Frazer's Defense Completed

Dr. Gregg Frazer has sent a long, detailed final comment defending his review of Dr. Mark David Hall's book against the charge of "inaccuracy." 

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To be clear: I only mentioned Lutz and his brand of evidence BECAUSE MARK RELIES ON LUTZ’S STUDY in order to diminish Locke’s influence.  I was not suggesting that Lutz’s view is the only – or even the best – scholarly effort or appropriate methodology. As I said, I have problems with basing much on mere countings of citations. I was responding to the evidence Mark offers and, apparently, finds compelling. Mark cites Lutz – but partially and conveniently; that was my point.  The source he cites does not really say what he reports it saying.  I am not accusing Mark of doing this intentionally; he may well have gotten caught up in making a point.

Another source that Mark cites (John Dunn) to diminish Locke’s significance is all about the GENERAL PUBLIC’S lack of access to Locke and the situation of “the American population at large” [my italics] – but the section in Mark’s book is “To Whom Did the Founders Turn?” – not the common people [my bold].  There was a huge difference between the highly educated founders and the common people.

It’s also important to note the Dunn wrote before Bernard Bailyn’s work with the pamphlet literature of the day was available.  Bailyn says that Locke was cited “(i)n pamphlet after pamphlet” and that “(t)he pervasiveness of such citations is at times astonishing” and that Locke’s influence approached being “dominant” and “wholly determinative.”

So, the common man was more familiar with the Bible – that’s a major reason why the Founders frequently referenced it; but the Founders were more influenced by Locke.  Mark mentions that the Bible was often quoted and applied without citation – so was Locke.

Continuing his argument that the Bible was “the most important source of authority for America’s founders,” Mark continues to equate reference to a biblical “phrase” or “expression” with influence.  He cites, of all people, Ben Franklin in support of this notion.  Franklin is perhaps the best example of the flaw in this line of thinking.  Franklin uses illustrations, stories, and familiar phrases from the Bible to embellish his arguments because people were familiar with it; but as far as I know, there is no example of Franklin actually drawing a principle from the Bible. 

I asked a prominent scholar regularly cited in Mark’s book for his top three examples from the Constitutional Convention of delegates basing a constitutional principle on a biblical principle.  That was about 10 years ago and I’m still waiting for the first example. 

Even in his famous call for prayer, Franklin makes it clear that his conclusion that “God governs in the affairs of men” is based on history and his own observations, not on belief because the Bible says so.  He makes two references to the Bible to ILLUSTRATE that idea (sparrows and Babel), but it is clear that he did not get the idea from the Bible.  [And that’s not a constitutional principle, anyway]

Anyone who doesn’t list Franklin as a theistic rationalist, lists him as a deist.  Clearly, the Bible did not have much influence on him.

In this section, Mark does not offer even a single example of a founder saying that he was influenced by the Bible – only that they used it for various purposes.  Again, Satan did the same thing (Luke 4:10-11) and, like a number of the founders, used it for his own purposes out of context.

In a stunning paragraph on page 30, Mark first says: “The Holy Scriptures were the most important source of authority for America’s founders, but they are not a handbook for politics.” Then, in the next sentence, he says: “So when the founders debated the War of Independence, the creation of a new state and national constitutions, … they turned to thinkers such as Locke and Montesquieu for guidance.”  The Revolution and the creation of the Constitution constitute THE FOUNDING.  So, Mark here admits that Locke and Montesquieu were more important sources for the founding than the Bible.  So, did America have a Christian founding?  No; by Mark’s admission, it was a Lockean and Montesquieuan founding.

Then he tries to dig his way out of the hole with another sentence: “They saw these authors as articulating ideas that were compatible with their Christian convictions.”  Really?  1) Who ever said that?  Where’s the evidence?  He says “they saw” this, but how does he know – who said it?  2) What ARE “Christian convictions” – we still have no definition of “Christian” and, consequently, cannot know what Christian convictions are.   3) Was the founding based on “Christian ideas” (whatever that means – he doesn’t ever say) or on ideas that were simply “compatible with” Christian convictions?  Can it legitimately be called distinctly/particularly “Christian”?  On what grounds/basis do we pick that one of several contributing elements?

Does any of this look familiar from, say, The Federalist Papers or other explanations from that time of the ideas in the Constitution and the source for them?  What about the notes of the Constitutional Convention?

Mark’s next claim is: “When America’s founders spoke about ‘religion,’ virtually all of them – even those most influenced by the Enlightenment – meant Christianity.”  That’s a VERY BROAD and SWEEPING claim, so one would expect broad and extensive evidence to be presented to confirm it – right?  The ONLY evidence offered for this astounding claim is a statement by John Marshall that in America “Christianity and religion are identified.”  But Mark omits the beginning of the sentence: “The American people are entirely Christian ….”  Was that true?  The latter half of the sentence is no more true than the first half.  That’s why this is the only evidence Mark can present for this amazing claim.  As I noted before, Marshall is a problematic witness.

Mark then says that a statement by Benjamin Rush is the “exception that proves the rule.”  But you have to prove the rule first!  Rush is hardly the sole “exception,” John Adams and Thomas Jefferson regularly discussed other religions.  Mark reprints much of Washington’s letter to a Jewish congregation!  There is NO reason to believe that others meant “Christianity” when they simply used the word “religion.”  Mark objects to being lumped with less-than-stellar authors, but this is simply a David Barton talking point with, as far as I know, absolutely no evidence to support it – other than Marshall’s obviously suspect statement.  It would seem that such a HUGE claim would have – and REQUIRE – more evidence supporting it than that.

To illustrate: on pg. 33, Mark prints a quote from Charles Carroll.  In that quote, Carroll refers to “the Christian religion.”  a) why does Carroll specifically identify the religion as “Christian” – why didn’t he just say “religion?”  b) If Mark’s claim is correct, then Carroll’s statement is a reference to “the Christian Christianity!”  That is nonsensical.  Or is Carroll distinguishing to which “religion” he is referring and thereby recognizing that the term is broader than simply Christianity?

Later, on pg. 89, Mark repeats the claim.  In that section – in the quotes that Mark includes – we have Abraham Baldwin recognizing “a different religious profession.”  Mark suggests that he’s trying to protect Jews.  But how can that be?  If “religion” IS Christianity in the founders’ usage, then his statement must be understood as “a different Christian profession” – mustn’t it?  He also recounts South Carolina’s statute referring to the “Protestant Christian religion” – but that would be nonsensical; it would mean the “Protestant Christian Christianity!”  And Georgia’s law would require all officers of the university to be “of the Christian Christianity.”  There are several references to “the Christian religion” in statutes and statements in this section of Mark’s book. They would all be nonsensical if his claim is correct.  They would be repeated references to “the Christian Christianity.”

Why the need for these people and statutes to specify the Christian religion if “religion” was synonymous with Christianity to them?  Why didn’t they just say “religion?”

Mark follows with a number of founders referring to the importance of – and need for – “religion and morality.”  These are important statements about “religion” – but not necessarily Christianity.  He says they must be interpreted as references to Christianity – even when they come from non-Christians and from people such as Adams and Washington who recognized other religions (remember Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation that Mark highlighted earlier?).  Why must we accept that as true without better or more evidence than Marshall’s questionable statement?

*This all comes back to Mark’s false dichotomy that there are only two options – so any reference to “religion” by guys who were not deists must be a reference to Christianity.*

In a section ironically entitled “Context Matters,” Mark criticizes John Fea’s comments concerning Washington’s 1783 “Circular Letter to the States.”  While Mark is correct that Washington clearly refers to Jesus (of course without mentioning Him by name – Washington never did), he, like others, makes far too much of the reference to “the Divine Author of our blessed religion.”

First: Washington does not call for accepting the gospel or adopting Christianity or anything specific/unique to Christianity. He merely calls for imitation of Jesus’ virtuous “characteristics”: charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind.  One could do the same with Gandhi, for example. This is consistent with his call for “religion and morality” and these are emphases of theistic rationalism and Hinduism and several other belief systems as well as Christianity.  This was consistent with the theistic rationslist view that Jesus was a good moral teacher and example.

