Volf's Controversial Comparison

Miroslav Volf is one of the most distinguished and well respected Christian thinkers in the world. I generally like what I've seen from him. I do, however, think his comparison we see below was overly dramatic.

[MV:]I think it is an attempt to assert Islam as a political religion as a unity of religion and government. Now that’s been a way religions have functioned throughout history–from Constantine until recently. America was founded by folks who thought like this.

RNS: America was founded by folks who thought like Islamist extremists?

MV: Like many Islamist extremists, yes. Which is to say, they believed God would bless this new experiment if we integrate our obedience to God’s laws and we ensure that this is indeed a city set on a hill.

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[MV:]Think of John Winthrop, his theory of the role of the state and the laws against blasphemies, adulterers, and idolaters.

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[MV:] I love America, but its first founders, like Muslim extremists, advocated killing for blasphemy, adultery, idolatry.

I also disagree that the Puritans were the "Founders" of America as opposed to the "Planters."

So Maybe It Was the Unitarians After All...

Who first gave us religious liberty. And from Transylvania of all European places. From Wiki:

March 18th (1568): The Act of Religious Freedom and Conscience (Edict of Torda) was issued by (Unitarian) Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania, instituting in his principality the path-breaking idea of religious freedom. The Edict of Torda was revolutionary for its time.

Here is a pretty picture of it.

What American is NOT About

"THE EXECUTION OF SERVETUS FOR BLASPHEMY, HERESY, & OBSTINATE ANABAPTISM, DEFENDED." By John Knox here.

What I see as the Political-Theological Contribution of the Enlightenment to the American Founding

There has been a "counter-Enlightenment" push that seeks to downplay its importance to the contributions of the American Founding while looking to credit earlier more traditional sources. With this we see a tendency that prefers one's own with focused importance.

That is, a scholar imbibed in the rich intellectual traditions of Judaism might focus on the Hebraic sources, a Baptist on their contributions, the Calvinists on theirs, and Roman Catholics can find "accidental Thomism" from a Protestant people who were by in large, anti-Roman Catholic.

And there certainly is a strong kernel of truth to each critique. The individual ideas that became en vogue by the Enlightenment religionists tended not to be new. For instance, freed from the constraint of the Magisterium and with each believer a priest entitled to interpret scripture for himself, many notable Protestants became Arians. After all, the Bible never specifically uses the term "the Trinity."

Arianism was the dominant theology of the 18th Century enlightened unitarians. But Arianism is old. Quite old indeed.  Even the more radical forms of unitarianism or "Christian-Deism" that for instance, Thomas Jefferson might endorse were found in the early Church. Jefferson didn't cite Marcion much, but their personal theologies were quite similar.

Speaking of Jefferson below is a quotation of his that typified the "Enlightenment" perspective on Christianity:

Were I to be a founder of a new sect, I would call them Apriarians, and after the example of the bee, advise them to extract honey of every sect.

-- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas B. Parker, May 15, 1819.

Lest you think I cite Jefferson as some kind of "outlier," here's a more mainstream orthodox Trinitarian Christian, albeit a universalist, making a similar point:

It would seem as if one of the designs of Providence in permitting the existence of so many Sects of Christians was that each Sect might be a depository of some great truth of the Gospel, and that it might by that means be better preserved. Thus to the Catholics and Moravians he has committed the Godhead of the Saviour, hence they worship and pray to him; to the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Baptist Church the decrees of God and partial redemption, or the salvation of the first fruits, which they ignorantly suppose to include all who shall be saved. To the Lutherans and Methodists he has committed the doctrine of universal redemption, to the Quakers the Godhead and influences of the Holy Spirit, to the Unitarians, the humanity of our Saviour... Let the different Sects of Christians not only bear with each other, but love each other for this kind display of God's goodness whereby all the truths of their Religion are so protected that none of them can ever become feeble or be lost.

-- Benjamin Rush, "Commonplace Book," August 14, 1811. Corner, Autobiography of Rush, 339-340.

In short, the "enlightened" Protestant Christian used his own "judgment"-- his "reason" or otherwise -- to decide for himself how to interpret the faith, in what doctrines to believe, which parts of the Bible are inspired, which books, in fact, belong in the canon, and what political principles ought be derived from a "proper" understanding of theology.

So how did this impact the relationship among Enlightenment, Christianity, and the American Founding? Everything we "value" about the political-theology of the American Founding (and some things that we don't) probably can be found in bits and pieces during earlier more "traditional" periods. But it didn't all come together until these enlighteners used their reason "to extract honey of every sect" as Jefferson put it, at the exact moment they did. During that period historians term "the Enlightenment."

