Re: Government churches should be constitutionally rabid

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (ambrose searle aka richard gardiner) wrote:
>
> The impartial reader will carefully consider what  Ambrose Searle AKA
> Richard Gardiner has posted. In fact, I strongly recommend that. I
> recommend they carefully examine any cites that Searle/Gardiner has
> provided.
> 
> That same impartial reader will  then carefully examine all the information
> found at he following site:
> 
> Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
> http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm

Let's examine that "impartial" site again, shall we?

Let's see, as of Nov. 17, it begins with the statement that the
founders separated church and state; no argument there from me.

But his second point is that "They kept it pretty [LOL!] secular with
regards to a motto"

The page fails to grasp the implications of the fact that Jefferson,
Franklin, and Adams proposed that "Rebellion to tyrants is Obedience
to God" as a motto appropriate for the nation.

The "impartial" page also fails to note that Annuit Coeptis "He favors
our endeavor" which followed Deo Favente "With God's Favor" was in
1782, and still is, a motto found on our currency. Guess who proposed
that motto? Salmon Chase in 1864? Nope. It was the founding fathers.
Period.

Allison's "impartial" page about the non-orthodoxy of the founders
fails to deal with that.

Allison also makes the claim that the founders were generally
insincere with regard to their religious vows:

Allison: "What a man might 'pledge' with regards to religion and what
he actually believed can be worlds apart. The men of your list would
not be the first group of men who said and did one thing for public
and said and did another thing in private."

As much as its fine and good for Allison to engage in his
pseudo-amateur-psycho-history, claiming he can read the unspoken minds
and hearts of people, that kind of speculative psycho-history is
generally frowned upon by most true scholars of history. Granted,
there's an Erik Eriksen and a Fawn Brodie here and there who sell a
lot of books with wild psychological speculations, but the more
nuanced historians and biographers tend to look at them with jaundiced
eyes.

Allison's cite goes on, in the main, not to quote the founders, but to
quote his own selective group of "scholars" opinions about the
founders and their orthodoxy.

But who are these "scholars."

Allison has several cites to the work of John E. Semonche... a darling
of and active advisor to the ACLU.

Allison cites good ole Alan Dershowitz. The great and mighty defender
of O.J. Simpson (I'm sure Allison thinks that the founders would have
all agreed that O.J. was innocent the same way they all agreed about
separating church and state).

Allison shows great preference for Gordon S. Wood at Brown, whose most
noted book "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" argues a firm
Marxist interpretation of the American Revolution that paints it as
being much closer to the French Revolution than most historians
concede. Wood is reputable, but certainly not a moderate, and even
more certainly, not a Religious Historian by any stretch of the word.

Wood's statement, as quoted by Allison, "At best, most of the
revolutionary gentry only passively believed in organized Christianity
and, at worst, privately scorned and ridiculed it" is demonstrably
erroneous, as shown by the scholars. Religious historians of the
period are far better sources to make this kind of assessment.

American religious historians of the late 18th century have stated, in
no uncertain terms, that Gordon Wood's assessment is wrong. If Allison
really wished to present his readers with the most reputable of
American religious historical scholarship, you would see information
on his page from:

Patricia Bonomi's UNDER THE COPE OF HEAVEN 
Harry Stout's THE NEW ENGLAND SOUL 
Nathan Hatch's THE SACRED CAUSE OF LIBERTY
James Hutson's RELIGION AND THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
(whoops, that the U.S. Library of Congress guy... Allison thinks he is
in a right wing conspiracy with Pat Robertson, LOL)
Alan Heimert's RELIGION AND THE AMERICAN MIND
Donald Lutz' nine books on the Covenantal development of the
Constitution
Winthrop Hudson's many books
Alice Baldwin's THE NEW ENGLAND CLERGY AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Dan Dreisbach's RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC
Barry Shain's THE MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM: THE PROTESTANT
ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT

These are the kinds of scholars who "specialize" in this area of
research. Gordon Wood deals with the revolution from a socio-economic
perspective, and is not in a position to assess the religion of the
revolutionaries in the same way that Bonomi or Stephen Marini is.
Marini's upcoming book, GOVERNMENT OF GOD: RELIGION IN REVOLUTIONARY
AMERICA, may well be the most authoritative study to date.

When Wood says that the revolutionary leaders were, at best, passive
believers in organized Christianity, is, well, reckless and
unsupportable. Certainly that cannot be said about the Rev. John
Witherspoon! Okay, we'll there's one exception, perhaps, right?

Well, it certainly cannot be said about John Jay who was president of
the American Bible Society and who said that Americans have the duty
only to elect Christians to government positions. Okay, we'll there's
two exceptions, right?

Well, was Alexander Hamilton being "passive" when he wished to form
the Christian Constitutional Society? Well, perhaps three exceptions,
right?

How about John Marshall, was he being a "passive" believer in
Christianity as the vice president of the American Bible Society and
as an officer of the American Sunday School Union? Okay, well Marshall
is another exception to Wood's sweeping claim, right?

What of Roger Sherman, an active Puritan Deacon in his
Congregationalist church in Connecticut? Sherman headed up the
building committee of the Puritan church in Milford Connecticut:
sounds real "passive." Sherman served the church as deacon and clerk
of the newly formed Ecclesiastical Society. And Sherman, according to
Allison, is second, only to Madison, as the "most important founder of
our country." http://members.tripod.com/~candst/founder1.htm

Guess we'll have to add Sherman as a "exception" to professor Wood's
comments about "passive" Christianity.