Second, much is made of the use of the word “Divine” to describe Jesus here; the assumption is that Washington here is doing what he did not do anywhere else: express belief in the deity of Jesus.  But (speaking  of context) one must understand 18^th-century usage of words when discussing 18^th-century writing.  According to the definitive multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary (which traces usage by time period), one definition of “divine” is: “of more than human or ordinary excellence; pre-eminently gifted; in the highest degree excellent.” It cites a 1680 reference to “Divine Shakespeare” and a 1711 reference to “divine Socrates” as examples. Even today, we might refer to a “divine” symphony or dessert; Bette Midler is called “the Divine Miss M.”  It was common in that day to refer to phenomenal, outstanding, talented people as “divine.”  It does not necessitate an indication of deity and, given the record of Washington’s writings – he never referred to Jesus by name and never affirmed His deity in any other place – the least problematic interpretation GIVEN THE overall CONTEXT is that he simply meant to say that Jesus was extraordinarily special.

Third, another meaning at the time was: “one who has officially to do with divine things; an ecclesiastic, clergyman, priest, or theologian.”  At that time, people regularly referred to clergymen as “divines.” [A chapter in The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders is entitled “’Divine’ Sources of Theistic Rationalism.  It is a reference to clergymen – not to God.]  Washington may simply have been describing Jesus as a prominent religious person.

There is no reason to assume that – in this one isolated instance – Washington was saying the Jesus was God.

Fourth, Mark says that applying “Fea’s logic” to the Lord’s Prayer, which begins “Our Father who art in heaven” could lead someone to conclude it was not “uniquely Christian.”  Someone who did not look at the WHOLE context could conclude that, but not someone who read it in its overall context (the rest of Matthew or even just the rest of the Sermon on the Mount).  What would someone conclude from reading the rest of Washington’s writings?

I wholeheartedly agree with Mark’s conclusions at the end of this section because they refer simply to “religion” and “religious” things.  If one does not read “Christianity” and “Christian” into these comments, they are valid and correct conclusions.

On pages 37-39, Mark implies/suggests that the Calvinist view of human nature was the driving force behind the Constitution (what this chapter is about).  He begins with the claim that the founders believed in Romans 3:23 – but there’s no evidence, no quotes, to confirm this assumption. 

He then notes that “most Americans in the founding era” were Calvinists and talks about Calvinist influence on children.  Even if those claims are true, they are irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is not most Americans, but those who wrote the Constitution.  As noted above, most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were NOT Calvinists and none of them cited Calvin or other Christian thinkers.  They cited people such as Montesquieu and Locke and they cited experience and history.

He also mentions a couple of Calvinist teachers of Madison and many other founders, particularly John Witherspoon.  He does NOT mention that Witherspoon began his famous Lectures on Moral Philosophy [the course taken by the future founders] by describing moral philosphy as “an inquiry into the nature and grounds of moral obligation by reason, as distinct from revelation” (emphasis mine).  He said that “there are but two ways in which we come to the knowledge of things, viz. 1^st, Sensation, 2^nd, Reflection” – not revelation.  He regularly appealed to “reason” and “common utility” as the ground of argument – not revelation.  Witherspoon was a Christian and a Calvinist, but he didn’t always – or necessarily at all – teach his students his Calvinism. 

And, at that, not all of my students learn or agree with all that I teach them – and I suspect that is true of Mark’s students as well.  The proof would be in the pudding – the extent to which Calvinist ideas came out in their writings.  Mark and I disagree profoundly on that.

As I explain in the review, Mark “argues that Calvinism’s teaching concerning total depravity and sin caused the founders to embrace separation of powers, checks and balances, limited government, and federalism.”  But, I explain: “the founders actually saw man as an alloy of virtue and vice. Madison said that the good/virtuous qualities in man are present ‘in a higher degree’ than man’s bad qualities and that self-government cannot work unless that is true (Federalist #55).”

Regarding use of the word “sin”: I point out in the review that the founders did not use the Christian or Calvinist word “sin.”  They used less judgmental words such as “weakness” and “venality.”

The idea that man has a wicked side is hardly unique to Christianity – who said their efforts for separation of powers were driven by Calvinism or Christianity or even religious beliefs? As opposed to experience/history?  What Madison and others said between the Articles and the Constitution and after was that their experience with the Articles and legislative dominance (“drawing all power into its impetuous vortex”) convinced them.

Mark speaks of “foundational [my emphasis] Christian principles, such as the reality that … power tends to corrupt.”  Where does the Bible teach that?  In which creed, catechism, or confession of Christianity is that listed?  Which churches have that in their doctrinal statement?  This is not a “Christian principle,” it is an observed principle of human nature that is not inconsistent with what Christianity teaches – except that there will be no corruption in the Millennial Kingdom.

No political philosopher believed more in the depravity of man than Machiavelli – he didn’t get the idea from Christianity!  History shows human nature.

Mark notes that the founders regularly cited Montesquieu, but that “the founders were drawn to him because he addressed a dilemma that all Christian statesmen must face.”  Which founder ever said this?

Mark refers to a “broad and sweeping consensus among America’s founders that humans are sinful” – but the founders didn’t say that.  Where’s a supporting quote?

When trying to counter the influence of the Enlightenment, Mark refers only to a French Enlightenment figure and to the French Revolution; but the English Enlightenment was very different and less radical – and that’s what influenced Americans!

Mark (again ironically) quotes Louis Hartz when he appears to agree with a point Mark is making – but Hartz is the biggest Lockean influence supporter of all!  Hartz’s whole thesis is that America has worked because it’s based on a Lockean consensus!   So Mark’s arguments against the influence of Locke discredit his own witness.  Hartz claims that our only philosophical tradition from Europe is Lockeanism.

Regarding the section on natural law and natural rights (p. 42ff): natural law is not a distinctly Christian notion – it began with the pagan Cicero.

Mark again assumes without demonstrating that the concept of “natural rights” is a Christian concept.  It may be promoted by Christians, but that does not make it a Christian concept. If it did, the “Christian” view of a lot of issues would be schizophrenic.  Where does the Bible teach natural rights?  Which confessions, creeds, and catechisms include natural rights?  What makes it a Christian concept?

Mark refers to “the Christian – especially Protestant – conviction that tyrants may be actively resisted.”  This is not a “Christian” conviction (the Bible doesn’t teach it and it’s not in any creeds/etc.).   It is a view held by some Protestants, just as some Protestants are Yankee fans and some are Dodger fans, but neither is a “Christian” position because neither Jesus nor the Apostles taught it.  I invite a listing of Scriptural passages that promote or even allow “active resistance” to tyrants.  Speaking of Calvin, even he could not find any.

Mark presents a caricature of the opposing viewpoint (rather than dealing with the actual argument) by saying that a direct reading of Romans 13 “seems on the surface to require Christians to obey even evil rulers.”  But it doesn’t require Christians to “obey” evil rulers, but to be “subject” to them (like the numerous examples in Scripture such as Shadrach & his friends, Daniel, and even the Apostles). They did not “obey” the rulers’ commands to disobey God, but they did remain “subject” to them.  Like so many, Mark changes the word in the passage to make his argument.  They are different Greek words with different meanings.

Mark concludes this section on natural law and natural rights with: “it is clear that the founders valued them, at least in part, for theological reasons.”  Why is that clear?  No proof has been presented – just claims.   And no proof has been given that the “theological reasons” were Christian rather than theistic rationalist.

He says: “It is true that some judicial or procedural rights, such as the right to trial by jury, were drawn from other sources.” This is an admission that the system is a “mixed” one.  On what grounds, then, do we pronounce it distinctively “Christian?”

Turning to the right to life, Mark contradicts the entire previous section’s claim of the supposed influence of Calvinism when he opens this section by saying that the founders had a “high view” of human nature!  Which is it?  Did they believe in Calvinism’s total depravity or did they have a high view of human nature?  You can’t have it both ways.  If he means that they had a high view of human life, that’s a defensible and non-contradictory notion.  But that’s not the claim here.

