U[I]nalienable Rights

[Enlightenment] provides the structure for the key term of liberal democracy, the most successful and useful political notion of our world: rights. Government exists to protect the product of men’s labor, their property, and therewith life and liberty. The notion that man possesses inalienable natural rights, that they belong to him as an individual prior, both in time and in sanctity, to any civil society, and that civil societies exist for and acquire their legitimacy from ensuring those rights, is an invention of modern philosophy. Rights…are new in modernity, not a part of the common-sense language of politics or of classical political philosophy. Hobbes initiated the notion of rights, and it was given its greatest respectability by Locke. -- Allan Bloom, "The Closing of the American Mind," p. 165.

That was Allan Bloom crediting Hobbsean-Lockean Enlightenment with the notion of unalienable rights. The East Coast Straussians, of which Bloom is the most famous figure, view "rights talk" as a fundamentally modern enterprise and a break with classical or Christian "worldviews." A number of notable social conservatives agree with this idea -- for instance, Robert Bork -- and they in turn are likely to endorse a strictly constructed understanding of the US Constitution, with the Declaration of Independence purposefully having no part of constitutional interpretation.

Yet, Allan Bloom's/the East Coast Straussians' view of "rights talk" remains highly debated. This is the subject of many books, not a medium sized blog post. The rest of my post is going to have a narrow focus: Who first coined the phrase "unalienable" or "inalienable rights"? I have found that it was indeed John Locke, as Bloom notes above. This is not the same as the much harder to answer question: Who first posited the concept, without necessarily using the phrase? For instance, Roger Williams' ideas on "liberty of conscience" more or less say the same thing as Locke's, and Williams predated Locke. However Williams didn't use the phrase "u[i]nalienable rights."

The most recent Coral Ridge program featured one Dr. Robert Peters who suggested that Samuel Rutherford and John Knox first put forth the concepts of u[i]nalienable rights even intimating they used that term by name. However, that is not true. They didn't use the term "u[i]nalienable rights." At least not from what I have uncovered.

It's been noted that John Locke borrowed the concept of u[i]nalienable rights from Samuel Rutherford. However, no evidence directly connects Locke to Rutherford. Locke certainly never cited Rutherford. Francis Schaeffer seems to be the source of this myth in the modern age. It's possible that Locke absorbed Rutherford's ideas by osmosis. [They were "in the air" as Tom Van Dyke would put it.] However, Locke's views were similar to Rutherford's only insofar as both posited the legitimacy of resisting Kings under Romans 13. On religious liberty issues, Rutherford and John Knox were both unrepentant theocrats who defended Calvin's execution of Michael Servetus simply for preaching theological unitarianism. You can read of the very disturbing primary sources here. On top features a quotation of Rutherford's:

"It was justice, not cruelty, yea mercy to the Church of God, to take away the life of Servetus, who used such spirituall and diabolick cruelty to many thousand soules, whom he did pervert, and by his Booke, does yet lead into perdition."

-- Samuel Rutherfurd, "A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience." (1649).

You can read John Knox's disgraceful defense of Servetus' execution here.

It's been brought to my attention that Roman Catholic theologians may have anticipated John Locke's and Algernon Sidney's natural rights ideas that America's Founders used to declare independence (indeed Sidney cites them in his writings). However I still have seen no evidence that these Roman Catholic sources used the term "u[i]nalienable rights."

Why is all of this relevant? For a variety of reasons, folks of different ideologies want to "claim" the Founding. If their heritage gave it us, as the theory goes, they own it and therefore deserve some kind of special recognition or privilege in terms of what America "ought" to be. It's no surprise that on the Calvinist Coral Ridge Hour they tried to credit Calvinist sources, that the Acton Institute, comprised mainly of Roman Catholics, wants to credit Roman Catholic sources for America's Founding ideals, and secularists want to credit the Enlightenment. None of this, of course, "poisons the well," because one of them may be right...or not.

