RE: The Religious Right

At 11:43 PM 4/20/2006, Donald Perrett wrote:
>Bob,
>"... The religious right has and still does
>involve their religiousity into their
>politics. To some degree this is a
>imperative. All people will do so. They
>however tend to use religion, or should I say
>their view of it, as the only means of decision
>making when it comes to politics. ... - Don P
>
>-----Original Message-----
>On Thursday, April 20, 2006 07:45, Robert Schneider wrote:
>
>Don,
>"... Christians ought to bring their religious
>convictions to political issues; what they
>shouldn't be doing is using a political party to
>establish one set of religious beliefs and
>values as the law of the land. That's why our
>founders established the principle of separation of church and state. - Bob

@ The bottom line:

".... "Are we a Christian nation?" I think the
answer depends entirely on what is meant by "Christian nation."

Are the theological doctrines of the Bible
explicitly woven into the fabric of government? The answer is no.

The non-establishment clause of the First
Amendment absolutely prohibits such a thing.
However, was the Biblical view of the world--the
existence of God who active in human history, the
authority of the Scripture, the inherent
sinfulness of man, the existence of absolute
objective morality, and God-given transcendent
rights--was that the philosophic foundation of the Constitution?

The answer is, without question, yes.

The American community presumed a common set of
values which were principally biblical. Further,
the founding principles of the Republic were
clearly informed by biblical truth.

A question can be asked at this point. Given the
fact that most of the Founding Fathers--either
those who are among the 55 delegates to the
Constitutional convention or those outside of
that number who were significant architects to
the Constitution--were in fact biblical
Christians and had sworn to that, and those that
weren't were at least deeply moved and informed
by a biblical moral view, one could ask the
question, "So what? What does that have to do with anything today?" ....

...This fact doesn' t give Christians a trump
card in the debate on public policy, in my view.
Just because Christians were here first doesn't
mean that their views should continue to prevail.
Within the limits of the Constitution, the
majority rules. That's the way this government works, ladies and gentlemen.

But let's not rewrite history to relegate those
with religious convictions to the sidelines. That
is the other half of this. The privilege of
citizenship remains the same for all despite
their religious convictions. Everyone gets a voice and everyone gets a vote.

Christians don't have a leg up on everyone else
because we were here first. Even the Christians
who wrote the rules didn't give us that liberty.
They didn't give us that leg up. They made the
playing ground even for everyone, every ideology, every point of view.

Having said that, though, in writing the First
Amendment and the non-establishment clause, they
did not have in view this current idea of
separation--that the state is thoroughly secular
and not informed at all by religious values, especially Christian.

This view that is popular now was completely
foreign, not just to the Founders, but to the
first 150 years of American political thought.
It's absolutely clear that the Fathers did not
try to excise every vestige of Christian
religion, Christian thought, and Christian values
from all facets of public life.

In fact, they were friendly to religion in
general, and to Christianity in particular, and
encouraged its education and expression. .."

[end excerpt of complete commentary below]

                              ================================================================================================
This is a transcript of a commentary from the
<http://www.str.org/site/News2?pagePageServer?pagename=res_rad_index>radio
show "Stand to Reason," with Gregory Koukl. ..
Reproduction permitted for non-commercial use only. ©1995 Gregory Koukl

America's Unchristian Beginnings? - Gregory
Koukl http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5097

Greg responds to an L.A. Times Op-Ed article by
this title (sans question mark), subtitled
"Founding Fathers: Despite preachings of our
pious Right, most were deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus."

There has been a lot of confusion on the issue of
whether or not we' re a Christian nation, and I'm
not exactly sure why. But it is hotly debated in
our culture right now. The reason I say I'm not
sure why is because the historical record is
quite clear. I think that Christians, though,
often make inappropriate, unfounded, or
inaccurate applications of some of the
information, and I want to speak to that in just a moment.

As to the faith content of those who were our
Founding Fathers, there can be absolutely no
confusion about the fact that virtually every
single one of them shared a Christian, biblical
world view. There is some question as to whether
every single one of them held to all the orthodox
teachings of classical Christianity; but it seems
to me that there is very little question as to
what their religious persuasions and world views were.