As I (accurately) report in the review: “Hall claims that America’s founders ‘were committed to the core Christian idea that all humans are created in the imago Dei (image of God).’ This is the only one of his ‘Christian ideas’ that is distinctly or uniquely Christian; but no evidence to support this claim is given from a founder other than James Wilson quoting Psalm 139, which does not mention the image of God.”  I first asked Mark about five years ago for a single quote from a founder expressing belief in this Christian idea.  None has been forthcoming and there is none in his book – just a claim (again).

The Wilson quote expresses belief that God created man, but nothing about the image of God.  Virtually everyone before Darwin believed that God or god or gods created man; that much is hardly a uniquely Christian idea.  The one Christian idea is presented without supporting evidence.

On page 49, Mark claims that they “regularly appealed to Scripture to support their arguments for liberty,” but the passages quoted are about spiritual liberty (as all “liberty” passages in the Bible are) – not political liberty.  Although they’re out of context and not what the Bible teaches, Hall claims that “it is clear that America’s founders understood civic liberty in a thoroughly Christian context.” Really?  Misapplying the Scripture to make God say what He does not say is a “thoroughly Christian” approach?  I make this point in the review – inaccurate?

Mark notes: “The founders distinguished between liberty and licentiousness” – but so did Plato and most political philosophers throughout history.  This is no indication of Christian influence without some founder making that connection.

Although Mark broadly and categorically calls my review “inaccurate” – which implies that the part in which I praise his treatment of religious liberty must also be inaccurate.  I stand by my evaluation here, as well.  I agree with his commentary regarding Roe v. Wade and freedom of speech – but they do not uniquely/specifically reflect Christianity or require belief in Christianity. I agree with his take on the First Amendment and overuse of Jefferson and the so-called wall of separation; Mark is excellent in this area and provides real evidence. I agree that they supported promoting “religion” and morality – with the caveat that “religion” simply meant “religion” to them and not necessarily Christianity.

Mark concludes this section by claiming that “there are excellent reasons to believe that they were influenced by the Bible and Christian political ideas.”  I wish he had given some of those excellent reasons; I don’t see any.

He further concludes with this: “The constitutional order they designed, one characterized by federalism, separation of powers, and checks and balances, reflects their Christian commitments. Their understanding of rights and liberty is best comprehended by taking into account their Christian worldview.”  If that’s true, why did they have to manipulate and misapply Scripture out of context in order to support their supposedly Christian views?

As I state in my review: “Misusing and misapplying the Bible for one’s own purposes to advance an idea not actually taught in the Bible is not the act of a Christian and does not indicate Christian influence.”  Christians seek to understand what the Bible really says/means because it is the Word of God and they desire to obey it – not to skirt God’s commands or merely to give cover for sin that they desire to commit.

Christians regularly see non-Christians employ out-of-context “quotes” or information from the Bible to try to discredit it or to promote some preferred cause for partisan purposes.  That is not an indication of Christian “influence.”  Regarding the use of the Bible: EVERYTHING depends on HOW it is used – not just that fact that it is used or the number of times.

Using a hammer multiple times to bash in a skull does not make one a carpenter.

Mark mentions Jasper Adams’s 1833 sermon; he does not mention that Madison refused (when asked) to confirm Adams’s thesis that Christianity was the foundation of America’s political institutions.  This would have been a golden opportunity for a key founder to endorse the Christian America claim – but Madison did not (though prompted to).  Mark does mention that Marshall of course affirmed it.  That is the letter in which Marshall dubiously claims that “the American population is entirely Christian.”

On page 89, he again claims that “the vast majority” of the founders “meant Christianity” when they used the word “religion” – again without any supporting evidence.

Ironically, the best evidence in the book for Christian belief or influence in America’s founding is the 1775 call for thanksgiving by the Continental Congress. It actually mentions “Jesus Christ” and not a generic God-word.  I say “ironically” because the nation was not yet “founded” – it was still part of Great Britain because the War for Independence had not yet been won.  So, it’s not precisely evidence concerning the “founding.”

Another MAJOR problem here is the fact that this particular call for thanksgiving (along with others) was also a ploy/tactic designed to “smoke out” as-yet undiscovered Loyalists.  “Patriot” agents were sent to churches to report on which pastors/ministers participated appropriately and enthusiastically and which did not.  AT LEAST SIX CLERGYMEN DIED AS A RESULT.  One can read about this on pg. 26-27 of God Against the Revolution.

In his discussion of these calls, Mark stipulates that they certainly referred to a “Deity that most certainly intervenes in the affairs of men and nations” – but that would also be true of theistic rationalists (not exclusively/necessarily Christianity).

Mark emphasizes GW’s reference to “true religion and virtue” (italicizing true) – but that simply begs the question of what GW thought “true” religion to be.  Washington links it even here with “virtue” as he almost always did because he saw true religion to be good works. There is nothing specifically/uniquely Christian in the 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation.

Four pages (116) after including two official public documents that serve Mark’s purpose in which John Adams advocates for political reasons beliefs that he vehemently opposed, Mark addresses the Treaty of Tripoli that Adams submitted to the Senate and signed.  But here he argues that it doesn’t really espouse what it says!  He says the language was merely for political purposes. Further: he gives as evidence that it didn’t really reflect public or senatorial opinion the fact that no one objected to it!  In the footnote, he mentions that CC delegate James McHenry complained about it four years later – but he doesn’t mention that three CC delegates voted for it as senators and key founder Adams negotiated and signed it.

So Mark recognizes that public documents are political devices – but not when they support his argument; then we’re supposed to accept them as heartfelt and indicative of the founder’s or nation’s will.  I contend that it is very problematic to make much of public documents because they are usually designed for political purposes.  As a rule, I only employ them to counter claims made from other public (aka political) documents.

Mark’s arguments and evidence beginning on pg. 125 simply demonstrate that it is not possible to have a Christian nation.  God certainly does not – ever – allow false religion in the Bible.

William Penn and others may think that punishing unbelievers breeds hypocrites and false conversions, but God instructs His people to expel (at least) unbelievers from the only nation to be rightfully identified with God (Mosaic Commonwealth) and from the other biblical community of God’s people – the church.

No one in this section makes a biblical argument; it’s logic, pragmatism, and a better idea than God as to what causes Christianity to flourish.  God says remove unbelievers and keep the assembly pure.

Where is the evidence that this is God’s will and not just man’s? What makes these “Christian premises”? [pg. 131]

Mark (ironically again) relies heavily upon Elisha Williams’s 1744 sermon to support a supposed Christian right of conscience.  Mark correctly reports that Williams makes “Protestant arguments” – not biblical arguments.  Williams cites “reason” or “rational” 15 times in the section that Mark employs and refers to Locke 4 times in addition to a detailed explanation of a Lockean theory.  Williams cites 1 verse of Scripture (Psa. 115:16) in support of a rational argument (not derived from it).  I again say “ironically” because Williams bases the sermon on the guy that Mark discounts as an influence (Locke) and during a time when Mark says Locke had little influence.

An argument is not “Christian” simply because it is made by a Christian (if, indeed, Williams was a Christian). And someone declaring freedom of conscience a “sacred right” does not make it so unless God makes the declaration – which He did not do.

In the review, I also point out that the notion that people have a right to decide whether and how to worship God “as their consciences dictate” is not a Christian principle.  If this is inaccurate, ssomeone would need to point out where the Bible teaches that – as opposed to the teaching throughout the Old and New Testaments that those who do not worship the true God and worship Him the way He demands will go to hell.  And Paul’s teaching that anyone who teaches any other gospel than the true one is “to be accursed” (Gal. 1:8-9).

The founders clearly embraced religious liberty – as do I – but not from Christian principles.

Again on page 151, Mark lays out the same false dichotomy – Christianity or deism.

In footnote 50 on pg. 172, Mark says that the number of theistic rationalists was a “handful.”  How does he know that?  For how many of the 55 CC delegates has he done the research?  He holds an expansive view of who counts as a founder – has he researched hundreds of them to allow such a generalization?  This is yet another broad claim without any supporting evidence.