But, in the end we are left with John Locke as the first to coin the phrase "u[i]alienable rights," and without question he is "America's philosopher." And in this "religious heritage" battle over American Founding ideals we are left with a half empty half full figure with Locke. Locke called himself a Christian and believed Jesus was the Messiah and termed Christianity "reasonable." He also excessively used reason/natural law in his philosophical inquiries and posited ideas that arguably conflicted with the traditional Christian view of reality. Finally he was accused of being a theological unitarian in an era when one wasn't free to openly deny the Trinity (see Servetus). And in all likelihood, he was one.

Brief Book Introduction

Bodies of Belief: Baptist
Community in Early America
by Janet Moore Lindman

At the Religion in American History blog, Dr. Paul Harvey gives a brief introduction to a new book that is sure to spark the interest of our blog readers. The book is entitled, Bodies of Belief: Baptist Community in Early America, by Janet Lindman of Rowan University. Dr Harvey writes:

The book's main thrust, based on the summary below, appears to go along well with a number of other recent studies of early Baptist bodies, including portions of Charles Irons's Origins of Proslavery Christianity, which we've discussed extensively on this blog before, as well as Jewell Spangler, Virginians Reborn: Anglican Monopoly, Evangelical Dissent, and the Rise of Baptists in the Eighteenth Century. Evangelical democracy is looking less democratic than it used to in the historiography, a healthy corrective I think, and one that accords better with how these early church bodies actually worked in practice, and how they fit into society.

In addition, the University of Pennsylvania Press provides the following introduction to Janet Lindman's book:

The American Baptist church originated in British North America as "little tabernacles in the wilderness," isolated seventeenth-century congregations that grew into a mainstream denomination by the early nineteenth century. The common view of this transition casts these evangelicals as radicals who were on society's fringe during the colonial period, only to become conservative by the nineteenth century after they had achieved social acceptance. In Bodies of Belief, Janet Moore Lindman challenges this accepted, if oversimplified, characterization of early American Baptists by arguing that they struggled with issues of equity and power within the church during the colonial period, and that evangelical religion was both radical and conservative from its beginning.

Bodies of Belief traces the paradoxical evolution of the Baptist religion, including the struggles of early settlement and church building, varieties of theology and worship, and the multivalent meaning of conversation, ritual, and godly community. Lindman demonstrates how the body—both individual bodies and the collective body of believers—was central to Baptist definition and maintenance of faith. The Baptist religion galvanized believers through a visceral transformation of religious conversion, which was then maintained through ritual. Yet the Baptist body was differentiated by race and gender. While all believers were spiritual equals, white men remained at the top of a rigid church hierarchy. Drawing on church books, associational records, diaries, letters, sermon notes, ministerial accounts, and early histories from the Mid-Atlantic and the Chesapeake as well as New England, this innovative study of early American religion asserts that the Baptist religion was predicated simultaneously on a radical spiritual ethos and a conservative social outlook.

Be sure to visit the Religion in American History blog for future reviews of this book! I also hope to provide a review of this book here at American Creation as soon as I find the time to read it (which may not happen until I am finished with grad school). =)

The Common Sense of Common Sense

Thomas Paine and the Birth of
Natural Religion, Natural Law
and Enlightenment Philosophy
by Brad Hart

In the October, 2008 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, historian Sophia Rosenfeld of the University of Virginia takes an in-depth look at a document, which despite its large popularity, often goes overlooked. As most history geeks already know, Thomas Paine's epic pamphlet, Common Sense was a literal best seller in 1776, catapulting the discussion of independence from Britain into the forefront of the American conversation. As a result, Paine became an overnight celebrity of sorts, a colonial J.K Rowling who followed up the success of Common Sense with a number of other influential works. Yet despite the massive attention that Common Sense has received over the centuries, there is still much about the text itself that deserves the undivided attention of historians today.

Hence the insightful article of historian Sophia Rosenfeld, who, despite all the superficial notions suggesting that Common Sense has been dissected thoroughly enough, provides us with a new and astute interpretation of this timeless American classic.

