In 1776, long-persecuted Baptists hoped that the American Revolution would not only secure America’s liberty, but bring about full religious freedom. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison became their key allies in fulfilling that ambition. Jefferson’s collaboration with the Bible-believing Baptists was spiritually ironic. He remained relatively quiet about his religious skepticism during his political career, but in truth Jefferson did not believe in the resurrection of Christ or that Jesus was the Son of God. Nevertheless, in 1802 President Jefferson appealed for religious liberty in a letter that has become known as the “wall of separation” letter.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins: "The Baptist alliance with Thomas Jefferson that secured religious liberty"
Check it out here. A taste:
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demonstrated the partnership between skeptical or liberal Christian politicians, and legions of Baptists, in the cause of religious liberty
Unfortunately in 2015, allies of religious liberty number very few among the legions of skeptical or liberal Christian politicians.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/hosanna-tabor-evangelical-lutheran-church-and-school-v-eeoc/
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/
&c.
The first thing to merit comment is the third sentence:
Jefferson’s collaboration with the Bible-believing Baptists was spiritually ironic.
This collaboration is only ironic, in the sense of being unexpected, if there was no shared core value, which, in this case, was and remains, the individual right of conscience and expression uncoerced by government.
Many people in the 17th- and 18th-centuries that were aware of his work considered the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza to have been the greatest and most dangerous (to the established hierarchical order) atheist in print. Yet, he collaborated with the Dutch Collegiants as well as other sects of Christian nonconformists. Just as in the case of Jefferson and the baptists, or even modern atheists/agnostics and religion in general, the core principle that Spinoza expounded upon was the individual right of conscience and expression that includes freedom of religion and piety as well as freedom to philosophize unmolested by civil or religious authority as long as it didn't interfere in the peace of the state. As he wrote in his Theological-Political Treatise (1):
"To demonstrate this, I begin with the natural right of the individual person. (pg. 11)
"For no one can transfer to another person his natural right, or ability, to think freely and make his own judgements about any matter whatsoever, and cannot be compelled to do so. This is why a governments that seeks to control people's minds is considered oppressive." (pg. 250)
"hence, a government which denies each person freedom to speak and communicate what they think, will be a very violent government whereas a state where everyone is conceded this freedom will be moderate." (pg. 251)
1) Benedict de Spinoza, 1670. Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise; Containing several discourses which demonstrate that freedom to philosophize may not only be allowed without danger to piety and the stability of the republic but cannot be refused without destroying the peace of the republic and piety itself. , Jonathan Israel, ed., (2013), Cambridge, pp. 280.
Unfortunately in 2015, allies of religious liberty number very few among the legions of skeptical or liberal Christian politicians.
That wheel turns round and round.
www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a355560.pdf
Search for the character string 'Plojhar'.
I was amused to discover recently that Religion News Service gets 55% of it's budget from the Arcus Foundation, which is run by Kevin Jennings (yes, that Kevin Jennings). If you read their site, you would have figured that. "Religion News" as gay astroturf. By the way, the site has won awards from the "Religion Communicators Association" (which is, for all I know, another bit of astroturf) and the hired-hand editor welcome on PBS and NPR as if he were running a legitimate news service.
Anonymous Art Deco said...
Unfortunately in 2015, allies of religious liberty number very few among the legions of skeptical or liberal Christian politicians.
That wheel turns round and round.
www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a355560.pdf
Now, now, "Art." It's not fair to equate the Obama Administration's assault on religious liberty with the Soviet Communist oppression of the Catholic Church in 1983 Czechoslovakia.
The Obama Administration was democratically elected. We the People chose this oppression.
I was amused to discover recently that Religion News Service gets 55% of it's budget from the Arcus Foundation, which is run by Kevin Jennings (yes, that Kevin Jennings). If you read their site, you would have figured that. "Religion News" as gay astroturf. By the way, the site has won awards from the "Religion Communicators Association" (which is, for all I know, another bit of astroturf) and the hired-hand editor welcome on PBS and NPR as if he were running a legitimate news service.
Awesome find, dude. Another phony. Although the "astroturf" hides in plain sight, to anyone with Google. Still, you have to know where to look, and our "free " press doesn't.
[I did a google search on the Clinton Foundation 2 years ago, and found their tax return: Saw nothing but a slush fund for them and their pals, less than 20% of their "charity" given to charity. The rest went to "expenses" and hiring their pals.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/clinton-foundation-sidney-blumenthal-salary-libya-118359.html
I would have started an internet jihad when I uncovered the truth--just looking at the Clinton Foundation tax return and the diddly that actually made it to Haiti--but even now that the truth is out, nobody gives a good goddam anyway. Look how much time and effort I saved.
