More Twaddle...:

From the Christian Nation crowd. This time it's the usual suspects. Here is a blogger's eyewitness account of a phony David Barton quotation making its way on a billboard, and sponsored by the above mentioned Oklahoma group.

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!"

This quote can be found on a billboard here in OKC at NE 50th & Santa Fe. Next to the quote is a representation of the Statue of Liberty with a superimposed cross. The billboard also advertises a website address: www.reclaimoklahoma.org.

A look at the site reveals that Reclaim Oklahoma's goal is to "work towards the successful reestablishment of [fundamental, Biblical Christian] values in our society today." And, they even have a conference scheduled in October to educate and energize the flock.

I've looked at their site briefly and haven't seen any of the phony David Barton quotations; but the accurate quotations that I have seen on this page are, as usual, taken out of context in so gross a manner as to be fraudulent.

There is one factual error I've identified on Ben Franklin. They repeat Franklin's call to prayer at the Constitutional Convention. And at the end of the passage they write, "From that day until this every session of Congress is opened in prayer." Nope. The convention ignored Franklin's call to pray.

They also repeat this quotation in an 1813 letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson:

The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite....And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all these Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.

Now I will avow, that I then believe, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.

But of course they leave out the part where Adams states (I'm going to reproduce some of the quotation from above for the sake of continuity):

Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Neuton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.

Finding "general principles of Christianity" in the teachings of Enlightenment philosophers, like Locke, Newton? Perhaps. But also in the works of French philosophes, Rousseau, and Voltaire, and the atheist Hume?

Finally, their treatment of Jefferson shows how they are either utterly without a clue or worse, purposefully out to deceive people. Here are their excerpts, in their context:

In Thomas Jefferson's Republican Notes on Religion and an Act Establishing Religious Freedom, Passed in the Assembly of Virginia, in the Year 1786, reference is made to a law passed in 1705:

By our own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30, if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office of employment, ecclesiastical, civil or military; on the second by disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy, to be guardian, executor, or administrator, and by three years' imprisonment without bail .

In 1781, Thomas Jefferson made this statement in Query XVIII of his Notes on the State of Virginia. Excerpts of these statements are engraved on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event.

They make no attempt to explain, in the first excerpt, that Jefferson was vehemently opposed to such acts of the assembly of 1705, that indeed he thought one of his greatest life's achievement was overturning these laws in Virginia, which is exactly what he and Madison did in their 1786 Act Establishing Religious Freedom.

It's true, as their second excerpt shows, that Jefferson believed rights come from God. But Jefferson had flipped the earlier understanding of what God commands government to do, as illustrated by the 1705 law, on its head. The old understanding was that government may limit your freedom to permit you to do only what the Biblical God permits. Indeed, government may command you to do exactly what God commands in the Bible. Since God, in his First Command and elsewhere, mandates the worship of no other God but He, and since God is Triune in nature, then it follows that "if a person brought up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or the Trinity, or asserts there are more gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures to be of divine authority...." that he may be punished by the civil authorities.

Jefferson thought this to be grave error, that, on the contrary, Nature's God grants men an unalienable right to declaim there is no God or there are twenty Gods. This is why Jefferson thought that the unalienable rights of conscience belonged to not just Christians, but to all, to "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination."

Me...:

When I was I think 20 (13 years ago). An old friend with whom I've recently caught up took the picture.

Two Cheers for Billy Graham:

It's nice to see a little bit of "freethinking" from orthodox Christians these days.

After more than six decades spent preaching the Gospel – the truth that we can only be saved by God's grace through faith alone in Christ – Billy Graham now says non-Christians in other faiths (false religions) and secular humanists may be going to heaven.

In a profile of Graham in the current issue of Newsweek, managing editor Jon Meacham asks the 87-year-old evangelist whether those who belong to religions that reject Christ as savior (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) and secularists will be saved.

"Those are decisions only the Lord will make," Graham replied. "It would be foolish for me to speculate on who will be there [in heaven] and who won't. ... I don't want to speculate about that."

Hear, hear.

The article to which I linked, on the other hand, was written by a fundamentalist, critical of Graham's remarks:

Meacham hails Graham's conversion (so to speak) on the primary issue of salvation as an enlightened ecumenism, when it's really nothing more than age-old universalism – the erroneous idea that all roads lead to God and we're all going to get to heaven one way or another. This is the "I'm all right, you're all right" philosophy of the world.

And that "age old" universalism, I might add, has a rich tradition in this country. Indeed, most of our key Founders (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin) were, or probably were universalists. And that thought was so powerful, it even encouraged orthodox Christians like Benjamin Rush to eventually accede to the notion that salvation was for all.

A quotation of Rush's that I found in James H. Hutson's fine book of quotations:

At Dr. Finley's School, I was more fully instructed in these principles by means of the Westminster Catechism. I retained them but without any affection for them 'till abut the year of 1780. I then read for the first time Fletcher's controversy with the Calvinists in favor of the Universality of the atonement. This prepared my mind to admit the doctrine of Universal salvation, which was then preached in our city by the Revd. Mr. Winchester. It embraced and reconciled my ancient calvinistical, and newly adopted Armenian principles. From that time I have never doubted upon the subject of the salvation of all men. My conviction of the truth of this doctrine was derived from reading the works of Stonehouse, Seigvolk, White,Chauncey, and Winchester, and afterwards from an attentive perusal of the Scriptures. I always admitted with each of these authors future punishment, and of long, long duration.

Kerby Anderson Engages in Historical Revisionism...:

while trying to give a lesson on historical revisionism. Reproducing a letter, he writes:

Dear Kerby,

I have heard you discuss the topic of historical revisionism on radio. I told my son about this, and he doesn't believe it. Do you have some examples of how our history has been revised from the original?

Many historians have wanted to secularize our founders. Take this quote from W.E. Woodward. He wrote that "The name of Jesus Christ is not mentioned even once in the vast collection of Washington's published letters."{1}

Anyone who has read some of Washington's writing knows he mentions God and divine providence. But it isn't too difficult to also find times in which he mentions Jesus Christ. For example, when George Washington wrote to the Delaware Indian Chiefs (June 12, 1779) he said: "You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention."{2}

Other examples are also available. For example, a well-worn, handwritten prayer book found among Washington's personal writings after his death had the name "Jesus Christ" used sixteen times. {3}

The actual facts: In over 20,000 pages of Washington's known writings, there is only one reference to "Jesus Christ" by name, which Anderson above cited. And a second taken from Washington's Circular to the States which refers to Jesus as "the Divine Author of our blessed religion." And that is it.

The prayer book to which Anderson refers is not written in Washington's hand has been debunked as at best, inauthentic, at worst, a fraud.

And according to Gregg Frazer's Ph.D. dissertation, there is reason to doubt those two references as expressing Washington's personal belief in Christianity. First, although both documents appear to be authentic, "neither is written in Washington's hand." These were the kinds of documents which, as with politicians today, aides write for officials to sign. It's conceivable that Washington, pressed for time, signed the documents without making revisions.

I might add that his communication to the Delaware Indian Chiefs seems to be done in the context of giving advice on how best to assimilate into American culture. And at other times Washington (and Jefferson and Madison) was remarkably accepting of Native American spirituality. These Presidents, when addressing Native Americans, systematically referred to God on their terms, as "the Great Spirit," suggesting that they worshipped the same God.

Finally, even if Washington believed that Jesus was "the Divine Author," that still wouldn't necessarily make him a Trinitarian because the theological unitarians differed on whether Jesus was just a "man" (Socinians) or some kind of "divine" being, separate from and inferior to God (Arians). In fact, Madison was probably an Arian because he seemed to follow Samuel Clarke, an Anglican Divine who was also an Arian nearly defrocked for peddling his unitarian doctrines in the Church.

If Washington, by referencing Jesus as "the Divine Author," was "hinting" at anything, he could just as easily have been signifying his Arianism as his Trinitarianism.

The case for Washington's belief in orthodox Christianity just isn't there. His public references to God fit just as easily with those of the other key Founders who were theistic/unitarian rationalists (Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin) as they do with those of the orthodox Christians.

