In my last post I wrote,
... What was the main area that connects all of the "key Founders" in their personal and political theology: The idea that there is a Providence and future state of rewards and punishments. The other doctrinal issues (especially whether Jesus was 2nd Person in the Trinity) where religions differ are superfluous and insignificant.
That's the lowest common denominator of "religion" that all good men believe in. That's why Calvinists, Swedenborgs, Jews and, today, Mormons (perhaps even Muslims; at least the good Muslims who peacefully demean themselves under America's civil law, which I would argue is the overwhelming majority of them) can feel communion with the God who "founded" America.
My American Creation coblogger the Rev. Brian Tubbs responded:
Jon, I don't agree with your assessment that doctrinal issues, including the deity of Jesus, are "superfluous and insignificant." I think some of those issues are crucial, and many of the Founders would've likewise considered them significant. It's unlikely, for example, that you'd get Noah Webster to refer to the deity of Christ as superfluous.
But I agree with you that monotheism combined with a future state of rewards and punishments was a common unifier, esp when you add TVD's clarification about God-given rights.
[Let me note as an aside that Webster may not have been an orthodox Christian during the Founding era when he was applauding the US Constitution as an "empire of reason" and looking forward to the progress of the French Revolution. But his statements in the early 19th Century do certainly reflect those of an orthodox Christian Americanist.]
When examining the words of the "theistic rationalists" or "Christian-unitarian-universalists" J. Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin, we see they wavered in their theology between bitterly rejecting the Trinity and orthodox doctrines as "corruptions" on the one hand (if that's the case then how could they feel communion with Trinitarians?) and terming those doctrines insignificant on the other (in that sense they COULD feel communion with Trinitarians).
I don't get any of the bitter rejection of the Trinity from Madison and Washington and I get less of it from Franklin than from TJ and JA. But I do sense the Trinity and other orthodox doctrines utterly insignificant to GW and JM. I judge this chiefly because, in their public AND private words, their God talk, JM and GW, while commonly speaking of "Providence" virtually ignored the Trinity and other orthodox doctrines. So if we were going to draw a lowest common denominator among all five of those "key Founders" perhaps we could say rejection of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine is a tenet. But to include JM and GW might be a stretch, even though I personally believe both of them privately rejected orthodox Trinitarian doctrine.
It would be more cautious then to form an LCD of those five around Providence, where the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, eternal damnation, etc. were superfluous and insignificant. And this is where their PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS connect with their PUBLIC POLITICAL THEOLOGY.
Now, many of the 2nd tier orthodox Trinitarian Founders like Roger Sherman, Sam Adams, John Witherspoon likewise signed onto this non-sectarian Providentialist PUBLIC political theology while personally holding orthodox Trinitarian convictions as necessary for salvation an whatnot.
But they weren't the "key Founders." They weren't leading the show. Had they been, they could have formulated an orthodox Trinitarian political theology. They could have specified, when speaking on behalf of America, that the God whom they invoked was the Triune God of the Bible, perhaps put a Covenant to Him in the US Constitution. Or even if they stuck with the "no religious test clause," still made clear in the US Constitution that the God to whom they would pay homage was the Triune God of the Bible.
But they didn't. Instead we get a more generic inclusive Providence one that could unite evangelicals, Mormons, Jews and Muslims in political theological communion. The Triune God of the Bible could not do that.
So I hope that better answers the question as the why the non-Trinitarian religious convictions of the Founders made a difference.
5 comments:
So what you're saying is that unitarianism's effect was keeping doctrine out.
Perhaps. But the explanation may be simpler:
Behind Washington, perhaps the most admired man in America [and the American admired most internationally] was Ben Franklin. Franklin was there on the committee drafting the Declaration, and also a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and a signer.
Of all the "key" Founders [and he surely was one], Franklin's views on doctrine were no secret. He was unconcerned with doctrine, accepted none, rejected none.
Therefore, it would make no sense to insert any doctrinal language that Franklin couldn't assent to. His assent was certainly "key."
It seems to me that doctrine was a non-starter for Franklin's very presence, so they gave it no more thought.
[As a practical matter, any Christ-talk would have only been ceremonial anyhow, and not changed the Founding theology. One area I've seldom seen addressed is that despite the quasi-theocracy of the Pilgrims and New England Puritans, they had abandoned it by the time of the Founding as unworkable.]
"[As a practical matter, any Christ-talk would have only been ceremonial anyhow, and not changed the Founding theology. One area I've seldom seen addressed is that despite the quasi-theocracy of the Pilgrims and New England Puritans, they had abandoned it by the time of the Founding as unworkable.]"
Because them uniting politically had almost nothing to do with any sotierological issues. I guess Jon is saying that because the key dudes were supposed heretics they kept the religious stuff out, or better said the doctrinal stuff out? That is a stretch. The orthodox, for the most part, did not want it in there either.
Like you said numerous times, they saw what the doctrinal wars had done to Europe for hundreds of years and wanting nothing to do with it.
I think Tom's last post sums that up nicely and helps explain how and why the religious right does it now.
Jon,
I would spend less time trying to push this wedge issue to divide that movement and more time trying to unite with libertarians that are religious but are small govt. pro-liberty. A Jim Babka if you will.
I guess I just brought politics into this but so be it. Go look at my comment at your other blog to you James and DA under the strawman post.
I find Jon is rounding out his views nicely, and not just saying the same stuff he might have said a year ago, but taking in that year of discussion into account. Unitarianism and other doctrinal schisms---I'd put them all under the umbrella of Protestantism---certainly had their effect.
And certainly Europe had been proving that doctrine = war.
I rather liked my "Franklin Minimum" argument, which didn't occur to me until reading Jon's latest post. Basically, if Franklin couldn't assent to something---and his religious views were no mystery, unlike all the rest of Jon's "key" Founders---it didn't go in.
I agree with most of Jon's post, particularly that there was a "non-sectarian Providentialist PUBLIC political theology" that united virtually all the Founders and virtually all Americans.
If you'll excuse the personal aside, it is precisely this kind of "public theology" (the kind embraced by Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, etc.) that I believe the United States should embrace today in the public square.
Where I differ with Jon, though, is how he's suggesting that the "PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS" of the non-Christian Founders made this public theology possible.
I disagree with that assessment. Not all the Christian Founders were clamoring for some kind of established church. In fact, a great number of Christians, particularly at the popular / grassroots level, welcomed an insitutional separation of Church and State with wide latitude and freedom granted churches and denominations.
"I agree with most of Jon's post, particularly that there was a "non-sectarian Providentialist PUBLIC political theology" that united virtually all the Founders and virtually all Americans.
If you'll excuse the personal aside, it is precisely this kind of "public theology" (the kind embraced by Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, etc.) that I believe the United States should embrace today in the public square.
Where I differ with Jon, though, is how he's suggesting that the "PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS" of the non-Christian Founders made this public theology possible. "
My same objection. Though I agree with Tom that Jon's writing on this topic does reflect some of the discussions we have had.
I think he should stick with the religious freedom angle as far as how unitarianism affected political theology. It is a non-starter on many of issues for the reasons that Brian states which is very similar to my statement above.
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