Did Jesus Endorse a Separation of Church and State?

And if so, How Far Did
He Want it to Go?

So I realize that this post is likely to ruffle a few feathers. After all, many people have very passionate feelings about the man from Nazareth known to billions of followers as Jesus the Christ. With this in mind, I will try to treat the topic with as much care as I can.

The very question posed in this post probably seems strange. After all, Jesus and his teachings, at least for the devout Christian, seem to transcend trivial political issues like church/state separation. Why would the Savior of mankind care about political ideology, governmental structure, etc. when he himself was called "King of kings and Lord of lords"? Shouldn't that suffice? Why would Jesus waste his time addressing the relatively mundane details surrounding issues like prayer in school, the oaths of the Pledge of Allegiance, the role (if any) that organized religion should play in the halls of government, etc., etc. etc.? Perhaps Gov.Mike Huckabee said it best when asked what Jesus would do as a modern politician:




And perhaps he is right. Surely Jesus would spend his time dealing with more important matters, right?

Not so fast.

While it is true that Jesus' primary goal was to bring people to him as the Savior of mankind, it would be both foolish and inaccurate to state that he cared nothing of the affairs of this world. And even though he made it clear that his "kingdom was not of this world," Jesus was, on occasion, quite vocal and passionate about the affairs this world.

Render to Caesar

During his ministry, Jesus was, from time to time, confronted by some of the more prominent members of Jewish society in an effort to confront him or catch him in a lie of sorts, all in an effort to discredit the man whom they esteemed as an enemy to their agenda. On one occasion, two different groups (the Pharisees and Herodians) confronted Jesus in an effort to "entangle him in his talk." Both the Parisees and Herodians hated Jesus (for different reasons) and believed that entangling him in his words, especially on hot-button political matters, might discredit him in the eyes of his followers. We read of what happened in Matthew 22:

15. Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.

16. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

17. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

18. But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

19. Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

20. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

21. They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

22. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

There's a great deal to dissect in these eight verses. First off, the Pharisees and Herodians attempt to trap Jesus by appealing to his teachings regarding the supremacy of god. In Roman society, Caesar was esteemed to be a deity and those who rejected such teachings were often met with ridicule and scorn. Taxes were the predominant way in which homage to Caesar was acknowledged and as a result, any attempt to avoid them was met with severe consequences. So, in the minds of the Pharisees and Herodians, Jesus was trapped. If he answered that man should not pay tribute to Caesar he would be seen as an enemy of the state. But if he agreed with paying tribute, he would come off looking like a hypocrite, since Jesus had emphasized the supremacy of the kingdom of god to that of man.

So what was Jesus to do? Blast their argument to oblivion of course! Matthew tells us that Jesus "perceived their wickedness" and got right to the heart of the matter. By using a mere penny (most certainly a denarius in Roman coinage) Jesus completely and totally surprised (or as Matthew states "marveled") his audience by uttering the now famous phrase, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." This simple phrase completely baffled the Pharisees to such a degree that they simply walked away with their tail between their legs. Jesus came away the clear victor.

Church/State Separation as a Christian Concept

So why where the Pharisees and Herodians so baffled by Jesus' seemingly simple remark? After all, this wouldn't sound that profound of a rebuttal to politicians or theologians today. Well, let's keep in mind that we are speaking of the ANCIENT world; a world that had long fused the political and theological worlds together by establishing kingships, Caesars and other "divine" rulers. The notion of an independent church, separate and sovereign from the secular world, was more than just a novel concept. It was revolutionary. As a result, we can logically and rationally proclaim that a separation between church and state is very much a CHRISTIAN concept. As my blog buddy Brian Tubbs points out by quoting Dinesh D'Souza's bestselling book, What's So Great About Christianity:

D'Souza argues that the "separation of religion and government" was a "Christian idea" and that Jesus was the "first one who thought of it." D'Souza points to Jesus' confrontation with the Herodians and Pharisees in Matthew 22 as the birth of the concept.

D'Souza explains that, for the ancient Greeks and Romans, the "gods a man should worship were the gods of the state." Accordingly, "patriotism demanded that a good Athenian make sacrifices to the Athenian gods and a good Roman pay homage to the gods of Rome."

Well, along come the Christians, who refuse to worship the Roman gods. This was unacceptable to Roman authorities (at least prior to Constantine)...

In Matthew 22, Jesus clearly teaches that Caesar is entitled to certain "things" (and he implies taxes as being among those "things"), but draws a line of distinction. Caesar is NOT entitled to everything, only some things.

Likewise, Jesus implies a limit in the other direction. While God is sovereign and all-powerful, Jesus nevertheless explains (later to Pilate): "My kingdom is not of this world."

According to D'Souza, "God has chosen to exercise a limited domain over earthly rule, not because He is limited, but because He has turned over part of His kingdom to humans for earthly supervision."

Jesus of Nazareth was clearly in favor of a separation between church and state not because he wanted a secular society but because he wanted a moral one, and the best way to ensure that was to take religion out of the hands of the politicians. Jesus and his apostles had seen first hand what religious politicians (Pharisees, Herodians, etc.) had done to religion and Jesus clearly wanted no part of it. Rarely if ever did Jesus "trash talk" anyone but he certainly did with these types. As he stated in Matthew 12:34:

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

And throughout his ministry, Jesus would continue his insistence on church/state separation:

"My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36)

"You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world." (John 8:23)

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve god an mammon." (Matthew 6:24.)

"The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me." (Luke 22:25–26, 29)

"He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (Luke 18: 9-14)

And Jesus didn't stop there. Even when tempted of the devil and the masses to be made a king (a physical, worldly king since he was presumably already "King of kings") over all the land, Jesus flat-out refused:

"And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." (Luke 4: 5-8)

"Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" (Luke 12:13–14)

"Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone." (John 6: 13-15)

But with all of his apparent disinterest (or insistence in a separation between church and state) in secular matters, Jesus was quick and fierce in his defense of religious sovereignty. In the only account of his resorting to violence, Jesus was more than willing to "throw down" with those who made a mockery of the temple:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" (John 2:13–16)

For Jesus, the pollution of worldly distractions had defiled the Lord's temple; an offense that was far worse than the introduction of religion into government. Simply put, the temple of the Lord was to be free of secular distractions, political rhetoric and worldly wealth. It was a house of sacrifice and prayer. Politicians and greedy capitalists be damned! =)

In light of such evidence, it is abundantly clear that a separation of church and state was, and still is, a CHRISTIAN concept. The very founder of the faith saw tremendous advantages to both church and state when both are put in check and denied the right to overpower the other. Under such a system, religion and government would mutually flourish not as opposing forces but as equal partners in creating a free and moral world. One could not exist without the other, and one could not exercise dominion over the other.

Our Founding Fathers (both the ultra-pious and "infidel" types) had a perfect understanding of this concept. They saw that the establishment of a joint church/state government had brought nothing but misery to the world, and they were hell bent on ensuring that it wouldn't happen in the "land of the free":

"I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta [Constitution] of our country." (George Washington, 1789, Papers, Presidential Series, 4:274).

"The Christian god is a three headed monster, cruel, vengeful, and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." (Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814).

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."

"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." (James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785).

These quotes, and the thousands of others like them, do not illustrate an abhorrence of religion on the part of the founders, but instead illustrate the incredible depth of understanding they possessed with regards to Jesus' true teachings. In other words, the founders were able to cut through the B.S. and get at the core of the matter. A separation of church and state was THE FUNDAMENTAL COMPONENT to ensuring a free republic. Losing sight of this all-important concept was to lose sight of freedom itself, to lose sight of Jesus himself.

And, thank God, the founders didn't lose sight of either.

Jeremy Bangs on Geoffrey Stone

Friend-of-the-blog Dr. Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, author of the new Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners---Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, sends along an objection to Prof. Geoffrey R. Stone's reading of history:

Professor Stone wrote, "In 1636, for example, only sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they adopted the 'judicials of Moses,' which provided that any person 'shall be put to death' who 'shall have or worship any other God, but the Lord God.'

