He wants to “restore,” “return to,” or “reclaim” the “Judeo-Christian values” that he believes are “the foundation of this nation.”
How times have changed. A half-century ago, even a Democrat could say such things unmolested.
"I don't think we put enough stress on the necessity of implanting in the child's mind the moral code under which we live.
The fundamental basis of this Nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days.
If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally wind up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state."
Harry S Truman
February 15, 1950
Address Before the Attorney General's Conference on Law Enforcement Problems
Now, I don't necessarily agree with all this, um, chapter and verse, as it were, but judging by the approving reaction in some quarters to John's column, I do expect that such flagrant religious patriotism would sit uneasily with a sizable swath of today's Democrat electorate.
20 comments:
I've been very disappointed with Fea's treatment of Cruz. I've asked him several times about original source materials which contradict some of his accusations, but he seems to be content with hearsay. I don't agree with everything that Cruz says by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that he should be criticized or praised for positions that he actually holds and not for a caricature of those positions formed out of mere supposition.
Prof. Robert Gagnon was aghast at the column in Christianity Today. One of his correspondents provided him with a link to this article.
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Vote-for-This-Man-John-Fea-02-15-2012
Fea's remarks are those of an utter ingenue or a willing tool. Reduces one's motivation to take a single thing he says at all seriously to just about nil.
Fea - “Cruz’s Christian worldview is on display in virtually every speech he delivers. His campaign is perhaps best described as a reclamation project. He wants to ‘restore,’ ‘return to,’ or ‘reclaim’ the ‘Judeo-Christian values’ that he believes are ‘the foundation of this nation.’”
Truman was no Ted Cruz [From the Truman Library (1)]:
17. What are your views on religion?
I'm not very much impressed with men who publicly parade their religious beliefs.... I've always believed that religion is something to live by and not to talk about. I'm a Baptist because I think that sect gives the common man the shortest and most direct approach to God. I've never thought the Almighty is greatly interested in pomp and circumstance, because if He is He wouldn't be interested in >the sparrow' alluded to in St. Matthew's Gospel. Religious stuffed shirts are just as bad or worse than political ones in my opinion. (From a handwritten autobiographical manuscript, 1945. President's Secretary's Files.)
President Truman: I am by religion like everything else. I think there is more in acting than in talking. I had an uncle who said when one of his neighbors got religion strong on Sunday, he was going to lock his smokehouse on Monday. I think he was right from the little I have observed. (From a letter to Bess Wallace, February 7, 1911. Papers Relating to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs.)
In my opinion people's religious beliefs are their own affair, and when I don't agree with ‘em I just don't discuss religion. It has caused more wars and feuds than money, and that seems a shame too. (From a letter to Bess Truman, October 16, 1939. Papers Relating to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs.)
[The Baptists] do not want a person to go to shows or dance or do anything for a good time. Well I like to do all those things and play cards besides. So you see I am not very strong as a Baptist. Anyhow I don't think any church on earth will take you to heaven if you're not real anyway. I believe in people living what they believe and talking afterwards.... (From a letter to Bess Wallace, March 19, 1911. Papers Relating to Family, Business, and Personal Affairs.)
There is great talk and commotion about public prayer. Most of it is not of any value. Prayer is a petition to God in whom all Christians pretend to believe. Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists and Confucians worship the same God as the Christians say they do. He is all seeing, all hearing and all knowing. Nothing, not even the sparrow or the smallest bug escapes His notice.... No man needs an intermediary [to pray to God.] This intermediary thing was an inheritance of the Roman Gods Pantheon when a Pontifex Maximus was used to placate all the gods.... I don't believe that an intermediary is necessary for me to approach God Almighty. (From a handwritten manuscript found in Truman's desk after he died. Post-Presidential papers.)
"I've never been of the opinion that Almighty God cares for the building or the form that a believer approaches the Maker of Heaven and Earth. ''when two or three are gathered together" or when one asks for help from God he'll get it just as surely as will panoplied occupants of any pulpit. Forms and ceremonies impress a lot of people, but I've never thought that The Almighty could be impressed by anything but the heart and soul of the individual. That's why I'm a Baptist, whose church authority starts from the bottom-not the top." (From a handwritten manuscript [check], April 13, 1952. President's Secretary's Files.)
1) http://www.trumanlibrary.org/speaks.htm
Truman was no Ted Cruz [From the Truman Library (1)]:
And you've defined 'Ted Cruz' according to the general description of the untrustworthy John Fea.
Here's a stump speech summary. There are a couple of parenthetical references to himself or his family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2gwoJyCL6E
The Truman quote is completely inapplicable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAPO0FSBLIo
This is Ted Cruz at the Values Voter Summit. There's a 90 second discussion of Kim Davis which begins around the 12:50 mark. That's about the only thing in the speech at all relevant to your Truman quote.