Sister Christian:

Come on, admit it. You like this tune.



And I might add, that song fit perfectly in the drug transaction scene in Boogie Nights. It was as though Night Ranger psychically knew that movie one day would be made with that scene. So they wrote the song for it in anticipation.

The Reductio Ad Absurdum of "Shred":

When I was growing up and learning to play guitar, and in realizing just how hard it is to master this instrument, those who could play at a high level of technique, had a tendency to impress us simply with their technical skill.

Playing guitar or any instrument thus could be viewed like a race or an athletic competition: Who could play the fastest and break the speed records? "Shred" is the term of art for such playing.

Rock music, a relatively new art-form, was special in that unlike classical or jazz, many of its pioneers or present day stars did not and do not have high technical abilities, but rather rely on "raw creative talent" (and some don't even have much of that).

Yet, folks like Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, who were impressive "technicians" for their time (Eric Clapton's nick name "slow hand" was because he played seemingly so fast; yet compared to many rock players today, Clapton is indeed a turtle!) pushed "rock guitar" in the direction of technique or "look what I can do, but you can't." But they also made great music. And Clapton absolutely regrets the technical innovation that he may have helped to set off. (I've read an interview where Clapton reacts to Eddie Van Halen's referencing Clapton as a major influence, that VH learned practically every Clapton lick, "note for note." Clapton's remarks were something along the lines of "don't blame me for that.")

Folks like Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads pushed on and explored the waters of "virtuosity" in rock music, waters that had been long explored by jazz and classical musicians. Indeed, they weren't even the first "rock guitar" virtuosos. John McLaughlin, Al Dimeola, Steve Morse and Alan Holdsworth -- the 70s "fusion" guitarists -- covered that ground before Van Halen's first album came out. Since Van Halen, though, rock guitarists were trying to play "catch-up" to the 70s fusion guys. And by the time Paul Gilbert hit the scene in the 80s, rock guitar had caught up!

And I thought Gilbert was fast. That is, until I saw this guy, Scott McGill (I think the following clip may have been artificially sped up). I think we've reached a point where we have to say "enough is enough"; you are just playing too damn fast, a "reductio ad absurdum" of shred.



Seriously though, this guy does make good music (see below) in the fusion tradition of McLaughlin and Holdsworth. That above clip I think is just to show, "hey look what I can do."

Play It Again Gary:

Every year, I think, I'm going to do a post on Gary North's Ebook. Here is the first one. Here is the one from last year. And here is the book, the entire thing available online.

North is a smart fellow and a learned scholar. But he's also a Christian Reconstructionist who believes the entire Bible must be written into the civil code, including all of the brutal and barbaric passages of the Old Testament.

In studying the Founding, he has come to realize (contra many of his fellow Reconstructionists), the key Founders a) were not Christians, b) constructed a constitutional or civil order that is not at all compatible with the Reconstructionist philosophy, and c) actually secretly intended such civil order to break with the traditional Christian understanding of government, as represented by the old colonial governments which "covenanted" to the Trinitarian Christian God.

And he's angry. He's angry at our Founders for doing what they did. And at his fellow fundamentalists who defend the Founding as authentically "Christian" against the supposed revisionists who came along in the 20th Century and "stole" their Christian Heritage. No, the real culprits are the Founding Fathers, who hoodwinked Christians into accepting the anti-Christian order they founded.

Now, North is a bit of an oddball and the book goes off on an anti-Masonic conspiracy rant. But the book is useful in that it better understands what our Founders personally "intended" than what the "Christian Nation" crowd argues. Indeed, in reading their correspondence, we see that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson did indeed "secretly" intend to break with the traditional Trinitarian understanding of Christianity; they hoped that by founding America on the light of Man's Reason, Christianity itself would be transformed to throw out its Calvinistic Trinitarian doctrines and replace them with unitarian-universalist doctrines (not present day UU, but rather how unitarianism and universalism were understood in the founding era).

The obvious counter response is that we weren't "founded" on the secret intentions of Jefferson, Adams and company, but rather on the original public meaning of text of the Constitution. And such original meaning is far friendlier to public expression of religion in government than what the ACLU, Americans United, and the Supreme Court for that matter, would allow. Also, most of the orthodox Christians of the day didn't understand the principles of the Declaration and Constitution to be hostile to their faith. And they are the ones who ratified the Constitution.

North's reply would be they were sold a bill of goods, a classic bait and switch from colonial covenants founded on an authentically "orthodox Christian" worldview to a set of documents -- the Declaration and the Constitution -- which arose out of a secret Newtonian, Masonic, deistic-Unitarian worldview.

If you have the time to read it, the book is quite amuzing. And aside from some minor historical errors (for instance, George Washington was never a "Grand Master Mason," but simply a "Master Mason") the scholarship is sound, far sounder than what the "Christian Nation" folks typically produce to argue their case.

Here is the book's thesis discussing Daniel Dreisbach's view that the Constitution's treatment of religion was mainly a function of federalism, not secularism:

The unitarians and freemasons who engineered the coup used similar arguments and sentiments to strip God out of the nation’s founding covenantal document for the civil order.

For all of his footnotes, he nevertheless winds up providing lots of evidence for my original book’s central thesis, namely, that there is no neutrality, and that any attempt to achieve it in covenantal affairs inevitably winds up favoring covenant-breakers in their active pursuit of God-defying agendas. This is what happened to the Constitution, as I argued in 1989 and I argue here....Dr. Dreisbach seems almost surprised that a series of Supreme Court decisions after 1960 secularized the nation judicially. “Gosh all whillikers, how did this happen?” he seems to ask. In this book, as in Political Polytheism, I argue that this development was built into the original covenantal document.

Here is North ripping John Adams and Thomas Jefferson:

In their old age, Adams and Jefferson renewed their friendship in a long correspondence that lasted for more than a decade. Their letters reveal that they were almost totally agreed on religion. They hated Christianity, especially Calvinism.94 In Jefferson’s April 11, 1823, letter to Adams, he announced that if anyone ever worshipped a false God, Calvin did. Calvin’s religion, he said, was “Daemonianism,” meaning blasphemy.95 He knew that Adams was already in basic agreement with him in these opinions. After surveying their letters, Cushing Strout concludes: “Whatever their political differences, Jefferson and Adams were virtually at one in their religion.” Strout identifies the creed of this religion: unitarianism.96 Jefferson was systematic in his hatred of trinitarian Christianity. In his old age, he sent a letter to James Smith, which he stressed was confidential, in which he expressed confidence that “the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United States.”97 In a letter to Benjamin Watterhouse that same year, he wrote: “I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.”98 The Bible is just another history book, he wrote to Peter Carr: “Read the Bible, then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus.”99 As for Adams, he was buried in a crypt at the United First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Quincy, Massachusetts.

He's just as hard on George Washington. Here we see North discussing George Washington's systematic refusal to take communion:

Here was the strange situation: George Washington was formally a communicant church member who systematically refused to take communion. The institutional problem here was the unwillingness of church authorities to apply formal church sanctions. Any church member who refuses to take communion has thereby excommunicated himself. A refusal to take communion or a prohibition against one’s taking communion is what excommunication means. Self-excommunication is excommunication, just as surely as suicide is first-degree murder. Nevertheless, the churches to which Washington belonged did not take official action against him by either requiring him to take communion or by publicly excommunicating him. It was this disciplinary failure on the part of these churches that led to the public legitimizing of Washington as a Christian. This failure later indirectly legitimized the Constitution that he conspired to impose on the nation. Without Washington’s support of the actions of the Convention, the Constitution would never have been ratified. But Washington was deemed either too powerful or too sacrosanct to bring under church discipline.