He himself says that we don’t have information for most – why is “Christian” the default identification?  Does the Bible say that most people are Christians or that the way is narrow?  What makes one a Christian?  Mark never says.

What did Jesus say?  Matt. 7:16-20; 21-23

Calling something “Christian” because it was influenced by “Christian ideas” first begs the question of what those ideas were.  Second, what makes them “Christian?”  Third, whether they are distinctively Christian ideas or simply ideas not in conflict with Christianity. Fourth, whether those ideas were determinative, and fifth, whether those ideas were specifically chosen to bolster a conscious attempt to make the thing “Christian.”

FINALLY: Mark employs a clever strategy:

1) never define Christianity or what it means to be a Christian

2) show that someone is not a deist

3) give a brief disclaimer that that doesn’t mean that they are Christians

4) provide no evidence that they actually believe in the doctrines of Christianity

5) then repeatedly refer to their actions as being motivated by the Christianity that you’ve merely asserted, but haven’t demonstrated

Also: if someone that doesn’t fit your thesis is cited by founders, it’s because they were not really influential; really influential people didn’t have to be cited because everyone knew.

Frazer's Defense Continued

Dr. Gregg Frazer emailed me his next installment defending his thesis contra Mark David Hall's.

In Chapter 2, Mark rightfully says that “it is necessary to consider the ideas that influenced the civic leaders who drafted and ratified the document [the Constitution].”  He is also rightfully critical of Matthew Stewart’s silly book claiming that Spinoza was a dominating influence.  

In order to try to support his claim that “the founders drew heavily from Christian ideas when they crafted America’s constitutional order,” he must try to prove that the claim that “the Constitution’s framers were influenced by rationalist, Enlightenment ideas” is “overstated and misleading.”  In order to do that, he must try to discount and diminish John Locke’s influence.  

Re Locke’s influence: his first argument is that Locke’s works were not readily available in America and, particularly, “The Second Treatise was not published in America until 1773 ….” In my review, that’s what I report that he says – so I don’t see how that’s inaccurate.  I add that he argues that despite the fact that the Bible was not printed in English in America until 1782 (that’s a fact; you can look it up), it was all-important.  I note that Elisha Williams based a sermon on the teachings of “the celebrated Mr. Lock” in 1744 – so he was already considered to be “celebrated” by then and that references to Locke are ubiquitous throughout the period.  Those are also facts.  

His second anti-Lockean influence argument is that, despite Locke being cited “with some regularity” in the 1760s and 1770s, Donald Lutz’s study shows that the Bible was “referenced far more often than [Locke’s] works.”  More on Lutz’s report on the Bible’s relative influence on the Constitution later.  In my review, I point out that Mark does not mention that, according to Lutz’s study, there were more Locke citations than to all Reformed thinkers combined and that Locke is mentioned in 19 of the 28 pages of Lutz’s chapter on important influences. Those are facts; I don’t see the inaccuracy.  Whether or not such enumerations are valuable evidence is debatable, but the key points here are: a) Mark presents such counts as valid evidence and b) Mark claims that Reformed thought was dominant.  By Mark’s standards of evidence, Lutz’s work actually shows that Locke is very influential and more influential than all the Reformers.  

Regarding Lutz’s study and the Bible’s relative influence: Mark reports that the study shows that 34% of all citations between 1760 and 1805 are to the Bible, while only 2.9% are to Locke.  There are some significant issues involved in Mark’s convenient reporting.  In this section of the book, which is about influences on the drafting, crafting, and ratification of the Constitution, Mark cites the numbers for the whole 45-years period, but does not mention this clarification by Lutz regarding “the pattern of citations surrounding the debate on the U.S. Constitution.”  Concerning the Constitution, Lutz says: “The Bible’s prominence disappears” and “the Federalists’ inclination to Enlightenment rationalism is most evident here in their failure to consider the Bible relevant.”  And: “The debate surrounding the adoption of the Constitution was fought out mainly in the context of Montesquieu, Blackstone, the English Whigs, and major writers of the Enlightenment.”  Unfortunately, I didn’t have room to present this evidence in the review.  

In the review, I suggest that these types of citation counts are problematic for a number of reasons.  First, merely counting the number of references is not a valid determiner of “influence,” “especially when the bulk of Bible references are simply illustrations, aphorisms, or statements taken out of context to support a concept that the Bible does not teach.”  As I note in the review, Satan quotes the Bible for his own purposes, but that hardly indicates its influence on him.  Second, Lutz explains that “positive and negative citations” are counted without distinction.  So, without evaluating all of them, one cannot simply “lump” them together and call them “influence.”   

I conclude this section of the review by pointing out that “the key for a Christian is not how many times the Bible is referenced, but how it is referenced.”  Rabid and reflexive critics of whatever I say would accuse me of claiming to know what the mysterious and incomprehensible Bible says, but I point out in the review that Mark himself admits that they took passages out of context – including the specific example I give.  I didn’t have word room in the review to include examples from Patriot preachers in which they admitted that they took passages out of context to make their own point that they admitted the Bible was not making.  [You can read those in my book God Against the Revolution]

Clarifying My Position on Categorizing America's Founders' Religious Beliefs

I have ordered Mark David Hall's new book and look forward to reading it. Let me say word about the dispute between Drs. Hall and Gregg Frazer on the categorization of terms to describe America's founders' religious creed and creeds.

We have "smoking gun" evidence that J. Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were not "orthodox Trinitarian Christians" and flunk the Athanasian test for what it means to be a mere "Christian."

There is also smoking gun evidence that a great deal of founders who tend to be more "2nd tier" were orthodox Trinitarian Christians.

My position is that the standard of scrutiny we apply in order to categorize a founder in a particular religious box is so strict that no one is entitled to a "default" position -- like "they were all Christians" (meaning to some/many "orthodox") except for a handful like Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin and a few lesser founders who were even more "deistic" than those three (Paine, Allen, etc.).

So take someone like John Marshall, an important and notable founding founder. But not a first tier "key" Founder like the first five Presidents, Franklin and Hamilton, etc. If you knew only a surface amount about him, you'd see that like a statistical majority of the Founders, he was an Anglican-Episcopalian. So if you wanted to fill in the details about what he "really" believed, you might look to the creeds, confessions and official positions of said church and make your categorizations accordingly.

But that would be wrong. That's a lazy error that those who are sympathetic to a traditional conservative Christian founding are likely to follow. It's just as wrong as the "they were all deists" or even concluding they were all the hybrid religion (whatever we call it).

The truth is we really don't know what a particular founder believed until we do the detective work. And when we do so for Marshall, this is what we discover.

From his daughter:

The reason why he never communed was, that he was a Unitarian in opinion, though he never joined their society. He told her he believed in the truth of the Christian Revelation, but not in the divinity of Christ; therefore he could not commune in the Episcopal Church.

And another quotation from U.S. Senator and former Maryland Governor William Pinkney Whyte:

He was a constant and liberal contributor to the support of the Episcopal Church. 

He never doubted the fact of the Christian revelation, but he was not convinced of the fact of the divinity of Christ till late in life. 

Then, after refusing privately to commune, he expressed a desire to do so publicly, and was ready and willing to do so when opportunity should be had. The circumstances of his death only forbade it ... 

He was never professedly Unitarian, and he had no place in his heart for either an ancient or a modern agnosticism.

And as we know, fellow Anglican/Episcopalian George Washington systematically avoided communion as well. Was it because he had a religious creed similar to Marshall's? I suspect so, but would admit, it's not a "smoking gun." It's certainly on the table of plausibility.

Finally, we can note that this creed isn't "strict deism." It believes in the Christian revelation and a special place for Jesus, even if it does not affirm Jesus' full divinity. In terms of what to call it and whether such qualifies as "Christianity" I will let others judge and decide.

Frazer Defends His Review

Gregg Frazer email me a defense of his review of Mark David Hall's new book. The defense is against charges of inaccuracy.