According to Rosenfeld, Common Sense can and should be seen in conjunction with the emergence of 18th century Enlightenment philosophy and the budding seeds of common sense beliefs. As Rosenfeld points out:

The history of common sense -- as a cognitive faculty, and a set of basic ideas, even as a rhetorical form -- has been interwoven with politics at every turn. Its rise as an important epistematic authority began in context not only of the decline of Aristotelian understandings of sense perception but also of the crisis in traditional forms of legitimation characteristic of late-seventeenth-century European religious and political life. From this moment onward, common sense, with its foundations in the basic mental abilities of common people, functioned alternately to bolster or to supersede more conventional sources of legitimation or evidence, including the Bible, law, history, custom, reason, and scholastic knowledge (635).

Keeping in mind the numerous blog conversations we have enjoyed on the role of natural religion, laws of nature, etc., Dr. Rosenfeld's interpretation of common sense as a palpable intellectual alternative to traditional forms of legitimation is striking. As she suggests, the common sense found within Common Sense is in complete agreement with the emerging unitarian/natural religion ideologies of the late 18th century. In fact, the British colonies in America were the perfect breeding ground for the development of such beliefs. As Dr. Rosenfeld states:

As anthropologists and historians of mentalities have frequently pointed out, most assumptions deemed self-evident by their propogators turn out, on inspection, to be highly culturally specific. This includes the very idea of common sense itself (635).

In other words, what one people uphold to be self-evident truths supported by the very laws of nature itself are sometimes seen by others in a very different way. Perhaps this explains why so many nations reject the American form of "self-evident" and "divinely-sanctioned" democratic government.

The success of Common Sense in the American colonies, though certainly the result of the intense political strife between the colonies and the mother country, has a much deeper root that is worthy of consideration. As Dr. Rosenfeld points out, the 18th century was an era of incredible advancement in rational thought, all of which inspired a return to the "glory days" of the Western world's ancient philosophers. Rosenfeld writes:

The 1700s, and particularly the 1770s, were one of the great ages of thinking about common sense and its meaning and function. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century, this concept became a staple ingredient of polemical writing of all sorts...By the middle of the eighteenth century, the English phrase "common sense" could be used to mean, at once, a basic ability to form clear perceptions and make elementary judgements about everyday matters; the conventional wisdom born of those common judgements and shared by all sensible people (641).

When seen in this light, Benjamin Franklin's "public religion" and Jefferson's "natural religion" are essentially nothing more than an appeal to the Enlightenment doctrines of common sense. As a result, natural religion, deism, theistic rationalism, etc. are all deeply rooted in a shared "common sense."

Paine's Common Sense, provides ample examples of how Enlightenment common sense was applied to the American call for independence. On numerous occasions, Paine cites the "simple voice of nature and of reason," all of which suggest that the course of independence was right. On another occasion, this same "simple voice of nature" was employed to condemn the motherland for her actions:

The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'TIS TIME TO PART.' Even the distance which the Almighty has 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 [my emphasis].

And perhaps the best example of the common sense of Common Sense can be found in Paine's personal ideology of government:

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be distorted; and the easier repaired when distorted [my emphasis.]

This doctrine of common sense was not exclusively unique to Paine alone. Religious leaders, who were themselves enmeshed in the changes brought on by Enlightenment philosophy, were beginning to turn to a more "common sense" -- i.e. theistic rationalism, deism, unitarianism -- creed. Rosenfeld writes:

Even the Presbyterian thinkers of mid-eighteenth-century Aberdeen used the idea of common sense to partisan advantage, hoping to sway public opinion in one particular direction, especially when it came to religious questions, and away from other. The radical continental Enlightenment forged it into a public weapon. That it sounded objective and indisputable yet popular was the source of its success as an organ of subjective, partisan and always potentially demagogic political action.

The 18th century "common sense" religion of the Enlightenment not only broke the bands of traditional orthodoxy, but also ushered in a commitment to embracing the "natural order" of "nature's God." By looking to a common sense understanding of the world the devotion to religious orthodoxy began to waver at an alarming rate. In conclusion, Dr. Rosenfeld best sums up the doctrine of 18th century common sense when she writes:

With Paine's polemic, then, we see common sense function not only as a foundation for certain knowledge but also a way to undermine what passes for unassailable fact in the present. We see common sense as the corollary of ordinary, commonplace language and simultaneously as a means to cut through the filter of words, especially those that serve to obfuscate or disguise reality. We see common sense as the voice of the peopleas a whole and as the voice of the clear-sighted, prophetic individual who intuits what the people should be able to grasp but cannot alone. And we see common sense mean not only what is common in the here and now but also what is authentical to the common until some later moment in time(653).