The 1636 constitution of Plymouth Colony is published in:
David Pulsifer (ed.), Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Printed by Order of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Laws, 1623-1682.
Boston: William White, 1861.
constitution of 1636, pp. 6-26.

Nowhere in it is found the text or sentiment given by Professor Stone. Instead, the following general statement (spelling modernized):

p. 12: "That all trials whether Capital or between man & man be tried by Juries according to the precedents of the law of England as near as may be."
...

Capital offences liable to death.
Treason or rebellion against the person of the King State or Common wealth either of England or these Colonies.
Willful Murder.
Solemn Compaction or conversing with the devil by way of witchcraft conjuration or the like.
Willful & purposed burning of ships houses.
Sodomy, rapes, buggery."

Religious disagreement was not a capital offense.

p. 57-8:
6 June 1651
"It is ordered
That Whatsoever person or persons shall neglect the frequenting the public worship of God that is according to God in the places where they live or do assemble themselves upon any pretence whatsoever in any way contrary to God and the allowance of the government tending to the subversion of Religion and churches or palpable profanation of Gods holy ordinances being duly convicted; videlecet every one that is a master or dame of a family or any other person at their own disposing to pay ten shillings for every such default.

It is ordered That if any in any lazy slothful or profane way doth neglect to come to the public worship of God shall forfeit for every such default ten shillings or be publicly whipped."

[repealed also in 1651, p. 99-100]

p. 64
5 June 1655
"It was Enacted That such as shall deny the Scriptures to be a rule of life shall receive Corporal punishment according to the discretion of the Magistrate so as it shall not extend to life or Limb."

_____________

Late add---To several objections in the comments section, Dr. Bangs replies:

There is an important difference between Plymouth Colony (Pilgrims, "Mayflower," and the mythical Plymouth Rock landing) and that colony's laws of 1636 mentioned by Stone, on the one hand, and, on the other, Massachusetts Bay Colony (Puritans, Winthrop, et al.) and laws there in 1641 or in the colony of New Haven. To conflate the three may result in a convenient and usable narrative leading up to an admirable Enlightenment, but such oversimplification of colonial attitudes remains historically inaccurate.

Our First Liberation Theologists

They probably weren't "the" first; but they were our (that is America's) first.

This collection of "Political Sermons of the American Founding," Ellis Sandoz, ed. provides extremely informative material that illustrates the political-theological dimension of the American Founding.

The collection includes not just the most notable "Whig" sermons, but also some "Tory" loyalists.

I've long studies this dynamic and am known for seeming to endorse an understanding of "Christianity" that is anti-liberationist.

As it were, the "liberty" the Bible speaks of is entirely spiritual (freedom from sin or its consequences) not political at all. Jesus didn't overturn one social institution, not political tyranny, not divine right of kings, not chattel slavery.

And Christianity, properly understood, is entirely compatible chattel slavery and demands believers submit to government period, even if said government is a pagan tyranny as was Nero's, arguably the ruler Paul told believers to submit to in Romans 13.

Now I am not a "Christian." So it's really not up to me to personally endorse any version of the faith or say who gets to be a Christian. For my own personal reasons, anyone who calls himself a "Christian" gets to be one, even if he is a atheist. Jefferson thought himself a Christian and certainly passes my very easy to pass test for what is a "Christian."

But my own personal reasons are just that. There are competing definitions of what Christianity means. And some take their faith more seriously and define it more narrowly.

The Church itself, since at least 325 AD, has carefully guarded orthodoxy and put heretics in not a good place. There is interesting debate on whether heretics merit the label "Christian." I've uncovered quite a bit from orthodox believers who answer that question negatively. There's more to come.

Perhaps heretics merit the label "Christian" as an adjective, but not as a noun. Arians and Socinians, (or to use more current examples Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses) as it were, are not "Christians," but believe in a "Christian-heresy."

But to bring us back to Sandoz's collection, historically up throughout the Protestant Reformation, the understanding of Christianity and liberation that I outlined above (I would argue) prevailed. That is, the "orthodox" guardians of the faith did not endorse the notions that the Bible teaches political liberty rights, a right to revolt against tyrants, any more than it teaches Arianism or Socinianism.

But if you look for *thought* that predates the Enlightenment that questioned the prevailing orthodoxy, you'll almost certainly find it. Indeed, "Christian" figures from the Enlightenment tended to embrace Arianism, something that goes back to 325 AD. Ditto with theological universalism (universal salvation, something in which a number of notable early church fathers believed).

It was after Henry the VIII, Luther and Calvin (all of whom, by the way, were with the Roman Catholic Church in endorsing the notion that men do not have God given rights to political and religious liberty, to revolt against tyrants, etc.) -- after much schismatism -- did authorities question their traditional understanding of the Bible and political liberty.

An interlocutor, trying to find official Catholic sources for the idea of resisting tyranny (I'm sure there is much "lower" Roman Catholic chatter, but we were trying to find top down authoritative sources), pointed me to POPE PIUS V'S BULL AGAINST ELIZABETH (1570).

Well, it doesn't say anything about believers having a God given right to resist tyranny, tyrants losing their Romans 13 status as "rulers," or "rulers" somehow having to pass a test of "godliness" or justice in order to qualify as "rulers." But it does speak of "usurpation."

And indeed, were there not a "usurpation" of power by Henry the VIII, the Church wouldn't have dealt with the circumstance in England POPE PIUS V'S BULL discusses.

But it was during that period -- after Henry the VIII, Luther and Calvin -- problems with persecution within Christendom (Catholic persecuting Protestants, vice-versa and Protestants persecuting each other) lead to more "liberation" talk. So much so that said talk became a "meme" within Christendom. And it was mainly those on the receiving end who did the loudest talking.

And Sandoz's collection features when the Christian liberation talk reached fever pitch.

The million $$ question, though, is: Is it sound theology? On a personal level, as a non-Christian, I really don't have an answer.

But I can make an analogy: I see the pro-liberty sermons in Sandoz's collection as classically liberal liberation theology. And that kind of liberation theology is about as authentically Christian and hermeneutically sound as modern collectivist liberation theology.

[The most notable anti-liberationist present day evangelical preacher is, of course, John MacArthur. You can hear him discuss the liberation theology of the emergent church here. The funny thing is every single criticism of MacArthur towards them could be raised against the Patriotic Preachers featured in Sandoz's collection.]

Stone on the Texas Education Controversy

I missed this last month when he wrote it. A distinguished professor of law at University of Chicago, Stone is, like it or not, one of the most important law professors in the nation if not the world.

A taste:

... [A] coterie of Christian evangelicals ... are attempting to infiltrate our educational system in order to brainwash the youth of America. They are in Texas.

For reasons peculiar to the textbook industry and the Texas educational system, the Texas Board of Education has enormous influence on the content of textbooks used throughout the United States. Conservatives and Christian evangelicals have taken over the Texas Board of Education and they are right now in the process of rewriting the American history our children will learn.

Among the propositions the Texas Board of Education is attempting to impose upon the next generation of Americans is that the United States was founded as "a Christian nation." What follows from this, of course, is that our Constitution and laws must be understood through the prism of this perspective. Although evangelicals have been pushing this line for two centuries, it is simply, factually, and historically false. But the members of the Texas Board of Education, who are not themselves historians, nonetheless persist in this effort to propagandize the youth of America. This is dangerous. It must be contested.

Christianity played a central role in the promulgation of early colonial legal codes. The Bible was the rock and foundation of early colonial law, and the Puritans, in particular, injected a fierce religious fervor into their laws. In 1636, for example, only sixteen years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, they adopted the "judicials of Moses," which provided that any person "shall be put to death" who "shall have or worship any other God, but the Lord God." Similarly, the 1656 "Lawes of Government" of New Haven colony expressly declared that "the Supreme power of making Lawes belongs to God only" and that "Civill courts are the Ministers of God."

