America's Christian Heritage (Just in time for July 4th!)

[aCultureWarrior]

Wait, you want to cut if off now? After everything we've been through together? Can you ple-e-ease at least respond to the rest of my post first?
For me?

So why would the Founding Father who allegedly stated that Church and State should be separate, just two days after writing that letter, attend Christian Church services in the US Capitol Building if government is stricltly prohibited from having anything to do with the Christian church?

 

[Somerville]

aCultureWarrior said:
Their laws and culture showed that they weren't "carnal Christians".


Your ignorance of the history of US laws is noted. Where do you think laws against adultery, stealing, etc. etc. came from?

You mean like The Ten Commandments and the Laws of God? Correct, they were around long before Jesus Christ came to save mankind from himself, but go ahead, attempt to make your secular humanist case.

Once again, your ignorance in regards to history in the West, shows that your arguments are valueless.

 

[Somerville]

So why would the Founding Father who allegedly stated that Church and State should be separate, just two days after writing that letter, attend Christian Church services in the US Capitol Building if government is stricltly prohibited from having anything to do with the Christian church?

Accounts of the "church services" in the Capitol are more about gatherings of DC's social elites than any proselytizing by ministers.

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Accounts of the "church services" in the Capitol are more about gatherings of DC's social elites than any proselytizing by ministers.

If you can show where Christianity wasn't spoken of and promoted during these "social elite gatherings" in the US Capitol Building, then please do.

Oh, and just in case you have a browser that can view Youtube:

 

[The Baron]

My apologies for missing this one. I can assure you it was not intentional...far from it.

Not for that particular statement that John Adams was inspired by Jeremiah for the separation of powers. At least, I don’t think it was there when I read through the quotes.

I gave two sources, The Truth Project & Wallbuilders. Here is another one.

Unitarianism was a theological movement that was not attached to a single denominational family, unlike the Unitarian Universalists of today. You would have to rank the Founding Fathers on a scale of how conservative their theology was in order to identify Unitarian leanings. On top of that, some people like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson considered themselves to be both deist and Christian, so Dr. Bradford’s summary is still going to be subjective.

I don't think that's necessary, at all! I think all you need to do refer to the quotes I provided in the OP. That should help you to "rank the Founding Fathers on a scale of how conservative their theology was".

Part 1

 

[The Baron]

Part II

On top of that, some people like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson considered themselves to be both deist and Christian, so Dr. Bradford’s summary is still going to be subjective.

Deist-"noun One who believes in the existence of a God, but denies revealed religion, but follows the light of nature and reason, as his only guides in doctrine and practice; a freethinker."
-From Daniel Webster's 1892 Dictionary

Or--as it has been explained to me--a Deist is someone who believes in God and that He created the universe, the world and then simply abandoned it. He doesn't hear our prayers. He doesn't send His Word. He would never send His Son to die on a cross. He doesn't help us in our time of need.

Now with this in mind, please consider the following quote from Benjamin Franklin. If I may just "paint a picture"...it was the summer of Philadelphia in 1776. It was hot. Everybody wore those suits and wigs, it had to be miserable. Air conditioning hadn't been invented yet. The Framers had been debating for two weeks with agreement on nothing. Mr. Franklin raises his hand to be recognized by the President of the Constitutional Congress. George Washington recognizes Mr. Franklin and Mr. Franklin rises to speak and says:

"In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for Divine protection.

Our prayers, Sir, were heard and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor....

And have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: 'that God governs in the affairs of man.' And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this.

I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little partial local interest; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war or conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service."

I--probably just like you--have been told my whole life that Franklin was a Deist. That he claimed he was a Deist in a letter and I had always simply accepted that. But when I read the above, I thought he must have become a Deist sometime after having pleaded for prayer in the above quote. Obviously, this quote is not from any Deist or, at the very least, from the worst Deist whose ever lived. As it turned-out, Franklin claimed to be a Deist when he was only 15 years old. The above call to prayer came about some 66 years later.

I read a book on Thomas Jefferson and his beliefs some time back and, to say the least, he was a very complicated man. Was he a deist? I honestly don't know but there is certainly reason to think so just as there was reason to think otherwise. I think the best anybody can do is to simply say they don't know if were to be honest.

 

[The Baron]

Part III

On top of that, saying someone is a Christian is not just a social statement but a theological one on the state of their souls. I don’t feel like I actually have that information at the moment to say with confidence, so it’s a game I’d rather not play.