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The prosecutor is apparently unwilling to present his case – other than repeatedly to declare my guilt.  But I wish to be acquitted of the charge of “inaccuracy,” so I will present some of my defense – defense of what I said in the review and of some of what I couldn’t include in the review because of word limits by the publisher.  

We’ve already discussed my claim that Mark doesn’t recognize alternatives regarding the founders besides deism and Christianity (of some sort).  As far as I can see, the only place in the text in which another option is mentioned is pages XXVI and XXVII – but neither of these refers to founders.  Non-Christians are mentioned, but distinguished from the founders. Mark’s text says: “There were few non-Christians in late eighteenth-century America, but there were some, and most of America’s founders were convinced that the right of these non-Christians to believe and act according to the dictates of their consciences must be protected.” [my italics]  Then Washington’s famous letter to the Jews of Newport is quoted to show that Washington believed in religious freedom for non-Christian Jews.  The possibility of founders themselves being non-Christians is never suggested; they are depicted only as acting for others who are non-Christians.  

By the way, Mark claims that Washington’s use of his favorite “fig tree” reference shows that “Washington’s faith influenced his political beliefs and actions ….” [my italics]  But there is no “influence” of faith here – Washington employs a reference to relate to his audience – to illustrate or ellicit support. This is the way a number of founders used the Bible – simply for illustration or as aphorisms.  How does the fig tree reference influence Washington – to do what?  Furthermore: Part of GW’s letter says that “the Government of the United States … gives to bigotry no sanction” – but the law of God given to the Israelites did give sanction to bigotry in the 18^th-century sense of the word (i.e. specific belief). God commanded them to punish heretics; so in this statement, the U.S. system is actually distinguished from the biblical system that God established.  Furthermore, in Washington’s statement, he expresses an expectation that God will make “us all … everlastingly happy.”  Does the Bible teach that God will make Christians and Jews (as such) alike happy in the after-life – or only those who confess Christ?  

On page 7, in arguing that they weren’t deists, Mark says regarding Washington, Madison, and Hamilton: “Yet, to my knowledge, no writer has ever produced a public or private journal entry, letter, or essay showing that these men rejected Christianity ….”  That’s a fair challenge to those who say they were deists.  Here’s my question: has anyone produced a public or private journal entry showing that these men affirmed the fundamentals of Christianity (deity of Christ; atoning work of Christ as satisfaction for our sins; justification by faith alone; resurrection; inspiration and authority of the Scriptures) – at least until Hamilton’s deathbed profession?  If it’s a fair challenge to those claiming a deist founding, isn’t that a fair challenge to Mark, who claims a Christian founding?  

On page 9, Mark cites John Marshall’s testimony that Washington was “a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man”; and on pg. 31, he quotes Marshall’s statement that in America “Christianity and religion are identified.”  But Mark only reports half of Marshall’s sentence; the first half is: “The American population is entirely Christian” [pg. 611 in Mark’s Sacred Rights].  Clearly Marshall had a very generous notion or definition of Christianity and what it means to be a Christian. It may fit Mark’s definition – we don’t know because he doesn’t give us one – but it is so broad and inclusive as to have no meaning at all. On this basis, what is the significance of Mark’s overall claim that America had a Christian founding?  Is it simply a claim that it was founded by Americans? Of course, Marshall’s statement also flies in the face of the reality of the Jewish congregation that Washington addressed.  Marshall is a problematic witness providing problematic evidence. 

In the section on the use of “God-words” by founders (11-15), Mark reminds us that orthodox Christians also used such words – even in the Westminster Standards.  That is true, but not the central point made by people like me who, like Mark, do not believe the founders were deists.  The distinguishing thing about the use of “God-words” by certain of the founders (those I call theistic rationalists) is that those were the only terms they used for God – that they used those terms IN PLACE OF biblical terms.  The Westminster Standards have dozens if not hundreds of references to biblical terms for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Theistic rationalists used “God-words” in place of such biblical terms.  The exception, of course, is that they used “creator” – but virtually everyone, including deists, believed in a creator prior to Darwin.  The question then becomes: Who is this creator God?  What is His nature?  How do we know?   

Another “God-word” issue is what they meant by the terms they used.  “Providence” is a particularly problematic term, as it was used by Christians, deists, and theistic rationalists alike, with each meaning something different. For some, “providence” was an impersonal force; for some, it was the religious equivalent of fate.  In fact, theistic rationalists (inc. Washington) sometimes used the impersonal pronoun “it” to refer to providence.  Gouverneur Morris, for example, used impersonal pronouns for providence and once said that “fortune” was “but another name for Providence.”  

The question isn’t whether Christians ever used “God-words,” but whether theistic rationalists ever used biblical terms for God – especially Jesus (the central/distinguishing person in Christianity).  

The fact that the Declaration’s references to “God-words” (in place of biblical terms) would have been “quite acceptable to Reformed Americans in 1776” merely demonstrates how artfully Jefferson wrote the document.  He used generic language that would bring maximum support.  Christians could read Christian content into it (as people still do today); deists could read deist content into it; theistic rationalists could read their preferred content into it – even Jews could read Jewish content into it.  It does not point distinctly or specifically to Christianity in any way.  

Mark phrases his conclusion of this section cleverly.  He says that “Jefferson may have believed in a vague, distant Deity” but that his fellow delegates “understood that ‘Nature’s God,’ ‘Creator,’ and ‘Providence’ referred to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” [my emphasis]   The word “understood” following identification of an author implies that they understood and agreed with what the author meant.  But Mark here is actually saying that they replaced Jefferson’s understanding of who God is with their own.  Their “understanding” was not that God was vague and distant, but a God (as Mark concludes) “who is active in the affairs of men and nations.”  It’s a clever construction on Mark’s part because he makes it appear that Jefferson’s view and the view of others was identical – but it was not (in the case of those who believed in the Old Testament God).  That’s another issue: to identify God as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” is a clever way for Mark to refer to the God of Christianity without any specific or distinctive Christian element.  Why not “the Triune God of Christianity” – since his claim is that they were creating a Christian nation? 

Mark’s need to “lump” in everyone who believes in a God who is active in the affairs of men and nations as some sort of Christian leads directly into his complete mischaracterization of my concept of theistic rationalism as “a definition of deism” (15).  He knows better. I’ve contributed chapters to two books he has edited in which I explain exactly – in detail – what theistic rationalism was and I explain – at length, with evidence – the differences between it and deism and Christianity.  He knows the term was chosen to emphasize its distinction from deism (the definitive multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary notes that “theism” was a term used in the 18th century specifically to contrast with deism).  

In Mark’s brief description of deism, he says the “critical” point is that “deists did not think God intervenes in the affairs of men and nations.”  That and criticism of Christianity are the two elements of deism that he refers to over and over again.  Two of several ways in which theistic rationalists differed from deists is that they: a) believed in an active, present God who intervenes in the affairs of men and nations and b) they were more favorable to Christianity than deists – even sharing some Christian beliefs.  But Mark must “lump” theistic rationalism in with deism because he wants to say or suggest that certain founders were some sort of Christian without providing any evidence (which doesn’t exist) that they actually believed in Christian doctrines.  The way to do that is to posit a bipolar religious world of deists and Christians and show that they were not deists.  If there’s a third, middle option, he would be forced to provide positive evidence for their Christianity.  So he must discredit that third middle option, theistic rationalism, by relegating it to a branch of deism.  As I mentioned, I experienced this on the other side when a conservative figure urged me for political reasons to say that theistic rationalism was a branch of Christianity.  That should tell people not familiar with my evidence that theistic rationalism is not any kind of deism.  I expected better from Mark.  

On pages 16 and 17, Mark argues again for an outsized Reformed influence on the founding.  After dismissing Washington’s, Jefferson’s, and Madison’s Anglicanism in one sentence, he admits that Adams was the only member of a “Reformed church” in this group.  This leads to an example of the problem with relying too heavily on denominational identification.  He also concedes that Adams “moved rapidly toward Unitaritianism” – but he does not mention that Adams’s church officially turned Unitarian in 1750 (when Adams was just 15 years old)!  Adams’s church was not Reformed in its theology – only in its denominational name.  So it wasn’t really Reformed.  Was it the only such church?  