The truth always hides in plain sight. That's sort of everything I write here. We don't need no stinkin' David Barton. Spinoza's nice, but he never got past Locke.*
__________________________
*Our friend "jimmiraybob" seems to think he's telling this blog something they don't already know about Spinoza. Jon and I met over Leo Strauss.
Leo Strauss and the Recovery of the Theologico-Political Problem
Marc D. Guerra
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1529&theme=home&page=1&loc=b&type=cttf
But even Strauss [and his epigones] didn't get the effect of Locke, let alone Spinoza. They are philosophers, not historians. Actually, the Founders paid no close attention to either--Locke as far as he was useful, Spinoza, not at all.
" It's not fair to equate the Obama Administration's assault on religious liberty with the Soviet Communist oppression of the Catholic Church in 1983 Czechoslovakia."
That actually was not my precise point. My point was that functional equivalents of Josef Plojhar are quite common (even modal) in most denominations. There is not much resistance in religious congregations to what the legal profession and the arts and sciences faculty want, just as there is not much in the boardroom. It has been true for decades that mainline clergy are more likely to conceive of themselves as enlightened ones softening up vernacular resistance rather than promoting historic Christian teachings. That, I suspect, was true of the Catholic colleges before they were completely ruined, and true of about 30% of the Catholic clergy. The mentality has now spread to the evangelical academy (at least that portion spotlighted by Religion News Service).
As for what people vote for, if my experience in and observation of electoral politics is any guide, elections tell you what people will put up with, not what they favor. Consider the current regime in abortion law, which is favored by almost no one except the collection of lawyers who imposed it and a sliver of politicians who run interference for them. About the only thing that office-holders cannot get away with is tolerating poisons in the water table and increasing property taxes.
I will note that one might compare the situation of religious congregations today to the baselines of state-society relations in Eastern Europe in 1948 and in Canada and Sweden today. To what extent is there an additional increment of abuse that other social sectors are not enduring?
TVD – “*Our friend "jimmiraybob" seems to think he's telling this blog something they don't already know about Spinoza. Jon and I met over Leo Strauss.”
TVD – “But even Strauss [and his epigones] didn't get the effect of Locke, let alone Spinoza. They are philosophers, not historians. Actually, the Founders paid no close attention to either--Locke as far as he was useful, Spinoza, not at all.”
Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I think the comments section has readers beyond “this blog and you and Jon.”
My central point was that there is no irony in seemingly strange bedfellows working together if they are united around a core principle.
And Leo Strauss is not Spinoza nor the only or last word on Spinoza and his influence.
As to Spinoza's influence on the founding, his work was significant in the general religious-political discussion in Europe among the leading ideas people, the educated elite, politicians, religious leaders, philisophs, deists, etc., during the late 17th and well into the 18th century. His work was indirectly known via dissemination within the Republic of Letters and directly known to the best read and most traveled and intellectually informed founders/framers and supporters, especially those spending time in France. You cannot justify such a broad assertion as “Spinoza, not at all, with respect to his ideas.” At the very least Jefferson had several editions of Spinoza's Treatise in his library.
Here are some helpful references:
Rosalie L. Colie*, 1959. Spinoza and the Early English Deists. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 20, No. 1. (January), pp. 23-46.
Rosalie L. Colie*, 1963. Spinoza in England, 1665-1730. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 107, no.3. (June), pp. 183-219.
*Department of History, Wesleyan University - available free online at JSTOR with signup
Jonathan Israel, 2001, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. Oxford University Press. pp 810.
Jonathan Israel, 2007 (ed.), Spinoza: Theological-Political Treatise. Cambridge University Press, 1st edition. pp 331.
Jonathan Israel, 2011, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy. pp 296.
Susan James, 2014. Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics; the Theologico-Political Treatise. Oxford University Press. pp. 348.
There is not much resistance in religious congregations to what the legal profession and the arts and sciences faculty want, just as there is not much in the boardroom. It has been true for decades that mainline clergy are more likely to conceive of themselves as enlightened ones softening up vernacular resistance rather than promoting historic Christian teachings. That, I suspect, was true of the Catholic colleges before they were completely ruined, and true of about 30% of the Catholic clergy. The mentality has now spread to the evangelical academy (at least that portion spotlighted by Religion News Service)
Awesome.
I will note that one might compare the situation of religious congregations today to the baselines of state-society relations in Eastern Europe in 1948 and in Canada and Sweden today. To what extent is there an additional increment of abuse that other social sectors are not enduring?
It's complicated by our separation of church and state. In much of Europe, churches receive state subsidies: religion is seen as a self-evident public good.
However, the Americans did puzzle out [Madison foremost among them] that government subsidies also make the church easier for the state to bring to heel, and of course Tocqueville credited the American "separation" for religion genuinely thriving here, as opposed to Europe, where then [and even moreso today] the church is there but the lights aren't on.
