Correction in the Historic Record Needed on Bird Wilson

If you google for "Bird Wilson" my blogpost on him should come up on the first page. He was indeed the son of Founder James Wilson, an Episcopalian minister, and the biographer of Bishop White, the first Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania ("Memoir of Bishop White"). Bird Wilson would be, and to most historians perhaps is, a footnote in history. Bird Wilson plays a minor role in the controversy over the religion of the key Founding Fathers. In particular, on the matter of George Washington not taking communion, Bishop White, one of Washington's Bishops, gave key testimony that Washington didn't commune, some of which was reported through Bird Wilson. For instance,

"Though the General attended the churches in which Dr. White officiated, whenever he was in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary war, and afterwards while President of the United States, he never was a communicant in them" (Memoir of Bishop White, p. 188).

Bird Wilson was also purported to have given a sermon in Albany in 1831, on the religion of the Presidents from Washington to Jackson which concluded "among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism." The following, further, was preached in that sermon:

When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it.... There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity.... Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian (quoted by Remsberg, pp. 120-121, emphasis added).

After the sermon was published in the Daily Advertiser, freethinker and Utopian Robert Dale Owen, personally visited the Reverend to dialogue on the matter of Washington's religious views. It was during this discussion that Owen testified in a letter to Amos Gilbert dated November 13, 1831:

I called last evening on Dr. Wilson, as I told you I should, and I have seldom derived more pleasure from a short interview with anyone. Unless my discernment of character has been grievously at fault, I met an honest man and sincere Christian. But you shall have the particulars. A gentleman of this city accompanied me to the Doctor's residence. We were very courteously received. I found him a tall, commanding figure, with a countenance of much benevolence, and a brow indicative of deep thought, apparently approaching fifty years of age. I opened the interview by stating that though personally a stranger to him, I had taken the liberty of calling in consequence of having perused an interesting sermon of his, which had been reported in the Daily Advertiser of this city, and regarding which, as he probably knew, a variety of opinions prevailed. In a discussion, in which I had taken a part, some of the facts as there reported had been questioned; and I wished to know from him whether the reporter had fairly given his words or not.... I then read to him from a copy of the Daily Advertiser the paragraph which regards Washington, beginning, "Washington was a man," etc. and ending, "absented himself altogether from the church." "I endorse," said Dr. Wilson, with emphasis, "every word of that. Nay, I do not wish to conceal from you any part of the truth, even what I have not given to the public. Dr. Abercrombie said more than I have repeated. At the close of our conversation on the subject his emphatic expression was--for I well remember the very words--`Sir, Washington was a Deist.'"

The fact that Washington didn't commune in Philadelphia under Dr. Abercrombie and Bishop White is not in dispute. However, the minister who gave the fiery sermon terming all of the Presidents thus far elected "unitarians" and "infidels" was not, (or likely not) Bird Wilson but rather James Renwick Willson.

I was first alerted to this by a Brown doctoral candidate in history, James Kabala, in a comment on my blog:

I'm a historian currently working on church-state relations in the early republic who stumbled across this blog. The sermon you attribute to Bird Wilson, an Episcopalian, was actually delivered by James Renwick Willson, a Reformed Presbyterian or Covenanter and no relation to the Founding Father James Wilson. I've seen this error in books by a number of authors and have been trying to trace it back to its origins; I've traced it as far back as Paul Boller's book on Washington's religion, but the source he cites is not at my university's library. Willson's sermon was still largely accurate, but it lacks the authority of being by James Wilson's son.

I've been emailing him back and forth over the past few days and we have tried to get to the bottom of the matter. John E. Remsburg's book Six Historic Americans seems to be the origin of the error, though Remsburg doesn't technically make the error. If you read Remsburg carefully he treats "The Rev. Dr. Wilson" and "Rev. Bird Wilson, D.D." as two different people, but does not make this clear enough. And he misspells James Renwick Willson's last name with only one l, further adding to the confusion. And to confuse even more, ironically both "Rev. Wilson" and "Rev. Willson" were domiciled in Albany!

The first scholar, relying on Remsburg's work to confuse the two "Wilsons" into one was Franklin Steiner, where he writes:

Here is honest, straightforward talk, both on the part of Washington and the clergyman. 'What is more, it is confirmed by others. The Rev. Dr. Wilson, the biographer of Bishop White, in his sermon on the "Religion of the Presidents," says....Dr. Wilson's sermon was published in the Albany 'Daily Advertiser,' in 1831. Mr. Robert Dale Owen, then a young man, was attracted by it, and went to Albany to interview Dr. Wilson, and gives the substance of the interview in a letter, written on November 13, 1831, which was published in New York two weeks later....

From there relying on Steiner's work, Paul F. Boller, in George Washington and Religion continues to treat James Renwick Willson's work as thought it were Bird Wilson's. And from Boller, various George Washington scholars on both sides of the culture war debate over just how "Christian" Washington was have attributed to Bird Wilson words which probably came from James Renwick Willson. They include David Holmes, Peter Henriques, Farell Till, Brooke Allen, Michael and Jana Novak, and Peter Lillback.

I know all of this Wilson v. Willson stuff is confusing. This email that James Kabala sent me helps to clarify:

Steiner seems to be our culprit (or at least, the farthest back we can definitively trace this mistake at the present time; perhaps he himself was drawing on someone else). The Rev. Dr. Wilson who wrote a biography of Bishop White was, I assume, Bird Wilson. The Rev. Dr. Wilson [sic; should be Willson] who spoke with Robert Dale Owen was undoubtedly James Renwick Willson; the dialogue between the two men as quoted by Steiner is quoted verbatim from the Free Enquirer of December 3, 1831. The misspelling as "Wilson" occurred in that original article and is the likely source of much later trouble. This mistake is relatively inconsequential in the long run, since we know from other sources that Washington was undoubtedly a non-communicant and probably a Deist (or "theistic rationalist"), but it is remarkable how an error can spread from book to book without ever being caught. It will make me even more vigilant to make sure my own work is free from such errors!

Regarding the sermon in the Daily Advertiser, the primary source is not available online (nor in most libraries either!). However, one of Willson's sermons with almost identical sentiments is available here. The sermon in question was titled, PRINCE MESSIAH’S CLAIMS TO DOMINION OVER ALL GOVERNMENTS: AND THE DISREGARD OF HIS AUTHORITY BY THE UNITED STATES, IN THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, and as the site says, because of the way in which he criticized the Presidents, he was denounced.

The whole thing makes for an interesting read. Here are some excerpts:

There is no satisfactory evidence that Washington was a professor of the Christian religion, or even a speculative believer in its divinity, before he retired from public life.[6] In no state paper, in no private letter, in no conversation, is he known to have declared himself a believer in the Holy Scriptures, as the word of God. General eulogy, by a Weems, or a Ramsey, will not satisfy an enlightened enquirer. The faith of the real believer in the word of God, is a principle so powerfully operative, that you cannot conceal "its light under a bushel." "It works by love." "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." Is it probable that he was a true believer in Jesus Christ and his Bible, when in times so trying, and in a Christian nation, he wrote thousands of letters, and yet never uttered a word, from which it can be fairly inferred that he was a believer? Who ever questioned whether Theodosius or Charlemagne believed the Bible? "He that is not against us is for us." And it is as true, that he who is not for us, is against us.

[...]


He was President of the convention, that voted the name of the living God out of the Constitution. His influence was great among the members of that body. Had he taken part with Dr. Franklin, in the attempt to have an acknowledgment of God inserted in the Constitution, they could hardly have failed of success. The conviction forces itself upon us, that that act of national impiety, was done with the approbation of Washington. It is to his everlasting dishonor, that he is not known to have opposed that insult offered to the Lord God, who had made him so great and successful a captain.

While President, in Philadelphia, his habit was to arise and leave the church, when the Sacrament of the Supper was dispensed. After the Rev. Dr. Abercrombie had preached a faithful sermon against the evil example thus set by the President of the United States; Gen. Washington remarked, that he would not set such an example for the future; and from that time, he did not attend church on the Sabbath, in which the Lord’s Supper was dispensed.

When the several classes of citizens, were addressing Washington, on his retirement from office, the clergy, who doubted his Christianity, resolved to frame an address, so that he could not evade, in his reply, an expression of his faith, if he were really a believer. He did, however, evade it, and the impression left on the mind of one of the clergy, at least, was that he was a Deist.

Mr. Jefferson, affirms that Washington was a Deist. To be ashamed of Christ, which no one can reasonably doubt he was, is infidel. He did not set an example of godliness, before the nation, over which in the Providence of God, he was made President.