And here North veres off into an anti-Masonic conspiracy rant:

Carter’s account of Washington’s first inauguration as President is illuminating: “On April 30, 1789, Washington took the oath of office as President of the United States administered by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York. General Jacob Morton, Worshipful Master of St. John’s Lodge in New York City – the oldest lodge in the city – and Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of New York, was marshal of the inauguration. It was one of his duties to provide a Bible for the occasion. Morton brought from the altar of St. John’s Lodge the Bible upon which Washington placed his hand while repeating the obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States and then kissed the sacred volume to complete the ceremony.”48

You will not read in the textbooks that thirty-three of Washington’s generals were Freemasons.49 You will also not read that Lafayette was not given command over any troops until after he agreed to be initiated into Union Lodge No. 1, at which ceremony Washington officiated as Master Mason. But such was the case.50 Washington presided over a procession in Philadelphia on December 27, 1778, after the evacuation of the British. Dressed in full Masonic attire, he marched through the city with three hundred other Masons, and then held a Masonic service at Christ Church, which became his congregation of preference during his Presidency.51

As President, he received many honors from local lodges. His written replies to them were generous. He never wavered in his attachment to Freemasonry. In a letter to King David’s Lodge No. 1 of Newport Rhode Island, written on Sunday, August 22, 1790, Washington wrote: “Being persuaded that a just application of the principles, on which the Masonic Fraternity is founded, must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interests of the Society, and to be considered by them as a deserving brother.”52 In several letters, he referred to God as the Supreme Architect. A representative example is his letter to Pennsylvania Masons (Dec. 27, 1791): “. . . I request you will be assured of my best wishes and earnest prayers for your happiness while you remain in this terrestrial Mansion, and that we may thereafter meet as brethren in the Eternal Temple of the Supreme Architect.”53

John Eidsmoe, in his book-length defense the Constitution as a Christian document, takes seriously Washington’s outright lie – it can be nothing else – in a letter to G. W. Snyder in 1798, that he had not been in a Masonic lodge “more than once or twice in the last thirty years.”54 One does not become the Grand Master of a lodge by attending services once or twice over thirty years, but one can certainly fool two centuries of Christian critics by lying through one’s wooden teeth about it.55 The problem is, Grand Master Washington’s word to Mr. Snyder is trusted by Christians. The documentary record is not.

LOL. I think I'll end it there.

Steve Walsh Does the '80s:

This video typifies 80s cheese.

When Walsh quit Kansas, he formed a band called Streets, with some impressive musicians (especially Mike Slamer on guitar). But the genre -- commercial 80s rock -- is not exactly my cup of tea. YouTube just uploaded one of their videos.

Walsh definitely is a strange dude. He's my favorite singer though. He could be second to Henry Rollins as one of the buffest rock singers. And he actually finds a way to show himself lifting weights (and singing about "3 sets of 20") in this video. In Kansas, he used to wear an Adidas outfit with tight gym shorts that made him look like a cross between a 70s gym coach and a porn star.

But strangely enough, his weirdness entertains me.

Bill O'Reilly, Satan's Spin Doctor:

I'll let you be the judge:



Seriously though, I must confess, I'm entertained by watching the ravings of deranged lunatics, whether it be Fred Phelps, Charles Manson, Daniel Carver, or the Black Israelites.

James Madison, not a Christian, but a "Theistic Rationalist":

A while back I did a post on Madison where I noted that like Washington, he often spoke of a warm-intervening God, generically defined, but eschewed talking in Christian or Trinitarian terms, and otherwise was mum on the specific details of his creed. I linked to an excellent article by James H. Hutson on Madison's religious beliefs which noted our fourth President's conspicuous silence on the matter. Hutson does uncover a few clues as to what Madison believed. And those clues point us in the direction of Madison's belief not in Christianity, but in Theistic Rationalism. First, the words of Bishop Meade, a Founding era orthodox Christian who knew Madison personally:

His religious feeling, however, seems to have been short-lived. His political associations were[with] those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to a[the] general suspicion of it

Note: the bracketed words are from an alternate citation of this quotation offered by David L. Holmes in his book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Replace "with" for "were" and "the" for "a."

Meade also noted:

I was never at Mr. Madison's but once, and then our conversation took such a turn--though not designed on my part--as to call forth some expressions and arguments which left the impression on my mind that his creed was not strictly regulated by the Bible.

Hutson's paper also notes a Bostonian's account of an 1815 dinner conversation with Madison:

He talked of religious sects and parties and was curious to know how the cause of liberal Christianity stood with us, and if the Athanasian creed was well received by our Episcopalians. He pretty distinctly intimated to me his own regard for the Unitarian doctrines.

Clues, yes. But nothing from the horse's [Madison's] mouth. Although, in an era when orthodox Christianity was far more socially and legally entrenched and when one could ruin one's reputation by wearing one's heterodoxy on one's sleeve (what happened to Paine), keeping "religious secrets" as Madison and Washington did, seems to me to point strongly in the direction of adhering to the so called "infidel principles," commonly believed by the elite Whigs of the Founding era.

But I have uncovered an interesting letter from Madison, written in 1825, which I think sheds some light on Madison's personal beliefs. I'm going to reprint the entire letter TO FREDERICK BEASLEY on Nov. 20, 1825, which you may also read here.

I have duly recd the copy of your little tract on the proofs of the Being & Attributes of God. To do full justice to it, would require not only a more critical attention than I have been able to bestow on it, but a resort to the celebrated work of Dr. Clarke, which I read fifty years ago only, and to that of Dr. Waterland also which I never read.

The reasoning that could satisfy such a mind as that of Clarke, ought certainly not to be slighted in the discussion. And the belief in a God All Powerful wise & good, is so essential to the moral order of the World & to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters & capacities to be impressed with it.

But whatever effect may be produced on some minds by the more abstract train of ideas which you so strongly support, it will probably always be found that the course of reasoning from the effect to the cause, "from Nature to Nature's God," Will be the more universal & more persuasive application.

The finiteness of the human understanding betrays itself on all subjects, but more especially when it contemplates such as involve infinity. What may safely be said seems to be, that the infinity of time & space forces itself on our conception, a limitation of either being inconceivable; that the mind prefers at once the idea of a self-existing cause to that of an infinite series of cause & effect, which augments, instead of avoiding the difficulty; and that it finds more facility in assenting to the self-existence of an invisible cause possessing infinite power, wisdom & goodness, than to the self-existence of the universe, visibly destitute of those attributes, and which may be the effect of them. In this comparative facility of conception & belief, all philosophical Reasoning on the subject must perhaps terminate. But that I may not get farther beyond my depth, and without the resources which bear you up in fathoming efforts, I hasten to thank you for the favour which has made me your debtor, and to assure you of my esteem & my respectful regards.

Letter from James Madison to Frederick Beasley (Nov. 20, 1825), in 9 The Papers of James Madison, 1819-1836, at 229 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1910).

While Madison is not entirely explicit regarding what he really believes, there are two important clues which point in the direction of Madison's personal disbelief in orthodox Christianity, instead belief in the same system of Theistic Rationalism in which Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin believed. First, when it comes time to discuss God's attributes, Madison does not, which it would seem he would do were he a Christian, turn to the Bible or the explicit creeds of the Episcopal Church to which he nominally belonged, but rather, he attemps to understand God's attributes on rationalistic terms, through philosophical reasoning.

Second, the "Dr. Clarke" to whom Madison refers is "Dr. Samuel Clarke," an Anglican minister, also a theological unitarian who was nearly defrocked for peddling his unitarian doctrines (he wasn't defrocked because he promised to stop doing so). Indeed, in Gregg Frazer's Ph.D. thesis, he notes that Clarke's work was part of what the orthodox Christians of the day referred to as "Satan's bookshelf" at Harvard, an institution which had orthodox Christian origins but during the Founding era was overtaken by Unitarians.

If You are Going to Criticize Popular and/or Elite Culture...:

you should at least get your facts straight:

No so today. Our elite culture treats symbols of authority with mockery. Robert Mapplethorpe put crosses in jars of urine, and the philistines who read the New Yorker and sent money to the ACLU line up to defend his freedom of expression. Not, mind you, his mere and uncontested right to put crosses in piss, but his right to federal funding, to space in art museums, to celebration and acclaim as a great, liberating artistic genius.

For those who don't know, the writer confuses Robert Mapplethorpe with Andres Serrano.