By the late seventeenth century, however, the strict religious foundations of colonial law had crumbled. With the influx of large numbers of immigrants from widely diverse religious, ethnic and social backgrounds, the old Puritan beliefs and institutions faded, and as the new Enlightenment ideals of personal liberty, the "pursuit of happiness," and the power of reason spread through the New World, traditional sources of authority were increasingly called into question.

With fresh energy and bold new ideas, eighteenth-century Americans sought to achieve a profound transformation in their society, their government, their politics, and their religion. The great American experiment was born in the full illumination of the Enlightenment. In an Enlightened Age, -- an age dedicated to reason rather than revelation -- even the authority of Christianity was open to challenge.

The Framers of the American system of government were often quite critical of what they saw as Christianity's excesses and superstitions. They fervently believed that people should be free to seek truth through the use of reason and they concluded that a secular state, establishing no religion but tolerating all, best served that end.

Unlike the later French Revolution, the American Revolution was not a revolution against Christianity itself. But as men of the Enlightenment, most of the Framers did not put much stock in traditional Christianity. As broad-minded intellectuals and skeptics, they viewed much of religious doctrine as divisive, dangerous and irrational, and they challenged, both publicly and privately, the dogmas of conventional Christianity.

....

Killing and Kindness

When we checked our mutt Smokey into the veterinary hospital last week, we were asked whether we wanted a DNR, Do Not Resuscitate, order. I’d never really contemplated advance directives for dogs before. After learning more, we decided CPR would be okay. But with a twelve-and-a-half year old canine, we didn’t want more heroic measures. Every life has its limits.

The incident reminded me of a letter John Adams penned to his friend the physician Benjamin Rush, back in 1813. It’s written under the persona of Adams' horse, “Hobby.” Hobby says he’ll try to shake a little animation into his Master for a few more months, maybe years. But what can his owner realistically look forward to at the age of seventy-seven? “How many Pains and Aches, which I cannot shake away, has he to endure? How much low spirits?” The horse foresees the fate that awaits a doddering Adams, “withered, fading, wrinkled, tottering, trembling, stumbling, sighing, groaning, weeping.” The thought occurs to Hobby whether he shouldn’t just stumble, accidentally-on-purpose, as an act of Charity—presumably putting a quick end to the senile equestrian, just as we humans compassionately release our animal companions when they’ve outlived their natural span.

I’m not sure if Adam’s letter could be said to reflect his views on mercy killing. That’s a big topic, and medical technology has done too much to transform the way we die to make any exact extrapolation possible. But it does suggest that some things never change.

Whether considering horses, dogs or men, we’ll always struggle with the question of when to fight gallantly and when to throw in the towel.

For Smokey, I know the point is swift approaching when it will be time for a dose of kindness. And when my day finally comes, I hope I’ll have a horse like Hobby—or another ministering angel—to send me quietly on my way.

Republican constitutional theory and the principle of judicial review: the wisdom of St. George Tucker

Relax, this isn't a post about the upcoming political fight over President Obama's nominee to replace the soon-to-be-retired Justice John Paul Stevens.  Instead, it is a brief discussion of the idea how the Constitution should be enforced against the government as held by the first Republican Party, the political party led by Jefferson, Madison and others -- the party that would finally morph into the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson.

The problem of federal compliance with the Constitution.  One of the structural constitutional problems in the early Republic revolved around the problem of enforcing the Constitution on the federal government itself.  If the president or Congress decided to violate the Constitution's protections and requirements, how would their actions be restrained or reversed?  The Constitution itself is silent on question, although insisting via the Supremacy Clause that the federal Constitution was the "supreme law of the land." (US Const., art. VI, cl. 2.)

The Federalist solution:  judicial review.  Federalist constitutional theory posited that the Supreme Court had the power to judicially review legislation enacted by Congress and signed by the president in order to determine its constitutionality.  In a nutshell, if the Court found that the legislation in question was not constitutional, the legislation would be regarded as null and void.  This approach to judicial review was advocated by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, specifically No. 78.  It also is the theory that was embraced by Federalist Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall in the landmark Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137 (1803). 

Jefferson and Madison's radicalism.  Jefferson was highly skeptical of the idea of judicial review, and Madison, while originally supporting the idea at the Constitutional Convention, eventually grew skeptical of judicial review as well.  During the controversy over the Alien and Sedition Acts, both Jefferson and Madison proposed a different mechanism by which the Constitution's protections could be vindicated in the face of possible abuse by the general government:  the doctrine of nullification.

Under that theory, a state could nullify constitutionally problematic federal legislation within that state's boundaries, effectively shielding its own state citizens from federal overreach.  Sometimes referred to as interposition (from the idea that the state would position itself between its own citizens and the federal government), the Jeffersonian-Madisonian view lived on in American polity well into the 19th century.  As the Jeffersonian Republicans morphed into the Jacksonian Democrats, the new Democratic Party's southern wing's leader, John C. Calhoun, was an ardent proponent of the idea, and much of Southern constitutional theory, both prior to the Civil War and during the Confederate period, was dominated by the idea. 

Another Republican view.  Interestingly enough, however, there was a strong view within the Jeffersonian Republican Party in support of the idea of judicial review, despite Jefferson and Madison's misgivings about the doctrine.  One Republican proponent of judicial review was Virginia jurist St. George Tucker.  Tucker, a federal judge, noted Republican and early proponent of the abolition of slavery, was a major legal theorist in the early Republic, and the author of the first major American edition of Blackstone to be published since Independence. Tucker published his edition of Blackstone in 1803, the same year the Supreme Court decided Marbury v. Madison.  In Note D of the first volume of his edition of Blackstone, Tucker makes a strong appeal to the idea of judicial review as a bulwark of constitutional liberty:

The obligation which the constitution imposes upon the judiciary department to support the constitution of the United States, would be nugatory, if it were dependent upon either of the other branches of the government, or in any manner subject to their control, since such control might operate to the destruction, instead of the support, of the constitution. Nor can it escape observation, that to require such an oath on the part of the judges, on the one hand, and yet suppose them bound by acts of the legislature, which may violate the constitution which they have sworn to support, carries with it such a degree of impiety, as well as absurdity, as no man who pays any regard to the obligations of an oath can be supposed either to contend for, or to defend.

Specifically taking aim at the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the very acts that led his Republican brethren Jefferson and Madison to propose the radical idea of nullification, St. George Tucker writes a robust defense of the principle of judicial review:

If we consider the nature of the judicial authority, and the manner in which it operates, we shall discover that it cannot, of itself, oppress any individual; for the executive authority must lend it's aid in every instance where oppression can ensue from it's decisions: whilst on the contrary, it's decisions in favour of the citizen are carried into instantaneous effect, by delivering him from the custody and restraint of the executive officer, the moment that an acquittal is pronounced. And herein consists one of the great excellencies of our constitution: that no individual can be oppressed whilst this branch of the government remains independent, and uncorrupted; it being a necessary check upon the encroachments, or usurpations of power, by either of the other. Thus, if the legislature should pass a law dangerous to the liberties of the people, the judiciary are bound to pronounce, not only whether the party accused hath been guilty of any violation of it, but whether such a law be permitted by the constitution. If, for example, a law be passed by congress, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates, or persuasions of a man's own conscience or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to assemble peaceably, or to keep and bear arms; it would, in any of these cases, be the province of the judiciary to pronounce whether any such act were constitutional, or not; and if not, to acquit the accused from any penalty which might be annexed to the breach of such unconstitutional act. If an individual be persecuted by the executive authority, (as if any alien, the subject of a nation with whom the United States were at that time at peace, had been imprisoned by order of the president under the authority of the alien act, 5 Cong. c. 75) it is then the province of the judiciary to decide whether there be any law that authorises the proceedings against him, and if there be none, to acquit him, not only of the present, but of all future prosecutions for the same cause: or if there be, then to examine it's validity under the constitution, as before-mentioned.

Union and liberty.  Why is this important historically?  Tucker's work demonstrates the strong appeal during the early Republic of the idea of an independent federal judiciary as a block to constitutional abuses by the federal branches.   While some of the top-tier Founders within the Republican fold argued for a constitutional theory that would ultimately tear the Union apart, Tucker defended the idea of liberty under, rather than in opposition to, the Union of the states and the federal government established by the Constitution.