The Cabinet which Gen. Washington chose, indicates that he was not a fearer of the Lord. Mr. Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, was an unchaste man, and died by a duel. Mr. Jefferson, his Secretary of State, was an avowed infidel, who mocked at every thing sacred. You know men by their society. Among the members of the first Cabinet of the Federal Executive, vital godliness would have been mocked at as fanaticism. Which of the heads of departments prayed in his family daily? Which of them sanctified the Lord’s day, by abstaining from worldly conversation, company, and business? The practical piety of the Bible, as exhibited in [Thomas] Boston’s Fourfold State, [Jonathan] Edwards on [Religious] Affections, and [Alexander] McLeod on True Godliness, had she been introduced to the inmates of Washington’s Palace, would have been derided as a fanatic.

And here Rev. Willson uses the "God was voted out" of the US Constitution language:

Besides, there is some reason to believe, that the people were not so bad as a few practical atheists, into whose hands the management of the national affairs fell, immediately after the revolution. These men voted God out of the Constitution, and discarded all moral qualifications for office. But the people, pending the election of Mr. Jefferson to the office of President, adopted a test. The opponents of that gentleman, insisted that he was an infidel, and therefore not to be honored with the highest office in the gift of the people. His friends admitted the doctrine that a deist ought not to be President; but denied the charge against Mr. Jefferson. His Notes on Virginia, are essentially deistical. But comparatively few had read them. The people, many thousands of Christians, did not believe the charge, and thinking it a slander of his political enemies, they voted for him. Had the people known his malevolent opposition to the Bible, truth, church and worship, of God as it is now known, the writer believes that he never would have been President of the United States. That very contest rendered Deism forever unpopular in this nation.

And in the footnotes, Willson relays that it was he who had been in correspondence with Washington's minister, Dr. Abercrombie.

Since the above was written, the author has heard some facts respecting Washington’s last days at Mount Vernon, which give reason to hope, that he became, at least a speculative believer in revealed religion, after he withdrew from the cares of empire, and found time for investigation and devotion. We are sure the first President did not acknowledge Prince Messiah. Dr. Abercrombie said to, the writer—"Sir, General Washington was a Deist."

In another sermon, Rev. Willson repeats similar sentiments:

Never in any form, since the United States became an independent nation, has it acknowledged the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor professed subjection to his law. The convention that ratified and unanimously signed the present Federal Constitution, could not have meant to do so, as is demonstrated by many solid arguments. 1. The question was debated, and a very large majority refused to insert any acknowledgment of God, or of the religion of his Son. 2. Had this not been done, the members were men of too much discernment, to have overlooked, through inattention, a matter of so great magnitude. If they intended to acknowledge Christ, it would have been in such terms, as to admit of no doubt. 3. There were many deists in the convention, such as Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Thomas Mifflin, Governor Morris, and James Madison. Governor Morris and Thomas Jefferson, affirm that General Washington was also a deist.[1] Yet all these infidels signed the constitution. Would they have done so in the presence of those who knew them to be opposed to revealed religion had the instrument been christian. 4. Could the Presidents of the United States, three of whom, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, were certainly infidels, numerous members of congress, Governors of States, and many other officers of the General and State governments, have sworn to the Federal Constitution, had it been understood to recognize the headship of Messiah, whom they held to be an impostor? 5. It has never been the understanding of the nation that the constitution acknowledges the Lord Jesus Christ, or professes subjection to his laws. All infidels have sworn to the support of that instrument, and no one has ever thought of charging them with inconsistency. 6. The present President of the United States, in his message to congress, at the opening of the extra session of 1837, says: "The will of a majority of the people is the supreme law, in all things that come within the jurisdiction of the Federal government." In all the opposition to his administration, this sentiment has never been called in question. The politicians of the nation, would generally reject with detestation, the doctrine, that the constitution binds to the acknowledgment of the Bible as the supreme rule of legislation in this commonwealth. 7. All these arguments are sealed, by the following provision. "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."[2] This prohibits the passage of any law excluding gamblers, whoremongers, slaveholders, profane swearers, sabbath violaters, gross idolators, blasphemers of the divinity of Christ, deists or atheists, from access to the highest honours of the land, for to exclude any of these, would be to require a religious test. A man might be convicted of any and even of all these sins, and yet be eligible to any office. Here is a flat contradiction to the Bible. "He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God." 2 Sam. 23:3. If the constitution acknowledged Christ, the christian religion, or Jehovah, in any article directly or indirectly, it would thereby establish a religious test, as no deist or atheist could swear to its support. This sweeping clause is found in the conclusion of a section declaring, "that all executive and judicial officers both of the United States and of the several States shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution." It has been plead[ed] that this provision acknowledges the christian religion . But how vainly? Heathens swear oaths. An atheist might come into office by an affirmation. The concluding sentence forbidding all religious tests, shews how anxious the framers were to avoid even a seeming acknowledgment of God or his holy religion.

As noted, this is not verbatim of the actual sermon "The Religion of the Presidents" printed in the Albany Daily Advertiser. That is a primary source available in few libraries. Ultimately someone, probably James Kabala, will get his or her hands on it and settle this issue. But the sentiments are so similar, it's almost certain that the Rev. terming the Founders "infidels," that none of the Presidents from Washington Jackson were professors of religion beyond Unitarianism, that the record shows Washington was a Deist and nothing more, and stating that God was voted out of the US Constitution, was Rev. James Renwick Willson, not Bird Wilson. Bird Wilson was "esteemed." James Renwick Willson after delivering this sermon attacking the Presidents and the US Founding was burned in effigy. Bird Wilson's father, James, whose work Bird catalogued in detail, was likely not an orthodox Christian, but rather adhered to the same system of "theistic rationalism" that the key Founders (early Presidents) did. Thus, Bird would be attacking his own father as an "infidel." Not likely.

Finally, note that Rev. Willson was an early prominent member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Covenanted and they were notable dissidents on the US Constitution. They believed its lack of supplication to God, absence of a religious test, and absence of explicit covenant with the Triune God of the Bible made it a document, at the very least, inconsistent with their view of covenant theology and civil government. (At the worst it is an anti-Christian, infidel document). This is the very group to whom Gary North dedicates his ebook. And though North doesn't cite Rev. Willson, many of Willson's same arguments against the US Constitution are fleshed out in detail in North's book.

Rev. Willson was a true "dominionist," and he should remind the Reconstructionists that a dominionist theology is inconsistent with the US Constitution. (On a personal note, he was a mean looking dude as well!)

Allen Responds To Novak:

On Encyclopedia Britannica blogs, Brooke Allen has responded to Michael Novak's recent response to her on religion and the Founding Fathers. I want to thank her for mentioning me by name and discussing one of my comments. I was going to turn this comment I made on Novak's response into a blogpost. I might as well discuss it now. Here is a passage from Allen's post:

I thought that blogger Jon Rowe, in his response to “Christian Stoics and Skeptical Christians,” made an excellent point. “Let me point something else out—what I think is a non-sequitur—which I’ve noticed folks who argue from Mr. Novak’s side often engage in,” he says. “The argument goes something like this: Analyze a particular phrase uttered from a Founder; find some way in which that phrase traces back to the Bible; and then conclude this warrants placing the Founder in the ‘orthodox / Christian / religious’ box or what have you.” This is absolutely true. All of us have been indelibly stamped by the Bible, whether we are believers or not. This was much more true in the 18th century; the Founders all grew up in an intensely biblical culture. As Rowe points out, even the violently anti-Christian and anti-clerical Thomas Paine made biblical allusions.

As I noted in the original comment, whatever the Biblical allusions Washington may have made, Franklin and Jefferson -- whom Novak identifies as "outliers, skeptics indeed, barely if at all Christian” -- knew the Bible probably better than Washington and alluded to it as much as he did.

As also noted, the Bible, especially as a piece of literature, has dramatically impacted Western Civilization. I’ve described, on my blogs, (after Camille Paglia) Western Culture itself as a unique synthesis of Paganism (Greco-Romanism) and Piety(Judeo-Christianity). Indeed Christmas and Easter, both of which have pagan and traditional religious elements, perfect illustrate such dynamic. We can endlessly analyze how various parts of our culture trace back in some way to our religious (for instance, the way we date our time) or pagan (the names of the days of the week, months of the year, or planets in our solar system) roots.

To give a personal anecdote, I once debated, in an Internet forum, some cultural issue, where I was on the more secular liberal side. I think it had to do with gay rights. When saying good bye to a fellow debater on my side, I replied “keep fighting the good fight.” Someone on the opposing side, a traditional Christian who really didn’t like me that much, became angry that I said this because that phrase traces back to the Bible.

Indeed, when I teach at my secular community college, I notice myself making Biblical allusions all the time. The Bible has so dramatically impacted our language that common people make Biblical allusions all the time without being aware of their so doing. This is especially the case for more literate, well-educated folks (who arguably tend to be less religious than average).