This Poster Nails Kansas:

From a poster in "The Rush Forum":

Quite possibly the most underrated prog band from the '70s to mid-'80s. Most people know them from "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust In The Wind," but Kansas (on mainly their first five studio albums) belongs in the same category as Genesis and Yes for orchestral-sounding prog-rock. Kerry Livgren, who wrote most of their "deep, pondering" tunes, was equally adept at both lead guitar and keyboards, which when combined with Steve Walsh's searing organ playing and Richard Williams' "meatwall" heavy guitar, made the band sound both like a hard rock band and an art-rock prog band. Steve Walsh had an instantly recognizable voice, and he could sing his ass off. Having a full-time violinist in Robby Steinhardt also helped define their unique sound. In any one song they could go from a loud twin-guitar/organ attack to a soft piano/violin duet. Kansas was very diverse.

Growing up I was into Led Zep, Deep Purple, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, Boston, and the whole southern rock thing. Then I heard Kansas' Leftoverture album, featuring a 6:41 instrumental (with a small vocal section thrown in) named "Magnum Opus." It featured tricky time changes and insane playing. I'd never heard anything like it, and that album introduced me to prog rock. A couple of years later Rush's Permanent Waves came out, and I haven't listened to Ted Nugent since.

A while back I linked to their prog-rock masterpiece "The Pinnacle." The same YouTube member also put up "Journey From Mariabronn," which was also played on the Don Kirsher show. Though, "The Pinnacle" was a more polished performance (given that "Journey" was played shortly into the band's career, "Pinnacle" was played on a subsequent Kirshner show, after the band had a few years of touring under its belt). I've embedded Journey from Mariabronn because it is, I think, one of the best written progressive rock songs. And Steve Walsh's voice is in its prime in the performance.



Now Walsh, unfortunately (despite being a fitness buff, who even now in his mid-50s can run 20 miles at a time), did a lot of drugs and alcohol and for a while didn't take care of his voice causing it to terribly deteriorate. For instance, see this performance of "Dust in the Wind" on their Live at the Whiskey video, which marked a low point for Walsh's voice.



As you can see, he can still carry a tune and phrase nicely, but he lost almost all of his smooth tone (and some of his range) which was what was so appealing about his voice. Then after being arrested a number of times, in his mid-40s (about 10 years ago) he cleaned up his act and rehabiliated much (but not all) of what he lost in his voice. From their 2002 DVD, entitled Device Voice Drum, here is "Carry on Wayward Son," where Walsh redeems his "hoarse" performance in Live at the Whiskey (not quite how he sounded in the 70s, but at times he gets close).

American Revolution & Founding Era Blog:

Brain Tubbs often disagrees with my portrayal of the Founders in the way that I stress the key Founders who happened to be freethinking theistic (unitarian) rationalists.

I would say that, for the other side, he has a good blog -- one that points out facts that perhaps go unstressed by me -- except that he has a permalink to Wallbuilders. And that I think destroys any credibility that he might hope to achieve.

My list of scholars associated with the more social conservative side on church/state issues, whom I greatly respect (though I have some serious disagreements with some of them) include James H. Hutson, Philip Hamburger, Daniel Dreisbach, and Vincent Phillip Munoz.

David Barton, William Federer, D. James Kennedy, and Tim Lahaye (yes, Lahaye, a number of years ago, wrote a book on the Founders and Religion that is as bad as anything Barton has put out) are ahistorical hacks who offer quotations either badly taken out of context so as to be grossly misleading, or sometimes downright fraudulent.

Even Hutson recognizes this. Indeed, in the preface to his fine book of quotations he mentions as the prime motivation in writing this work that previous quote books offered by religious conservative "scholars" (I put that word in quotations because none of them, it seems, are trained historians) have been so shoddy. His words:

Few compilers of the religious quote books are academic historians....The[ir] contempt for professional historians seems, unfortunately, to have fostered a corresponding contempt for the craft of history, for some of the compilers display a cavalier attitude toward factual accuracy and the use of evidence which comprises the integrity of their work....Convinced that the subject, Religion and the Founding, deserves better treatment than it has received in the religious quote book genre, I offer a quote book that is as objective as possible and that conforms to the canons of historical scholarship.

P. x.

It is a great, and very useful book.

Congrats to Sandefur:

Congratulations to my co-blogger Timothy Sandefur on the release of his new book, published by The CATO Institute.

Sandefur is one of the nation's leading property rights lawyers as well as one of the brightest young minds in libertarian thought. I'm just glad that we share a blog-platform together.

Psychological Stress Caused by Premillenial Rapture Teachings:

Here is a good post from an old friend (his family owned my first place of minimum wage employment) about psychological stress caused to children whose parents follow the Rapture teachings. Those of us who grew up outside of such a tradition could always just laugh it off as crackpot nonsense. But if you are a little kid whose parents tell you this is the Truth, such can be downright frightening. Kevin writes:

On a personal note, I remember watching A Thief in the Night as a kid. I was probably 11 and my sister was 9. This film had a very negative impact on both my sister and I. For many years we lived in fear. If our parents would be away from us for a length of time, we would become filled with anxiety. We thought that our parent's were raptured and we were "left behind." This bad theology and the films and books based on it, has caused my sister and I a great deal of emotional and psychological stress. The fact that my parent's and the church we went to considered this movie appropriate for us is unimaginable to me.

Sadly, enough this bad theology is still raging on. Tim Lahaye continues to write his popular best selling Left Behind Series. To date there have been 15 of these dangerous and fantastic novels written, and he will soon release a 16th!

When will this madness end?

Now, from his blog, you can see that Kevin is still a devout Christian, in spite of all this.

My parents, on the other hand, are, like me, more or less open-minded and hopeful agnostics (but we have closed our minds to many belief systems, for instance, the one above-mentioned and Muslim fundamentalism). But when I was growing up my parents told me that there is a God, that Jesus was his son, you/good people go to Heaven when you/they die. (We attended Church on Christmas and Easter only; and though I was, at my grandmother's behest, baptized Catholic -- else I end up in Limbo had I died as a baby -- I was never confirmed, and have never taken communion).

And that's fine. I think you need to tell children whatever is needed to give them a sense of comfort and security. Certainly, they shouldn't have horrific religious tales thrust on them. And that probably goes for the other side -- atheism -- as well. If one is an atheist and believes that to be the Truth, if that will upset little children, then that Truth, like Santa's nonexistence, probably should be reserved for when they are a little older.

Downsize DC Show:

I want to thank Jim Babka for hosting me on his show. I had a great time. And if interested, you can listen to my appearance here.

Justice Douglas as...:

A while back after reading Jim Lindgren's account of a meeting with Justice Burger, I noted that Burger reminded me Judge Smails (Ted Knight) of Caddyshack fame.

So now I read Judge Posner's very interesting discussion of Justice Douglas where Posner writes:

Apart from being a flagrant liar, Douglas was a compulsive womanizer, a heavy drinker, a terrible husband to each of his four wives, a terrible father to his two children, and a bored, distracted, uncollegial, irresponsible, and at times unethical Supreme Court justice who regularly left the Court for his summer vacation weeks before the term ended. Rude, ice-cold, hot-tempered, ungrateful, foul-mouthed, self-absorbed, and devoured by ambition, he was also financially reckless--at once a big spender, a tightwad, and a sponge--who, while he was serving as a justice, received a substantial salary from a foundation established and controlled by a shady Las Vegas businessman.

After reading that, I thought to myself, man, Douglas was Dan Fielding. (Except on Night Court, Fielding seem to be portrayed as a conservativish Republican Prosecutor, while Douglas was a liberal).

Heads Up:

I'm going to be on Jim Babka's show tomorrow (Sunday) at 5:00pm (tune in at 5:07) Eastern time discussing the Founders & Religion.

You can listen to the show on the Internet here. Listen on the first or second feeds.

Another David Barton Myth Debunked:

This time by a 17-year-old highschool senior, homeschooled, Christian conservative, the exact audience which Barton targets for his propaganda (indeed, he's been nicknamed their "lesson-planner"). And that's a real shame. Some of those homeschooled Christians are real bright; they deserve better than Barton.