Or in other words, the emergence of natural religion, laws of nature, etc.

Washington's Farewell Address & the "Christian Nation" Claim

When I saw the Acton Institutes' "The Birth of Freedom" premiere in Washington, DC, none other than Lou Sheldon -- a notable figure from the religious right -- was present in the audience and read from George Washington's Farewell Address during the Q & A session. I'm sure many of my readers know of the famous passage where Washington said:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports....And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Now, this certainly provides ammo for those who wish to "lower" the wall of separation between Church and State; however, I see it oft-cited in order to prove the "Christian Nation" claim or Washington's orthodox Christianity. And it does neither. Arguably it expresses a heterodox unitarian sentiment.

First Washington's Farewell Address never specifies "Christianity" or "orthodox Christianity" as *the* religion that must support republican government. Although that kind of "religion" certainly would, as Washington's theory goes, suffice. And second its view of religion is entirely instrumental, utilitarian or "civil." What can religion do for government? And here is where we stumble upon the biggest disconnect between orthodox Christianity and George Washington's heterodox sentiments in his Farewell Address.

Orthodox Christians believe that the primary purpose of religion is to save souls, not necessarily make men moral and hence self-governable. And it's through Christ's blood atonement alone that men are saved. It's true that one can believe in both [my religion a) not only saves souls, but also b) provides wonderful civil utility in the way it makes men moral]. However, it seems to me that any serious orthodox Christian who really does believe that men are saved through Christ's blood atonement as the ONLY way to God would prioritize salvation over civil utility. And this is something that Washington NEVER did, even in his correspondence with the orthodox clergy where they seemed to talk past one another. Washington rarely if ever intimated to them that Christ was the only way to God and thanked them for saving men's souls (as you would expect him to do were he an orthodox Christian). Rather he invariably thanked them for making men moral and consequently supporting republican government.

The following from Washington praising Presbyterian Clergy is typical of his sentiment:

While I reiterate the professions of my dependence upon Heaven as the source of all public and private blessings; I will observe that the general prevalence of piety; philanthropy, honesty, industry, and economy seems, in the ordinary course of human affairs, particularly necessary for advancing and conforming the happiness of our country. While all men within our territories and protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will be emulous of evincing the sanctity of their professions by the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man, who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society.

I desire you to accept my acknowledgments for your laudable endeavors to render men sober, honest, and good Citizens, and the obedient subjects of a lawful government.

Washington's praise for the clergy is all about civil utility. And because of their belief in the civil utility of religion, the key Founders elevated works over faith as more important towards salvation. As the theory goes, "sound" religion, in fact produces the virtue which supports republican government. And they found "sound religion" in, at the very least, Christianity, Deism, Unitarianism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Native American Spirituality, and Pagan Ancient Greco-Roman worship.

Here are some quotations of the Founders expressing this heterodox notion that works are more important than faith:

"My fundamental principle would be the reverse of Calvin's, that we are to be saved by our good works which are within our power, and not by our faith which is not within our power."

-- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas B. Parker, May 15, 1819.

"No point of Faith is so plain, as that Morality is our Duty; for all Sides agree in that. A virtuous Heretick shall be saved before a wicked Christian."

-- Benjamin Franklin, "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians," April 10, 1735.

"Faith is recommended as a Means of producing Morality: Our Saviour was a Teacher of Morality or Virtue, and they that were deficient and desired to be taught, ought first to believe in him as an able and faithful Teacher. Thus Faith would be a Means of producing Morality, and Morality of Salvation. But that from such Faith alone Salvation may be expected, appears to me to be neither a Christian Doctrine nor a reasonable one....Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End: And if the End be obtained, it is no matter by what Means."

-- Ibid.

Franklin's logic is quite clear: If non-Christian religions produce virtue in people, then those "good people" are saved via their works. So the primary aim of Christianity and all other religions is to produce good people. Christians might have some special advantage over the other world religions in that Jesus of Nazareth, our key Founders believed, was a great, arguably the greatest moral teacher. Thus, Christians' best hope for salvation was to follow his teachings and example.