For Tucker, this Union was grounded in the supremacy of the Constitution and protected by the glory of Anglo-American government:  a truly independent judiciary.  Tucker's constitutional vision was consonant with the Federalist vision enunciated by Marshall, as well as the underlying logic of the Union that pre-existed the Constitution and was strengthened by it.  Unlike Jefferson and Madison's proposed solution, which set the stage for Southern jurisprudence that would eventually justify the illegal attempt at succession, St. George Tucker sought to preserve both liberty and the Union.  And did so through the principle of constitutional government and the mechanism of judicial review.

"Sedition and the End of America's First Political Party"

A few paragraphs from Craig Evan Klafter's essay at AmSpec. The full essay compares it to our current crisis, and is worth reading in context and in full.

Sedition first reared its head in American legislation in 1798. The Sedition Act (An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States; ch. 74, 1 Stat. 596) made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials. It was enacted July 14, 1798 by a Federalist controlled administration and Congress, with an expiration date of March 3, 1801 (the day before John Adams' presidential term was to end). The Democratic-Republican opposition, led by Vice President Thomas Jefferson, denounced the Act as contrary to the First and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, claiming that it was designed to stifle criticism of the administration and infringed on the right of the states to enact and enforce laws against defamation.

The Sedition Act was never appealed to the Supreme Court for review, although individual Supreme Court Justices, sitting in circuit, heard many of the cases prosecuting opponents of the Federalists. For example, Justice Samuel Chase (a staunch Federalist) heard a case against David Brown in 1798. Brown led a group in Dedham, Massachusetts, in constructing a "liberty pole" with the words, "No Stamp Act, No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President [Federalist John Adams]; Long Live the Vice President [Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson]." Brown was tried in Salem, Massachusetts, and attempted to plead guilty, but Justice Chase would not permit him, wanting him to name those who supported him. Brown refused, was fined $480, and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. In total, twenty-five people, primarily prominent newspaper editors, were arrested pursuant to the Act. Of them, ten were convicted of sedition, often in trials before openly partisan Federalist judges.

Although the Sedition Act expired (the day before the end of President Adams' term) before its constitutionality could be directly challenged, subsequent Supreme Court opinions have assumed its unconstitutionality.

...


Federalists hoped the Sedition Act would stifle political opposition, but many Democratic-Republicans still criticized the Federalists and made the Act a key election issue in 1800. That election resulted in the "Revolution of 1800" -- a landslide victory by Thomas Jefferson and in Federalists at all levels of government being turned out of office. The attempt to muffle criticism also later contributed to the demise of the Federalist Party. Congress repeatedly apologized for, and voted compensation to victims of, the enforcement of the Sedition Act. Thomas Jefferson pardoned all of those who had been so convicted.

---Craig Evan Klafter

Balkin @ Princeton

If I have time on Wed. maybe I can fit this into my very busy schedule.

...

Jack Balkin, creator of the well-known blog Balkinization (http://balkin.blogspot.com/), will speak on “Fidelity and Flux: How We Build Our Constitution” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall, on the Princeton University campus.

The lecture, to be deliverd as the Sixth Annual Donald S. Bernstein '75 Lecture, is free and open to the public and is sponsored by Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Affairs.

“When we interpret the U.S. Constitution, the opposition between originalism and living constitutionalism is a false dichotomy; understanding why the best versions of these positions are compatible helps us understand how legitimate constitutional change occurs over time,” said Balkin, the Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School. “Constitutional fidelity is grounded on faith: faith in the constitutional project, and faith that the constitutional system as a whole is worthy of our respect or will come to be so over time, even if important aspects today are imperfect and unjust. Interpretive fidelity requires faith in the redeemability of the Constitution over time.”

...

Dale Coulter on the Founders' Non-Sectarianism

He is a professor of divinity at Regent University. Yet, I have a hard time finding anything to disagree with in the following assertion of his:

At their best, the founders conceived of a separation in which no sectarian position gained the upper hand, and that is what has resulted. In a living, breathing body politic this means that all sectarian positions must have their say. The govt. does not endorse any single one because it implicitly endorses all of them, including the atheist, precisely by endorsing religious liberty or liberty of conscience, and grounding that liberty in human nature itself, which precedes any social compact. The atheist has to make room for a Muslim in the same way that a Baptist has to make room for a Catholic, etc. This means that the atheist must put up with religious language or activities as part of govt. events in the same way that Catholics have to put up with Baptists praying the inaugural prayer, etc., etc.

Competing Traditions & Abstract Ideals that Trump Dominant Historical Practice

"A federal judge in Wisconsin declared Thursday that the US law authorizing a National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional," the Christian Science Monitor reports. Eugene Volokh discussed it here. And Joe Carter/First Things discussed it here.

Francis Beckwith commented there:

... What is interesting about Crabb’s opinion is that it treats anti-establishment as a highly abstract principle about which history has no bearing. It would be like interpreting the public park prohibition–”No vehicles allowed”–as including Big Wheels and baby carriages without any reference to common practice or the meaning understood by the city council that passed the ordinance.

Ahistorical jurisprudence is an oxymoron.

Well, I don't quite see it that way. And I don't see the Michael Newdow types as flying in from Mars and arguing principles that have nothing to do with the Founding. To the contrary, Newdow quotes the Founders (accurately and in the proper spirit) quite a bit.

Bear with me one bit for why.

I noted in the comments sometimes the broadly abstracted ideals of the Founding era must trump dominant historical practice.

If we interpret what the Founders SAID in their broad rhetoric through what they DID, in practice, one could rightly argue what America was all about is granting equal liberty rights to white propertied Protestant males.

That's what Barry Shain (paleoconservative) argues along with the anti-American Left.

It's impossible for the American Founding to take the moral high ground if America was all about privileging white propertied Protestant males. And the only way out of that dilemma is to abstract ideals from the Founding that sometimes trump dominant historical practice.

Professor Dale Coulter interestingly noted there was much anti-slavery rhetoric during the American Founding and that anti-slavery sentiment and practice was a viable competing tradition, along with pro-slavery sentiment and practice.

Therefore we use our reason and other supplementary principles to decide among competing historical traditions.

Likewise with religion, there were competing traditions during the American Founding. One tradition held only certain kinds of belief are entitled to full liberty and equality rights (I'm hesitant to say "Protestant only" because each state had its own varied way of deciding who got what rights). The other held religious rights applied universally to all citizens.

That brings us to what Michael Newdow argues: “Hey we atheists are citizens too, entitled to equal respect.”

And I agree with them in that regard. However, I just don’t agree that government words really harm them in such a tangible way that it necessarily rises to the level of an individual constitutional right to be free from hearing or seeing government messages that make them feel like unequal citizens.

But without question, much of Newdow's rhetoric resonates with much of what was said during the Founding era, especially James Madison whom Newdow often quotes.

And I'm glad to see Professor Coulter agreed, in principle, with the latter, broader more generous tradition of the American Founding that holds everyone's conscience, including that of the atheist deserves equal respect.

The harder questions are how to get there in a 1) constitutional and 2) policy sense (the two aren't always supposed to be the same).

Do we need a naked public square where the state is always silent on religious beliefs? Or perhaps a more open pluralistic public square where the state, in its public supplications, sometimes says things that you or I agree with, sometimes not.

I'm willing to endorse the latter position as long as its understood that if the pious Christians get the state chaplain microphone, sometimes the Hindus and the atheists get it too.

And I think that pluralism perfectly "fits" with the ideals of the American Founding.

Top Four Founding Fathers

My own personal take on the question of who the greatest Founding Fathers were.  I'm not making any objective statement here, just expressing my own view -- although I do think that my view is right!  Anyway, here's the list, in order of importance:

1)  George Washington.  I know, I know, everybody lists Washington first.  But you know what, he should be at the top of everybody's list.  And for this reason:  he was the indispensable man from the beginning of the Revolution until his death.  From commanding the American army, to presiding over the Constitutional Convention, to being the first president under that Constitution, to stepping away from power when he did, Washington was the only man who could have done what he did.  As Franklin once commented, Washington was "always the tallest man in the room."  True, enough, both physically and in terms of character.