Again, please take a look at all those quotes in the OP. That should give you some idea of the state of their souls.

Hey, it’s the internet. This is a media that does not need a time limit or a word limit. I find a lot of people on this particular site are way too prone to talking past each other with prepackaged one-liners and gotchyas.

Sad but true. Entirely too many "children" are allowed to play here.

Well, it’s that ancient Israel was explicitly ruled by God and its human leaders would be primarily biblical judges and then kings and secondarily priests and prophets. It was all about lineage or being explicitly chosen by God and it was never built in the way that America was: no elections, no confirmation votes, no amendments, and so on. I mean, America doesn’t allow for the use of noble titles, so how would a human or divine monarch be a model for how anything works in the U.S.?

I think I've addressed this adequately elsewhere. If not, let me know.

 

[The Baron]

Well, how could the founders have possibly been inspired by those verses if they never mentioned them in their rationale for why they made those parts of the Constitution and the verses themselves clearly have a different meaning?

Do they? Isaiah 33:22 examines three attributes of God (Judge, Lawgiver & King) and uses this as inspiration for three separate branches of government.
Jeremiah 17:9 is offered as the justification for the separation of powers / three branches of government ("The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things, who can know it?")
Exodus 18:21 was the inspiration for a Republican form of government ("...select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, [b]of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens). Is this not exactly what a Republican form of government does?

It’s not like James Madison said, “I chose these requirements to convict someone of treason based on the Bible”, and it’s not like the Mosaic law was a republican government; the Bible explicitly credits the institution and ultimate ruler of it to be Gd. It was the people abandoning the same laws that the prophets spoke against. The prophets called for a moral reform, not a political one, so it’s not like they advocated for republican governments either.

See above.

Ancient Israel is clearly a pretty different system of government than the Enlightenment ideas of separation of powers, checks and balances, a republic, a bill of rights, and being able to change a law.

No argument from me not have I suggested otherwise.

The laws of ancient Israel led to something that led to something that eventually reached Enlightenment Europe in a very narrow and winding path...

No argument here.

...but so many other factors were present and other beliefs developed and were incorporated in that the words of the Bible can only be an indirect influence. It is true that early Protestants did play a role in popularizing our modern idea of a republic that most countries now have – and I find that fascinating – but it’s kind of a misrepresentation of both European history and what the Bible says when its reduced to “Bible -> America” with nothing else in between. The developments in between the two are crucial to understanding why exactly the U.S. was made the way it was.

See above.

Oh, come on. Pretty much every right-wing, non-libertarian evangelical wants to use the government to stamp out other people’s sins. Why they think governments are in any way cut out to actually succeed at that, I don’t know.

I've been raised in the Bible belt and I've never seen this. Can you give an example of what you're talking about to make sure we're on the same page?

Believe me, over the course of this thread I have been made acutely aware of how highly many early Americans thought of their Christian public.

Outstanding! Keep walking towards the light!

Almost everyone was some kind of Christian in the social sense – although I think Jesus said that not everyone who claims to follow him truly does so. Even then, there were non-Christian first nation peoples who weren’t citizens, a small Jewish population, and an even smaller Muslim population. They were a small percent then, but hey, they’re still a small percent today. However, a government made of Christians and a Christian government are very different things.

I've certainly never made any attempt or tried to communicate in any way that America was or was supposed to be some form of theocracy if that's what you're getting at. I don't believe that, at all.

The founders of the U.S. government had the legal prerogative to make whatever kind of religious government they wanted and they elected to make one that was pluralistic and officially neutral, and then allow the unofficial religious status quo to go with the public.

Again, no argument here. The title of the thread is "America' Christian Heritage" and we definitely have a Christian heritage. No doubt about it.

 

[The Baron]

More laws are not strictly due to lower morals of the people.

True but it is certainly a reason.

For example, in Florida it is illegal to sell your children. Incest is illegal. Care to guess why? I forgot where it was but I remember hearing a story in which Ted Nugent was arrested on stage after shooting his bow and arrow inside on-stage in an auditorium. I couldn't help but think, "exactly how much of a problem was it that some council had to pass a law to get people to stop shooting their arrows inside?".

I do agree with you about the militarization of the police. But in my own perspective, I see all these additional laws and militarized police not as the government dictating morality, but the government dictating order.