Next, J. Adams on the true purpose of Christianity:

"...the design of Christianity was not to make men good Riddle Solvers or good mystery mongers, but good men, good magestrates and good Subjects...."

-- John Adams, Dairy, Feb. 18, 1756

In this letter to James Fishback, Sept. 27, 1809, Jefferson connects religion with morality, just as Washington did, but further specifies that all world religions produce such morality:

Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree. All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words 'this do in remembrance of me' cost the Christian world!...We see good men in all religions, and as many in one as another. It is then a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquility of others by the expression of any opinion on the [unimportant points] innocent questions on which we schismatize, and think it enough to hold fast to those moral precepts which are of the essence of Christianity, and of all other religions.

Through this perspective, go back and reread Washington's Farewell Address and see not only does it perfectly fit with the above quoted beliefs of Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson (indeed the Address was written by Hamilton, who like them was a theistic rationalist, not a Christian), arguably it resonates more with such heterodox belief system than with orthodox Christianity (even ultimately, it if was consistent with both belief systems). Washington never said one need be Christian in order to be saved but rather that religion is necessary for morality. Washington's Address represented a brilliant use of abstractions where he could express his heterodoxy in a way which seemed consistent with the prevailing orthodoxy of the day, yet still not outright lie.

Puritan Belief and Political Ideaology

A Shining City: Puritan Pride on the American Revolution Time Line

Puritanism may be the most maligned religion in American History but conflict with the Anglican Church was a cause of the English Civil War and the American Revolution!

Puritan beliefs have been considered a principle cause of the English Civil War, and as such are a considerable mitigating factor in the American Revolution. The Puritan revolt in 1641 was framed by the resistance, politically, to the autocratic rule of the Stuart Kings. They were afraid that the “impurities” of the Anglican Church would, with the support of the absolute rule of King Charles I, bring back the religious influence and tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church.

The First Republican Revolution

The primary catalyst in the English Civil war was found in those persecuted meeting houses in East Anglia where the preponderance of Puritan belief had its greatest following and would send New World Puritan leaders like John Winthrop to New England. It was this religious fervor that contributed more men and financial support to this first Republican Revolution than any other population center in England. These Puritans believed that there was a right and a wrong way to do everything. It is this distinct black and white view of society that has given the very word “puritan” its universal meaning today as a synonym for repression, especially of the religious sort.

Do's and Don'ts

Interestingly enough, if you were to interview the average Puritan believer just prior to the American Revolution you would not find that they had a prideful self righteous attitude. Instead you would more likely encounter a very deep sense of self doubt as to whether one was sure they would truly enter the Kingdom of God. This doubt was so ingrained that there was an almost universally poor “religious self-image". Cotton Mather illustrated this in his "Essays to Do Good". He explained that doing well or even having good intentions was not good enough. One also had to realize that even innocuous things, which may only make a good work “less perfect than it might otherwise be”, could be “an unequivocal evil”. The reason for our modern misconception is because we focus on the “don’ts” of which they were sure, rather than the “do's” of which they were not. While they were never assured that their own practice of religion was ever pure enough, they were adamant about what kind of religion was not. Pure religion was not, in any way, shape or form, Roman Catholic!

The Inevitable Choice

This meant that several issues endemic to Puritan belief made the revolutionary break from Great Britain almost inevitable. They believed that one’s relationship with their creator could only be achieved by proving, with your way of life, that you were chosen by God. This heavenly choice was the only way to become truly free from sin and to experience the liberty of a clean conscience before God. They believed that any governmental influence that promoted another doctrine was tyranny. This was the reason for their fierce rejection of anything other than self-determined government.

The Security of Liberty

Naturally, these values ran over into their political and economic practices. These factors all but insured that the impetus for American Revolutionary reform would begin in the New England Colonies. It had taken these religiously insecure descendants of East Anglian Britons more than 150 years to achieve a semblance of security by establishing their own system and ideal of liberty and self-determination. King George III, in his own insecurity about the future military superiority and economic survival of the Empire, decided to limit those liberties. These Puritans, with their collective and ancient fear of tyranny would never submit!

