Hall's Last Response to Frazer

For now. 

Mark David Hall has sent along this perhaps, final for now, response to Gregg Frazer. I've greatly enjoyed their recent dialog and am sure there will be more discussion in the future here at American Creation and elsewhere.

"Mark said he didn’t have time to identify particular errors/inaccuracies in my review.  Now, he’s contributed a couple of lengthy, detailed posts that clearly required time and effort.  This latest one was 1,074 words – including detailed citations. " 

Gregg, if you had read Did America Have a Christian Founding? carefully, you would realize that virtually all 1,074 words of my last post are cut and pasted from the chapter 1.  This is the fundamental problem, you haven't read the book with care.   

In the post before that one, I respond to your claim that I do not define "Christian" or "founding."  If you had read the book carefully, you would not have missed these definitions.   

"My 'accusation' is that Mark argues that they were some type of Christian..."  It is true that I state in the introduction that Americans of European descent were 98% Protestant, 2% Roman Catholic, and that there were approximately 2,000 Jews.  With the exception of Jewish citizens, I agree that virtually all Americans would have identified themselves as some type of Christian.  Even Jefferson did so.  But this is a statement of fact, not an argument, and I clearly say that it is an uninteresting fact (see page xxi).   

I later write that there are good reasons to believe that many of America's founders were orthodox Christians.  This is a far more interesting claim, but it is what jurists call dicta.  It is not a claim I argue for in this book.  

Finally, it is true that I see very little light between "warm deism" and "theistic rationalism," but even if I didn't it wouldn't affect any of my book's arguments.   

I could spend time writing more responses, but time is limited.  For the next two weeks, much of my time will be spent grading.  After the semester is over, I'll return to writing the sequel to Did America Have a Christian Founding?  Among the chapters will be one arguing that the War for American Independence was both biblical and just.  I'm sure you will enjoy it.