2)  John Adams.  Why is Adams this high on the list?  Is it because of his impassioned defense of American liberty during the run up to the American Revolution?  No.  Is it because of his efforts to secure recognition and financing for the young republic as a diplomat in Europe?  No.  It is because of his actions as the second president, showing that he would stand up to those within his own political party who sought to further narrow interests at the expense of the nation?  Close, but not quite.

Here's why he is the second most important Founder:  he lost his re-election bid for the presidency and (here's the important part) he went home.  He didn't try to fix the election.  He didn't try to throw it into the House of Representatives to damage his political opponents.  He didn't try to hold on to power at the expense of constitutional fidelity.

He went home.  Like Washington, his commitment to the republic transcended a desire for power.  Adams was a deeply flawed man, and his presidency was problematic in serious ways.  But in the end, he got the most important thing right:  service to the nation, rather than to himself.  For all his vanity and ambition, he got that right.  And he went home.  For that, he's the second most important Founding Father.

3)  Alexander Hamilton.  Gordon Wood to the contrary, Hamilton was a great man and it is thanks to him that the United States developed the governmental structures that enabled it to survive and thrive in a world where our future was far from secure.  In a world surrounded by old and established empires, far larger than the United States and ready to prey upon the new republic, Hamilton worked to establish the financial and political resources within the country to enable it to grow and prosper as an independent nation in the rapidly industrializing West.  Hamilton's life was ended early, but even with Aaron Burr's cowardly shot cutting him down before his time, Hamilton's efforts to stabilize the American republic earns him a spot in the pantheon of Founders.

It is to be hoped that some very talented and famous biographer will come along and do for Hamilton what David McCollough did for John Adams.

4)  Thomas Jefferson.  I don't like him.  I don't like reading things that he wrote.  I don't like how he lived his life.  I don't like how he treated his slaves.  I don't like his hypocrisy involving:   slavery, his affair with Sally Hemmings, his fulminations against debt while wallowing in financial insolvency, his devious and snarling animosity to Hamilton, Adams and even Washington.  I don't like his Francophilia, his anarchic Jacobinism, his embrace of the French Revolution while simultaneously defending the privileged position of the Southern squirarchy.  I don't like his rationalist deism, his cut and paste version of the New Testament, his anti-Catholicism, his impoverished understanding of the religious roots of Western civilization.  I.  Don't.  Like.  Him.

So, why is he on my list?  Simple.  He's the guy that made America a continental and global power.  Despite his own political rhetoric, his own animosity to Federalist policy, his own localist dogma, and his personal repulsiveness, he built on the legacies of Washington, Adams and Hamilton to build, in his own words, "an Empire of Liberty."

The Louisiana Purchase took the United States from a regional power, barely able to hold on to the Northwest Territory, and made it a solid continental player.  The Lewis and Clark Expedition archored this continental presence even more firmly into place, while at the same time fostering naturalist studies in the American West.  His determination to stand up to the Barbary Corsairs showed that the United States had the capacity for global power projection via its naval forces.   He shaped our nation in ways that fundamentally changed who we were and are.

But I still don't like him.

On the lighter side

President George Washington racks up $300,000 late fee for two Manhattan library books

BY Rich Schapiro
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, April 17th 2010, 4:00 AM

He may have never told a lie, but George Washington apparently had no problem stiffing a Manhattan library on two books.

Two centuries ago, the nation's first President borrowed two tomes from the New York Society Library on E. 79th St. and never returned them, racking up an inflation-adjusted $300,000 late fee.

But Washington can rest easy.

"We're not actively pursuing the overdue fines," quipped head librarian Mark Bartlett. "But we would be very happy if we were able to get the books back."

Washington's dastardly deed went unknown for almost 150 years.

Then in 1934, a dusty, beaten-up ledger was discovered in a trash heap in the library's basement.

On its tan pages were the names of all of the people who had borrowed books from the city's oldest library between July 1789 and April 1792.

At the time, the city was the nation's capital and the library - then located at Wall and Broad Sts. - was the only one in town.

Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay all borrowed books, the ledger shows.

They returned them, too.

The library's boldest bold-faced name wasn't as cooperative.

On Oct. 5, 1789, Washington borrowed the "Law of Nations," a treatise on international relations, and Vol. 12 of the "Commons Debates," which contained transcripts of debates from Britain's House of Commons.

Beside the names of the books, the librarian wrote on the ledger only, "President."

The entry, written with a quill pen, contains no return date.

The books were due by Nov. 2, 1789, and have been accruing a fine of a few pennies per day ever since.

This week, Bartlett and his staff became even more convinced the books were filched when librarian Matthew Haugen stumbled upon the long lost 14-volume collection of the "Commons Debates."

Sure enough, Vol. 12 was missing.

"It's hard to know what could have happened," Bartlett said. "There are as many questions for us as there are answers."

Jesus, Cato, & Caesar

Well, I've facilitated discussions on Romans 13 and the American Founding that have almost beaten the horse to death. I've little dealt with Mark 12:17, where Jesus said, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. ..."

Let's do so now. The passage, like many of Jesus' sayings, has specific and broader meanings. In the specific sense, Jesus recognized Caesar's temporal governmental authority over Him and His followers. In a broader sense, believers are to be subject to the civil government, pay their taxes and so on. And because the civil government Jesus recognized was that of pagan imperial Rome, logic instructs Jesus advanced institutional separation of church and state, where Christians can live under a "state" that is a pagan and un-godly entity as was Caesar's.

This parallels Romans 13 as I understand it. Most biblical scholars agree that the higher power St. Paul instructed believers to submit to -- in the literal instance, the specific example ordained by God -- was the pagan psychopath Nero.

In a symbolic sense, that would set a very low standard for "rulers" to meet in order to properly maintain their Romans 13 power.

Now, I've heard some orthodox believers argue Paul really wasn't telling believers to submit to Nero but rather to some ideal "godly" government because he said "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil," and that they are "minister[s] of God to thee for good." As such, Nero or any tyrannical ruler wouldn't qualify.

But, when one puts Romans 13 together with Mark 12:17 that interpretation seems less biblically sound. In the latter, Jesus recognizes the civil legitimacy of an imperial pagan entity, arguably a tyranny. (By this time Rome ceased being a "republic" and was now an "empire.")

When the American Founders posited the notion "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," because they operated in a general Christian context, they had to deal with the Bible.

That notion is not "biblical." Whether it's "anti-biblical" (something the Bible forbids) or "a-biblical" (something the Bible doesn't teach, but doesn't necessarily forbid) is debatable. What's not debatable, in my very learned opinion, is the notion "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," however nice it sounds, is NOT what the Bible teaches.

With Romans 13, while most of the "key Founders" ignored it (it ended up, with all of Paul's words, on Jefferson's cutting room floor), to satisfy the public (who may have been more concerned with the Bible) ministers like Jonathan Mayhew, Samuel West offered "reasoned" explanations for why Romans 13, properly understood, didn't forbid revolt against tyranny.

But the Founders still had Jesus to deal with on government. And, unfortunately for them, Jesus' words offered no satisfaction for their plans on how to deal with tyrannical rulers. Indeed Gouvernor Morris lamented to George Washington the insufficiency of Jesus' words in this respect.

However, Jesus did inspire them. Whether they were orthodox Christians, Arians or Socinians, they thought Jesus the "best person," regardless of whether He (or he) was 2nd person in the Trinity or simply a man on a mission from God to save us through his (not His) perfect moral example. Jesus always did the right thing. So on how to conduct your personal affairs, follow Jesus.

George Washington's 1783 Circular to the States (not written by GW, but given under his imprimatur) "dispose[d] us ... to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."