Mark then lays out estimates of how many Calvinist churches and colonists there were – but these superficial identifications do not tell us anything about the spiritual condition of those churches or their parishioners. He says – without evidence – that the Americans in these churches “are unrepresented” by the founders usually discussed and that those founders “constitute an unrepresentative sample.”  First, how does he know that?  Evidence?  Does he know how many of these externally identified “Reformed” churches still held to Reformed views?  Adams shared nearly exactly the same religious views as Jefferson (he said so), but he was a member of one of these “Reformed” churches.  How can one make the kind of generalization that Mark makes?  

More importantly, the discussion is about America’s founding.  The vast majority of Americans had nothing to do with that.  Even if they were paying attention, clever men such as Jefferson and Adams could keep them content with generically-phrased declarations or pious-languaged declarations of thanksgiving that helped to smoke out Loyalists, but had no lasting impact on the form of government.  Mark says these eight were unrepresentative and, on the next page, says that “there were not many elite Anglicans in America.”  But 36 OF THE 55 framers were NOT from “REFORMED” churches and 29 OF THE 55 framers were … ANGLICANS!  Whatever the religious identification of the populace, a majority of the guys who actually “founded” the country were Anglicans.  Of course, we don’t know what most of them actually believed – as Mark rightly points out.  He warns that we “should be careful not to read too much into this lack of evidence.”  He needs to take his own advice and not assume EITHER that these founders embraced deism OR that they embraced Christianity!  

Mark concludes that “it is obviously bad social science and bad history to generalize the views of the founders as a whole from the views of a few unrepresentative elites.” I agree. That works two ways; one should not make broad claims the other way, either.  That’s why in my book, I argue only that the eight guys I studied in depth were theistic rationalists; I don’t try to claim that “America had a theistic rationalist founding.”  I would add, however, that these “few unrepresentative elites” were the actual people who did the founding, so one might be on more solid ground to claim that influence.  A majority of them were NOT Reformed.

Trump Invokes Jefferson

For Religious Freedom Day. This was on January 15, 2020. A taste:

Religious freedom in America, often referred to as our “first freedom,” was a driving force behind some of the earliest defining moments of our American identity.  The desire for religious freedom impelled the Pilgrims to leave their homes in Europe and journey to a distant land, and it is the reason so many others seeking to live out their faith or change their faith have made America their home. 

More than 230 years ago, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which was authored and championed by Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson famously expounded that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.”  This statute served as the catalyst for the First Amendment, which enshrined in law our conviction to prevent government interference in religion.  More than 200 years later, thanks to the power of that Amendment, America is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world.

Very nice. Now, I wonder who wrote this for the President. (Not that this is uncommon, from George Washington onwards, Presidents have had speech and other writers.)

The Dialog Continues

There is an interesting dialog going on between, among others, two accomplished scholars -- Drs. Gregg Frazer and Mark David Hall -- in the American Creation comments section. Just how "Christian" was the American founding? And as usual the question of whether it's ever acceptable to "revolt" in the face of Romans 13 (which text prohibits revolt!) remains in the background.

Let me clarify my position on this: From a fideist, and especially "fundamentalist" perspective, the Tory loyalists were correct. But even if one believes in the natural law, that still doesn't necessarily get you around Romans 13's prohibition on revolution.

Many of the Tory loyalist for whom Dr. Frazer argues in his recent book, weren't fideists. They were Anglicans and as such, their theology incorporated Richard Hooker's natural law teachings. One could easily argue that a traditional understanding of the natural law doesn't get you around Romans 13 either.

But I do think you can get a *Christian* case for the American revolution and founding, ONLY if there is a natural right component to it. Or, at least, I have a hard time seeing how you can make an exegetical or sound theological case for such without natural law/natural rights.

What we discover is that you are either reliant on the more modern John Locke's or the scholastics' -- whether Catholic or Protestant -- doctrines of natural right. As Dave Kopel has noted:

A Huguenot using the pen-name Marcus Junius Brutus (the Roman Senator who assassinated Julius Caesar) went further with the 1579 book "Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos" ("Vindication Against Tyrants"). "Vindiciae" was organized like a Catholic Scholastic treatise. Like the other Geneva writers, Brutus owed a great debt to Catholic thought on the subject of Just Revolution.

And for the record, there is much more John Locke in the founding era sermons.

Frazer Reviews Hall

Dr. Gregg Frazer reviews Mark David Hall's latest book at The Gospel Coalition. 

A taste:

Evidential Errors Abound  

Hall argues that Calvinism’s teaching concerning total depravity and sin caused the founders to embrace separation of powers, checks and balances, limited government, and federalism. But the founders actually saw man as an alloy of virtue and vice. Madison said the good and virtuous qualities in man are present “in a higher degree” than man’s bad qualities and that self-government can’t work unless that is true (Federalist #55).  

Hall regularly uses the words “sin” and “sinful” in relation to the founders’ views in this area, but they didn’t use the Christian or Calvinist word “sin,” preferring less judgmental words such as “weakness” and “venality.” The founders didn’t cite the Bible or Calvin when making these arguments and establishing institutions based on them. When not crediting Montesquieu, they cited “history” and “the least fallible guide”: experience.  

[...]  

In 1744, Elisha Williams based a sermon on the teachings of John Locke, calling him (already by that time) “the celebrated Mr. Lock.” References to Locke are ubiquitous throughout the period. Hall argues Locke wasn’t influential, largely because his work wasn’t printed in America until 1773. But Hall argues the Bible was all-important—despite not being printed in English in America until 1782! It’s not clear why a reference to Locke must come from an edition published in America in order to indicate influence. Hall doesn’t mention that, according to Lutz’s authoritative study, there were more Locke citations than to all Reformed thinkers combined, and that Locke is mentioned in 19 of the 28 pages in Lutz’s chapter on influences.

Review of Gregg Frazer's New Book by Russell Kirk Center

Here is another thoughtful review of Dr. Gregg Frazer's book on loyalists and the American Revolution by the Russell Kirk Center. A taste:

Their methodology deserves notice because it reflected their view of scripture along with a broader set of intellectual assumptions. Boucher deplored Jonathan Mayhew’s Lockean spin on Romans 13 for replacing “unerring standards of right and wrong” with “loose and debauched opinions.” Samuel Seabury condemned those who “have warped and forced particular expressions of the scriptures to make them comport with their own preconceived opinions.” Those rhetorical gambits, he said, deployed scripture to uphold positions that it could not support when seen by “a candid, unprejudiced mind.” 

Scripture enjoined obedience to civil powers, which St. Paul in Romans 13 describes as ordained of God. Other passages of scripture Loyalists invoked backed this view. If even the most vile tyrants like Nero deserved obedience, how could it be just to resist George III? Biblical references to liberty, Boucher insisted, meant freedom from sin rather than political or civil liberty. Indeed, war and the sufferings it brought marked God’s judgment on a sinful people. Loyalists calling their fellow Americans to repent faced resistance as Old Testament prophets had done for calling Israelites to account during their suffering. Eschewing armed resistance for submission to Patriot authorities or flight from their homes and property to safety in British lines, Loyalist clergy practiced what they preached.

Review of Gregg Frazer's New Book

I just ran across this thoughtful review of Gregg Frazer's new book on loyalists and the American revolution. A taste, quoting from Frazer's book:

It is perhaps symbolic, but also instructive, to recognize that ... the motto of resistance theology was the nonbiblical phrase "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." In contrast, the catchphrase of the Loyalist ministers was "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers" - the direct text of Romans 13:1 (p.38).

Expect more from Frazer and perhaps Mark David Hall later this week. 

Throckmorton: "Does Romans 13 Support the Case for Keeping Trump?"

Warren Throckmorton links to an American Creation post on the matter. Back from 2008!