The myth in question is about the so called "Jefferson Bible." Barton's website claims:

The reader, as do many others, claimed that Jefferson omitted all miraculous events of Jesus from his "Bible." Rarely do those who make this claim let Jefferson speak for himself. Jefferson's own words explain that his intent for that book was not for it to be a "Bible," but rather for it to be a primer for the Indians on the teachings of Christ (which is why Jefferson titled that work, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth"). What Jefferson did was to take the "red letter" portions of the New Testament and publish these teachings in order to introduce the Indians to Christian morality.

And then we have D. James Kennedy spreading the myth:

So what about the Jefferson Bible, that miracles-free version of the Scriptures? That, too, is a myth. It is not a Bible, but an abridgement of the Gospels created by Jefferson in 1804 for the benefit of the Indians. Jefferson's "Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted From the New Testament for the Use of the Indians" was a tool to evangelize and educate American Indians. There is no evidence that it was an expression of his skepticism.

And others:

There never was a Jefferson Bible per se. Jefferson did cut out miracles from the Gospels in order to produce a book on ethics -- the ethics and morals of Jesus Christ for the purpose of evangelizing and educating the American Indians.

But Derek Wallace actually researches the primary sources in context and discovers that Jefferson's Bible really was for his own use and was an expression of his skepticism. In fact, Jefferson thought much of Scripture was a corrupted "dunghill," with "diamonds" of Truth buried therein. From Jefferson's October 13, 1813 letter to John Adams (and Adams by the way, approved of Jefferson's editing Scripture, because he too thought the Bible was errant, and noted if he had the time, Adams himself would have produced his own Bible with the "error" edited out):

In extracting the pure principles which [Jesus] taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves . . . We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.

And this is not the only time Jefferson discusses, in his private correspondence, his "Bible"; many times, he notes that his Bible is for his own use.

Read the rest of the article; it's quite good. I'd say that at 17, Mr. Wallace's skills at historical research have already surpassed Barton's.

Roy Moore Joins WND:

I second Ed Brayton's thoughts. I'm sure Moore's columns will provide much future entertainment and fodder for us.

Seriously though, I think, in this past post, I answered the basics of what Moore writes in his introductory column. I'll expand a little here.

First, Moore could argue that as a matter of constitutional technicality, he was in the right (although, the way our system works is that state courts must obey federal court commands, and if you think a lower federal court erred, you may appeal the case to higher federal courts, up to the Supreme Court of the United States, and make your case there). In fact, Moore does argue this:

As the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, I lost my position because I chose to follow God and the United States Constitution, our rule of law, instead of a federal judge's unlawful order commanding me to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building.

There are a couple doctrines which some serious constitutional scholars advance that suggest on originalist grounds, Moore's case didn't involve an Establishment Clause issue (and we'd have to get 5 Justice Thomases on the Supreme Court and wait for such a ruling to come down in order for Moore, as Chief Justice of a State Court, to get to lawfully keep his monument, though). For instance, the argument that the Establishment Clause is a federalism only provision. Or if anything is incorporated against the states, it is an individual right to be free from coercive establishments, things that actually "pick the pockets or break the legs," (a metaphorical phrase for real harm) of individuals. If a rock displayed on public grounds with a religious message doesn't actually harm you in any real sense, then no Establishment Clause issue is raised.

If that were the proper way to understand the Establishment Clause (as Justice Thomas argues), then not only would Moore be able to keep his rock, but...a Muslim Judge could erect a monument to Allah, a Hindu Judge to Shiva, a Pagan Judge to the Greek and Roman Gods of Justice, (all of them could argue that our rights come from such divine sources), or an atheist Judge could erect a monument which says "under no God" and no Establishment Clause issue likewise would be implicated.

But that's not what Moore was fighting over. Indeed, if Moore understood the issue in that respect, I don't think he would have bothered with a fight which ended up destroying his career. As he writes:

But my case was not about a monument and it was not about the Ten Commandments: It was about the acknowledgment of the Judeo-Christian God as the sovereign source of our law, liberty and government.

What Moore actually did was misunderstand and betray our Founding Fathers (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et al.) who never identified God in their public supplications as the God who revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses. They replaced the Biblical God with a generic "Nature's God," and the Ten Commandments, with the Ten Amendments of the Bill of Rights. If Moore had simply erected a multi-ton monument of the Declaration of Independence with its invocation of a generic God and Divine Providence and also featured the Ten Amendments of the Bill of Rights on the stone (and nothing more), I wouldn't have had a problem with that. And, if you want to challenge strict secularists who want no mention of the Divine in the public square, that would be a test case which correctly understands Founding history and political philosophy.

Also, there is no such thing as the "Judeo-Christian" God as Jews and Christians worship different gods. The Christian God is triune in nature, while the Jewish God is not. Moreover, the Founders didn't use the term "Judeo-Christian" and otherwise did not try to make any kind of coalition, or draw a lowest-common-denominator between Jews and Christians only. Back then, though the colonies varied in which particular religious sects received rights, the two strongest competing philosophies were that which held Protestant Christians only ought to receive the full rights of conscience and that which would grant rights universally to those with creeds no matter how unorthodox. Our key Founding Fathers fell into the latter. In other words, they would grant Jews full rights of conscience along with, in Jefferson's words, "the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination."

To repeat, you will not find the key Framers -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin -- identifying God exclusively as the God who revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses or the God of the Bible. Now, their generic monotheistic God could be, in the minds of private citizens, the God of the Bible, or some very unorthodox Providence. But He (or She or It) is not so specifically defined. Even when Washington addressed the Jews and noted the God whom they worshipped -- "Jehovah" -- was the same "Wonder Working Deity" in whom he believed, he said so as a religious universalist who customarily referred to God in specific terms used by those he addressed (Washington never used the word "Jehovah" when not speaking to Jews as far as I know). Indeed, when speaking to the Native Americans, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison (perhaps Adams, I haven't yet found his quotations as I have with the other three), referred to God as "The Great Spirit," just as the Indians did.

If you want to say that the Founders' "Nature's God" is the God in the Bible, the best you could argue is yes, He is with one serious caveat: He is the Biblical God except for everything written in the Bible about Him which didn't comport with their understanding of Man's Reason, like His irrational wrath and jealously. These Founders believed the Bible was errant; it contained in Adams's words "errors and amendments" (or in Jefferson's, its history was "defective and doubtful") and Man's Reason was the penultimate tool for determining which parts of the Bible were legitimately revealed by God (as Jefferson put it, Man's Reason could find the "Diamonds" of Truth among the "Dunghill" of error contained in the Bible) and which were not. Everything that didn't passed the "Reason" smell test was thus properly edited from the Bible. And doctrines like the Trinity and the Incarnation were the most unreasonable "corruptions" of Christianity which, as John Adams put it, "stupified" the minds of the Christian world. Adams went so far as to tell Jefferson that even if God Himself told him the Trinity were true, he wouldn't have believed the doctrine because 1 is not 3 and 3 is not 1, period. And both Jefferson and Adams explicitly doubted that the Ten Commandments were in fact revealed by God.

Somehow, I don't think the likes Roy Moore think such a God deserves worship or public acknowledgement. But Jefferson and Adams (along with the similarly heterodox Ben Franklin, and two other lesser well knowns) were the men who actually wrote the Declaration of Independence.

It's a pity Moore doesn't properly understand the Founding. If he did, he might still have a job.

John Adams on Thanksgiving Proclamations:

This may surprise some folks. It's well known that Washington, Adams, and Madison issued Thanksgiving proclamations (to a generic God), while Jefferson refused. And Madison, in his Detached Memoranda seemed to indicate it's improper for the federal government to do this (thus giving support to the notion that Founding-era practice is not dispositive, that indeed, it's entirely possible to raise a constitutional ideal one minute, then break it the next).