Precisely! As Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

I don’t view governments as moral institutions: merely ones of order.

Same here. See above.

The status quo is generally defended, even if it’s understood at least some people are suffering under it or that the government is doing someone immoral, it will continue for as long as it maintains order in society. If enough people are agitated, only then might policy change.

You would think but then look at the lax stance state governments have been taking regarding all the riots that took place last year.

I also totally agree with the desire to have a moral and safe public, and I can understand how a Christian society can create something like that. What I don’t understand is how a government is able to create a Christian society.

It can't. I believe that to be the church's job and it is a job they have failed at miserable...but that's another thread.

Isn’t it the Holy Spirit that makes an individual a Christian? I’m also not sure that this ideal society ever actually existed in history. Can we even definitively point to the perfect year, or is it just nostalgia? I just can’t see where in the past we can find utopia, so I prefer to look to the future.

From the OP...wish it would have lasted longer...but it does show that it's possible...

The Case for Christian Principles​

In 1905, Atlantic City, ministers claimed that in a city of 50,000 people they knew of only 50 adults who were unconverted Christians (this was due to a revival).

This 1905 revival in the United States has been linked to the 1904 Welsh Revival in which 100,000 people were converted in five months. The impact of Christianity on Wales was astonishing!

1. Judges were given white gloves as they had no cases to try.

2. There were no rapes, robberies, murders, thefts, embezzlements…nothing!

3. District councils held emergency meetings to discuss what to do with the police force that was now unemployed.

- A Nation Adrift, New Liberty Videos

 

[Nickyjo]

Recognizing the validity of your thesis, two points: 1- That was then, this is now. We live in a society that has changed significantly. (Perhaps we can trace the beginning of the change, of our increasing secularization, to the Scopes trial.) We are now influenced by philosophies from Jesus to Confucius, thanks to the increasing diversity of our population. And our culture, through everything from advertising to art, honors Native American respect for the environment, perhaps because we suspect that respect has been missing in us. 2- I also assume that Jewish/Muslim/Buddhist/etc. principles might have served us as well as Christianity. Well, I have three points: the founders philosophy excluded non-Protestant people of color, notably mentioning "merciless Indian savages" in the Declaration. The establishment of the US represented several steps forward for freedom, but also involved 1-2 steps back.

But we can be proud that the philosophy and actions of the Founders, however imperfect or even hypocritical, influenced revolutions and movements for freedom around the world, even movements hostile to at times regrettable US foreign policies.

 

[H0manAnthonyDominikPOTUS]

some say about the Bible about the world not ending and that is true hopefully because i'm an optimist positive being.
Though we should always be a christian nation with minimal hindus, muslims in society that are low key in certain states. If they want to be american and abide by US american laws let them stay.

 

[NolanVoyd]

You would have to ignore everything I wrote and our history.

What a waste of time.

Our deist Founding Fathers

Periodically, we hear the hue and cry for us as a people to "return to our roots" as a "Christian nation." In recent times, this cry has come most vociferously from the so-called tea party activists. The claim is made that our nation's founders were all pious, God-fearing, orthodox Christians.

archive.jsonline.com

 

[The Baron]

Our deist Founding Fathers

Periodically, we hear the hue and cry for us as a people to "return to our roots" as a "Christian nation." In recent times, this cry has come most vociferously from the so-called tea party activists. The claim is made that our nation's founders were all pious, God-fearing, orthodox Christians.

archive.jsonline.com

I've seen it. What's your point?

 

[bomberfox]

some say about the Bible about the world not ending and that is true hopefully because i'm an optimist positive being.
Though we should always be a christian nation with minimal hindus, muslims in society that are low key in certain states. If they want to be american and abide by US american laws let them stay.

Which has nothing to do with being christian.

 

[NolanVoyd]

I've seen it. What's your point?

They were Diests.

 

[The Baron]

They were Diests.

The multiple OPs prove you wrong.

But just ignore those as they disprove your worldview.

 

[NolanVoyd]

The multiple OPs prove you wrong.

But just ignore those as they disprove your worldview.

No actually they don't. As proved by my link.

 

[LostInSeattle]

I hate the ACLU and I'm not a commie. And you're right about the Dansbury Baptist letter.
Calm down.

Damn, a Libertarian who hates the ACLU?