Lincoln too, certainly no orthodox Christian, notably used Biblical allusions (e.g. "A house divided against itself cannot stand"). Though it may be an interesting literary study to analyze a Founders' or anyone's words and see how certain phrases trace back to the Bible, how certain phrases trace back to Shakespeare, etc. etc., such tells us absolutely nothing about the orthodoxy of their personal religious beliefs.

Christianist, Mormons, and Early Presidents:

The theological split between Mormons and conservative Christians may give Mitt Romney some problems securing the GOP's nomination. Check out this column by Christianist Frank Pastore. While he notes he could vote for Romney, he also has to include the following caveat:

Though I could vote for Romney, my ballot should not be seen as an endorsement of Mor-monism. Conservative Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met, and they are critical allies in the culture war. I appreciate their contribution to advancing our shared values. Yet as we make common cause, I should not be asked or feel pressured to compromise, weaken, or di-lute my theology. Allies need not obfuscate distinctives. We can unite politically and socially to advance our cause, but we must not blur the lines between our distinct religions.

Just as Christians and Jews, by definition, cannot ignore their differences over the resurrec-tion and the New Testament, so too Christians and Mormons cannot ignore the differences be-tween the Bible and the three books of Mormonism: the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Cove-nants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

Yet many Mormons in recent years have taken to calling themselves Christians, and a grow-ing number of Christians are willing to speak of Mormonism as something akin to another Chris-tian denomination. But, Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, nor is it merely "a non-Christian religion." To be theologically precise, though perhaps politically incorrect, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity (www.apologeticsindex.org/c09a01.html) -- a group that claims to Chris-tian while denying one or more central doctrines of the Christian faith.

The polytheism of Latter Day Saints is a striking contrast to the monotheism of the Bible. The Mormons also deny original sin (central to a Christian understanding of the human condition) and believe that Jesus was conceived through sexual intercourse between God the Father and Mary. I could go on, but Mormonism has far more that distinguishes it from the historic Christian faith than unites it to Christianity.

So, though I am willing to unite with and befriend Mormons in common cause to advance our shared values, I am hoping to be a voice of clarity -- unwilling to allow Mormonism to be mis-taken for orthodox Christianity and unwilling again to disqualify a candidate simply because he is from a faith tradition so different from my own.

Attitudes like that, no doubt, will scare many fundamentalist Christians from voting for Romney. However amusing his article, Pastore makes one glaring historical error, very apt to whether "non-Christians" like the Mormons traditionally have had a place in the White House. He writes:

Historically, our largely Christian country has chosen to elect Christian candidates (not that there have been many non-Christian candidates). In the last two presidential elections, church attendance was the most reliable indicator of voting preferences. It's no coincidence that the Democrats this time around are determined to appear more religious (i.e., more evangelical friendly) in order to win the White House. Yet, if appearing more religious in this majority-Christian nation is an electoral advantage, then being from a faith other than Christianity pre-sents a new set of challenges. And therein lies the problem for the Romney campaign.

The problem for Pastore is if you define the Christian faith so narrowly as to exclude Mormons, you must also exclude our key Founding Fathers, including the first half dozen Presidents or so.

Some orthodox believers in the Founding era were aware of this dynamic. Rev. Wilson notoriously noted in 1831: "[A]mong all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism." [Note: Though Till acts as if he is quoting Rev. Wilson directly, it seems he is quoting John E. Remsburg paraphrasing Wilson's sermon. See the primary source, Remsburg's book.]

He went on to say "the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson] _not a one had professed a belief in Christianity_" (Remsberg, p. 120, emphasis added).

A bit of clarification. James Monroe, according to David Holmes, seems to have been, like the other key Founders a "theistic rationalist," which some see as a softer form of deist, or a more liberal, rational form of Christianity (Holmes calls him a Deist; Holmes labels theistic rationalists either "Christian-Deists" or "Unitarians." I get the impression that's exactly the kind of "deist" he argues Monroe was.)

John Q.Adams was born and raised a Unitarian like his father, but sometime during college converted to a more of a Trinitarian Calvinistic form of Christianity. Yet, JQA throughout the rest of his life seemed to vacillate between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism, and I'm pretty sure died a Unitarian.

I have never studied the religion of Andrew Jackson.

Though, most of these early Presidents did have some sort of formal or nominal connection with a church that professed orthodoxy; for instance, Washington, Madison and Jefferson were all Anglican/Episcopalians. However, these early Presidents/key Founders rejected those core teachings of Pastore's understanding of Christianity (and their own Churches') just as much as if not more so than Mormons do.

They weren't "strict deists" as some on the secular left mistakenly believe; their God was an active personal Providence. However, they bitterly rejected the Nicene Creed and core doctrines of orthodoxy which define Christianity for folks like Pastore. Adams and Jefferson were fervent theological unitarians who bitterly attacked the Trinity and its subsidiary doctrines as metaphysical insanities which stupified the minds of Christians.

True, they were publicly silent on their heterodoxy and their Churches, with the exception of Adams', still affirmed orthodoxy. (Even with Adams, though his Church preached unitarianism as of 1750, I'm not sure when his Congregation officially changed its creed to "Unitarianism." It could have been before or after his election to Presidency.)

But we no longer live in the 1700s. That these great leaders were no more "Christian" than Mormons are "Christian" is a fact of our diverse religious heritage which ought to be embraced. If more folks understood these early Presidents and Founders, like the Mormons, were of what folks like Pastore consider "a faith other than Christianity," perhaps the Romney campaign can spin this "challenge" or "problem" into a talking points solution. Or, on the other hand, raising this point might just tick off the Christianists and further alienate Romney. This history, though, as it relates to early Presidents and Founders, is on his side.

Sunday Music:

Featuring some guitarists masters of blues based phrasing. A little ago I posted Gary Moore's version of Roy Buchanan's The Messiah Will Come Again. Jeff Beck, one of my favorites, dedicated his masterful cover of the Stevie Wonder tune, Cause We've Ended As Lovers, to Roy Buchanan. He did so because, as you can hear, Buchanan's phrasing influence influenced Beck's playing. (You can also hear a plethora of other influences from the blues masters of old to the Gypsy Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.) Here is a great version of Beck's tune:



And here is Buchanan doing The Messiah Will Come Again. See if you can hear Buchanan's influence on Beck's phrasing.

History Behind Library of Congress' Religion Page:

James H. Hutson is chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. I became aware of and interested in him when I began studying the topic of religion and the Founding over the past few years. I saw his work being used in what I thought a politicized manner by D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge group; but when I further inquired on Hutson's work, I found him to be a learned and eminently fair scholar. Indeed, I ended up positively reviewing his book of quotations for First Things magazine and I now have a blurb on the book's page at Princeton University Press.

Hutson is responsible for the LOC's page on Religion and the Founding and it's clear that Hutson approaches these issues from a more conservative/religious accommodating perspective. But given that all historians unavoidably approach their pet issues through some ideological lens, this is fine as long as the canons of historical scholarship are respected. A few lines on the LOC's website strongly challenge the standard "separation of Church and State" view of history, especially as it relates to Jefferson's Presidency (given that his Danbury Baptist letter is responsible for the connection between the phrase "SOCAS" and the religion clauses in the Constitution, this is especially apt).

This page is especially provocative. It claims:

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.

The page then ventures into a controversial analysis of Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists, comparing the edited and unedited versions of the letter (indeed Hutson brought in the FBI to discern the contents of the unedited draft).

I discovered an interesting response to Hutson's work by prominent historians on religion and the Founding, more sympathetic to a secular leftist view of history. Here is a taste:

There may be several possible explanations for Jefferson's excision of certain material, but the most obvious to any experienced writer is that he was editing while composing. Although scholars may differ as to the reasons for Jefferson's editorial selections, there is no basis for arguing that these omissions indicate that the reply was not "conceived to be a statement of fundamental principles," but rather "was meant to be a political manifesto, nothing more."

It is also inaccurate to claim that the reply to the Baptists was "political" and not "a dispassionate theoretical pronouncement." Supporters of a broad understanding of Jefferson's Danbury letter have never denied the relevant and pertinent political considerations; however, that fact does not negate either the significance of this statement or his commitment to the principle. Jefferson's two most prized examples of his authorship -- the Declaration of Independence and the Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia -- could not have been more political, even as every line was laced with principles concerning democracy and freedom.

