

Bob LeChevalier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
> Madison also did not think much of the clergy,

Hogwash. You definitely don't know Madison, and here you have
demonstrated a great disregard for honest history, Madison, and truth.
Madison's comments that you cite pertain to the clergy in places where
the clergy has been in league with the government.

You do much what atheists all over the internet are wont to do:
recklessly mishandle, misquote, and exaggerate the founders'
statements to make them something they were not.

In Madison's case, the refutation of your view is very easy. 

You say Madison "did not think much of the clergy" implying a general
blanket statement.

But all one has to do is point you Madison's opinion of the
Presbyterian Rev. Donald Robertson, the first clergyman who educated
Witherspoon:

"All that I have been in my life, I owe largely to this man."

If that's not enough, one can consider Madison's views of his second
tutor, clergyman Thomas Martin, who, despite Allison's nonsensical
assertion to the contrary, was the principal influence in Madison's
decision to go study divinity at the seminary at Princeton (see
http://etc.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/madison_james.html)

If that's not enough, one can point you to Madison's homage for the
clergyman Rev. John Witherspoon, Madison's mentor. This is well
documented by Dr. James Smylie in "Madison and Witherspoon:
Theological Roots of American Political Thought", The Princeton
University Library Chronicle (Spring 1961):118-132.

If that's not enough, one can point you to the many letters Madison
wrote to clergymen expresses his fondness for their work:

To clergyman Rev. Frederick Beasley, Madison wrote a very agreeable
letter, concluding with:

"I hasten to thank you for the favour which has made me your debtor,
and to assure you of my esteem and my respectful regards."

To clergyman Rev. Frederick Schaeffer, Madison wrote a letter of
thanksgiving for a sermon, and concluded by saying:

"In return for your kind sentiments, I tender assurances of my esteem
and my best wishes."

To Baptist clergymen in NC, Madison wrote in 1811 of their "sincerity
and integrity."

In 1826, Madison wrote a kind letter to clergyman Rev. Henry Colman,
concluding with

"esteem and cordial respect, which I pray you to accept."

Now, knowing your propensities, you will join with Allison and the
other piss-poor historians who post in these threads saying "whenever
Madison made positive comments toward the clergy and religion he had
his fingers crossed behind his back."

You can say that all you want, but in the scholarly discipline of
history, to make such claims requires a great burden of proof upon the
asserter.

LeChevalier claims Madison didn't like the clergy. Although Madison
spoke poorly of clergy who were in league with the government,
Madison, again and again, commended clergymen, which shoots
LeChevalier's sweeping and erroneous claim all to bits.

The bottom line is, once again, that you have handled Madison very
recklessly.

Your comment below, however, is probably one of the most boneheaded
things you have ever said:

> Madison also did not think much of... organized religion

The record is very clear: Madison was elated when the separation of
church and state led to the growth, prosperity, and health of
ORGANIZED RELIGION.

Read Madison's letters to Walsh, Adams, and De La Motta.

He really couldn't have been more happy about the positive effects
separation of church and state had on ORGANIZED RELIGION.

Now, if we believe you, that Madison really didn't like organized
religion, then why would he be so joyous regarding it's growth and
prosperity?

Answer: because you are just boneheaded and wrong.

Your citation below says nothing of Madisons view of the clergy or
organized religion IN GENERAL, but only regarding his view of a union
between clergy and government:

> > During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of
> > Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less
> > in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and
> > servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and
> > persecution. 
> 
> It could only have been his mere hope that a clergy not supported by
> establishment would be better than that which he lived under.
> 
> >He expressed elation in
> >several of his letters in the 1820's that religious groups were doing
> >so well without an establishment.
> 
> So do I.  It means that I have no compulsion to be a part of any of
> them.

But if you really don't like religious groups, you wouldn't want them
to prosper.
 
> >What can Allison show? He can show that Madison was rather clear in
> >not wanting the government to have any ecclesiastical power. 
> 
> Likewise that he was rather clear in not wanting the clergy to have
> any temporal power.

Yep.

> >He can
> >show that Madison felt that most of the abuses of the middle ages
> >pertained to religious establishments. He can show that Madison was
> >very very critical of those who wanted religious establishements in
> >Virginia and the U.S.
> 
> You have it backwards.  In Madison's time, there WERE religious
> establishments, and Madison wanted to get rid of them.

I never denied it. But when you cite the "fifteen centuries of
establishments" quote of Madison, he is referring to Medieval as well
as present abuses.

> >Allison cannot show, however, that Madison didn't have a personal
> >disdain for atheism and non-religion.
> 
> Why would he bother?  Madison's personal beliefs are irrelevant.

But Allison does bother to argue that Madison's personal beliefs were
unorthodox.

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=386b43cc.6165287%40news.exis.net&output=gplain

Yet, Allison's claims that Madison was unorthodox are unsupported by
the best of Madison scholars such as Ralph Ketcham:

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.

> >He even
> >doubted the possibility of true atheism (see Madison to Jasper Adams
> >http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/jasper.htm).
> 
> So what?  The atheists of today do not so doubt, and they are entitled
> to their beliefs.

They are entitled to be wrong. And when they embrace Madison as one of
their own, they are so wrong it is embarrassing.

Allison does just that.

Searle