But there was a figure (how much of his example was actual history, how much literary embellishment, I do not know) who, unlike Jesus, did rebel against tyranny. In fact, a contemporary of Jesus, he rebelled against the same tyranny to which Jesus submitted: Cato the Younger. He purportedly committed suicide (not a very Christian act) rather than submit to the tyranny of Caesar. He was, as it were, the last of the Roman republicans, after Rome transformed into an empire.

It was Joseph Addison's tragedy Cato that inspired the American Founders. Washington had this play performed for his "Christian" troops to inspire them.

Of course, if Jesus's words offered support for what Washington and the others did against the British they would have been used. But, alas, they didn't. So the Roman Stoic Cato filled in.

Everything old is new again, part 1

That phrase comes to mind when pondering this op-ed:  Congress Becomes Madison's "Overbearing Majority."  (Hat tip to Instapundit.)

Why This Site is So Important and Now is Our Time

I left the following comment at "Daily Paul" in response to this post. Some of this is my personal political views and not so germane to the vision of this site but please read through to see the overall point I make and how that point is germane. Here it is:

"The principle of federalism is what we are fighting to restore not "states rights" and certainly not the Confederacy. Madison spoke plainly in Federalist 28 that both state and national governments can usurp individual rights. Thus, one was to balance the other. State sovereignty is not and never was absolute. It was a check put into the system to protect individual liberty.

Statements such as the following puke all over an otherwise exciting post:

'Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again.'

I fully understand that Lincoln never intended to free the slaves and that the South had good reason to want to suceed from the North when the North's economy collapsed and it began more profitable for the southern states to trade with Europe. As they did this the North levied unjust tariffs. In reply the South left.

With that stated, the southern elite planting class stood to lose out if the abolitionists had their way. There was also ample motive to exaggerate things when John Brown tried to start an army to free the slaves and strike fear into south. Above all they wanted to keep the plantation system alive. Slavery was the way to do it.

In the end it was mostly a battle about economic philosophy that started with Hamilton and Jefferson. Hamilton was right about the coming Industrial Revolution and Jefferson was right about opposing Merchantilism. Both were wrong to in that Hamilton wanted to rig things for the British style merchantilist debtor economy and Jefferson ingnored the second wave Industrial age to our peril.

How about a progressive and modern view with respect for localism and free markets? Would that have been the answer? In the 1780's or 1860's? How about now?

The Tea Party worries me because Obama's vision of modernity has a lot of truth in it. His corporatist bent is what messes it up. But when we throw out the baby with the bathwater and ignore the nuances of history we do it to our own peril.

So not beat your chest about the "Constitution" unless you not only carry it around and read it but seek to understand the context in which it was written. It is also important to study the 500 years of the evolution of certain ideas that led to it.

As far as the Christian aspect I think many that spout off Confederate leanings ignore that Locke's basis for rights was for inalienable rights because man is valuable because he is made in the image of God. Love of neighbor and self out of reverance for the image of God. Slavery violated this and talk of the rising "south" and using Confederate money revives ideas that violate this principle.

Please heed this warning or Ron Paul's current dead tie with Obama for 2012 that was seen in the Rasmussen poll today will evaporate as he is called a racist and the charges of racist rantings under his newsletter come up again. When people come on sites like these it will be used for ammo and at times rightly so with comments like the one above."

I then summarized what we discuss here and linked our site.  I am not sure if we at American Creation realize the moment we are in where what we discuss here everyday has the potential to impact what seems to be a national dialogue about the founding, what it meant, and what is relevant for today?  No matter your political leanings this has to excite all involved here. Let's get out there and add to the discussion what we have learned here. Much of what I wrote above was birthed in our discussions here.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense, as heard by the American Colonists

by Tom Van Dyke

Our American Creation blog has entirely changed my viewpoint about religion and the Founding. I thought they were all deists or something, because that's how I was educated.

Reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense now, I'm simply amazed at how much religion is in it, and how much our discussions at American Creation have opened my ears to what he was actually saying, beginning to understand the language of the Founders as they heard it themselves. Thanks to all here gathered.

Without further ado-doo, ladies and gentlemen, excerpts from Thomas Paine's Common Sense with commentary, the short and full text available here:

HOW CAME THE KING BY A POWER WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST, AND ALWAYS OBLIGED TO CHECK? Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power, WHICH NEEDS CHECKING, be from God; yet the provision which the [British] constitution makes [empowering Parliament---TVD] supposes such a power to exist.

Not an argument that John Calvin would have liked, but clearly addressing in the negative the Divine Right of Kings and Romans 13 ["Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers"]. No argument for the Revolution could be made without addressing this great Biblical theological problem.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion...Antiquity favours the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first Patriarchs have a snappy something in them, which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom...

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of scripture; for the will of the Almighty as declared by Gideon, and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by Kings...

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to.

Before Paine attends to that, he makes a Biblical argument for a republic, the sort of thing you only hear from hardcore "Christian Nation" fundamentalists, but Paine doesn't miss a trick:

Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of Republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts.

Then Paine goes on [at great length] to explain that in the Book of Judges, how Gideon refuses the Israelites' offer of their crown after his great military victory [Judges 8, King James Version], replying [all CAPS are Paine's]:

"I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU." Words need not be more explicit: Gideon doth not decline the honour, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive style of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of Heaven.

and of the First Book of Samuel

"But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a King to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM."

As well as a VERY long account from 1 Samuel 8 of how the king will take their sons for war and their daughters for servitude, and take a tenth of everything and

"...your fields and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shell have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY."

All in all, a convincing argument against monarchy, not only Biblical but reality, a reality that's just dawned on the colonists...

Now we all know that Paine starts to show his anti-Biblical cards in 1794 with the first part of his The Age of Reason, and believes the Bible no more than Aesop's fables. But in 1776, he's not nearly done dealing from the bottom of the deck yet to get Christian America nodding in agreement at his "Common Sense":

If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the right of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no glory. for as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed; as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege, it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are parallels. Dishonourable rank! inglorious connection! yet the most subtle sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

Original sin! A doctrine doubted by even the early "unitarians" of the age, a doctrine Ben Franklin felt comfortable enough denying publicly. Surely, Paine would never subscribe to such nonsense! [Or did he?]

No matter, the Founding era did, at least to the degree that they distrusted man's reason as the final arbiter of all truth.

And Paine's citation of the Biblical Adam here is no small thing: it stands directly as a refutation of PATRIARCHA OR THE NATURAL POWER OF KINGS By THE LEARNED SIR ROBERT FILMER, BART. [1680][sic], the best known defense of the British monarchy before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which traced King James' [yes, that King James] authority back to Adam himself!

What Paine writes of here isn't abstract theologico-political abstract stuff for an elite few---to his audience, the American colonists, the disputes are well known, and what Paine writes is clearly common sense!

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

OK, this is a cheap argument by Paine going back to 1066, but his audience is already on his side. But the illegitimacy of government by a usurper goes all the way back to Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s! And N.B.---"usurp" is used TWICE in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Surely no coincidence: the illegitimacy of usurpation had 500 years to imbed itself into Christian thought and the Western mind, contra Romans 13. It was in the theologico-political air they breathed.

For us to understand what Jefferson called the "American mind"---what he claimed he was only setting down on paper in drafting the Declaration---we need to be familiar with the air they breathed. Probably a disappointing fraction of Americans today could even define "usurp," but the American Mind knew well what it meant in 1776, or Jefferson wouldn't have used it twice in the same paragraph, and neither would Paine have gone there.

The first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be governed by France.

That's a pretty funny reductio ad absurdum, and definitely kicks Filmer's Patriarcha to the curb. Couldn't resist giving Paine his props as a comedian here.

Well, this next one is Paine's greatest whopper, since no way he believes a word of it. [Does he?] But it does tell us a lot about his audience, which is our primary historical concern:

Even the distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise at which the Continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the manner in which it was peopled, encreases the force of it. The Reformation was preceded by the discovery of America: As if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.

I mean, did you get that one? The Almighty is establishing America as a refuge not merely for religious freedom blahblahblah, but as a sanctuary for Protestantism! "Natural proof," at that!

Paine could push buttons, man. He'd have a talk show these days. What network, aw, I'll leave that aside.