The scholars who challenged Hutson include some heavy hitters:

Robert S. Alley
Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, University of Richmond

Derek H. Davis, J.D., Ph.D.
Director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies,
Baylor University, and Editor of Journal of Church and State

G. Scott Davis
Lewis T. Booker Professor of Ethics and Religion, University of Richmond

Norman Dorsen
Stokes Professor of Law, New York University School of Law

Robert F. Drinan, S.J.
Georgetown University Law Center

Ronald B. Flowers
Chairman of Religion Department, Texas Christian University

Edwin S. Gaustad
Professor of History, Emeritus, University of California at Riverside

Philip E. Hammond
D. Mackenzie Brown Professor, Department of Religious Studies,
University of California at Santa Barbara

Peter Irons
Professor of Political Science, University of California at San Diego

Gregg Ivers
Professor of Government, American University

Isaac Kramnick
Professor of Government, Cornell University

Bill J. Leonard
Dean, Divinity School, Wake Forest University

Henry S. Levinson
Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Robert S. Michaelsen
J.F. Rowney Professor of Religion and Society, Emeritus,
University of California at Santa Barbara

James Robert Miller
Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Eastern Kentucky University

R. Laurence Moore
Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies, Cornell University

Robert M. O'Neil
Professor of Law, University of Virginia

Richard V. Pierard
Professor of History, Indiana State University

Robert A. Rutland
Professor of American History, Emeritus, University of Virginia;
Senior Editor of the Papers of James Madison, 1973-1985

Robert E. Shepherd
Professor of Law, University of Richmond Law School

George Shriver
Professor of History, Georgia State University

Paul D. Simmons
Clinical Professor, University of Louisville

Ruti Teitel
Professor of Law, New York Law School

William Van Alstyne
William R. and Thomas C. Perkins Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law

This event may have made Hutson more sensitive to being fair and balanced when he compiled his book of quotations. Though the book does ignore the strict deist outliers, Paine and Allen, it pulls no punches when showing the heterodoxy of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. And his paper on Madison's religion shows him most likely not an orthodox Christian, but rather a theistic rationalist just like Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin.

Novak Responds to Allen:

Michael Novak responded to Brooke Allen's contribution to the Encyclopedia Britannica blog on the Founders and Religion. He writes:

Her thesis is that the major founders were not Christians but skeptics. Her method is to pick only six of them for closer study (Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Washington and Hamilton), all of whom, she judges, fit her thesis.

But the first two of these six are identified by nearly everybody, including me, as outliers who stand at the leftmost extreme of the founders – outliers, skeptics indeed, barely if at all Christian. The next two, Madison and Adams, at least by their public actions during their terms in office (whatever their post-presidential, private lives), show clear signals of Christian conviction and/or accommodation. Their case is more complex than Ms Allen faces. Consider simply Article III of the new Massachusetts Constitution drafted and defended by John Adams, mandating state support for religious schools throughout the commonwealth.

Concerning the last two, Hamilton and Washington, there is a preponderance of evidence on the side of the influence of Christian faith upon their practice as public servants. As Washington’s speechwriter, for instance, Hamilton wrote some of the most vividly biblical addresses and public proclamations that General and (later) President Washington ever delivered. Similarly, no one who actually analyzes the public speeches and proclamations of the latter can plausibly make the case that Washington was merely a deist. The evidence of his emphasis upon a biblical God who forgives sins, who guides events and who as a matter of undeniable experience intervened often on the American side (the side of liberty) during the War of Independence, a Creator who is owed not only private worship, but also a whole nation’s worship and gratitude — and several other such biblical motifs – is simply far too strong.

In other words, Ms. Allen makes matters too easy for herself by cherry-picking her founders – and even then, in four out of six cases, she fails to convince.

First, Allen's method is not "cherry picking." In studying this issue, I've long noted there are certain "key Founders" upon whom we tend to focus. I usually cap it at the top five: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin. The reason why these five are so important is that they are 1) the first four Presidents, 2) the author of the Declaration (Jefferson), 3) the majority of the drafting board of the Declaration (Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin), and the prime architect of the Constitution (Madison). Washington, Madison, and Franklin also played leading roles at the Constitutional Convention. In addition to these five, Dr. Gregg Frazer in his thesis adds Hamilton, G. Morris, and Wilson, who also played leading roles at the Constitutional Convention. Hamilton and Madison both wrote most of the essays in the Federalist Papers as well, with Jay only contributing a few. So even though these may be only eight, the overwhelming majority of the ideas upon which the Founders declared independence and framed the constitution derive back to them.

And the "preponderance of the evidence" demonstrates none of them to be "Christian" in any sense different than Franklin or Jefferson may have been "Christian."

I would caution Novak against relying on scholarly consensus when he writes -- "But [Jefferson and Franklin] are identified by nearly everybody, including me, as outliers who stand at the leftmost extreme of the founders...." Scholarly consensus, until recently, held Washington was a Deist.

Jefferson was certainly the most prolific in his commentaries and criticisms of certain doctrines of Christianity. If, because of the way in which they disbelieved in certain orthodox doctrines, Novak wants to define Jefferson and Franklin as "skeptics indeed, barely if at all Christian," fine. But little if anything Franklin or Jefferson said when describing their personal beliefs conflicted with the express beliefs of those other four key Founders about whom Allen wrote. If one equates belief in an active personal God with belief in a "Biblical God," well Jefferson and Franklin repeatedly noted they believed in an active personal God, one who interposes himself in the affairs of man and to whom men ought to pray. Jefferson claimed to "adore" such a God.

Jefferson, Franklin and the others were not anti-religious. They were, however, heterodox in that they rejected certain key doctrines of orthodox Christianity (most notably, the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Plenary Inspiration of Scripture). And they were "rationalists" in the sense that they elevated man's reason over revelation believing all truth had to meet the test of reason. Parts of the Bible did (those parts were genuine); parts didn't (those were not).

Nothing Adams, Madison, or Washington ever said on their personal belief in God contradicted the tenets of the theistic rationalism in which Jefferson and Franklin believed. Indeed, Adams far more bitterly attacked the doctrines of Christianity's orthodoxy than Franklin ever did. And whereas Washington is not on record criticizing the Trinity and other doctrines of orthodoxy as Jefferson and Adams are, there is no record of Washington ever defending or stating he believed in the Trinity or other doctrines of orthodoxy either. The way in which he avoided speaking in overtly Trinitarian terms is one key factor which leads scholars to conclude he was a Deist or at least not an orthodox Christian.

While these five were almost entirely agreed in their personal creed, they did split on the proper relationship between Church and State. However, Novak, wrongly, in my opinion, refers to Madison as an accommodationist. Madison was as much of a "separationist" as Jefferson, with Adams and Washington, "accommodationists."

Finally, a note on Hamilton. Brooke Allen is right that he did not become a Christian until towards the end of his life, after he did his work "Founding" the nation. While I disagree that the other five Founders lied or manipulated the masses, pretending to be more pious than they really were (they did, however, have to walk on eggshells, choose their words carefully, and talk in generalities), Hamilton, unfortunately, did fit the charge of someone willing to manipulate religious sensibilities and pretend to be more "Christian" than he really was.

Are Human Rights a Christian Concept?

Arguably no. And they ought not be thought of as such.

This is the opposite of what Joseph Bottum argues in this post that "[h]uman rights are born from Christian ideas...." America's Founders did argue human rights have metaphysical origins. And if tying human rights to theistic or metaphysical premises helps make them "unalienable" -- a conversation stopper -- doing X,Y, and X (slavery, genocide, lopping people's hands off) are wrong every where every time -- I see no harm. Indeed, I think these wrong everywhere, every time. However, I'm not sure if the metaphysic is provable.

Though human rights, as originally conceived, have theistic and metaphysical premises, they are hardly Christian or Biblical. As Allan Bloom put it in The Closing of the American Mind:

[Enlightenment] provides the structure for the key term of liberal democracy, the most successful and useful political notion of our world: rights. Government exists to protect the product of men's labor, their property, and therewith life and liberty. The notion that man possesses inalienable natural rights, that they belong to him as an individual prior, both in time and in sanctity, to any civil society, and that civil societies exist for and acquire their legitimacy from ensuring those rights, is an invention of modern philosophy. Rights...are new in modernity, not a part of the common-sense language of politics or of classical political philosophy. Hobbes initiated the notion of rights, and it was given its greatest respectability by Locke. p. 165

Though, note, just because the notion of human rights is a-Biblical doesn't mean these are necessarily anti-Biblical. Indeed, certain understandings of human rights are entirely compatible with various orthodox and unorthodox understandings of Christianity. This is where the Enlightenment notion of rights affects Biblical hermeneutics. Certain passages of the Bible, read in isolation, support the notion human rights -- everyone being equal in God's eyes, etc. But others blatantly contradict such notion. As Sam Harris recently put it:

Books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Exodus and First and Second Kings and Second Samuel -- half of the kings and prophets of Israel would be taken to The Hague and prosecuted for crimes against humanity if these events took place in our own time.