There was a piece in the L.A. Times on the third
of this August on the Op-Ed page entitled
"America's Unchristian Beginnings." It is
subtitled "Founding Fathers: Despite preachings
of our pious Right, most were deists who rejected
the divinity of Jesus." There are a couple things
that trouble me about this article, the biggest
thing is the word "most" in the subtitle. "Most
of our Founding Fathers" apparently were deists,
according to this person's assessment. This is a
canard that's been tossed around even by some
Christians who ought to know better. This piece
was written by Steven Morris who is a professor
of physics at L.A. Harbor College and he is also
a member of the L.A.-based Atheists United.

Some might say, what does a physicist know about
history? Just because he is a physicist doesn't
mean that he can't have an accurate opinion about
this particular issue. I take issue with his research. It' s simply bad.

He goes on to reply to the Christian Right, who
he says is trying to rewrite the history of the
United States in its campaign to force its view
of religion on others. His approach is to quote
seven different people: Thomas Paine, George
Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan
Allen, James Madison, and Ben Franklin. His point
is to quote these individuals who he thinks
apparently are, first of all, Founding Fathers,
and secondly, characteristic of the lot of them
in rejection of Christianity and in acceptance of deism.

I am frustrated by this because it is
characteristic of the way a lot of people want to
treat this issue. They think that they can take
names that we associate with that period and are
well known, sift through their writings and find
some things that they think are hostile to
Christianity, and therefore conclude that not
only these people are anti-Christian, but all of
the rest of them are anti-Christian, as well.

It's an example of Steven Morris turning the
exception into the rule. Since he can find what
he thinks are seven different people that are
important personalities during this period of
time, who at some time in their lives may have
written something that can be understood to be
non-Christian, then that characterizes the whole
group of them as deists, ergo the subtitle "Most
were deists who rejected the divinity of Jesus."

Morris' sightings are simply specious. Thomas
Payne and Ethan Allen, for example, were in no-
wise intellectual architects of the Constitution.
Rather, they were firebrands of the Revolution.
Was that important? Sure, they made an important
contribution, but they weren't Founding Fathers. Period.

Now, as for Washington, Sam Adams, Jefferson, and
Madison. If one looks at the literature of the
time--the personal correspondence, the public
statements, the biographies--he will find that
this literature is replete with quotations by
these people contrary to those that Mr. Morris
very carefully selected for us. Apparently, he
also very carefully ignored other important
thinkers: John Witherspoon, for example,
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, Patrick
Henry. All individuals who were significant
contributors to the architectural framework of
this country and who had political philosophies
that were deeply influenced by Christianity, especially Calvinism.

But there is another thing that he completely
overlooks in this analysis. Something that makes
a mockery out of his analysis, and also answers
the question quite simply and directly and in the
affirmative for us about the Christian beginnings of our Republic.

This issue is actually very simple. The phrase
"Founding Fathers" is a proper noun. In other
words, Founding Fathers refers directly to a very
specific group of people (although I think you
could be a little bit flexible and include a
little wider group of people). Those who
intellectually contributed to the Constitutional
convention were the Founding Fathers. If we want
to know whether our Founding Fathers were
Christian or deists, one needs only to look at
the individual religious convictions of those 55
delegates of the Constitutional convention.

How would we know that? We look at their church
membership primarily, and also at their
correspondence. Back then church membership was a
big deal. In other words, to be a member of a
church back then, it wasn't just a matter of
sitting in the pew or attending once in a while.
This was a time when church membership entailed a
sworn public confession of biblical faith,
adherence, and acknowledgment of the doctrines of that particular church.

Of those 55 Founding Fathers, we know what their
sworn public confessions were. Twenty-eight were
Episcopalians, eight were Presbyterians, seven
were Congregationalists, two were Lutheran, two
were Dutch Reformed, two were Methodist, two were
Roman Catholic, one is unknown, and only three
were deists--Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin.

