Exchange Reply:

My friend Roger has written a very thoughtful reply to our exchange on religion and the Founding…

Hi Jon,

Thank you for taking time from your busy life to write to me. I have David McCullough's splendid biography of John Adams, which I confess to not yet having completed (my failing eyesight makes this very difficult), but I've read enough to know that Adams was regarded as "The Colossus of Liberty" by his peers at the Continental Congresses. He was by all accounts one tough cookie who always put principle before persons. McCullough's admiration for him and his wife Abigail seems boundless. Jefferson may have despised the Alienation and Sedition Acts, but I doubt very much if he ever fully despised Adams the man.

Thanks for the Claremont Institute reference. I shall look into it.

My own faith is a stubborn thing that has served me well, so I am disinclined ever to desert it, but you ought to know that I hold the, perhaps eccentric, view that anyone who practices decency and engages in ethical conduct is a de facto Christian from what I have seen, that would include you. The many hypocrites and fools who loudly profess faith in Jesus Christ and use this as a justification to revile and persecute those who are not exactly like them are anything-but Christians, as I believe Jesus meant us to be. “C.” [that fundamentalist interlocutor of ours] of course, cannot allow herself to hold this view, but she is NOT mean-spirited, just terribly concerned about the state of the world being an open invitation to disaster. I suppose my friendship with her may seem almost disloyal to you, but I am fond of C. and firmly believe we should all be in the business of trying to bridge gaps and promote every conceivable reason for loving and enjoying one another, instead of always trying to be "right" at someone else's expense.

Impossible, I'm sure, but worth a try, nevertheless.

I'd like to look into any specific references you might know on Adams and other "believing" Founders v. Jefferson and Madison on religion and the nascent constitution. I would still insist that if the pure Hobbseans had known what Islam and other bizarre African and Oriental religions had really stood for I doubt if they would have offered them carte blanche to do their damnedest.

There is a tendency among skeptics and pure rationalists to dismiss religious "superstitions" as quaint, harmless relics of a dying way of life. I don't believe this is so, since the ideas and ideals on which we choose to pin our hopes have such profound ability to influence events and even foment radical changes in the course of history. It is wise to be very careful of "ideas;" they are after all the root of all activity and invention.

Bad ideas are certain to promote destructive activity, but even good ideas when twisted to suit the purposes of deceitful demagogues can be used to evil ends.

There is nothing new about this observation which has been in play for several hundred years before the birth of Christ.

"Democracies are most commonly corrupted by the insolence of demagogues."

Aristotle (382- 322 B. C. )

And Jefferson, himself, had this to say along these same lines:

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will cultivate, and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree."

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

The last sentence surely indicates the need for a populace to be properly-educated and fully informed, if it is to be relied upon to make good decisions on it own behalf, which is why I have always favored the use of literacy tests and proven knowledge of basic history and current events as a prerequisite for being given the privilege of voting. Terribly undemocratic, to be sure, but as I never tire of saying, the United States is NOT and was never intended to be a democracy. It is a Republic, which prescribes rule by a presumably educated elite chosen by the people to represent them. The Founders had a healthy fear of being governed by "the mere whim of the populace" as Alexander Hamilton put it a view with which I see no reason to quarrel.