Or, as Larry Arnhart put it:

The case of slavery and "universalism" illustrates the problem....[M]any religious traditions have allowed slavery, and the Bible never condemns slavery or calls for its abolition. On the contrary, in the American debate over slavery, Christian defenders of slavery were able to cite specific biblical passages in both the Old Testament and the New Testament supporting slavery. Opponents of slavery had to argue that general doctrines such as the creation of human beings in God's image implicitly denied the justice of slavery. But they could never cite any specific passage of the Bible for their position. Here's a clear case of where the moral teaching of the Bible depends on our coming to it with a prior moral understanding that we then read into the Bible.

Moreover, the "universalism" of the Bible is in doubt. I don't see a universal morality in the Old Testament. Moses ordering the slaughter of the innocent Mideanite women and children, for example, manifests a xenophobia that runs through much of the Old Testament.

Now, of course, the New Testament does seem more inclined to a universal humanitarianism. But the Book of Revelation teaches that at the end of history the saints will destroy the Antichrist and the unbelievers in bloody battle. The bloodiness of this vision has been dramatized throughout the history of Christianity. (See, for example, Tim LaHaye's popular LEFT BEHIND novels.)

....And, of course, there is a continuing controversy over whether the Christian churches in Europe did enough to oppose Hitler. The German Lutheran Church was inclined to interpret the 13th Chapter of Romans as dictating obedience to the authorities. Martin Luther himself was brutal in his expression of anti-Semitism. How would Holloway explain cases like this? Would he say that the true doctrines of biblical religion always require universal love, and therefore any behavior by a biblical believer that violates universal love is based on a misinterpretation of biblical doctrine?

Many evangelicals and Catholics today genuinely believe that slavery violates God's law. Great. They do so, in interpreting Biblical texts, precisely by "argu[ing] that general doctrines such as the creation of human beings in God's image implicitly denied the justice of slavery." One reason why Christian Reconstructionism is seen as such a fringe movement is its beliefs -- that we need to impose Old Testament death penalties and abolish religious rights for non-Christians (the OT says stone to death immediately those who encourage you to worship "false gods") -- violate liberal democratic sensibilities. However, if we go back to pre-Enlightenment times, what the Christian Reconstructionist "nuts" of today desire is not all that different from laws on the books in say Puritan Massachusetts. Further, their fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible is just as sound as that of the more mainstream evangelicals who would recognize the rights of non-Christians to worship and no longer want to execute homosexuals. The main difference being the latter's theology meets the baseline requirements for living in a modern liberal democratic society; the former's do not. As Francis Fukuyama once put it, "we are all liberal democrats now." "We" meaning those on the Left or the Right who have any kind of political credibility. Cross certain lines outside of modern liberal democratic ideological borders -- as the Reconstructionists do -- and you are rightly written off as a kook and probably asked to leave the Republican Party for the inaptly named "Constitution Party." Robertson and Falwell live their political lives straddling that line, in my opinion.

And if the Bible can be read as consistent with liberal democracy/unalienable rights, so too can the Koran. Indeed, the Koran, like the Bible is monotheistic and hence human rights would tie to Islamic metaphysics. Those who are reflexively anti-Islam may point out the bloodthirsty texts (and modern day practices) of Islam. In response, the Bible has just as many barbaric passages. And indeed, many of today's worst violations committed by Islamic fundamentalists trace directly to texts in the same Old Testament in which Jews and Christians believe.

Further, since human rights are "universal," (in principle, knowable by man as man from the use of his reason) it's not a good idea to try to tie them to any one religious movement. If they ought be tied to any religious notion, we ought, like our key Founders and the Freemasons who so influenced them, tie human rights to a syncretic universalist theology, or a generic monotheism, where the concept of "God" reads so broadly as to even include polytheism or belief in the impersonal forces of Nature. As Thomas Paine described Freemasonry, it "transcends the bounds of Christian and Western civilization; it includes the Moslem, the Hindoo, the Buddhist, and the Jew." Though, Freemasonry required (and still does I believe) that one not be an atheist.

Finally, entirely atheistic philosophical premises for universal recognition of human rights also ought be supported. The universality of human rights are so important that the arguments for it cannot be drawn from too many sources. This is something that the originators human rights and America's Founders may not have been too keen with. But modern philosophy has progressed a great deal since that time. And thinkers from James Q. Wilson, to Larry Arnhart to Daniel Dennett have put forth convincing notions of human rights based on an evolutionary account of Darwinian human nature.

I'm Sick of Knocking Down Strawmen:

This is a really bad article. I'm not going to give it the full fisking.

The Bible is the foundation, the Declaration is the “why,” and the Constitution is the “how” of this wonderful experi-ment in liberty and self-government known as the United States of America....It took 18 centuries of Christian thought to produce the Declaration.

Instead of relying on Mr. Pastore's twaddle, read the Founding Fathers themselves. In particular, here is Jefferson on the ideological sources of the Declaration and notice that Christianity and the Bible aren't listed: "Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. ..." Similarly, neither the Federalist Papers nor the Constitution mention Christianity and the Bible.

The article also has gratuitous insults of atheists, evolutionists, and secularists.

Richard Manuel -- I Shall Be Released:

The Band's version of Dylan's classic is by far the best.

To My Many Christian Readers:

Happy Easter!

Growing up this was one of the two holidays where my family went to Church. We were the most nominal of nominal Catholics. Easter was always about the candy for me. And like Christmas, the Pagan aspects of the holiday illustrate the unique synthesis of Paganism and Judeo-Christianity which defines the "culture" of Western Civilization.

So Weird and Hateful that they Fascinate:

The following is part three of a seven part documentary from the BBC on the Westboro Baptist Church. This one in particular features a man who began as a documentary reporter and joined the cult. They are so weird, extreme, and hateful that they entertain.

Vlogging!

Founders' Belief on Religion & Morality Expresses their Heterodoxy:

Giving credit where credit is due, this symposium from Regent University is well worth watching. Among others, Hadley Arkes, Daniel Dreisbach, Michael Novak, Michael Barone, and Marvin Olasky present interesting commentary much of which discusses the Founders and Religion. Dreisbach in particular goes over Washington's Farewell Address in meticulous detail. In that address Washington famously said,

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Now, while that sentiment certainly conflicts with extreme modern secularism ala Harris and Dawkins, and though on the surface, sounds as if it expresses traditional Christian piety, upon further reflection -- indeed if one realizes what the key Founders like Washington really personally believed -- it arguably expresses their religious heterodoxy.

The key Founders -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and some others -- believed that religion was primarily good because it fostered morality. And in this sentiment, all five, including Jefferson and Madison, were agreed. The orthodox Calvinistic Christians believed that the primary purpose of religion was to save souls. The key Founders elevated works over faith as more important towards salvation. And whereas orthodox Christians believed that only Christianity was true religion, the key Founders, including Washington, believed most if not all of the world religions of which they were aware were "sound" religions which provided the necessary moral supports which republics need and could save men's souls. These religions included, at the very least, Christianity, Deism, Unitarianism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Native American Spirituality, and Pagan Ancient Greco-Roman worship.

Here are some quotations of the Founders expressing their heterodox anti-Calvinist notion that works are more important than faith:

"My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin's, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power."

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

"No point of Faith is so plain, as that Morality is our Duty; for all Sides agree in that. A virtuous Heretick shall be saved before a wicked Christian."

-- Benjamin Franklin, "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians," April 10, 1735.

"Faith is recommended as a Means of producing Morality: Our Saviour was a Teacher of Morality or Virtue, and they that were deficient and desired to be taught, ought first to believe in him as an able and faithful Teacher. Thus Faith would be a Means of producing Morality, and Morality of Salvation. But that from such Faith alone Salvation may be expected, appears to me to be neither a Christian Doctrine nor a reasonable one....Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End: And if the End be obtained, it is no matter by what Means."

-- Ibid.

Franklin's logic is quite clear: If non-Christian religions produce virtue in people, then those "good people" are saved via their works. So the primary aim of Christianity and all other religions is to produce good people. Christians might have some special advantage over the other world religions in that Jesus of Nazareth, our key Founders believed, was a great, arguably the greatest moral teacher. Thus, Christians' best hope for salvation was to follow his teachings and example. (Indeed, I'm not going to exhaust the historical record with quotations, but this past post on the Founders & higher law also features Franklin arguing along these lines.)

Finally, Adams on the true purpose of Christianity:

"...the design of Christianity was not to make men good Riddle Solvers or good mystery mongers, but good men, good magestrates and good Subjects...."

-- John Adams, Dairy, Feb. 18, 1756

As mentioned, the key Founders did talk of true religion and sound religion. An orthodox Christian hearing that message might conclude they referred only to Christianity. But that is a mistake. From my research, sound religion means -- as Franklin put it to Ezra Stiles -- only that one believe in the following:

I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this.