Sources

Visible Saints, The History of a Puritan Idea by Edmund S. Morgan, 1965, Cornell University Press

Albion’s Seed, Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer, 1989, Oxford University Press

The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America by Kevin Phillips, 1999, Basic Books

Posted with written permission of the Author

Christ's Poor

Historian Gary Nash on the
Religion of the Average "Joe Sixpack"
by Brad Hart

Here at American Creation we have endeavored to piece together the religious influences that shaped the perspectives of our founding fathers and other notable and influential individuals. However, such a pursuit has often caused us to neglect the important role that religion played in the lives of the common American of the 18th century. While deism, theistic rationalism, theological unitarianism, orthodoxy, etc. each played a role in shaping the religious construct of those we affectionately call the "founders," these same forces were at work -- in a very different way -- on America's colonial "Joe Sixpack."

One of the best works of history in recent years on the life and influence of the common American during the American Revolution is Gary Nash's The Unknown American Revolution. In this book, Nash dissects how average Americans -- most of them would have thought of themselves as British -- played some of THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL roles during America's quest for independence. And, among a plethora of other factors, Gary Nash mentions just how important religion was for the common American.

According to Nash, "Christ's Poor" as he refers to them, were the heart and soul of America's firestorm of religious enthusiasm, which literally devised new religious concepts for how an individual could commune with the divine. This "Great Awakening" as historians call it today, began to rebuke the traditional religious institutions, which had maintained a spiritual monopoly on the souls of common American for over a century. As a result, the colonial "Joe Sixpack" began to see religion as a personal endeavor, which did not require the traditional sacraments of the clergy. As Nash states:

God did not operate through the elite corps of the learned clergy and their aristocratic allies. Rather, god worked through the inner light given to every man and woman regardless of their station in life, with lack of education or even slave status posing no barrier to achieving grace through the conversion experience (8).

Not only were the traditional concepts of religious authority questioned, but the very doctrine of Christianity had begun an evolutionary process, which developed independently from the traditional clergy of the 18th century. This evolution toppled the pulpit as a source of ecclesiastical domination, which had sought to subjugate the citizenry under its religious umbrella. By toppling the status quo, Americans were for the first time put on equal footing with their former clergymen. As Nash points out:

The message was one of social leveling, for it put all people on one footing insofar as the conversion experience was concerned. Moreover, the message was one that condemned the clergy as unconverted and deplored their love of velvet garments and other luxurious trappings (9).

With the emergence of enthusiastic preachers like George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, etc., "Joe Sixpack" religion became the religion of the "uneducated masses that had no minds of their own." At least this was the fear of the ecclesiastic and gentry class.

Even slaves, who, for the first time, were taught the principles of emerging evangelical Christianity, grabbed hold of the "good news" and found a refuge from the tyranny of servitude. As Nash points out, it was the gospel of early evangelical Christianity that gave Blacks the hope for freedom, even if it was only to be obtained in the world to come.

And while Nash devotes only a few pages to the impact of "Christ's Poor," the importance of the religion of the masses is not lost. For Nash, it was in this "Great Awakening" that Americans -- as a mass movement -- first challenged the authority of their day. It was under the fires of religious revolution that Americans learned to throw their first punches, all of which was to hone their skills in their eventual bout with the homeland itself.

Carter's Definition of Christianity is Defensible

Joe Carter is taking heat for a post [with a follow up here] that examines Barack Obama's theological views and determines they are not "Christian" (even though Obama calls them "Christian").

If you tell me that you’re a "Christian" I take that to mean that you subscribe to a common set of doctrines outlined in either the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed. Both of these creeds are ecumenical Christian statements of faith accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and almost all branches of Protestantism. They outline what it means to be a "mere" Christian.

Carter then examines why Obama's views flunk the test (see the rest of his original post).