For instance, the "Calvinist resisters" (though not Calvin himself) might have something to offer like "rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." Though, they were woefully deficient on religious liberty. Likewise, the Thomists incorporated a theistic grounding for Aristotelian rationalism but likewise were deficient on religious liberty and other matters.

Roger Williams and the Quakers were considered novel and eccentric when they innovated the "Christian" case for religious liberty. (That's where one had to go for this teaching, not the Calvinist resisters or those Protestants who borrowed from the scholastics.) The enlighteners of the 18th Century, using their reason, took from them this principle and combined it with what they saw the best from the other traditions to deliver the liberalism that founded America.

History Professor Caroline Winterer discusses the American Enlightenment

Brayton, Throckmorton, Barton, & the PA Pastors

Get the 411 here. A taste:

Warren Throckmorton, who teaches at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, notes that the Pennsylvania Pastors Network has invited David Barton to speak at a conference in Lancaster. He contacted Sam Rohrer, CEO of the pastors group, to ask why he would invite someone [like David Barton] to speak. ...

Jeff Schweitzer: "Founding Fathers: We Are Not a Christian Nation"

Check it out here. A taste:

Let us be perfectly clear: We are not now, nor have we ever been, a Christian nation. Our founding fathers explicitly and clearly excluded any reference to "God" or "the Almighty" or any euphemism for a higher power in the Constitution. Not one time is the word "god" mentioned in our founding document. Not one time.

The facts of our history are easy enough to verify. Anybody who ignorantly insists that our nation is founded on Christian ideals need only look at the four most important documents from our early history -- the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution -- to disprove that ridiculous religious bias. All four documents unambiguously prove our secular origins.

Peter Manseau: "America is not a 'Christian' nation"

Writing at Fox News of all places. A taste:

No matter how many Christians live here, we are not a Christian nation. For the sake of people of all faiths and of no faith, we should hope we never become one.

Kidd: “'Woven into the fabric of our country'? Islam in Early America"

Check out Thomas Kidd's argument here. A taste:

As I noted in a chapter on Islam which I contributed to Daniel Dreisbach and Mark David Hall’s book Faith and the Founders of the American Republic,

There were actual Muslims living in America during the Founding period, but the vast majority of them were toiling as slaves in the South. Of course, Muslim traders and sailors also passed through American ports on occasion, but most American Muslims were Africans forcibly imported to work on American plantations. The exact number of Muslims, of course, is hard to discern, but historian Michael Gomez has estimated that perhaps 200,000 slaves came from African regions with significant Muslim influences. This does not mean that all of these were Muslims, but it does suggest that hundreds of thousands of slaves may have been at least marginally familiar with Muslim beliefs.

Laura Miller: "The stubborn myth of the Christian country: Why the U.S. has always been 'one nation, under gods'"

The Salon writer reviews a new book. A taste:

As Peter Manseau, author of “One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History,” would have it, nothing has done more damage to the ideal of American religious pluralism than the “stubborn persistence of words spoken more than a century before the United States was a nation at all.” Those words are “a city upon a hill,” preached by the Puritan John Winthrop to his fellow colonists as they prepared to leave their ship at Massachusetts Bay in 1630. Most strenuously invoked by Ronald Reagan, the city on the hill, according to Manseau, has for the past 50 years “dominated presidential rhetoric about the nation’s self-understanding, causing an image borrowed from the Gospels to become a tenet of faith in America’s civil religion.”

Guest Post By JMS

On the recent AP US History controversy. The author's name is John Shaw, a college history teacher from the western side of the United States.

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Since its 2014 release, there has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the revised AP U.S. History "framework." At their  summer meeting in August, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution, branding the curriculum “a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” Similar complaints and attempts to prevent its implementation at the state level have arisen in Texas, Georgia, Colorado (that generated significant student and parent pushback in Jefferson County), North and South Carolina.

I’m guessing you have heard about the latest AP U.S. History brouhaha (Rod Dreher provides a fair overview), this time in Oklahoma. Representative Dan Fisher proposed defunding AP U.S. History because it fails to teach “American exceptionalism.” But this complaint is a misreading of the AP history “framework,” and as in Colorado, students, parents and teachers are pushing back, at least because they earned a million dollars’ worth of college credits last year via AP history classes. This has led Fisher to shelve a committee-approved defunding bill for now. Too many detractors like Fisher mischaracterize the new AP approach to history. It is not a curriculum, it does not mandate any list of groups, individuals, dates, documents or historical details, and it does not “teach” any particular political position or interpretation of U.S. history. It is each AP history teacher’s responsibility to select the relevant historical artifacts that explore the key concepts and develop historical thinking skills.

