Here's a problem I have with your response: You are engaging in what's known as the genetic fallacy/poisoning the well. You intimate that if I am not "Christian" I can't properly view the American Founding & religion. Not being a Christian may send me to Hell, but it detracts nothing from the facts I uncover or arguments I make on this issue. But even accepting your logical fallacy, many Christians whose orthodox and evangelical bona fides are beyond reproach, view the American Founding the way I do (or vice versa). Indeed, they, not [David] Barton, are the cutting edge scholars on Christianity and the American Founding. These include men like Mark Noll, Gary Scott Smith, Gregg Frazer and many others. Of them, I've gotten to know Dr. Frazer and believe me, you don't have to warn me about Hellfire because he has on our American Creation threads.
In addition to him, whose work we feature regularly at AC (he's been invited as a frontpage blogger but declined) Rev. Brian Tubbs (a front page poster) is an evangelical minister and, Dr. John Fea, our regular reader and friend, is an evangelical and historian at Messiah College.
Gregg Frazer (who, as I've told you, is John MacArthur's key historian/political scientists on these issues at his church and college) would, as a fellow evangelical WARN YOU about corrupting the purity of the Bible's message by incorporating non-Christian, Americanist theology into the pulpit! You are the one, from the perspective of evangelical biblical Christianity, bringing down the Bible's message with impurity.
I don't know who the Deist big three or four are. The Deists, as I recognize them, are Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen and Elihu Palmer. And though they did important work, in part because of their outspoken Deism, they were not "key Founders." The key Founders are the first 4 Presidents, Ben Franklin and a few others. And although, if your religion is true, as mere men, they had no real power to TOUCH God's Word, they indeed ATTEMPTED to turn Christianity into a generic moralizing creed and succeeded in establishing THEIR man made creed -- which was neither Deism nor orthodox Christianity -- as the political-theological foundation of America.
The problem with trying to get a hold of the beliefs of the 200 or so FFs, taken as a collective, all we have are minimalistic connections to Christian churches for virtually all of them. On the surface both Jefferson and Patrick Henry were Anglicans/Episcopalians. The other supposed "Deist" (which he was not) Franklin likewise has a minimalistic connection to Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism. We need carefully examine their writings. And unfortunately there are question marks with most of them. That's why we focus carefully on the writings of the first and second tier Founders [the first 4 Presidents, Ben Franklin, Hamilton, G. Morris, Wilson, Sherman, Mason, Witherspoon, Jay, Henry.] But we also welcome religious explications from more forgotten Founders as well. Ultimately they were a mixed bag and Barton's formulation that 4 or 5 were deists, the rest "Christians" is false.
Re Henry (and yes I know he "smelt a rat" at the Constitutional Convention) what I said about him is fact: Though an orthodox Christian, his "give me liberty or give me death" line was taken, not from the Bible or a "Christian" source, but from Addison's Cato.
On Witherspoon, terming his writings in Lectures On Moral Philosophy, "Catholic" is probably the most charitable "Christian" reading you can given them. His "Lectures" are important because THAT and not Calvinism is what he taught his Princeton political students like James Madison. Witherspoon PURPOSEFULLY ignores the Bible in Lectures and the entire work is a defense of arguing metaphysical truths from reason/rationalism, not the Bible. It's Scottish Enlightenment 101. But my conservative Roman Catholic friends tell me Scottish Enlightement looks a lot like Aristotelian-Thomism.
Now, Witherspoon's Lectures are available online for free [hyperlink not in my original email]. Do you want me to direct you to them?
Regards,
Jon Rowe
Monday, January 4, 2010
Letter to a "Christian Americanist"
David Barton won't debate but sometimes folks involved in the "Christian America" movement engage in dialog. What follows is my latest email to an unnamed Christian Americanist, involved in the movement. I don't need to reproduce the series. I think you can get the gist of what we've discussed from the context of my email:
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7 comments:
Gregg Frazer (who, as I've told you, is John MacArthur's key historian/political scientists on these issues at his church and college) would, as a fellow evangelical WARN YOU about corrupting the purity of the Bible's message by incorporating non-Christian, Americanist theology into the pulpit! You are the one, from the perspective of evangelical biblical Christianity, bringing down the Bible's message with impurity.