You may find this passage from George Weigel interesting, that although JPII helped bring down the Soviets, it was a non-political politics.
"In the mid-1980s, after martial law had been lifted in Poland but while the independent self-governing trade union Solidarity was still legally banned, officials of General Wojciech Jaruzelski’s communist regime sounded out Polish church leaders with a proposal: The regime would open a national dialogue on Poland’s future and the Church would act as the regime’s interlocutor. Some Polish churchmen were tempted by the offer. But John Paul II declined the bait. Solidarity was the proper representative of Polish civil society, in his view, and the Church ought not substitute itself in that role, especially when that meant tacitly acquiescing to Solidarity’s legal non-status. The Church could help facilitate a conversation between the regime and the opposition, but the Church ought not replace the opposition.
That decision had theological roots. In John Paul II’s ecclesiology, the Church could not be a partisan political actor because that role contradicted the Eucharistic character of the Church (a theme he stressed in his challenge to various forms of Latin American liberation theology). It also reflected the strategic vision of John Paul II’s social doctrine, in which the Church formed the people who formed the civil society and the political institutions that did the work of politics; the Church was not a political agent in its own right, although the Church obviously had a voice in society.
In the event, the Church’s refusal to play “opposition party” to the “leading role” of the Communist party in Poland increased the pressure on the Jaruzelski regime to recognize the real Polish opposition, which was represented by Solidarity. Thus John Paul II’s principled decision helped create the conditions for the possibility of the Polish Round Table of early 1989 and the partially free elections of June 1989. And those elections, by delivering an overwhelming victory to Solidarity, made possible the first non-communist government in postwar Polish history.
The lesson here, for both twenty-first-century statesmen and the diplomats of the Holy See, would seem to be this: The cause of freedom and the cause of the Church are best served when statesmen and churchmen acting as statesmen think long-term and do not bracket or minimize core principles for what can seem to be immediate advantage."
The Church must stand outside the government, so it can oppose it.
Jon – thanks for posting Professor Kidd’s excellent article. As I have commented before, the history of the alliance between Jefferson-Madison and Backus-Leland can never be recounted enough. As Professor Kidd noted, religious liberty in America is founded upon religious disestablishment, probably the most “revolutionary” outcome of the American Revolution. We should be eternally grateful to these four men (and their many allies) for this landmark development in the founding of our nation. Whether evangelical Baptist or “theistic rationalist,” they enshrined the bedrock notion that religious liberty is also based on justice and equality before the law.
While today many outspoken Christians claim that the Bible conveys a strong sense of fairness and a respect for all individuals, that belief is too often not put into the practice by those who want their “Religious Opinions cognizable by Law.” (see Leland quote below).
Here are three of my favorite from Leland’s 1791 sermon, “The Rights of Conscience Inalienable; and therefore Religious Opinions not cognizable by Law: Or, The high-flying Churchman, stript of his legal Robe, appears a Yahoo,” (probably the best sermon subtitle ever).
1) “Uninspired fallible men make their own opinions tests of orthodoxy, and use their own systems, as Procrustes used his iron bedstead, to stretch and measure the consciences of all others by.”
2) “Is conformity of sentiments in matters of religion essential to the happiness of civil government? Not at all. Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of the mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear-maintain the principles that he believes-worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing … ; then if his doctrine is false it will be confuted, and if it is true (though ever so novel) let others credit it. When every man has this liberty what can he wish for more? A liberal man asks for nothing more of government.”
3) “The duty of magistrates is not to judge of the divinity or tendency of doctrines,”
While I think Tom’s observation that, “unfortunately in 2015, allies of religious liberty number very few among the legions of skeptical or liberal Christian politicians” is demonstrably incorrect (a quick google search found nine groups: The Interfaith Alliance, Disciples of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Association, Religious Action Center, Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, the American Friends Service Committee and various Episcopal Dioceses have all come out against anti-LBGT “Religious Liberty” laws), the greater irony is that a vast majority of Baptists today (the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty being the major exception) would reject Elder Leland’s remonstrance.
While I think Tom’s observation that, “unfortunately in 2015, allies of religious liberty number very few among the legions of skeptical or liberal Christian politicians” is demonstrably incorrect (a quick google search found nine groups: The Interfaith Alliance, Disciples of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Association, Religious Action Center, Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, the American Friends Service Committee and various Episcopal Dioceses have all come out against anti-LBGT “Religious Liberty” laws)
Those groups are the cream of American liberal Christianity [the Unitarians aren't even recognizably Christian; in fact, belief in God is optional!], and they do oppose religious liberty laws.
You have not rebutted me: My argument is demonstrably true, as you just demonstrated. Thank you.
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