In other words, nothing about the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, inerrancy of Scripture, or anything that distinguishes Christianity from the other world religions. Indeed, by removing what distinguishes Christianity, that allows non-Christian religions to qualify as "sound." (Or, if anything distinguished Christianity, in their minds, it was Jesus' moral teachings being better than anything else in other world religions). As Franklin goes on:

These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them.

Note: According to the Founders, people could believe in all sorts of things in addition to the generic theism that forms the basis of "sound religion." And these additional things were at best, harmless dogmas, at worse "corruptions" of true religion which brought disputes, often bloody. But these additional tenets happen to be the very things that distinguish one belief system like orthodox Christianity from another, like Islam. Here Franklin notes the unimportance of the Trinity -- a central teaching of orthodox Christianity:

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire...I have with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity: tho' it is a Question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble. I see no harm however in its being believed, if that Belief has the good Consequence as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the Believers, in his Government of the World, with any particular Marks of his Displeasure.

Jefferson stated something remarkably similar. In this letter to James Fishback, Sept. 27, 1809, Jefferson connects religion with morality, just as Washington did, but further specifies that all world religions produce such morality:

Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree. All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words 'this do in remembrance of me' cost the Christian world!...We see good men in all religions, and as many in one as another. It is then a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquility of others by the expression of any opinion on the [unimportant points] innocent questions on which we schismatize, and think it enough to hold fast to those moral precepts which are of the essence of Christianity, and of all other religions.

Through this perspective, go back and reread Washington's Farewell Address and see not only does it perfectly fit with the above quoted beliefs of Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson (indeed the Address was written by Hamilton, who like them was a theistic rationalist, not a Christian), arguably it's more in tune with such heterodox belief system than with Christianity (even ultimately, it if was consistent with both belief systems). Washington never said one need be Christian in order to be saved but rather that religion is necessary for morality. Indeed, he/they believed one was saved, not via Christ's Atonement, but via virtuous behavior. Washington further never stated in that Address that only the Christian religion or "the Bible" provided the necessary supports which all Republics need, even if I'm sure, many in nation got that message. Washington's Address represented a brilliant use of abstractions where he could express his heterodoxy in a way which seemed consistent with the prevailing orthodoxy of the day, yet still not outright lie.

Learned folks from both sides -- the religious right and secular left -- who, like me, have studied the historical record in detail still don't seem to fully appreciate this dynamic. Peter A. Lillback and Michael and Jana Novak conclude that were Washington a deist he was dishonest in the way he mislead pious folks or the nation by saying things which contradicted strict deism. They conclude were he an honest man, Washington must have been Christian, not deist. Indeed, even Brooke Allen accuses Jefferson of being dishonest when he says things too "religion" friendly -- praising Christianity, etc. -- for deism. I disagree with both.

If you understand what they really personally believed, we see these Founders did not explicitly lie to the public or pious folks; when Jefferson praised Christianity, he meant it. But what he praised about the Christian religion wasn't necessarily what orthodox Trinitarians thought most important. Jefferson valued the general theism of Christianity and Jesus' moral teachings while despising the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and other doctrines of orthodoxy.

These key Founders did, I think, believe things which orthodox folks would term "heterodoxy" or "infidelity." Intuitively, they didn't want their reputations so ruined. Thus, when they publicly spoke, they often brilliantly used generalities and abstractions, and otherwise built bridges of lowest-common-denominators between themselves and the orthodox believers so they didn't have to "lie" or contradict their personal beliefs, and could say things which on the surface seemed to resonate with orthodox Christianity; but beneath the surface, their personal "heterodoxy" remained.

It was a bit of a game they had to play; they walked on egg-shells. Perhaps in hiding in religious closets and not putting their "infidelity" on the table when so pressed, they were, at worst, misleading; but rarely if ever did they outright lie. Jefferson perfectly captured this not too well understood dynamic when he wrote about Washington, recounting an incident where a group of pious ministers pressed Washington about what he really believed, but he wouldn't play ball:

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 tho[ugh]t 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.

Jefferson then gives Gouverneur Morris's apparent opinion of Washington's orthodoxy:

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.

Indeed, Washington corresponded with pious clergy throughout much of his life, often having to be cunning, carefully watching his words. Many believed him to be a pious Christian, and many had their doubts. His own ministers accused him of being a deist! One gets a sense in reading the correspondence that they were trying to "feel him out."

One can fault Lillback's and the Novaks' books for not properly understanding this dynamic whey they read "orthodoxy" or "pious Christianity" into Washington's often nebulously written words. Yet, Washington purposefully chose his words that way because he need to speak in ways which orthodox Christians would find acceptable. Lillback and the Novaks carry on the tradition of the pious Christians to whom Washington bore no apparent animosity and with whom he often corresponded. These Christians during the Founding era likewise "read in" what they wanted to Washington's words to make themselves more comfortable with his beliefs. Washington didn't correct their misimpression by stating -- "no, I really believe in X, which you would call 'infidelity'" -- but why should he have? He didn't want his public reputation ruined! As long as he didn't outright lie -- which he didn't -- I'd say his "honor" remained intact.

Lillback writes of such "Presbyterian Praise For Presidential Piety" (p. 226) -- a group of such wrote to Washington praising him for being a pious Christian. He wrote back:

While I reiterate the professions of my dependence upon Heaven as the source of all public and private blessings; I will observe that the general prevalence of piety; philanthropy, honesty, industry, and economy seems, in the ordinary course of human affairs, particularly necessary for advancing and conforming the happiness of our country. While all men within our territories and protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will be emulous of evincing the sanctity of their professions by the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man, who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.

I desire you to accept my acknowledgments for your laudable endeavors to render men sober, honest, and good Citizens, and the obedient subjects of a lawful government.

Lillback, reading in what he wants, sees this response as an affirmation of Washington's Christian orthodoxy, something no "Deist" could write. But such response is entirely consistent with what we have seen from Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. Indeed, when Washington states "for no man, who is profligate in his morals...can possibly be a true Christian" this may be consistent with James 2 -- "faith without works is dead" (what Lillback argues). However, nowhere does Washington state that men are justified through faith! And such response is every bit as consistent with Jefferson's anti-Calvinistic notion "that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power...."

And indeed, Lillback entirely misses a clue Washington left, perhaps a "slip" in writing to pious Presbyterians, of his heterodoxy. After Washington stated, "for no man, who is profligate in his morals...can possibly be a true Christian," he then adds "or a credit to his own religious society." Washington's sentiments are entirely consistent with Franklin's idea that Christianity's primary purpose is to make people good and following Franklin's logic -- "if the End be obtained, it is no matter by what Means" -- non-Christians can be saved if their creed fosters virtuous behavior. Hence, Washington's addition of "or a credit to his own religious society" right next to "a true Christian."

Washington ends his letter: "I desire you to accept my acknowledgments for your laudable endeavors to render men sober, honest, and good Citizens, and the obedient subjects of a lawful government." Which is exactly what Adams stated above: "...the design of Christianity was not to make men good Riddle Solvers or good mystery mongers, but good men, good magestrates and good Subjects...."

In sum, while one could analyze Washington's words to be consistent with orthodox Christianity, arguably his words are more consistent with the heterodox notion that elevates works over faith as essential for salvation and holds non-Christians can be saved through good works.

This analysis destroys Lillback's strawman conclusion that this event of Washington's correspondence shows "[e]ither Washington was a Christian, or he was a deceptive Deist. If he were the latter, his claim to be a man of honesty and character...was just as much of a sham as his counterfeit Christianity and his pretense of piety." p. 229.

Finally, if interested in what the key Founders believed happens when one isn't saved via good works, the answer is such men would be temporarily proportionately punished and then eventually redeemed; they were theological universalists who believed all would eventually be saved.

Washington is a tough nut to crack because he was so reticent to discuss his particular beliefs. His "strict deist" strawman is easily knocked down. However, I've yet to see the Novaks, Lillback or any scholar offer anything compelling that indicates Washington believed in orthodoxy Christianity as opposed to what Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison believe in. To me, his words (and deeds) resonate more so with their heterodox belief system than with orthodox Christianity.

Brooke Allen Endorses Term "Theistic Rationalist":

Brooke Allen, author of Moral Minority, a book on the religious beliefs of the key Founding Fathers responds to the conversation between Joseph Ellis and the Novaks on the Founders & Religion on the Encyclopedia Britannica blog. In responding to Ellis' first post, she writes:

The Founders that I concentrated on in my book, Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers were the six I considered the most famous and influential: Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton. Like one of the respondents to Mr. Ellis’s first blog, it seems to me though while Mr. Ellis calls “diversity” the “dominant pattern” of these men’s beliefs, they actually had a great deal in common, all being what the blogger correctly calls “theistic rationalists.” None of these men, with the exception of Hamilton towards the end of his life, could strictly be called a Christian.