But, relevant to American Creation, Mr. Fisher is a “pastor” and member of an organization called, the Black Robe Regiment, whose website states that, “although we are not affiliated with David Barton or the Wall Builders organization, David serves as an inspiration and Wall Builders is a great resource of historical knowledge.” They claim, “the church and God himself has been under assault, marginalized, and diminished by the progressives and secularists,” and attack the “false wall of separation of church and state” resulting from a “growing tide of special interest groups indoctrinating our youth at the exclusion of the Christian perspective.”

But the inclusion of more or alternate viewpoints does not necessarily exclude other perspectives, Christian or otherwise. Should claims about “a divinely inspired US Constitution” be accepted at face value? Any study of U.S. history that utilizes the “historical thinking” skills the AP U.S. history framework seeks to develop, will result in divergent conclusions, which strikes me as a very positive learning outcome. Mr. Fisher reminds me of some students who complain that there was no single “right” answer, but that is precisely the point. It does not mean that “everything is relative,” or that “history is just an unending argument. Historical reasoning does not lead to a simple True/False dichotomy, but prompts weighing claims and lining up arguments based on all of the available evidence (i.e., not “cherry-picking”). If conflicting interpretations result in creative tension, so much the better, or at least better than history shaped to fit an ideological agenda.

As noted by the American Historical Association, “Historians and history teachers know that the honest, nonpartisan study of history will turn up episodes that are inspirational and episodes that are deeply troubling. Studying history challenges anyone’s beliefs, whatever their political commitments may be. This makes it even more important that history teachers know they are free to emphasize independent thinking, cooperative inquiry, evidence, and open discussion. The AP U.S. History Framework is a positive step in this direction for all teachers of history.”

I’m sure there is room for improvement in the new 142-page AP U.S. History “framework.” In fact they have created a U.S. History Curriculum Framework Public Comment Form. But all of the critics I’ve encountered (except Professor Joseph Kett) are guilty of exactly what AP History is trying to forestall: selective use of evidence to support pre-conceived notions and ignoring evidence that does not support their particular cause or partisan bias.

And, in case anyone wants to tar me with the broad brush of being a “liberal academic,” please note that I abhor Obama’s “Race to the Top” as much as Bush’s “No Child Left Behind.” They promote a “test and punish” agenda (of students and teachers) that is inimical to the type of education AP History strives for: to “draw out or unfold the powers of the mind.” The emphasis of history teaching should be inculcating habits of historical thinking so students become lifelong learners and engaged citizens.

Gitlin: "Why ‘The Enlightenment Project’ Is Necessary and Unending"

The whole thing is worth a careful read. A taste:

Subsequent philosophers and historians have made plain that the Enlightenment was not, and is not, a monolith. It was not even a proposition. Rather, it was a force-field of often conflicting arguments (Peter Gay), and it came in two main flavors, “moderate” and “radical” (Jonathan Israel). But what these variants of Enlightenment share is a commitment to reason—not as a cure-all or a final curriculum but as a means to know the world and, in the process, increase human well-being. This is not to say that a religious person is intrinsically unenlightened. It is to say that religious belief is not the way to ascertain, for example, the paths of the planets or the value of measles shots. It is also to say, whatever climate-change-denying cranks and perpetual-motion machine designers may think, that science does not produce graven tablets for eternal truths. It rightly revises ideas previously held firmly, even by scientists themselves. It’s not an end-point; it’s a journey.
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... None of the attempts to build Enlightenment into the political world were without grave flaws. The American Constitution accepted the abomination of slavery, while the French abolished it on their territory, as did the Haitians, whose Constitution of 1801 fell rather far short of democracy by installing Toussaint Louverture as governor general for Life. So it goes in the Age of Enlightenment. ...

I think George Washington, who I see as a man of the moderate Enlightenment, had some of these folks in mind when he referred to "minds of peculiar structure" who didn't need conventional religion in order to behave morally. But some of those minds were really freakin' "peculiar." 

It is also true that Newton was a devout Christian who found secret messages hidden in the Bible and that the great mathematician Kurt Gödel was obsessed with the fear that he would be poisoned if he ate any food not cooked by his wife—so much so that, when she was hospitalized, he starved himself to death.