Oy. Another intramural fundamentalist theological battle, not a historical one.
If David Barton hadn't already been on our mainpage twice this month, I'd put his reply on to MacArthur, etc. on our mainpage. But here it is, which fairness requires a reading of the whole thing:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=24548
Excerpt:
While such charges certainly reflect the personal views of these critics, they definitely do not accurately reflect the extended theological debates that occurred at the time of the American Revolution. In fact, contrary to Dr. Cornett’s claim that the Founding Fathers “turned to Enlightenment rhetoric for validation” of the American Revolution, the topic of civil disobedience and resistance to governing authorities had been a subject of serious theological inquiries for centuries before the Enlightenment. This was especially true during the Reformation, when the subject was directly addressed by theologians such as Frenchman John Calvin, 4 German Martin Luther, 5 Swiss Reformation leader Huldreich Zwingli, 6 and numerous others.
...
In fact, the spiritual nature of America’s resistance was so clear even to the British that in the British Parliament:
Sir Richard Sutton read a copy of a letter relative to the government of America from a [Crown-appointed] governor in America to the Board of Trade [in Great Britain] showing that. . . . If you ask an American, “Who is his master?” He will tell you he has none – nor any governor but Jesus Christ. 28
Such spiritual declarations – confirming what was readily evident even to America’s opponents – certainly are not consistent with what critics inaccurately claim is the Unitarian, Deistic, and Secular Enlightenment rebellion basis of the American Revolution.
I'm not defending any of this, because there are flaws, except to say that Barton has a better handle on the historical facts than his fundamentalist critics.
And none of this matters to non-fundamentalists anyway.
Tom,
I don't mind (and I don't think others would either) if Barton's response were put on the front page.
I would just be careful about copyright/fair use issues.
Daniel Dreisbach (if he even knows you reproduced his response) I don't think would mind, given its positive context and the fact that he is friends with Gregg and gets largely positive press over here. (though does Driesbach or Wallbuilders own the copyright to Dreisbach's critique of the Godless Constitution? Hmmm.)
Barton, on the other hand,...if Wallbuilders found out we took too much without "breaks," they might balk.
That's the irony of "fair use" law. If you simply reproduce a piece, you've (arguably) violated copyright. If you reproduce it line by line with criticisms in between, then it's a "fair use."
Oy. Another intramural fundamentalist theological battle, not a historical one.
It's actually both. These "reclaiming America" people (after DJ Kennedy) take their theological-cultural-political issues and mix American Founding history in there. And then intimate if you aren't a "Christian" like they are, you aren't qualified to judge history!
I'm just trying to separate the "historical" from the mix. And I know, it's very difficult like trying to unmix paint.
I don't want David Barton on our mainpage atall, pro or con. One thing we all agree on, he's not a legitimate historian.
And then intimate if you aren't a "Christian" like they are, you aren't qualified to judge history!
Well, I laugh when non-Catholics presume to advise the Pope. And I certainly wouldn't tell a Muslim how to understand the Quran, or an LDSer about the Book of Mormon. So when evangelicals battle, I butt out, not being one meself.
I cannot speak meaningfully about what is "corrupting the purity of the Bible's message" and what is not.
As for copyright on the Dreisbach piece, I cut some stuff out so as to not "reproduce it." But can sue us for a share of our profits if he wants.
;-)
[Yes, yes, or his damages, clipping from a website that makes him no money either.]
Or the $150,000 per every willful violation!
No willfulness. There were edits.
It was as Larry Lessig puts it a "remix." (Fancy word for derivative work.)
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