While I don’t see Washington as a pantheist, I think Mr. Ellis’s categorization of him as a Stoic is a good one; some of his contemporaries (as one can read in the letters of John Adams and Benjamin Rush) agreed with this description. To argue, as the Novaks do, that Washington’s use of 102 different names for the Deity is evidence of his adherence to Christianity is a fallacy; in fact, this practice indicates that he was a Deist rather than a Christian. When he made public pronouncements, he used vague and general names like this, without specific Christian connotations, so as to include all Americans, including Jews, Muslims, and American Indians. (One of the names the Novaks do not cite is “Great Spirit,” to which Washington assured his Native American listeners that he, like them, prayed.)

I am, of course, the blogger to whom she refers. Glad to see her endorse the term "theistic rationalist."

The Founders & Higher Law:

Ed Brayton sent me this post from Nathan Bradfield, a sort of clownish figure from the religious right on the Founding and Religion. The post has some quotations from our Founding Fathers about "higher law" that are easily misinterpreted. The Founders believed in both man made "positive" law, and God given "natural" law, which positive law, by right could not contradict. However the content of natural law was ascertainable entirely by man's reason, arguably unaided by revelation. Or, if revelation had any role to play in determining "the laws of nature and nature's God," it was to assist or provide support for man's reason, not the other way around. Further, though these Founders believed that reason and revelation mostly agreed, they also believed that some revelation was not legitimately given by God and had to pass the "reason" smell test to be true or part of the "higher" law that rules us and which no positive law could contradict. That is the lens through which we need to view the following quotations that Mr. Bradfield offers:

All laws, however, may be arranged in two different classes. 1) Divine. 2) Human. . . . But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the law of God. . . . Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. --James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice--

The law . . . dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. --Alexander Hamilton, Signer of the Constitution--

The . . . law established by the Creator . . . extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind. . . . This is the law of God by which he makes his way known to man and is paramount to all human control. --Rufus King, Signer of the Constitution--

In fact, what Bradfield quoted from Hamilton is taken out of context; the actual quotation shows Hamilton referring to the "law of nature" and "nature" by its very definition in the Founding era refers to what man can discover from reason as opposed to revelation. To repeat, what is "dictated by God Himself" in this context, refers to reason, not the Bible. Here is the entire quotation from Hamilton:

Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensibly, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever.

This is what is called the law of nature, "which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately, or immediately, from this original." Blackstone.

Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind, the supreme being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety.

Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property or liberty; nor the least authority to command, or exact obedience from him; except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.

Though he quotes from Blackstone, he does so in the context of arguing the "state of nature" theory, which is Hobbsean/Lockean in origin, and, as Leo Strauss put it, "wholly alien to the Bible." In any event the context of the quotation shows Hamilton clearly arguing for rules established by natural reason, not the Bible. Finally, note that when Hamilton wrote this, he was not a Christian and didn't become one until the end of his life after he had done his work "Founding" the nation. He believed in the same system of theistic rationalism/theological unitarianism, in which Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison believed.

Moreover, here is John Adams on the matter explaining that the laws of nature and nature's God are discovered by Reason, not Revelation.

To him who believes in the Existence and Attributes physical and moral of a God, there can be no obscurity or perplexity in defining the Law of Nature to be his wise benign and all powerful Will, discovered by Reason.

-- John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, March 19, 1794. Adams Papers (microfilm), reel 377, Library of Congress. Seen in James H. Hutson's, "The Founders on Religion," p. 132.

Adams clearly regarded reason superior to revelation. In the following letter to Jefferson (Dec. 25, 1813), he discusses Joseph Priestly's work and prefaces his statement to Jefferson by noting that Man's Reason is the Ultimate discerner of the Truth and that it takes precedence over Revelation; indeed it makes Revelation entirely unnecessary:

Priestly ought to have done impartial justice to Phylosophy and Phylosophers, Phylosophy which is the result of Reason, is the first, the original Revelation of The Creator to his Creature, Man. When this Revelation is clear and certain, by Intuition or necessary Induction, no subsequent Revelation supported by Prophecies or Miracles can supercede it.

Writing in 1735, here Ben Franklin says basically the same thing (note Franklin states these ideas in the context of defending a Presbyterian minister -- Samuel Hemphill -- from charges of "heterodoxy"; Hemphill was one of many ministers during the Founding era who preached what the orthodox termed "infidelity" from the pulpit):

Now that natural Religion, or that the Laws of our Nature oblige us to the highest Degrees of Love to God, and in consequence of this Love to our almighty Maker, to pay him all the Homage, Worship and Adoration we are capable of, and to do every thing we know he requires; and that the same Laws oblige us to the Love of Mankind, and in consequence of this Love, as well as of our Love to God, (because he requires these things of us) to do good Offices to, and promote the general Welfare and Happiness of our Fellow-creatures...What Hemphill means by the first Revelation which God made to us by the Light of Nature, is the Knowledge, and our Obligations to the Practice of the Laws of Morality, which are discoverable by the Light of Nature; or by reflecting upon the human Frame, and considering it's natural Propensities, Instincts, and Principles of Action, and the genuine Tendencies of them.

Franklin goes on to describe the proper relationship between reason and revelation and, like Adams above, positioned scripture as secondary revelation, with "reason" or "the light of nature" as primary revelation that God gave to man:

Now, that to promote the Practice of the great Laws of Morality and Virtue both with Respect to God and Man, is the main End and Design of the christian Revelation has been already prov'd from the Revelation itself. And indeed as just now hinted at, it is obvious to the Reason of every thinking Person, that, if God almighty gives a Revelation at all, it must be for this End; nor is the Truth of the christian Revelation, or of any other that ever was made, to be defended upon any other Footing. But quitting these things; if the above Observations be true, then where lies the Absurdity of Hemphill's asserting,

Article I.

That Christianity, [as to it’s most essential and necessary Parts,] is plainly Nothing else, but a second Revelation of God’s Will founded upon the first Revelation, which God made to us by the Light of Nature.

In the following, Franklin clearly noted that revelation must be "reasonable" in order to be true. And the difference between this system and orthodox Christianity makes a difference. Franklin argues for this method in the context of denying original sin and that non-Christians, because of such, deserve eternal damnation and will go there if they die without Christ. Franklin disagrees: "to suppose a Man liable to Punishment upon account of the Guilt of another, is unreasonable; and actually to punish him for it, is unjust and cruel." He then writes:

Our Adversaries will perhaps alledge some Passages of the sacred Scriptures to prove this their Opinion; What! will they pretend to prove from Scripture a Notion that is absurd in itself, and has no Foundation in Nature? And if there was such a Text of Scripture, for my own Part, I should not in the least hesitate to say, that it could not be genuine, being so evidently contrary to Reason and the Nature of Things. But is it alledg'd, that there are some Passages in Scripture, which do, at least, insinuate the Notion here contradicted? In answer to this, I observe, that these Passages are intricate and obscure. And granting that I could not explain them after a manner more agreeable to the Nature of God and Reason, than the Maintainers of this monstrous System do yet I could not help thinking that they must be understood in a Sense consistent with them, tho' I could not find it out; and I would ingeniously confess I did not understand them, sooner than admit of a Sense contrary to Reason and to the Nature and Perfections of the Almighty God, and which Sense has no other Tendency than to represent the great Father of Mercy, the beneficent Creator and Preserver of universal Nature, as arbitrary, unjust and cruel; which is contrary to a thousand other Declarations of the same holy Scriptures. If the teaching of this Notion, pursued in its natural Consequences, be not teaching of Demonism, I know not what is.

James Wilson, whom Bradfield quotes, likewise believed the same. He once stated "the scriptures support, confirm, and corroborate, but do not supersede the operations of reason and the moral sense." Indeed, he believed revelation's task was to support reason, not the other way around: "Reason and conscience can do much; but still they stand in need of support and assistance." And yes, Wilson, like Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and Jefferson, was not a Christian but a "theistic rationalist."

In sum, when the Founders spoke of higher law which no positive law could contradict, they referred to natural law which was discoverable by reason, and not necessarily what's in the Bible. Indeed, only those "reasonable" parts of the Bible were part of such "higher" law which, they believed, formed the organic law of our nation. Thus, the higher law/natural law dynamic of our Founding lends more support to an "Enlightenment" worldview than a "Biblical" one.

There They Go Again:

As with David Barton's phony quotations that refuse to die, Janet Folger seems to think that just because her religious convictions inform her that homosexual acts are immoral, she can wholesale break the 9th Commandment and lie all she wants about homosexuals.

She prefaces her lies with an extremely arrogant assumption that conservative fundamentalists like her "own" the Republican Party and the term "Republican." She writes:

Abraham Lincoln once asked, "If we call the tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have?"

The reply: Five.

"No," Lincoln said, "Just because you call a tail a leg doesn't make it so."

