I’ve blogged before here about the way religious ideologues are for ever trying to “recruit” historical figures, in the spirit of “Beethoven was black.”
Our nation’s Founders are popular subjects for this treatment. Here is an excellent antidote to the wilder claims: Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority. She studies six of the Founders in detail and finds not much piety. These were educated, skeptical men of their time, “social Christians” at best.
I’ve never trusted Brooke Allen’s judgement after her, quite frankly, bizarre, fruedian introduction to Dracula. Apparently, Stoker was fixated on blowjobs in her view.
It’s a good book. Stephen Waldman’s “Founding Faith,” and David L. Holmes “The Faiths of the Founding Fathers” are a bit more balanced. The most balanced book is James Hutson’s quote book. He shows the key Founders like J. Adams in their heterodox, skeptical glory, but balances them out with quotations from some of the lesser well known orthodox figures whose religious views were more conventional.
If anyone is interested I am supposed to discuss this issue with Herb Titus, Founding dean of Regent University School of Law and former Constitution Party VP candidate today at 3:00pm. I think you can listen live on the Internet. Details here.
http://www.positiveliberty.com/2008/12/jim-babka-jon-rowe-on-air.html
It’s pretty clear the Founders were a far more secular than religious group; imagining at the Values Voters forum is equal parts horror and hilarity, since most of them would be booed off the podium.
That said, I’m deeply skeptical of any over-arching claim about the Founders; one of the things that makes them so fascinating is the diversity of their opinions within the group, and that goes for religion as well as a host of other subjects. In terms of piety (increasing from left to right), they rank something like this:
Jefferson<Franklin<Adams<Washington<Hamilton<Madison
@Tom Meyer
I hasten to add that Madison and Hamilton — the only two who could arguably identified as Christian — were Christians of a very 18th Century variety.
I think all 6 you mentioned more or less agreed on the basics of their creed. Hamilton became a conventional orthodox Christian, but only at the very end of his life (he may have had a conventional youth as well; but when he did his work founding the nation he held views more or less along the lines of the other 6).
I also think that most of them did embrace the “C” word more than the “D” word in an identifactory sense. But “Christianity” to them meant something that was theologically unitarian, theologically universalistic, elevated works over faith as a means to salvation and was overly rationalistic. In short it wasn’t what evangelicals, Roman Catholics or capital O Orthodox Christians term “Christianity,” but some other theological system.
I think that’s simplifying it a little; Hamilton had some deep-seated conflicts with religion — and never a regular church goer — and sort of wavered back and forth, depending on the context and evolving over time. Eliza Hamilton, interestingly, was rather devout and very active in running an orphanage with a decided evangelistic bent. After 1796, he also regularly denounced Jefferson as an atheist, implying his lack of piety should disqualify him for office.
As for the C-word, I agree: they may have self-identified as Christians, but they certainly would not in the sense we use it today.
Adair and Harvey did the best research on Hamilton’s creed and they conclude the period in 1796 was an opportunistic use of Christianity, not heartfelt piety and I agree.
I you look at Hamilton’s confession towards the end of his life, it was a form of orthodox Christianity that saw the Lord’s Supper as central. Yet, he hadn’t even joined a church by that time. If he thought the Lord’s Supper a central sacrament and wasn’t even taking it (and then begged for it before death), that tells me his heartfelt conversion was at the very very end of his life.
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Well, it depends…
My recollection tells me the first tax revolt after the founding of our nation was the famed Whisky Rebellion.
I’m wondering if fundamentalists are willing to acknowledge that the Christian population were not quite as straight-laced as would be, oh, say the Bob Jones University types?
Now to pick on my fellow atheists: I am a bit annoyed when atheists rue the religious founding of America by pointing to such notions as the Salem Witch Trials, slavery and Indian abuse. But, when it comes to separation of church and state issues, they flip.
Seems to me that both sides tend to exagerate.
And another thing…
Why is it separation of church and state? Why not mosque and state? Temple and state? Lodge and state? Or just religion and state?
No one has ever seriously claimed that Beethoven was really black. It always struck me as a joke, really.
“Now to pick on my fellow atheists: I am a bit annoyed when atheists rue the religious founding of America by pointing to such notions as the Salem Witch Trials, slavery and Indian abuse. But, when it comes to separation of church and state issues, they flip.”
How do you mean? It seems that they are consistent, unless I’m missing something. The former prove the reason why the latter should be scrupulously upheld.
“Church and state” was Jefferson’s term, and made sense in the context in which he wrote. It has been used since then because the vast majority of religious believers in this country are Christian. Tinfoilhattery aside, there is little concern about a Jewish takeover of the state.
But you make a good point that the real issue is the separation of religion and state.
“Why is it separation of church and state? Why not mosque and state? Temple and state? Lodge and state? Or just religion and state?”
“But you make a good point that the real issue is the separation of religion and state.”
I always took “church” in this expression to simply be a metanym for “religion”.