Quote:

UPDATE: This post at American Creation blog is a nice summary of Calvinist views of Romans 13. Gregg Frazer, Dean of The Master’s University and historian of the founding era wrote to address Calvin’s perspective on political rebellion. In short, without some governmental sanction for resistance (e.g., impeachment), Christians should not rebel. However, impeachment and removal is built in to the Constitution and therefore legitimate. Christians should not appeal to Romans 13 as a reason to oppose impeachment.

My position is that Dr. Frazer's case is an airtight interpretation of Romans 13; but there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Tillman: "A Religious Test in America?"

As usual, Seth Barrett Tillman uncovers some very interesting details in his research. From the abstract:

During 1776, but prior to announcing the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress instructed the state legislatures to call conventions to draft constitutions to regularize their local state governments so that each could be administered in the name of the People and absent royal governors and royal officers. North Carolina heeded the revolutionary call—in 1776, it implemented a new constitution with a bill of rights. One interesting feature of the 1776 North Carolina Constitution was that Article 32 imposed a religious test against non-Protestants. Article 32 stated: 

That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State. 

This particular provision would remain on the books, and largely unenforced, until North Carolina revisited this issue in the 1835 North Carolina Constitutional Convention (which drafted amendments to the 1776 North Carolina Constitution which were subsequently ratified by the People). Still, in 1809, there was one apparent attempt to enforce the religious test provision. Jacob Henry had qualified for a second, annual term in North Carolina’s lower legislative house: the House of Commons. Henry was Jewish. On December 5, 1809, another member put forward a motion to declare Henry’s seat vacant based on the 1776 North Carolina Constitution’s religious test. The next day, the Commons adjudicated the motion, and it failed. Henry kept his seat.

Frazer and Fortenberry's Latests on Romans 13

Both Dr. Gregg Frazer and Bill Fortenberry are evangelical Protestants of the fundamentalist stripe. And one thing such Protestants are good at is disagreeing with one another. With that, check out the links -- audio lectures -- to their most recent comments on Romans 13 and the acceptability of rebelling against government under any circumstances.

Here is Gregg's. Here is Bill's.

George Washington & Voltaire

That pic of George Washington is from the "Voltaire" medal. Supposedly, Voltaire really liked Washington so much, he help to create a medal of Washington's likeness.




That's a story in itself that this post won't go into (I myself need to learn more about it). I haven't seen much else to connect Washington to the "deist" Voltaire. Though Tom Van Dyke's post on Voltaire reminds me of one quotation of Washington's that sounds quite "Voltaire like."

As Voltaire said:

This is the country of sects. An Englishman, as a free man, goes to Heaven by whatever road he pleases.

And George Washington writing to his French friend, Marquis de Lafayette:

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to endulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.

This kind of makes Washington sound like an outsider to the faith, which perhaps he was. But, nonetheless, such a sentiment perfectly captures America's ideal of pluralism and non-sectarianism.

The Siamese Twin Thesis of the Religion Clauses

The Law and Liberty site has another piece on the Establishment Clause and the doctrine of incorporation. This article is by James R. Rogers and treads much old ground. A taste:

... The Court’s decision to incorporate the Establishment Clause was subject to scholarly criticism early on. The debate over the appropriateness of incorporating the Establishment clause revived in the early 2000s as a result of a series of concurring opinions by Justice Thomas.

The criticism of incorporating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. national Constitution and applying it to restrict state governments via the liberty guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment arose because incorporation is based on a fundamental misreading of the Establishment Clause, and a misunderstanding of the nature of religious establishments. Justice Clarence Thomas initially questioned the application of the Establishment Clause to the states in the 2002 case of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. He wrote that the Clause “originally protected States, and by extension, their citizens, from the imposition of an established religion by the Federal government.” He added: “Whether and how this Clause should constrain state action under the Fourteenth Amendment is a more difficult question.”

Thomas pushed further in 2004 in a concurring opinion in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, “I would take this opportunity to begin the process of rethinking the Establishment Clause . . . the Establishment Clause is a federalism provision, which, for this reason, resists incorporation.” He reasserted his position a year later in Van Orden v. Perry, observing that “the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision—it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right.”

The Establishment Clause serves two purposes: it both prohibits Congress from Establishing a religion but it also prohibits Congress from meddling with state religious establishments.

Thomas followed and cited some notable scholars (not all of them conservative, for instance Akhil Amar) in the academy for the proposition that, as a federalism provision, the Establishment Clause resists incorporation. I think the argument is strong, but not quite airtight, for reasons I explain below.

In the comments, Dr. Ellis West chimed in:

The historical evidence simply does not support Prof. Rogers and Justice Thomas’ states’ rights interpretation of the establishment clause. See Ellis M. West, THE RELIGION CLAUSES OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT: GUARANTEES OF STATES’ RIGHTS? (2011), and reviewers unanimously accepted the book’s findings. Rogers’ interpretation is also based on the erroneous assumption, unfortunately perpetrated and maintained by the Supreme Court, that the establishment and free exercise clauses have different meanings. For the evidence that they were simply two different ways of saying the same thing, see Ellis M. West, THE FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION IN AMERICA: ITS ORIGINAL CONSTITUTIONAL MEANING (2019).

While I look forward to reading Dr. West's book, I am not convinced, yet at least, the two different clauses are "simply two different ways of saying the same thing." But I do believe there is something special about the two clauses that resists separating them.

And this is exactly what happens when the Free Exercise Clause gets incorporated to apply to state and local governments, but the Establishment Clause, because it's a federalism provision, does not. Interestingly, it was Professor Philip Hamburger who gave me this epiphany. Now, Hamburger does not think the Establishment Clause ought to incorporate; but rejects the doctrine of incorporation altogether.

So Hamburger's position is consistent. If the two clauses ought to rise and fall together because they can't be separated, his view is they fall together because nothing incorporates.

You might call this insight the "Siamese twin" thesis of the First Amendment's religion clause. When Hamburger explained it, he didn't use the Siamese twin analogy (I think you can attribute that to me), but rather invoked Wittgenstein. It was from a discussion Hamburger was having with fellow scholars of the religion clauses and he noted there were some Supreme Court cases where certain forces were advocating the term "religion" have one meaning for Free Exercise purposes, but another meaning for Establishment Clause purposes.

Hamburger noted from a linguistic perspective (I think that's when he appealed to Wittgenstein) such is a logical impossibility because even though they are two separate clauses, they use the term "religion" only once! The term "religion" is used in the Establishment Clause, but "thereof" in the Free Exercise Clause that relates back to the term in the Establishment Clause. That's why we  call them "clauses"; they are part of the same sentence.

It's like two Siamese twins who share the same heart.

Hall: "A Nuanced Report Card on Religious Liberty"

From Mark David Hall, writing at the Law and Liberty site. Dr. Hall reviews Steven Waldman's new book on religious liberty, which I hope to say more about later. But in the meantime, from Hall:

Steven Waldman has produced an excellent overview of the development of religious liberty in the United States. It is well-written, as one would expect of a journalist (the Beliefnet.com founder is a veteran of Newsweek, among other publications), but also well-researched and reasonably nuanced. Experts on particular eras or subjects will find details about which they can justly complain, but on the whole, Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom deserves high marks. 

Just one of the book’s 18 chapters is devoted to the early colonies. Waldman overstates the extent to which Puritans enforced repressive laws with “sadistic enthusiasm.” Yet he is certainly correct that no colony—not even Rhode Island or Pennsylvania—embraced a modern, liberal conception of religious freedom. 

America’s Founders rejected Old World approaches to church-state relations. They shared a commitment to protecting religious liberty, and many Founders were coming to question the efficacy of religious establishments. These views contributed to the adoption of a constitution that banned religious tests for federal offices, and to the crafting of a First Amendment that says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Sandefur on Thompson's New Book

At National Review, Timothy Sandefur reviews C. Bradley Thompson new book which seems destined to be a classic. A taste:

Thompson’s presentation is valuable because it helps correct modern mischaracterizations of the revolutionaries’ natural-law theories and shows just how rigorous and thorough their thinking was. His exploration of such questions as the relationship between natural rights and natural law, and between Lockean thought and the republican theories that the Founders drew from the ancient Romans, does justice to the ingenuity and depth of Revolutionary-era thinking.  