To heap more fuel on the fire of my point, of the
55, the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the
Congregationalists, and the Dutch Reformed (which
make up 45 of the 55) were Calvinists, for
goodness sake! In other words, these weren't just
Christians, these were among the most extreme and
doctrinally strict Christians around. Of the 55
delegates, virtually all of them were deeply
committed Christians. Only three were deists.
Even Franklin is equivocal because, though not an
orthodox Christian, Franklin seems to have
abandoned his deism early in life and moved back
towards his Puritan roots. Indeed, it was 81 year
old Franklin's emotional call to humble prayer on
June 28, 1787, that was actually the turning
point for a hopelessly stalled Constitutional
convention. We have his appeal on record thanks
to James Madison who took copious notes of the
whole proceeding. His appeal contained no less
than four direct quotations from Scripture. This
does not sound like a man who was hostile to the Christian religion.

But this assessment doesn' t answer a more
fundamental question: Are we a Christian nation?
It seems clear that most of the Founders were
Christians, not deists. But what about the
question "Are we a Christian nation?" I think the
answer depends entirely on what is meant by "Christian nation."

Are the theological doctrines of the Bible
explicitly woven into the fabric of government?
The answer is no. The non-establishment clause of
the First Amendment absolutely prohibits such a
thing. However, was the Biblical view of the
world--the existence of God who active in human
history, the authority of the Scripture, the
inherent sinfulness of man, the existence of
absolute objective morality, and God-given
transcendent rights--was that the philosophic
foundation of the Constitution? The answer is,
without question, yes. The American community
presumed a common set of values which were
principally biblical. Further, the founding
principles of the Republic were clearly informed by biblical truth.

A question can be asked at this point. Given the
fact that most of the Founding Fathers--either
those who are among the 55 delegates to the
Constitutional convention or those outside of
that number who were significant architects to
the Constitution--were in fact biblical
Christians and had sworn to that, and those that
weren't were at least deeply moved and informed
by a biblical moral view, one could ask the
question, "So what? What does that have to do with anything today?"

I think that Christians may be a little out of
line on this part of the issue, and I want to
bring it into balance. Regarding the question, Is
America a Christian nation?, if we mean by that
that Christianity is the official, doctrinal
religion of this country, the answer is of course
not. That's prohibited by the exclusion clause of
the First Amendment. If we mean that we were
founded on Biblical principles by Christian men
who had a deep commitment to the Scriptures by
and large, the answer is certainly yes.

But then the question is, So what? How does what
happened 200 years ago influence what is going on
now? I actually have two points to make.

This fact doesn' t give Christians a trump card
in the debate on public policy, in my view. Just
because Christians were here first doesn't mean
that their views should continue to prevail.
Within the limits of the Constitution, the
majority rules. That's the way this government works, ladies and gentlemen.

But let's not rewrite history to relegate those
with religious convictions to the sidelines. That
is the other half of this. The privilege of
citizenship remains the same for all despite
their religious convictions. Everyone gets a
voice and everyone gets a vote. Christians don't
have a leg up on everyone else because we were
here first. Even the Christians who wrote the
rules didn't give us that liberty. They didn't
give us that leg up. They made the playing ground
even for everyone, every ideology, every point of view.

Having said that, though, in writing the First
Amendment and the non-establishment clause, they
did not have in view this current idea of
separation--that the state is thoroughly secular
and not informed at all by religious values,
especially Christian. This view that is popular
now was completely foreign, not just to the
Founders, but to the first 150 years of American
political thought. It's absolutely clear that the
Fathers did not try to excise every vestige of
Christian religion, Christian thought, and
Christian values from all facets of public life.
In fact, they were friendly to religion in
general, and to Christianity in particular, and
encouraged its education and expression.

As to the durability of this tradition, I suggest
that anyone who has any doubts about this simply
read Lincoln's second inaugural address, which is
etched into the marble of the northern wall of
the Lincoln Memorial. Go there and read it. Face
Lincoln, turn right, and there it is. It contains
no less than three or four biblical references.

After that you can reflect on
<http://www.str.org/site/News2?pageNews2?page=NewsArticle&id=5651>Lincoln's
Thanksgiving Proclamation of October 3, 1863. It
begins this way: "It is the duty of nations, as
well as of men, to own their dependence upon the
overruling power of God, to confess their sins
and transgressions [By golly, how did that get in
there?] in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope
that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and
pardon. And to recognize the sublime truth
announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by
all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord."

I think that pretty much settles it. ~ Greg Koukl

~ Janice
Received on Sun Apr 23 23:31:13 2006