Before seeing this quotation in James H. Hutson's fine book, I didn't know that Adams too regretted issuing the Thanksgiving Proclamation. His words are quite interesting:

The National Fast, recommended by me turned me out of office. It was connected with the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which I had no concern in. That assembly has allarmed and alienated Quakers, Anabaptists, Mennonists, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Catholicks, protestant Episcopalians, Arians, Socinians, Armenians, & & &, Atheists and Deists might be added. A general Suspicon prevailed that the Presbyterian Church was ambitious and aimed at an Establishment of a National Church. I was represented as a Presbyterian and at the head of this political and ecclesiastical Project. The secret whisper ran through them "Let us have Jefferson, Madison, Burr, any body, whether they be Philosophers, Deists, or even Atheists, rather than a Presbyterian President." This principle is at the bottom of the unpopularity of national Fasts and Thanksgivings. Nothing is more dreaded than the National Government meddling with Religion.

John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812. Old Family Letters, 392-93; taken from Hutson's The Founders on Religion, 101-02.

Rebroadcasting Propaganda:

Coral Ridge rebroadcast last year's propaganda special attempting to prove we were founded (in a public sense) as a "Christian Nation." Here is how I dealt with it last year (which also links to other posts which address Kennedy's spurious claims).

One thing I missed in last year's discussion: It noted how Ben Franklin proposed a prayer at the constitutional convention. Franklin was a theist who believed in an interventionist God, but otherwise rejected the key tenets of orthodox Christianity. Coral Ridge said that was the "turning" point in the convention (I guess they assumed the conventioneers actually prayed), that after the event, the convention went from the brink of failure to success. Which is utter nonsense: The convention did not pray; they rejected Franklin's call to prayer.

One more word about the whole "covenants" thing. Usually, there is a kernel of truth in urban myths. The special argued that the Declaration and Constitution were based on earlier documents -- "covenants" with the Christian God. What's truly remarkable about this claim is that neither the Declaration or the Constitution contain covenants to God. The kernel of truth is perhaps earlier covenant documents influenced our Founding insofar as those covenants were experiments with self-government. But what is distinctive about the Declaration and the Constitution is that they do not covenant, but rather replace covenants with the social contract. So the Declaration and Constitution are like earlier Christian covenants, except with the heart ripped out of the earlier documents: The covenants with God.

My own opinion on the ideological origins of the US Constitution, similar to what Bernard Bailyn has argued, is that the Founders drew from a variety of intellectual sources and synthesized them, including 1) Christian-Biblical principles, 2) Pagan Greco-Roman principles, 3) traditional common law or "rights of Englishmen" principles, and 4) modern Enlightenment principles or "the rights of man." Now, the Founders probably thought that these sources by-in-large agreed on most matters. Yet, when a conflict occurred, something had to dominate. And it was not the Bible or "Christian principles." Rather, it was Enlightenment principles which trumped and Man's Reason was the ultimate lens through which all of the sources were to be viewed.

Bad Neighbors:

This is not the way to handle things if your neighbor has a recalcitrant child with developmental disabilities.

ACLU Defends Phelps:

Hey, if the Nazis have a right to march in Skokie.... This type of case seems to be the ultimate reductio ad absurdum for free speech.

On a related note, apparently the Phelps's have created commercials for their cause (I can't imagine anyone ever voluntarily selling them airtime). Most of them have been uploaded to YouTube. I guess it's out of morbid curiosity that I find these commercials entertaining. They are so bizarre, you have to wonder if they are serious. Yet, one thing I've learned is that a small fraction of people living on the margins really do believe in comically bizarre things.

Should we take these people seriously? Or should we just mock them?

This one entitled "Thank God for IEDs" is typical.

Living Loud:

See this past post where I detailed who they are -- basically the band who wrote and performed Ozzy Osbourne's first (and best) two solo albums, minus Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. They got Steve Morse, one my favorites, to handle the guitar (Morse knew keyboardist Don Airey, because Airey replaced John Lord on keys for Deep Purple, and Morse replaced the legendary Ritchie Blackmore on guitar). Some singer named "Jimmy Barnes" handles the vocals for Living Loud. I have no idea who he is. But apparently, he's big in Australia.

Their version of I Don't Know has just been added to YouTube. Check it out:

Jane:

Yes, even though this band had some terribly annoying commercial hits (We Built This City), this number 1 hit of theirs in my opinion, is a good tune. Mickey Thomas's voice soars. He has a voice for progressive rock. Too bad he never performed in that genre.

Michael Moore lets Fred Phelps have it:

I knew Michael Moore was good for something.

Not a Fair Criticism of Strauss:

This post by Scott Horton at Balkinization is not a fair reading of Strauss and Straussianism.

The post focuses on one of Strauss's private letters, reproduced in its entirety in Horton's post, which seems to reveal fascist tendencies that Strauss felt at one time. The offending passage is as follows:

There is in this case just one solution. We must repeat: we, "men of science," - as our predecessors in the Arab Middle Ages called themselves - non habemus locum manentem, sed quaerimus...(4) And, what concerns this matter: the fact that the new right-wing Germany does not tolerate us says nothing against the principles of the right. To the contrary: only from the principles of the right, that is from fascist, authoritarian and imperial principles, is it possible with seemliness, that is, without resort to the ludicrous and despicable appeal to the droits imprescriptibles de l'homme(5) to protest against the shabby abomination.

"Droits imprescriptibles de l'homme" refers, I am told, to the notion of "the rights of man" or natural rights liberalism. The letter is just one more piece of evidence that the Shadia Drury types will use to argue that Strauss was really a fascist, not a defender of liberal democracy.

But they are mistaken. From what I've read of Strauss, and of Bloom and the other Straussians, they are indeed defenders of liberal democracy (in a Churchillian sense -- not "flatterers" of the system).

Bloom's work in particular lets "out of the bag" (makes explicit) some teachings which Strauss previously only taught privately. And Ravelstein (where Leo Strauss is dubbed "Davarr," which is Hebrew for "Word"), Saul Bellow's novel on Bloom, is even more explicit regarding certain Straussian doctrines previously kept secret, for instance, where Bloom states "no true philosopher can believe in God." Strauss was never so publicly adamant about his atheism. Indeed, he taught that God's nonexistence could not be proven. Yet privately, he too was known to say things like "philosophers are paid to be atheists." And Strauss meant even philosophers like John Locke who on the surface claimed to believe in God.

So I am someone who a) is not a Straussian (I disagree with much of their social conservatism), and b) recognizes Strauss had private esoteric teachings which, if known, would turn off many admirers, especially those religious conservative "gentlemen" whom Strauss and company supported.

But that esoteric truth is not that liberal democracy is bad and fascism is good. Rather the esoteric Truth is as follows: God doesn't exist; rights aren't grounded in nature; indeed the entire natural law is a fiction. And Nietzsche and Heidegger were right as to the ultimate (nihilistic) nature of reality.

I'm not saying I believe this; rather this is the "secret" teaching of Strauss and his followers.

We can't stop there though. Strauss was still a defender of liberal democracy. And that's because he didn't believe this secret Truth was a "pearl" as Shadia Drury put it; it was not a "good" Truth that would set men free; but rather a dangerous flame -- capable of producing the most horrible destruction and suffering -- to which only philosophers, not the masses could tend.

Strauss was not a fascist because he didn't believe political orders could be founded on such a nihilistic "Truth." Indeed, that fascism and Nazism resulted when liberal democracy was thrown out and the abyss was looked to for "new gods" to lead, demonstrated that liberal democracy was the only "solid" place where public orders could rest, even if such a system was "low" in the way it made productive use out of man's baser instincts.

Back to the letter. And the context should help us to understand why Strauss, post WWII, in America where his teachings had their impact, wasn't a fascist. The letter was written in 1933. Now, I'm no historical buff, but this was well before the extent of Nazi horror was fully realized.

Strauss no doubt was imbibed in Nietzsche and, to a lesser extent, Heidegger. One of the reasons why Strauss believed that you couldn't found political orders on Nietzchean nihilism is because a thinker as profound as Heidegger, Nietzsche's heir, ended up supporting the Nazis!

I do believe that Strauss himself, before WWII, flirted with fascism. That makes perfect sense. Strauss followed Heidegger. And Heidegger himself became a Nazi. But when all (WWII, the Holocaust) was said and done, Strauss was profoundly disturbed by Heidegger's support of Nazism (and no doubt his own flirtation with fascist principles which led to such horror).

