The conversation at this month's Cato Unbound has begun.
This is Mark Hall's response. A taste:
Rather than simply state the uncontroversial fact that virtually all late eighteenth century Americans identified themselves as Christians, I chose to address the common assertion that “most” or “many” of America’s founders were deists. Far too many sensible scholars make these or similar claims, including Professor Allen (“The Founding Fathers were … skeptical men of the Enlightenment who questioned each and every received idea they had been taught”) and Professor Green (“Although many of the nation’s elites privately embraced deism, The Age of Reason and other works popularized irreligion among the laboring and working classes”).[1]
In addition to Professors Allen and Green, academic and popular authors including Gordon Wood, Geoffrey Stone, Richard Hughes, Frank Lambert, Matthew Stewart, R. Lawrence Moore, Isaac Kramnick, Garry Wills, Steven Keillor, Richard Dawkins, and many others have claimed that America’s founders were deists.[2] Because this assertion is so widespread, it seemed worthwhile to set the historical record straight. In my short essay, and in Did America Have a Christian Founding?, I offer excellent reasons for rejecting this error. That Professors Allen and Green do not even attempt to refute my arguments suggest that I have succeeded.
2 comments:
John, I've mentioned this before, but it's important to remember the founding fathers formed the only Christian nation at that time; ever, without Christ as the foundation of the social compact. Christ is nowhere in the founding documents that established the union. The reason they did this has to do with the time they lived in. The ff's lived and learned in the age of enlightenment rationalism (the age of reason). Meaning they questioned and rejected the bible for their own interpretation of what God said; called eisegesis. A regenerated Christian does not and cannot do that. The Christian accepts what God has preserved by Providence (Power) to be His word, even though there are difficult passages to understand.
Instead of forming the nation's foundational documents on Christ as pre-eminent authority and head of the nation, they used an extrabiblical and enlightenment rationalist doctrine called "Religion is left to the States." They employed this doctrine so that the people could change whatever religion they wanted within each State, through consent, whenever they wanted, rather than establish the unbreakable head and preserver of the union, on Christ. The people took part in this through each State's ratification debates, where the people approved and established this doctrine, and were of the same mind as the representatives themselves, besides a few Christians and a few Calvinists. Dr. Hall believes this a trifle; it is not. The fact remains; Christ is nowhere to be found in the foundational documents to declare to the world and themselves, that they formed a Christian nation, with Christ as the head. Not even in the Northwest Ordinance, which established guidelines for newly formed States, only included the word "religion." Unitarians took communion that entire time, making it almost impossible to determine who was really saved, and through the half way covenant, unbelievers were added to the church without giving a testimony of their faith, in order to liberalize it, which they did. The same goes for the ministers, whose testimony was chopped up.
Had Jonathan Edwards and the top leadership of the Calvinists lived to the founding, they would not have allowed the formation of a secular nation because they were post-millennialists.
Had Jonathan Edwards and the top leadership of the Calvinists lived to the founding, they would not have allowed the formation of a secular nation because they were post-millennialists.
Jonathan Edwards showed little or no interest in earthly politics. Another powerful Protestant theme is "Two Kingdoms"--give to Caesar what is Caesar, to God what is God's. This was a common Baptist position.
Forming a worldly government "with Christ at the head" is what's extraBiblical--I defy you to show us any such thing in the scriptures.
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Mark David Hall won this round and put some big butthurt on Allen and Green lol---
Far too many sensible scholars make these or similar claims, including Professor Allen (“The Founding Fathers were … skeptical men of the Enlightenment who questioned each and every received idea they had been taught”) and Professor Green (“Although many of the nation’s elites privately embraced deism, The Age of Reason and other works popularized irreligion among the laboring and working classes”).[1]
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