Given the fact that James Madison went to a Christian seminary,
studied Hebrew as a grad student, led services of worship at
Montpelier, etc., it is difficult to see how Wood can accurately
characterize that as "passive" Christian behavior.

The exceptions just keep piling up until it is no longer reasonable to
call them exceptions.

So you see, the single line that Allison cites from Wood's Radicalism
book is demonstrably erroneous.

Allison then cites Barry Schwartz, a social psychologist, NOT A
HISTORIAN, much less a religious historian, as proof that George
Washington was not a Christian. Whose next? Is Allison going to invoke
Dr. Phil or maybe Oprah to settle for us the question of whether John
Adams was just kidding when he said that the revolution was achieved
on the principles of Christianity?

Allison also cites Garry Wills, who has some solid historical
credentials, but Allison seems to not realize that much of what Wills
says is what Allison has been working all his life to refute. To wit,

"America was, sociologically, a 'Christian (Protestant) nation' by
virtue of its dominant cultural values" (Wills)

This is what Brewer said in the Holy Trinity decision! This is what
Amos and Gardiner say in Never Before in History. This is what Hodge
said that provided the grounds for Brewer's statements:

CHARLES HODGE
"Proof that this is a Christian and Protestant Nation.

The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian and
Protestant nation, is not so much the assertion of a principle as the
statement of a fact. That fact is not simply that the great majority
of the people are Christians and Protestants, but that the organic
life, the institutions, laws, and official action of the government,
whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is, and of
right should be, and in fact must be, in accordance with the
principles of Protestant Christianity.
1. This is a Christian and Protestant nation in the sense stated in
virtue of a universal and necessary law. If you plant an acorn, you
get an oak. If you plant a cedar, you get a cedar. If a country be
settled by Pagans or Mohammedans, it develops into a Pagan or
Mohammedan community. By the same law if a country be taken possession
of and settled by Protestant Christians, the nation which they come to
constitute must be Protestat and Christian. This country was settled
by Protestants. For the first hundred years of our history they
constituted almost the only element of our population. As a matter of
coarse they were governed by their religion as individuals, in their
families, and in all their associations for business, and for
municipal, state, and national government. This was just as much a
matter of necessity as that they should act morally in all these
different relations.

2. It is a historical fact that Protestant Christianity is the law of
the land, and has been from the beginning. As the great majority of
the early settlers of the country were from Great Britain, they
declared that the common law of England should be the law here. But
Christianity is the basis of the common law of England, and is
therefore of the law of this country; and so our courts have
repeatedly decided. It is so not merely because of such decisions.
Courts cannot reverse facts. Protestant Christianity has been, is, and
must be the law of the land, Whatever Protestant Christianity forbids,
the law of the land (within its sphere, i.e., within the sphere in
which civil authority may appropriately act) forbids. Christianity
forbids polygamy and arbitrary divorce, so does the civil law.
Romanism forbids divorce even on the ground of adultery; Protestantism
admits it on that ground. The laws of all the states conform in this
matter to the Protestant rule."

Finally, as already pointed out, Allison's page relies heavily on Paul
Rahe to prove that Madison was not orthodox.

Rahe's expertise is in the area of the history of the Ancient Near
East, Greece, and ancient Rome. His focus is the overlap between
classical republics and the U.S. His book, which Allison relies upon,
is REPUBLICS ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Ketcham, on the other hand, is probably the most respected living
scholar and  biographer of JAMES MADISON. His Doctoral Dissertation,
written at Syracuse, was titled "THE MIND OF JAMES MADISON."
Subsequently he has written a biography, several other books directly
focusing on Madison, and articles regarding the religious views of
James Madison.

Needless to say, Ketcham buried himself in Madison's life in a way
that Rahe only scratched the surface.

Rahe hasn't come close to that kind of intense research on Madison.

In short, Ketcham is in a much better position to assess the mind of
James Madison than Paul Rahe.

Finally, Allison's silly cite from the ACLU darling Semonche, that
only 10% of the revolutionary generation were church members, is
absolutely ridiculous.

Bonomi, whose expertise is in this area far more than Semonche, says
that 69% of the white population attended church regularly in 1765 and
59% in 1780 (not at all surprising a drop given the turmoil of the
war).  On average, over the 18th century this percentage of the
churched population ranged from 80% of whites in New England to 56% in
the Chesapeake.

Another expert on the topic at hand, Professor Stephen Marini
(Religious History Ph.D., Harvard
http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Profile/mr/smarini.html)

writes:

"Churches [in America]... continued to be remarkably robust on the eve
of the American Revolution, contrary to the persistent notion that
religion in eighteenth century America was progressively declining...
In 1776 BETWEEN 71 AND 77 PER CENT OF AMERICANS may have filled the
pews on Sunday... It is more accurate to characterize the years from
1775 and 1790 as a Revolutionary revival."

Source: Stephen A. Marini, "Religion, Politics, and Ratification," in
Religion in a Revolutionary Age, Hoffman and Albert, eds.
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994), 188-193.

In short, these scholars blow Semonche's 10% claim out of the water.

Again, I repeat: Allison's site regarding "Orthodoxy and the Founders"
is riddled with reckless scholarship. Use at your own risk.

Searle