And this -- the dangers of nihilism being consumed by the masses -- was what inspired Strauss to write Natural Right and History in the first place where he argued that the philosophical rejection that Truth can be found in either Reason or Revelation constituted a crisis in the West.

In this past post, I quoted part of Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, which explains all of this. Here Bloom uses Heidegger's Nazism to demonstrate that the Truth of nihilism was not something that set men free, or was otherwise a sublime "treasure," but rather a dangerous fire.

I shall not comment on the Nazi period of the now de-Nazified Heidegger, other than to remark that the ever more open recognition that he was the most interesting thinker of our century, formerly chastely displaced in admiration for his various proxies, gives evidence that we are playing with fire. p. 154

On the same page Bloom notes that you cannot found political orders on Nietzsche's Truth, that nihilism will just as easily take one down the road to Nazism as to liberal democracy. "Once one plunges into the abyss, there is no assurance whatsoever that equality, democracy, or socialism will be found on the other side. At the very best, self-determination is indeterminate."

Good News for Walmart:

Remember, corporations are people too.

Lester Kinsolving on Morton Downey:

Yes, I confess, when I was about 14 and 15, I used to watch Morton Downey Jr.'s show. My Dad, an old lefty, used to walk downstairs to where our family TV was located and scowl. I think we all knew Downey wasn't for real.

The difference between Howard Stern and Downey (the two were often compared to one another) is that Stern had real talent, offered something novel and clever. Downey was just a rehash, flash in the pan, repackaging of Joe Pyne.

And if you type his name into YouTube, some clips of Downey's TV show, which was entertaining for about two years, pop up.

This clip is noteworthy because it features Lester Kinsolving of WorldNutDaily. I'm often entertained by Kinsolving's lunatic rants about gays. And apparently, he's been doing this for a long, long time. Kinsolving is such a buffoon. He even gets under the skin of Downey and Bob Grant (another guest).

At one point, Downey grabs Kinsolving's "notes" and Kinsolving chases him around the set and is forcefully removed by security. But then is let back on the show. Downey also says Kinsovling looks like a fat Walter Mondale. And even though I'm not a fan of Mondale's, I'd say Downey, though he was trying to insult Kinsolving, delivered a far greater insult to Mondale.

One of my favorite Kansas songs...:

Just got uploaded to Youtube.



I miss the days when rock songs were 9 and a half minutes long, had fat sounding analog keyboards, and the singing didn't start until 2:30 into the song. And the singing, btw, is magnificent. Steve Walsh's voice is positively haunting.

Reverse Reparations for Ralph Reed:

If this is true, it's a scheme that Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff conspired for a massive transfer of wealth from older black folks to Reed and Abramoff.

Boston 1775:

Check out this blog Boston 1775, which deals with revolutionary-founding era issues.

George Washington, Infidel:

I've decided to try Youtube as a platform for my webcasts (hey, it's free!). Check out my ten minute lecture on George Washington's religious beliefs.



This was just me improvising from the top of my head. I make a lot of assertions, and I'm going to briefly source some of them.

First, I assert that many of the Founding era elite-educated Virginia Anglicans/Episcopalians were, like Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, not orthodox Christians but rather personally adhered to Deist-Unitarian or "Infidel" principles. Here is the testimony of an Episcopalian mister who knew James Madison personally, on the fact that many of the elites "Whigs" in Virginia were "Infidels." Meade is speaking about how although Madison may have had a brief flirtation with orthodox Christianity early in life, the creed of his elite Whiggery was decidedly not orthodox Christianity. Meade stated about Madison:

His religious feeling, however, seems to have been short-lived. His political associations were those of infidel principles, of whom there were many in his day, if they did not actually change his creed, yet subjected him to a general suspicion of it.

I also note how Patrick Henry, likewise, was a Virginia Whig/Episcopalian and automatically this raised a red flag in the minds of some folks that he was a Deist or a Unitarian, not an orthodox Christian. But Henry indeed was an orthodox Christian. And when confronted he explicitly noted that he wasn't a Deist but rather an orthodox Christian.

Amongst other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of the number; and, indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory; because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics; and I find much cause to reproach myself that I have lived so long, and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian. But, indeed, my dear child, this is a character which I prize far above all this world has, or can boast.

Jefferson's letters clearly show that he rejected the tenets of orthodox Christianity. He was branded an "infidel" for some of the tamer things he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia; but his private letters clearly show that Jefferson rejected (sometimes savaged) the orthodox Christian creeds.

So what about Washington? Mum was the word on his religious creed. Washington was more than just "reticent" to talk about his private faith; he absolutely held his cards to himself. What he really thought, specifically, about orthodox Christianity was for him to know and you to guess.

The context of the time was that people generally and public figures particularly were expected to affirm or otherwise pay homage to orthodox Christianity. And such a system back then had far greater social and legal entrenchments. Some pious folks tried to corner Washington into admitting whether he really believed in orthodox Christianity, and Washington basically dodged the question. Later Jefferson commenting on how how Washington avoided answering the question called him a "cunning old Fox." Here is Jefferson's testimony:

Dr. Rush tells me that he had it from Asa Green that when the clergy addressed Genl. Washington on his departure from the govmt, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Xn religion and they thot they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However he observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion.

And here is Jefferson noting what Gouverneur Morris's take on all this:

I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that Genl. Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

If Washington did believe in the tenets of orthodox Christianity, why didn't he just say so, like Patrick Henry?

Finally, I noted how Washington's systematic refusal to take communion evidences that he wasn't an orthodox Christian but rather points in the direction of belief in the same unorthodox system of Enlightenment rationalism as Jefferson, Madison, and many other of the elite Virginia Whig-Episcopalians. Michael and Jana Novak, in their book on Washington, note that many Virginia Episcopalians likewise didn't take communion. Yes, but there were many Deists and Unitarians among the Virginia Episcopalians. And they were the ones who didn't take communion! At least, that's the impression I get from the testimony of Washington's own minister, Dr. Abercrombie. Here he is on all of those elite Whig-Episcopalians, most notably Washington, who ducked communion:

With respect to the inquiry you make I can only state the following facts; that, as pastor of the Episcopal church, observing that, on sacramental Sundays, Gen. Washington, immediately after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the greater part of the congregation -- always leaving Mrs. Washington with the other communicants -- she invariably being one -- I considered it my duty in a sermon on Public Worship, to state the unhappy tendency of example, particularly of those in elevated stations who uniformly turned their backs upon the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I acknowledge the remark was intended for the President; and as such he received it.

Washington never attended that Church on communion Sundays again. But more to the point, here is Dr. Abercrombie being very direct on the matter: "Sir, Washington was a Deist."

In a letter, dated November 29, 1831, Abercrombie explains why he thought Washington a Deist:

"That Washington was a professing Christian, is evident from his regular attendance in our church; but, Sir, I cannot consider any man as a real Christian who uniformly disregards an ordinance so solemnly enjoined by the divine Author of our holy religion, and considered as a channel of divine grace."

Now, clearly Washington believed in a warm-intervening Providence and wasn't a "Deist" in that strict sense. But the notion that Washington was a Deist is an invention of modern revisionists historians is utter balderdash. Modern historians may be wrong in believing Washington's God was a cold-distant watchmaker, but these scholars assert Washington was a "Deist" because his own ministers said so.

Thanking God for Darwin...:

And Darwin for God. That's pretty much what Harry Jaffa does in this article. When I graduated from Berklee College of Music, James Taylor was our featured speaker. One of the interesting lines in his speech was, "I thank God for music, and I thank music for God." Just substitute "Darwin" for "music" and I think Harry Jaffa is saying the same thing in this passage:

There is, for example, nothing in Darwinian theory that excludes the possibility that natural selection is the means by which God created the species. It may be an act of faith to believe this, but it is no less an act of faith to deny it. There is therefore nothing in the logic of evolution, strictly speaking, that places it in opposition to the Bible. Hence there never was any compelling reason for Biblical fundamentalists to oppose the teaching of evolution; nor is there reason now for Darwinian fundamentalists to oppose the teaching of intelligent design.