Carter's definition of Christianity is rightly disputed but entirely defensible on historical grounds. It's the very same definition I use when I conclude the key Founding Fathers were not "Christian." And indeed Carter notes John Adams flunked the same standard that Obama flunked. He also notes that Obama's status as a true believer is ultimately irrelevant in terms of ability to be a good President:

But all of this misses the true underlying question: Does it really matter if Obama is an orthodox Christian? If we are talking about the state of his eternal soul, I would answer "yes." If we are talking about his effectiveness as a President, the answer is obviously "no." After all, John Adams was theologically unorthodox and yet a great President while Jimmy Carter was a horrible President while being a completely orthodox believer.

Lest we should be seen as giving Obama a special "in" with the theology of the Founding Fathers, I would note from what I observed, McCain to me didn't appear to be any more orthodox than Obama. Indeed, this nominal Christianity that believes in a Providential God but either rejects or downplays orthodox Trinitarian doctrine arguably fits better with the American Presidency than orthodox Trinitarian Christianity which is too exclusive for not just today's pluralistic society but the one America's Founders established. Indeed it's doubtful that we had an orthodox Trinitarian Christian President until Andrew Jackson.

Finally in this comment, Carter gives a list of historic Churches that define Christianity accordingly:

–The Roman Catholic Church
–The Eastern Orthodox Church
–The Assyrian Church of the East
–The Oriental Orthodox churches
–The Lutheran Church
–The Anglican Communion
–All Presbyterian Churches
–The Methodist Church
–Almost all Reformed churches

This is very similar to a chart that Dr. Gregg Frazer constructs on page 10 of his PhD thesis where he shows ALL of the established Founding Era churches defined Christianity the same way, except one...the Quakers. More on that later, but I would contend that the Founding Fathers' "theistic rationalism" was in a sense like Quakerism without the anti-war teachings.

Babka Replies to Frazer II

The conversation winds down. Here is Jim Babka's reply to Dr. Frazer's latest remarks:

Gregg, I'm going to wind this down because you have classes to prepare for, and I a business to run.

At those points where you assert that I was refuting points you did not make, I was taking the entire conversation into context -- including Jon Rowe's original post (which I assumed you were defending). The points needed to be made. Oh, and you did note that I said, with some embarrassment that I was quoting web sources including Wikipedia, right?

One can safely (and probably should) assume, based on the preponderance of material -- and especially the Adams citation I provided -- that the original thesis that Unitarianism was necessary because "Calvinism was inconsistent with revolution," was incorrect. This was the core of the issue (and everything else was window dressing). I note that you haven't returned to counter that point.

Regarding my "lenses," you should know that assertions about what goes on in people's minds, like their motives or knowledge, is dangerous territory and nearly impossible to prove. I was not always a libertarian. I came into libertarianism from the opposite direction. It's been a decade; Harry Browne's '96 campaign recruited me. But if I couldn't square what Harry said with Scripture, it probably never would've happened.

Until the late 90s, it was true that the overwhelming majority of libertarians had a strong Randian streak that embraced selfishness. But a large and growing plurality are like me. They believe that liberty promotes responsibility and results in increased virtue. My Biblical example for this is Adam and Eve. Was God caught off-guard by their decision to eat the fruit, or did He value their liberty (often called Free Will) more? I think the answer is obvious.

Thanks for the respect you've shown me in responding. I've learned a great deal here. **Jim Babka

The "Sexual" American Revolution

The American Revolution can, at times, be characterized as a collection of smaller revolutions, all of which contributed and eventually led to the larger revolution -- i.e. the literal split from Great Britain. For example, the Great Awakening is often considered a revolution in and of itself, since it completely changed the way American colonists understood religion. The Market Revolution, which followed the actual American Revolution, can also be seen as another "mini-revolution," in which capitalism made its debut on the American stage.

In addition to these and numerous other "mini-revolutions" a sexual revolution of sorts also took place in early America. Richard Godbeer, a historian with the University of Miami and author of the book, Sexual Revolution in Early America has put together an excellent piece of work on how sex and gender relations underwent a tremendous transition in colonial America.