Almost done here on Mr. Paine's Common Sense---if you've read this far, and I've written this far, let's do the entire thing. Paine's next appeal to the Divine is pretty straightforward:

But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.

Again, the CAPS are Paine's. He's getting a little imprecise here, either tired or wasted or just trying to finish up. God is King of America, if "reigns above" means what it appears to mean. But THE LAW IS KING, too. And even if the colonists never actually read it, surely they'd heard the title of Samuel Rutherford's 1644 Calvinist tract, Lex, Rex and pretty much got the gist of it from the title. Not only isn't the King the law, but Rutherford's already on to the minimization of the leviathan of government.

Paine's appropriation of THE LAW IS KING likely carried to its audience more than just its rhetorical face value, it brought echoes upon echoes with it: Britain's Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, the better part of a century of political strife; the Calvinist theology that powered not only the Scottish Covenenters but the Presbyterians in America whom King George blamed for the revolution itself; the refutation of the Divine Right of Kings, as well as Rutherford's own thoughts on minimalist government itself.

"Lex, Rex" was a powerful term, and well-known; that's probably why Paine put its English translation of it in CAPS, confident his readers knew what he was talking about and its echoes too.

Hey, it's not as though ALL of Paine's arguments are theological. He abandons that tack at the 2/3 mark of "Common Sense," having established the righteousness of the cause, through reason and Bible. He closes with a generic call for liberty, and cites the rest of the world's [Africa and Asia's] rejection of Europe as oppressors and all-around nogoodniks.

In the last third, as a practical matter, Paine argues how and why the American revolution can succeed---and he was wrong about building an American navy, but right that the French would only help us if we split off from Britain and not reconcile with them, thereby weakening them. [And indeed it was the French navy, not an American one, that swung the showdown at Yorktown.]

Paine's "Common Sense" was a pamphlet, not a book, and can be read pretty quickly. The colonists did. And once you tune your ears to their ears, theologically and politically, it's even easier to hear. Everybody agreed, it was just common sense.

Movie review: The Crossing

Thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I just finished watching The Crossing, a dramatization of Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and attack on the Hessian troops at Trenton during the early months of the Revolutionary War.  Originally produced for television in 1999, The Crossing is a solid production.  While certainly not a movie at the same level as, for example, 1993's Gettysburg (Ted Turner's t.v. production about the epic Civil War battle), the movie was nicely paced and had a strong touch of realism to it. 

The hand-to-hand combat scenes were intense, so the movie may not be appropriate for children under the age of 13 or so.  The overall historical accuracy is very well done.  And the portrayal of Washington by the movie's star, Jeff Daniels, was extremely well done.  Daniel's portrayal of Washington demonstrated not only the general's remarkable leadership qualities, but his human qualities as well.  Daniels showed insecurity at times, defensiveness at times, grumpiness at times, and he portrayed Washington's well-known field humor quite well. The multifaceted character of Washington really shines through.

One point that the movie made plain was how young the leaders of the Revolution were.  We often think of the Founders according to their later work at the Constitutional Convention and in the politics of the early Republic, when these men were seasoned politicians and actors upon the national stage.  But during the Revolution, most of these men (with the exception of Franklin) were by modern standards young men in their 20's.  Washington himself was only 44 years old in 1776 -- something that puts the zap on my head now that I turned 40 this year!

The Crossing isn't a great movie, but it is a very good one, and it is a very accurate retelling on a critical early victory in our country's struggle for liberty.  It is well worth watching, and I think it would be an excellent movie to watch for educational purposes.  That is, so long at the viewers are at least over the age of 13.

Hail Columbia: America's Original National Anthem

And How it Illustrates the
Evolution of American Nationalism

I know I am going to catch a lot of crap for this but I'm going to say it anyway: I really don't like our national anthem that much. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty song and all and does invoke patriotism in the hearts of many. With that said, I simply dislike the fact that our nation's official anthem is nothing more than a poem commemorating a bombardment we barely survived, put to the tune of an old British drinking song. Hardly the inspiring anthem so many make it out to be! But hey, that's just me and I realize that many Americans love the song. So be it.

But whether you like "The Star-Spangled Banner" or not, everyone should recognize the fact that it doesn't have the patriotic history everyone assumes. In fact, the "original" national anthem of this fair land, which was in place from roughly the time of George Washington to FDR, was muscled out by Francis Scott Key's over-dramatic drinking song. That's right folks, the "Star-Spangled Banner" has a relatively recent history as America's national anthem; a history that illustrates the evolution of American nationalism.

Before Francis Francis Scott Key ever witnessed the "rockets' red glare" and the "bombs bursting in air" America (a name that you will see not everyone was sold on) marched to a different patriotic tune. It was "Hail Columbia" that initially served as America's unofficial but very popular anthem:

Hail Columbia, happy land!
Hail, ye heroes, heav'n-born band,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone
Enjoy'd the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.

Immortal patriots, rise once more,
Defend your rights, defend your shore!
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood, the well-earned prize,
While off'ring peace, sincere and just,
In Heaven's we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail.

Behold the chief who now commands,
Once more to serve his country stands.
The rock on which the storm will break,
The rock on which the storm will break,
But armed in virtue, firm, and true,
His hopes are fixed on Heav'n and you.
When hope was sinking in dismay,
When glooms obscured Columbia's day,
His steady mind, from changes free,
Resolved on death or liberty.

Sound, sound the trump of fame,
Let Washington's great fame
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Let ev'ry clime to freedom dear,
Listen with a joyful ear,
With equal skill, with God-like pow'r
He governs in the fearful hour
Of horrid war, or guides with ease
The happier time of honest peace.

Chorus
Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.

Now, it probably sounds strange to some when they discover that "Hail Columbia" was America's "original" anthem. After all, what does Columbia have to do with America?

Well, first off, we're not talking about the Columbia where all that lovely "mota" and cocaine come from. This Columbia is quite different. The Columbia of America's earliest generations was the female personification of her "discoverer," Christopher Columbus. Columbia's role as a symbol became obvious to all Americans. Whether she served as the title of a city, a river, a college or a monument, Columbia's role in American culture was ever-present. Much in the same way that Britannia became the female personification (and Roman goddess) of Britain, Columbia was the feminine guardian of the new American republic. In other words, she was sort of the Uncle Sam before Uncle Sam.

And Columbia's influence didn't stop with the founding. She can be seen throughout the course of America's history. From the very name of our capitol city (Washington, District of Columbia) to the very first space shuttle ever commissioned by NASA. She was present in American artwork like the one above depicting Columbia's divine protection to western settlers on their quest to secure the country's "Manifest Destiny," and she even graces the opening credits of several modern movies. Heck, many Americans have (incorrectly) suggested that she was even the inspiration for "Lady Liberty" herself. Bottom line, Columbia's role as a symbol in America's growth and development is as important (if not more so) as any other symbol of American providentialism.

Perhaps more importantly, Columbia illustrates just how complicated the concept of the American nation was for our founding generation. Contrary to what we are often let to believe, America's founding was far from a united effort where all parties saw eye-to-eye on the direction the country should go. In reality, it was a complicated mess of clashing ideas and beliefs. As historian Gordon Wood points out in his newest book Empire of Liberty, a book that is the surefire winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize (on a side note, it's worth mentioning that the Pulitzer Prize is awarded by none other than COLUMBIA University. The irony is striking):

Despite the ratification of the Constitution, most Americans knew that they were not yet a nation, at least not in the European sense of the term. At the end of the Declaration of Independence the members of the Continental Congress had been able only to "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor." In 1776 there was nothing else but themselves that they could have dedicated themselves to -- no patria, no fatherland, no nation as yet.

[...]

The fact that most Americans were of British heritage and spoke the same language as the subjects of the former mother country created problems of national identity that troubled the new Republic over the next several decades. Indeed, almost to the movement of independence the colonists had continued to define themselves as British, and only reluctantly came to see themselves as a separate people called Americans. The colonists were well aware of the warning of John Dickinson, the most important pamphleteer in America before Thomas Paine, had given them on the eve of independence. "If we are separated from our mother country," he asked in 1768, "what new form of government shall we adopt, and where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body, to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affection, relation, language and commerce we must bleed at every vein."