Jaffa/Claremont are known for their mighty attempts to reconcile Reason and Revelation (while the East Coast Straussians know that they are entirely irreconcilable; but that's a Truth that must be kept secret from the masses). But Jaffa's article is a bit much. It lends credence to the thought that the West Coast Straussians are really closet nihilists, like their East Coast brethren; they are just more secretive about it and want to continue the charade of publicly/textually defending the notion that Reason/Revelation are agreeable, that "ends" are grounded in Nature, that God exists, when secretly they know these things not to be the case.

George Washington...still wasn't a Christian:

I just finished watching another one of D. James Kennedy's absolutely laughable specials on George Washington's supposed Christian faith. Kennedy recycles the same sermon every year, but adds little changes each time. It's really a shame that someone who is a "Christian" minister, supposedly committed to the Truth, spreads so many tall tales. But alas, since Parson Mason Weems, there seems to be a long tradition of Christian ministers making things up about George Washington. And Kennedy best represents the "Weems" tradition, presently.

I certainly am not going to answer all of the tall tales now, just a few.

First, regarding Washington's character, Kennedy invokes the ultimate strawman by taking the George Washington (Barry Bostwick/Jaclyn Smith) miniseries as an example of the historical academy's "revisionism" because they portrayed Washington as having an affair. As if Gordon Wood were the executive producer! I don't think anyone takes this movie as a serious work of history. And as long as directors like Oliver Stone are well regarded in Hollywood, I doubt the (left-leaning) historical academy will ever take Hollywood seriously.

So let's instead turn to what a real historian, one who hardly could be accused of being a PC revisionist, has to say about Washington's character. Forrest McDonald in Novus Ordo Seclorum writes:

It is obvious why Washington was trusted, however; the more elusive question is how a man could become so utterly trustworthy. Admittedly, he was far from being an ordinary man, but he was a long way from being a saint. As a soldier he had been capable of blundering, rashness, and poor judgment. He was addicted to gambling, apparently indulged in a good dealing of wenching, was avid in the pursuit of wealth, and was a "most horrid swearer and blasphemer." He was vain, pompous, pretentious, and hot-tempered in the extreme; and though he was normally a perfect gentleman in his public behavior, he could be a perfect alley cat in his private behavior. Even in public his conduct was not always free of blemish. During the war he had been willing to hang an innocent British prisoner, Capt. Charles Asgill, in retaliation against the unauthorized behavior of some hooligan New York Loyalists; and Washington was not sufficiently magnanimous to grant the request of the unfortunate Maj. John Andre to be shot as a soldier rather than to be hanged as a spy. And yet a whole nation could entrust him with its liberty and, indeed, its fate, in revolutionary circumstances which almost invariably breed Caesars and Cromwells, and could know that it was safe to do so.

pp. 192-3.

Now, of course, there is another side. On balance, Washington was a man of great virtue. But let's not turn the man into a saint.

A few other things. I have neither the time nor the interest in refuting everything Kennedy said, but the following three examples, which Kennedy relies on as "key" pieces of evidence to prove Washington's Christianity, illustrate what could be done with practically every line of Kennedy's sermon. First, Washington supposedly prayed for two hours a day, while kneeling and reading his Bible. This automatically should raise a red flag because it was well known that Washington didn't kneel when praying. I tracked down the source for this.

"It seems proper to subjoin to this letter what was told to me by Mr. Robert Lewis, at Fredericksburg, in the year 1827. Being a nephew of Washington, and his private secretary during the first part of his presidency, Mr. Lewis lived with him on terms of intimacy, and has the best opportunity for observing his private devotions in his library both morning and evening; that on those occasions he had seen him in a kneeling posture with a Bible open before him, and that he believed such to have been his daily practice."(7)

However, as the linked Bessel article notes:

Unfortunately, this comment is hearsay. There is no evidence given in that or other books to support it, such as any letter from Washington's nephew who was being quoted, and it therefore is probably another example of someone fashioning a story about Washington to support what some people wished to believe.

Kennedy also invokes the Quaker/Valley Forge/Prayer tall tale invented out of whole cloth by Parson Weems. From the Bessel article:

Weems wrote a story that supposedly took place at Valley Forge, when a Quaker named Potts was walking through the woods near Washington's headquarters and, as he told his wife, he saw "the commander in chief of the American armies on his knees in prayer!" Potts told her that this proved that Washington was a man of God and that God would therefore save America.(9)

"The Potts story has been the most cherished of all the anecdotes about Washington at prayer, though, interestingly, it was never alluded to by Quaker writers on Washington, no even by those of a 'Free Quaker' of nonpacifist persuasion. It has been repeated with countless variations since Weems first put it forward; scores of witnesses attesting to the event (many years later) have been dug up by champions of the story; and many details have been added by later writes to Weems's original account....

"The Valley Forge story is, of course, utterly without foundation in fact. There was indeed a Quaker farmer named Isaac Potts who came into possession of a house in Valley Forge toward the end of the Revolutionary War; but he was nowhere near Valley Forge in the winter of 1777 when Washington was supposed to have been praying in the snow. Nevertheless, Washington's 'Gethsemene,' as the Valley Forge episode has been called, was eventually fixed in bronze on the Sub-Treasury Building in New York City and Potts's house itself was made into a shrine...

"In June, 1903, moreover, the cornerstone of the million-dollar Washington Memorial Chapel, commemorating the event, was laid at Valley Forge; in 1928 the United States government issued a batch of two-cent stamps showing Washington praying at Valley Force; and in 1955 a private chapel for the use of United States Congressmen was opened in the Capitol containing, as its chief feature, a stained-glass window above an oak altar depicting the kneeling figure of Washington at Valley Forge. Even Weems, one guesses, would have been somewhat thunderstruck by the solemn literalness with which many of his readers interpreted his exuberant narrative of The Life of George Washington; with Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen.(10)

9. George Washington and Religion [by Paul F. Boller, Jr., published by Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, Texas, 1963], pages 8-9; and The Life of Washington, by M.L. Weems, 1857 edition, pages 198-199; and 1837 edition, pages 183-184; and 1814 edition, pages 183-184..

10. George Washington and Religion, pages 9-11.

Finally, Kennedy, to prove Washington prayed "Christian" prayers, continues to peddle Washington's debunked "prayer book," without which, Washington's public record of prayers includes making supplications to a generic deity only, absent explicitly Christian language. Ed Brayton got the goods on the prayer book from one of the nation's leading experts on Washington's writings. "That scholar is Frank Grizzard of the University Virginia, a senior associate editor of the George Washington Papers collection housed there. Here is his response:"

The so-called prayer journal is not in GW's writing, although I'm not sure it's actually a forgery. The manuscript dealer (Burk I think) who first sold it when it came to light in the 19th century printed a facsimile edition in which he admits that the Smithsonian rejected it as a non-GW document, but it did have Washington family provenance, so he said. Thus it apparently was a descendant's. Johnson's version is taken from Burk. The prayers are based on the English prayer book.

So there is no credible evidence that George Washington had a "Christian" prayer book.

Practically every point Kennedy makes to "prove" Washington's Christianity, can be answered in this way. The only valid point that the "Christian Nation" crowd has against the notion that Washington was a "Deist" is that Washington, contra the "Deists," invoked a warm-intervening Providence, not a cold-distant watchmaker. But so too did Jefferson and Franklin. There really is nothing in the historical record that demonstrates Washington believed any differently than Franklin and Jefferson on religious matters.

My Favorite Led Zeppelin Song:

Of course, it's not one that's overplayed on the radio. A pretty good version of it follows:

Andy Timmons:

One of the best guitarist whom you've probably never heard of.



One of the few who can out "Steve Morse" Steve Morse in the instrumental virtuoso rock/bluegrass fusion style.

Here is Steve Morse playing a tune in that style.

Sad:

Opera has never been my cup of tea, but one of the giants seems to be ready to check out. Luciano Pavarotti is battling cancer. They say he is recovering, but he has pancreatic cancer which is a type of cancer from which you generally don't recover, especially if you are 70 years old.