"And you've defined 'Ted Cruz' according to the general description of the untrustworthy John Fea."
Look. We may disagree with Dr. Fea's assessment. But his bona fides as a "trustworthy" source are beyond reproach. That contrasts with David Barton, whose well has been poisoned by the many times he stuck his foot in his mouth.
But his bona fides as a "trustworthy" source are beyond reproach
No, they are not, as can be seen if you examine my links. That does not even get into a more involved question of what is implied in John Fea's portfolio of interests. It's your blog, go ahead and ban me. But don't lie to my face.
Anonymous Art Deco said...
Here's a stump speech summary. There are a couple of parenthetical references to himself or his family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2gwoJyCL6E
The Truman quote is completely inapplicable.
Yes, I'm not fond of this technique. You don't like a plain fact--such as that Truman traces America's moral and legal foundations to the Bible--you ignore it and argue Truman against Truman. It's an epistemological nihilism.
______________________________
JR: But his bona fides as a "trustworthy" source are beyond reproach. That contrasts with David Barton, whose well has been poisoned by the many times he stuck his foot in his mouth.
AC:---No, they are not, as can be seen if you examine my links. That does not even get into a more involved question of what is implied in John Fea's portfolio of interests.
This is also defective on the level of formal argument: first on ad hom/relevance, and then on an argument from authority, that an expert on A is therefore an expert on B. Barton is not at issue here at all; and John Fea's possible political biases and lack of rigor in making his case against Cruz are fair game.
Art Deco is not the first to question whether there are really any smoking guns in Cruz's rhetoric or actions that cross First Amendment lines. John's case relies on an answer in the affirmative, and if he does not make his case, it's fair to suspect partisanship--thus his past controversial writings alleging a robust religiosity on Barack Obama's part are relevant.
[See also the "Christian Dominionism" section of
http://billmuehlenberg.com/2016/03/30/dismantling-cruz-myths/
where Robert Gagnon's demurral on John Fea's article is quoted directly.]
_____________________________
As for the topic and argument of the original post here, it remains unmolested: If Cruz had said today what Truman said in 1950, I would expect a lot of blowback from the left. This is probative.
"Yes, I'm not fond of this technique. You don't like a plain fact--such as that Truman traces America's moral and legal foundations to the Bible--you ignore it and argue Truman against Truman. It's an epistemological nihilism."
He says from his epistemological culture-war bunker.
I actually have no problem whatsoever that Truman traced "America's moral and legal foundations to the Bible." I do not ignore it, I augment it. I have no problem with his having been Baptist who believed in fundamental Baptist tenets.
My point was to contrast Truman and Cruz - not the same animals. Hell, even Rafael - that would be papa Cruz - would acknowledge the difference between his son and the career politician Truman.
Speaking of Rafael - official campaign surrogate firing up the evangelical base, when he says the following is he also committing the grievous errors of the evil John Fea?
"Ted wants to restore America back to the fundamental Judeo-Christian and constitutional principles that have made America the greatest country on the face of the Earth."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqiwUnxmfmc
"Barton is not at issue here at all...."
I don't know why you guys can't just embrace the Dominionism and move forward. Of course Barton is politically involved with the Cruz campaign as a supporter and booster, along with Glenn Beck, and more:
”David Barton, an influential Christian author and activist, is taking charge of the leading super-PAC supporting Ted Cruz.”
”The super-PAC, Keep the Promise PAC, is the umbrella for a group of related pro-Cruz political committees that raised $38 million in the first half of the year, more than the super-PACs supporting any other candidate with the exception of Jeb Bush.” (1)
And David Barton is clearly, in his own words, aligned with Seven Mountains Dominionism (as is Rafael Cruz).(2)
Just embrace it.
1) @
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-09/pac-built-by-ted-cruz-mega-donors-gets-evangelical-leader
2) @
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/david-barton-advocates-seven-mountains-dominionism
Trying to drag in David Barton to smear Ted Cruz is dishonest and just sinks John Fea deeper. I'm sure he wishes you'd stop helping.
John doesn't need my help I'm not trying to speak for him.
Besides, why would you consider embracing the facts a smear?
There are no facts here, only innuendo. If you had direct quotes from Ted Cruz, you already would have used them.
You are only validating the original criticisms of John's article.
TVD is correct - Truman repeatedly referred to America as a "Christian nation." But so what? Does that make it true? Or was Truman reflecting the conventional wisdom of mid-century America and its absolutist “godless communism” rhetoric of Cold War American politicians and evangelicals? Why not cite J. Edgar Hoover, who claimed that the American ideal, from its inception, based itself on a fundamental belief in God, yet believed that MLK was a “godless communist.” While today Truman probably would be attacked by the left for his “Christian nation” assertions, he would be equally condemned from the right (certainly by Cruz, Perkins, Dobson, Falwell, Beck and Barton) for stating that, "Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists and Confucians worship the same God as the Christians say they do.”