Here's another question: If you call a liberal Democrat a Republican, how many Republican "front-runners" do we have? No, just because you call a Democrat a Republican doesn't make it so. And the "Eleventh Commandment" -- "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican" -- doesn't apply to Democrats with a plastic "R" behind their name.

I've had enough of "conservatives" who try to appear "reasonable" by embracing high name-ID candidates who wouldn't know a conservative Republican value if it bit them in the primary.

She refers, of course, to liberal Democrats in disguise Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

Then she lets us know how she prayed George Bush into office:

On election night 2000, I was being interviewed on the very same station as my "oh so rational" guest. During that interview, the "reality" was that my state of Florida was declared for Al Gore. I vividly remember hanging up the phone and getting on my knees -- asking God to "take the state of Florida from Al Gore and give it to George Bush." He did. "Reality reports" don't intimidate me so much anymore.

Then she lies:

Giuliani told the 1998 RNC summer meeting the way to get elected is to sacrifice "one principle here or one principle there." Sacrifice principles like "the right to life" here, "the right to bear arms there" and give special rights to homosexuals while you're at it. Even more liberal than the Democratic-controlled New York City Council, Giuliani pushed -- for cash and prizes -- for homosexual sex. He then codified the domestic partnership benefits package by granting all city employees tax-funded benefits just for engaging in dangerous homosexual behavior. Mitt Romney wants to subsidize sodomy by rewarding "homosexual (domestic) partners" with taxpayer-funded benefits, as well. Why is this a bad idea? For the same reason we don't hand out the children's book: "Heather's Two Cigarettes" in elementary school. You don't finance and encourage dangerous behavior. But homosexual sex isn't like smoking. Right -- homosexual sex is three times more dangerous than smoking.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal (Jan. 11, 2000) said, "Among young gay and bisexual men in Vancouver, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has reduced life expectancy by up to 20 years." And according to the New England Journal of Medicine (Feb. 12, 1998), smoking, on the other hand, reduces your life expectancy "7.3 years for men and 6.0 years for women." And that doesn't even touch the other life-threatening risks.

As reported in Jeffrey Satinover's "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," other studies reveal that homosexuals experience:

A 25 to 30-year decrease in life expectancy

Chronic, potentially fatal, liver disease -- infectious hepatitis, which increases the risk of liver cancer

Inevitably fatal immune disease, including associated cancers

Frequently fatal rectal cancer

Multiple bowel and other infectious diseases

A much higher than usual incidence of suicide

Not to mention hepatitis A, B, and C, gonorrhea, syphilis, Gay Bowel Syndrome, anal cancer, anal and genital warts, and domestic violence, just to name a few.

The "The Canadian Medical Association Journal" figure actually derives from one study done by the International Journal of Epidemiology in Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the worst time in the epidemic, before the newer treatments were introduced. The authors, legitimate researchers, subsequently noted that the figures are no longer current, and never claimed they could be extrapolated to apply to gay or bisexual men as a whole, just those living in one urban enclave. They wrote SIX YEARS AGO:

The aim of our research was never to spread more homophobia, but to demonstrate to an international audience how the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men can be estimated from limited vital statistics data. In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday.

But thankfully (and apparently against the wishes of the likes of Ms. Folger), the pattern didn't continue:

In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia.4

In otherwords, the "threefold decrease in mortality" renders the originial statistic invalid, hence a lie to repeat it in 2007 as though it were true.

The other source of Ms. Folger's claims, Jeffrey Satinover's "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," -- the 25 to 30 year decrease -- were derived from the research of one Paul Cameron, a complete fraud expelled from every reputable professional organization, and whose work has been debunked for about a decade now. See here, here, here, and here.

Yet Cameron and his son are still up to their antics.

Christian Newswire

March 23, 2007

PHILADELPHIA: According to two researchers, the largest random sex survey ever conducted has reported that only 1.4% of adults engaged in homosexual behavior. Analyzing a 2003 Canadian Community survey of 121,300 adults, Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron told attendees of the Eastern Psychological Association Convention that 2% of 18- 44 year olds, 1% of 50 year olds, and only a third of a percent of subjects 60+ considered themselves homosexual. Thus homosexual activity was much more common among younger adults.

What happened to the older homosexuals? "Some may have ceased to be sexually active," said Paul Cameron, "or they may have died. Recent reports from Scandinavia indicate that the life expectancy of homosexuals is 20+ years shorter than that of heterosexuals."

Going to Paul Cameron for the newest "findings" on homosexuality is like going to David Irving for the newest "findings" on Holocaust research.

As it was once said, "there they go again." When will these people ever learn?

Interviewing Riley Martin:

On Wednesday, I am scheduled to interview Sirius Satellite Radio Show Host and frequent Howard Stern guest, Riley Martin, which will broadcast later on Cable Channel 26 available in Mercer County, NJ.

If you have any ideas for questions (currently, I'm reading his book) email them or comment here. Only respectful questions please. If you were interviewing him face-to-face I think you'd ask only respectful questions too.

I've got to put on my "Charlie Rose/William F. Buckley" hat for this one.

Thanks to Prof. Paul Horwitz:

For kindly responding to my comments on the Constitution's "No Religious Test" Clause. Here are some excerpts from his post:

History: First, Jon Rowe, who had many valuable comments, asks a basic question: What was Rhode Island's religious test during the Founding era? Let me quote from Gerard Bradley, whose article I cited in my first post: "Rhode Island, as in many church-state matters, was a special case: the Protestant monopoly there flowed from an exclusion of Catholics and Jews from citizenship, and not, precisely, from political office." Mr. Rowe also makes a series of broader points, arguing that we should draw some significance for our historical reading from the assertion that a number of key framers were not orthodox Christians. I don't dispute that assertion, but would say two things. First, those admittedly central individuals are not the only or even the authoritative figures here. In thinking about the historical understanding of the Clause, their views must be counted alongside the views of those whom they sought to convince — the other framers and the ratifiers of the Constitution. I have no algorithm to apply here in weighting their respective views; but my holistic reading of the history surrounding the debate over the Clause suggests to me, at least, that we should not read the Clause too broadly in light of these standout examples, especially in light of the real historical evils the Clause appeared fairly clearly to address. Second, as Mr. Rowe notes, although unorthodox, those key framers, and certainly many other framers, did not think virtue and character were irrelevant to political office; for most framers and ratifiers, religion (however broadly defined) was certainly a vital aspect of one's character.

[...]

To say that religion may sometimes be relevant to public discussion and decision on nominees and other matters, and that the Religious Test Clause doesn't bar the use of religion in this way, although it does bar certain formal barriers to public office, is of course not the end of the story. We are then left to deliberate together about how and when (if ever) religion should enter into the public debate, or into the decisions of public officials. Although I clearly disagree with those who have answered "never," I also think we can invoke religion more or less wisely and carefully, and have said something about what that might entail. Jon Rowe concluded his comment yesterday by saying, "Personally, I'd rather live under a system of 'etiquette' where one's religion or lack thereof — whether one be a fundamentalist Christian or an atheist — is viewed as simply not related to one's fitness for public office." Taken at that broad level of generality, I can sympathize; but it is a short step from that principle to a public square that is denuded of useful, meaningful discussion. It also removes, one should acknowledge, much of what might be shallow and provocative sniping and religious bigotry — but that language, too, is the price of open debate, and knowing of that risk should remind us all the more of our own responsibility to enter into these discussions, and use both our votes and our voices, with some kind of sense of underlying principle and integrity that I've simply labeled "constitutional etiquette." Better, in my view, to have a system of etiquette where we can openly acknowledge and discuss religion, while remembering that it can never be a formal bar to public office — and in which we can add our own voices to the debate in pointing out that the mere labels "fundamentalist Christian" or "atheist" (or "Muslim") are far from descriptively complete, that they say very little about how particular individuals will carry out their offices, and that on such a broad level, they may not even say much about character.

As the always valuable Mr. Rowe commented, my reading of the Religious Test Clause can cut both ways politically. More on that tomorrow, with some concluding remarks on the differing reactions I've received to this article, and what they may suggest.

His normative point on "constitutional etiquette" is, admittedly, a difficult issue. As I said, I want to live in a world where one's religion is viewed as irrelevant to one's being "fit" for public office. Indeed, James Dobson's recent comment that he didn't think Fred Thompson was a "Christian" and its implication that this makes Thompson unfit or less fit for public office, I found offensive. Yet, if a Presidential candidate was discovered to be a "Young-Earth-Creationist" who explicitly stated his belief in the literal six thousand year age of the Earth led him to reject evolution -- I seriously doubt my friends at Scienceblogs would deem that irrelevant to his qualifications for public office.

One of the Worst Moments in Rush Limbaugh's Life:



Amusing!