Could the colonists who had been British and who had celebrated their Britishness for generations become a truly independent people? How could one united people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, and professing the same Protestant religion differentiate themselves from the people of the mother country? These questions, perhaps more than any others, bedeviled the politics of the early decades of the new Republic's history.

If there were to be a single national people with a national character, Americans would have to invent themselves, and in some sense the whole of American history has been the story of that invention. At first, they struggled with a proper name for their country. On the tercentenary celebration of Columbus's discovery of America in 1792 one patriot suggested "The United States of Columbia" as a name for the new Republic. Poets, ranging from the female black slave Phillis Wheatley to the young Princeton graduate Phillip Freneau, saw the logic of the name and thus repeatedly referred to the nation as Columbia. With the same rhythm and number of syllables, Columbia could easily replace Britannia in new compositions set to the music of traditional English songs.

As illustrated above, early Columbians...er...Americans had a difficult time understanding what their new nation was supposed to look like. The pull of tradition from the Old World and the allure of new possibilities brought on by the Enlightenment, obscured America's sense of itself. This is the precise reason why Columbia became such a popular symbol. While so much was still up in the air, Columbia was, at the very least, the embodiment of what it truly meant to be American.

But alas, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. With the onset of nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, America's sense of itself began to change. And with that change, Columbia's presence in American culture began to fade. "Hail Columbia," which had never been made an official national anthem, found itself in a contest with other popular songs like, "My Country Tis of Thee," "America the Beautiful," and yes "The Star-Spangled Banner." Like most nations of this era, the creation of official anthems became an important component of surging nationalism, and in the United States, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was gaining ground. Thanks in large part to the attention given it a professional baseball games, the "Star-Spangled Banner" became a quasi-national tradition. Long story short, the song's popularity grew over the next thirty years, until finally in 1931 when President Hoover and Congress officially made "The Star-Spangled Banner" America's anthem. In addition, Key's suggestion that the national motto be changed from "E Pluribus Unum" (From Many, One) to "In God We Trust" (inspired from the 4th verse of his song/poem) was later accepted and made law in 1956. In short, the rise of nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries led to many of the changes we now accept as a part of the American culture.

But Columbia wasn't completely lost. Her presence, though very limited, is still around. All you have to do is look for her. And who knows, maybe she'll return one day! As for her song, "Hail Columbia," well, it went from being the unofficial anthem of a nation to the entrance song for the Vice President, in a similar fashion as "Hail to the Chief" is for the President.

And just in case you were curious, it's not that I hate "The Star-Spangled Banner." Rather, I simply believe there are better songs out there. For my money, "America the Beautiful" is the song I would select as our official anthem. Perhaps it is a personal bias, being that the song was written in my back yard, but I don't care. It simply sounds more "American" (or Columbian) than the rest. And to help prove my point I give you the one and only Ray Charles. Take us home, Ray:

Gay Species on Priestley

[I just found out that D. Stephen Heersink, aka "The Gay Species" passed away a few months ago. He was knowledgeable and spirited but also could be quite quarrelsome. I am reproducing a post of his to Positive Liberty from 2007 -- when he and PL were on better terms -- in his memory for American Creation readers.]

Gay Species tried to comment on this thread. But since Positive Liberty [had] problems with our comments section, it didn't go through. I have reproduced it here.

The Question

Unitarian or Trinitarian? Christ's Dual Natures? Is Priestly Corrupting Christianity?

The Sources of Revelation

Dei verbum: Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other . . . and make up a single deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church.

2 Th 2:15: So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.

Act 2:42: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

The Epiphany & Trinity

Matt 3:13-17: Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?' But Jesus answered him, 'Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.' Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.' (See also, Mark 1:9-11 & Luke 3:21-22)

Philippians 2:5-11:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Logos

1 Jn 1:2-3: His life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us— we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ

Ephesians 2:18: for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Col 1:15: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;

Heb 1:1-4:Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

John 3:34: He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure.

John 17:4: I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

2 Cor 1:20: For in him every one of God's promises is a 'Yes.' For this reason it is through him that we say the 'Amen', to the glory of God.

2 Cor 3:17-18, 4:4-6: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. I n their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness', who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Ignatius of Antioch (112): There is one physican, fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God in Man, true life in death, both of Mary and of God, first passable then impassible, Jesus Christ (Incarnation)

Processionism

Clement of Rome (100): The Apostles for our sakes received the gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent from God. Christ then is from God, and the Apostles from Christ . . . and through the Spirit they appointed their first fruits to be bishops and deacons [overseers and ministers] of them that should believe.

The Vincentian Canon (Catholicity)

Vincent of Lerins (434): Now, in the Catholic Church itself we take greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. One must compare the opinions of the Fathers and inquire of their meaning, provided always that, though they belonged to diverse times and places, they yet continued steadfast in the faith and communion of the one Catholic Church.

Conclusion

Priestly's work omits all these passages, in what can only be considered "selective" reading. The Baptism of Jesus is the Epiphany of his Divine-Human Sonship, testified by both the Father and the Holy Spirit, and becomes the Theophany of the Trinity. After Easter, the Feast of the Epiphany is the second oldest and most important feast of the Christian Church. As Jesus commands, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). The Council of Chalcedon (451) defined de fide the dual natures of Jesus. In long, Priestly is the corruption.

Catholics, Perspectives & the Founding

Anti-Roman Catholic bigotry tied the "Protestant Christians" in America during the Founding era and for some time thereafter. This passage by the "Protestant Christian" Jonathan Mayhew in 1759 on Roman Catholicism & Quebec is instructive of the anti-Roman Catholic zeitgeist:

Dost thou not know, that those who fight for a Tyrant, will not fight like free-born Britons ? Perhaps thou thinketh thyself again at Ticonderoga—But dost thou not see, who it is at the head of that little veteran army, by his presence infusing courage enough into each breast, to make every man a hero ? Or, perhaps, thou thinkest thy relicks, thy crosses, and thy saints, either St. Peter, or thy great Lady, whom thou profanely stilest "The mother God," will now befriend, and make thee victorious. But remember, that little host now in array against thee, worship the God that made the heavens, earth, and seas, with all that they contain; the Lord of hosts is his name! His is the glory and the victory ; and know, that the event of this battle shall be accordingly! Cross thyself speedily, if thou thinkest it will be of any advantage to thee! Mercy to thy soul, notwithstanding violated faith at Lake George, once St. Sacrament! But alas! be assured, that yonder gloomy wood on thy right, affords not laurels, but cypress for thy brows!

I put "Protestant Christian" in quotation marks when describing Mayhew because he was a unitarian, that is someone who thought himself a "Christian" but was unorthodox.

It's ironic that orthodox Trinitarian Protestants might have found common ground with unitarians of the Founding era through anti-Roman Catholic bigotry. Given their shared common ground in historic orthodox Trinitarianism, arguably Trinitarian Protestants and Roman Catholics have more in common with one another, theologically, than either do with the "unitarianism" of Mayhew and many of America's key Founders and the other philosophers and divines who influenced them.

Yet, to many Catholics, Protestants like Mayhew and Trinitarian Calvinists are indeed in the same box: They are unorthodox heretics, deviating from the one true Church's official teachings.

In fact, I came across one such Roman Catholic, a very intelligent and accomplished American attorney, recently. He wrote:

For Catholic purposes, “orthodox” means accepting all of the Church’s teachings. One can accept the Nicene Creed but still be a heretic. ... But even assuming [Calvin accepted the Nicene Creed], it’s not enough, since he also (as I recall) denied the doctrine of free will, the communion of saints, and the sacrifice present in the Mass, which are fairly important doctrines. You and the modern theologians (whom I assume are Protestants) are free to use the term “orthodox Christianity” to include “views formally condemned by the Church as heretical and therefore not orthodox,” but that’s not the sense in which I’m using it.