In fact, America’s Revolutionary Mind stands as a refutation of two noxious trends in recent American historiography. The first, which Thompson mentions only briefly in a few endnotes, is the effort to downplay the impact of Locke’s ideas on the Founding Fathers. Scholars of the “classical republican” persuasion have argued that, important as Locke may have been, American revolutionaries were more influenced by Greek, Roman, and Puritan writers who placed less emphasis on the rights of the individual than on the stability of society, the importance of tradition, and the need to sacrifice for the common good. Thompson, by contrast, argues that “America’s revolutionary mind is virtually synonymous with John Locke’s mind” and backs that argument up with an arsenal of examples.  

While the Founders certainly consulted the writings of such classical thinkers as Aristotle and Cicero, Thompson argues that they modified the ancients’ republicanism in light of their Lockean commitment to liberty: “For traditional republicans going back to ancient Greece and Rome, the sacrifice of individual interests for the common good was the ultimate standard of moral and political value,” he writes. But thanks to the influence of now-forgotten intellectuals such as Massachusetts minister Jonathan Mayhew, who wove Lockean theory together with Christian doctrine, the Founders adopted “a new and improved understanding of republicanism” that focused on what the Declaration calls “happiness and safety,” the twin pillars of the bourgeois commercial republic.

A lesson on how not to write an article

So on social media, I am friends with David Boaz, an author and executive who works for the Cato Institute. He posted a link to an article about Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence that was critical of himself.

The author is one Robert Curry and the article appeared at The Federalist. Long story short, Boaz supposedly engaged in a mistake that is all too common among academics who study the American founding: he said Jefferson et al. took from Locke's 2nd Treatise and put such into the Declaration. And simply credits Locke for those ideas.

But when we read the article, we observe no "there there." Curry invokes a distinction between what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration and what Locke wrote in the 2nd Treatise but fails to tell us why the distinction is meaningful.

Curry notes that it has something to do with Jefferson's use of the term "unalienable" that was lacking in Locke's original which stressed "property." And how property was missing from the Declaration.  Rather it was replaced with "pursuit of happiness." But again, no clear explication of why the differences makes a difference.

But here is the strange thing; The Federalist article makes Curry look like an ignorant pedant. But he's actually not. When I googled him, I saw that fairly notable, informed people were supporting Curry's work and that he was affiliated with organizations, notably Claremont, with informed folks who do good work.

Indeed, Claremont published a longer article of Curry's which actually gets into better details on his thesis. Curry may still be wrong and I do think he uses too many words to make his point; but indeed there is a "there there" to his thesis.

You are just going to have to read the Claremont article to find out. And perhaps we can blame the editors at The Federalist for their weaker article.

Warren Throckmorton: "Rick Joyner: Everything in the Constitution Comes from the Bible"

Check it out here. A taste:

For years, David Barton has promoted the false notion that everything in the Constitution comes from the Bible. Two summers ago, I read James Madison’s entire notes on the Constitutional Convention looking for the elusive biblical roots of the Constitution only to come up empty.  

Now self-appointed prophet Rick Joyner has taken up this message. ...

And:

... As noted, I read through the notes on the entire Constitutional Convention looking for the biblical influences on the Constitution. Surely, if the framers meant for the Bible to be the foundation of the Constitution, they would have cited it in their debates. Even if they didn’t use chapter and verse, there would have to be some reference to phrases from the Bible for these claims to be true. In fact, there were few references to the Bible or Christianity. There were far more references to Greek and Roman democracies, prior governments, British law and common sense. For the hearty souls who wish to take that same journey, I humbly recommend the series and the endeavor to read Madison’s notes on the 1787 convention. 

Law & Liberty: Founding Deists and Other Unicorns

More from Law & Liberty on Mark David Hall's new book. A taste:

We need to know what the word plethora means before we can say we have a plethora of piñatas. So, too, we cannot consider whether or not America had a Christian founding without having an idea of what the phrase Christian founding actually means. At the start of Did America Have a Christian Founding?, Mark David Hall rightly analyzes the question his book asks. What determines whether or not America had a Christian founding? Hall considers a variety of options. Did the members of the founding generation identify themselves as Christians? Almost everyone did, with the exception of about two thousand Jews. But that doesn’t tell us much. People can be bad believers, or they can be good Christians self-consciously founding a secular regime. Sincerity of belief can be difficult to judge. Appealing to people’s practices only gives us a partial view. And there’s a theological issue, too. At what point does a historical figure become a non-Christian due to his privately held unorthodox beliefs, even if he publicly identifies himself as a Christian?

Hall: "How Old Does a Monument Need to Be?"

From friend of American Creation, Mark David Hall, writing at the Law and Liberty site. As it concludes:

As I show in my recently published Did America Have a Christian Founding?, an originalist understanding of the Establishment Clause does not require governments to scrub religion from public spaces.  The erection of building and monuments containing religious language, images, and symbols is, to borrow from Chief Justices Warren Burger’s opinion in Marsh v. Chambers, “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.”  When buildings and monuments are erected should not be, from an Establishment Clause perspective, decisive. 

Civic friendship and prudence should inform decisions about the use of religious symbols today.  America is far more diverse than it was 100 years ago, so it would be inappropriate for a government to erect a massive cross to honor U.S. military members from different faiths. On the other hand, it is both constitutional and fitting to include crosses, stars of David, and other religious symbols in the 9/11 Memorial. The Establishment Clause does not require a religion-free public square, no matter how many times the Freedom From Religion Foundation insists that it does.

Also check out the dialog between Dr. Hall and Dr. Ellis West in the comments.

Thomas Jefferson and Antilegomena

There is a Catholic fundamentalist writer named Timothy Gordon who has a book out that explores the intellectual heritage of America's founding and Roman Catholicism. It's done from the perspective that seeks to credit Roman Catholicism for many of the good ideas that we see in America's founding.

(He has an open invitation to plug his work at American Creation.)

I have seen Mr. Gordon accurately (in my opinion) use the terms "Protestant" and "Enlightenment" together where Protestantism precedes Enlightenment. As a term: "Prot-Enlightenment." From an historical perspectives, the thought movements are associated with various periods of time. You have in this order: Renaissance, Reformation (Protestant), Enlightenment.

And the political theology of the American founding was a nice "fit" somewhere between "Protestantism" and "Enlightenment." Hence we have David Holmes terming the theology "Christian-Deism." And Gregg Frazer, "theistic rationalism," which is a hybrid midpoint between Protestant Christianity and strict Deism.

With Protestantism, all individual believers were priests who could read the Bible and decide for themselves how to understand it. With Enlightenment, they could go further than the initial reformers did and continue to disregard ground the original reformers and Roman Catholics have in common, like the Trinity, Incarnation and other doctrines.

The reformers and Catholics dispute which books of the Bible themselves are inspired. The Catholic Bible has 73 books, the Protestant 66. There is tremendously complex history on how the Bible came to be and why Protestants and Catholics differ. The Catholics call the seven disputed books "deuterocanonicals," the Protestants call them "Apocrypha."

Those disputed books are part of the Old Testament. Catholics and the reformers agree on the 27 books that make up the New. But even in compiling the books of the New, there was debate and dispute. Just as there were disputed books of the Old, so too with the New. They call disputed New Testament books Antilegomena.

From the Wiki link:

The antilegomena or "disputed writings" were widely read in the Early Church and included the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Book of Revelation, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache.^[2][3] 

During the period of Enlightenment, theological unitarianism became en vogue among some liberal theologians. But that's not a new idea. It goes back all the way to Arius and the Council of Nicea. Likewise, when Thomas Jefferson read books in the canon like the Book of Revelation and concluded it wasn't inspired, this had been done before with the Antilegomena.

But Jefferson did, seemingly, go beyond mere "dispute." As he put it:

[I]t is between 50. and 60. years since I read it, & I then considered it as merely the ravings of a Maniac, no more worthy, nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.

Though, I have seen some "orthodox" believers criticize and reject books of the deuterocanonicals in a similarly harsh manner.