Like most people and political leaders discussed on AC, Truman’s private views on religion complicate any easy either/or categorization. Although born a Baptist, “Truman once stated outright that he was ‘not a religious man.’ When he met with the evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham in 1950, he cut the meeting short in response to being told by Graham that he needed ‘faith in Christ and His death on the Cross.’ Truman would later denounce Graham as a ‘counterfeit’ in his autobiography, Plain Speaking.” http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/god-in-the-white-house/ Apparently Truman “loved to quote his grandfather’s warning that if someone prayed too loud ‘you better go home and lock up your smokehouse’.” http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/01/21/what-presidents-believe-about-god/30484
While today Truman probably would be attacked by the left for his “Christian nation” assertions
That was the point of the post. Thank you.
The rest of your laundry list of the left's bogeymen [Perkins, Dobson, Falwell, Beck and Barton] is irrelevant, and as for Ted Cruz, please supply direct quotes and not jaundiced guesses about what he would or would not say. We've had quite enough of this sort of thing, and frankly, it doesn't matter in the least what Ted Cruz privately believes about the God of Islam as long as he doesn't make it a public issue.
Which he has not.
JMS,
I think that Truman was sincere based on his largely rural Missouri Baptist upbringing and not just using it as a political ploy. I was born in MO just after his presidential career and have lived most of my time here in a larger urban center on the east side of the state as opposed to Truman’s Independence and Kansas City. I have also spent plenty of time in towns like Lamar, where Truman was born and raised – a very rural hard-scrabble and religiously conservative county.
What really steams Tom with the quotes that I put up is that it contrasts Cruz and Truman with respect to attitudes about religion and the public life. Something else that I see in Truman that I’ve seen in many of my fellow Missourians of another age is the separation of one’s religion from one’s public civil role. Unfortunately, Tom splattered Truman’s quote across the front page with insufficient clarification between the politician Truman, who was not a part of a Christian reconstruction/dominion effort and Ted Cruz who was raised within such an environment, has a wife and father that believe him to be some kind of inevitable new anointed Christian King*, and is now surrounding himself with many who are involved in Christian and/or Christian-Mormon Dominionism and/or messianism. It’s a different time and world than Truman’s time. What Truman sincerely believed about this being a Christian nation, but not making that a political platform, and what Cruz and his posse think is the restoration of the nation to be a Christian society are two vastly different things.
Tom asks for direct quotes, presumably something along the lines of Cruz stating before the cameras that a Christian nation is his goal (even then Tom would find a way to dismiss the evidence). But this won’t happen because Cruz is a smart and cunning guy and knows that this would sink him.
However, Cruz speaks to and for a distinctly conservative Christian base that knows what he is trying to restore and there’s no reason for the well informed person outside of his base to believe that he won’t pursue Christian dominionist goals of controlling the seven mountains of American culture, as David Barton has articulated and advanced. While Tom doesn’t like calling attention to the Barton (or Beck) connection, it is generally the strong close advisors and supporters from which a winning candidate draws for presidential advisors, cabinet members, diplomats, and – the big kahuna – judgeships.
Truman at the height of his political life was no Ted Cruz. Truman may have believed this to be a Christian nation but didn’t campaign to legislate Christian and biblical principles for all. The best that can be said of Cruz is that it’s unclear how far he will go to meet his closest family’s and his strongest supporter’s hopes and desires for a restored strong conservative Christian nation - the kind that a Christian King would rule.
Enough with the Dominionism unless you have direct quotes. And even if you do, it's irrelevant to religion and the Founding.
The point is not about Harry Truman or Ted Cruz, it's about how even mentioning our Biblical foundations has gone from routinely mainstream consensus to objectionable in certain revisionist quarters.
When conservatives attacked Barack Obama in the 2008 for the views and statements of his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright, the Left argued that Wright's views were not necessarily Obama's. Indeed, many on the Left argued rather vociferously that it was completely unjust to focus ANY attention on Wright's controversial statements when considering Obama as a presidential candidate. If the Left was right to say that in 2008...
Then, it's WRONG for the Left to assume Ted Cruz is a radical Christian Dominionist because of a few choice statements from his father and other religious leaders that have been associated with Cruz.
Let's be consistent on this, shall we?
TVD writes: "The point is not about Harry Truman or Ted Cruz, it's about how even mentioning our Biblical foundations has gone from routinely mainstream consensus to objectionable in certain revisionist quarters."
Agree 100000%. Getting back to the original post, it was pretty common and largely non-controversial until the last 50 years for Democrats and Republicans alike to refer to the Judeo-Christian origins of our nation. Why is it that this formerly near-universal, bipartisan consensus is now considered outrageous and dangerous today?
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