Here is a brief introduction and review of the book by John Hopkins University Press:

In 1695, John Miller, a clergyman traveling through New York, found it appalling that so many couples lived together without ever being married and that no one viewed "ante-nuptial fornication" as anything scandalous or sinful. Charles Woodmason, an Anglican minister in South Carolina in 1766, described the region as a "stage of debauchery" in which polygamy was "very common," "concubinage general," and "bastardy no disrepute." These depictions of colonial North America's sexual culture sharply contradict the stereotype of Puritanical abstinence that persists in the popular imagination. In Sexual Revolution in Early America, Richard Godbeer boldly overturns conventional wisdom about the sexual values and customs of colonial Americans. His eye-opening historical account spans two centuries and most of British North America, from New England to the Caribbean, exploring the social, political, and legal dynamics that shaped a diverse sexual culture. Drawing on exhaustive research into diaries, letters, and other private papers, as well as legal records and official documents, Godbeer's absorbing narrative uncovers a persistent struggle between the moral authorities and the widespread expression of popular customs and individual urges. Godbeer begins with a discussion of the complex attitude that the Puritans had toward sexuality. For example, although believing that sex could be morally corrupting, they also considered it to be such an essential element of a healthy marriage that they excommunicated those who denied "conjugal fellowship" to their spouses. He next examines the ways in which race and class affected the debate about sexual mores, from anxieties about Anglo-Indian sexual relations to the sense of sexual entitlement that planters held over their African slaves. He concludes by detailing the fundamental shift in sexual culture during the eighteenth century towards the acceptance of a more individualistic concept of sexual desire and fulfillment. Today's moral critics, in their attempts to convince Americans of the social and spiritual consequences of unregulated sexual behavior, often hearken back to a more innocent age; as this groundbreaking work makes clear, America's sexual culture has always been rich, vibrant, and contentious.

In addition, colonial historian Alan Taylor gives the following critique of Godbeer's book:

Previous scholars also balked at examining colonial sex as its own subject, largely from a fear that the historical sources were insufficient. Godbeer forged ahead, "astonished by the richness of the material that survives on the subject." The problem is not that Godbeer lacks sources, but that they are trickier than he recognizes. Few diaries and letters survive from the colonial era, and fewer still offer frank admission to sexual thoughts and acts. Generalizing from those scatological few to the larger colonial population is problematic, to say the least. More often Godbeer must rely on hearsay accounts recorded by travelers who were keen to gather scandal at the expense of locales they disliked; and most often he depends on the recorded testimony in court cases brought by authorities or by aggrieved spouses seeking divorces. The travelers' accounts and court cases provide plenty of seamy and steamy quotations, but taking them at face value skews our picture of colonial sexuality toward the sensational. Finding what he seeks, Godbeer proves reluctant to doubt any of his sources. That he discovers more conflict than consensus, more deviance than conformity, seems inevitable given the nature of his sources -- and his disinterest in challenging them. Reading today's police log or tabloid newspaper certainly conveys a gritty reality denied in other genres, but it is a reality that needs to be kept in proportion when characterizing an entire society....

...A specialist in the cultural history of seventeenth-century New England, Godbeer appears most comfortable and persuasive when analyzing particular episodes and texts drawn from that region and that century. In an especially impressive passage, Godbeer examines the case of Nicholas Sension of Windsor, Connecticut in 1677. Sension's prosecution for sodomy seems to confirm Puritan rigidity and intolerance, but Godbeer shows that for more than twenty preceding years Sension's neighbors had recognized and reproved his behavior without involving the court. Since Sension was otherwise a good neighbor and a prosperous farmer who acted only upon young men of lower status, his townsmen balked at prosecuting him for a crime that carried the death penalty. Despite abundant evidence for multiple acts, the jury convicted Sension only of the lesser charge of attempted sodomy, which brought a public whipping and shaming instead of hanging. His Puritan neighbors persistently saw Sension as a wayward but redeemable sinner no different from any other soul, rather than as a distinctive sodomite. Throughout the century, only two men suffered execution for sodomy in New England.

In addition to softening our image of Puritan moral enforcement, Godbeer ameliorates the Puritans' cold image by recovering their sexual passion within both marriage and spirituality. In this emphasis, he follows the lead of Edmund S. Morgan, who made a similar case in 1942. Puritan sermons, poetry, and love letters celebrated marital and procreative sex in part to discourage all sexuality before or outside marriage. Never people to do things by halves, the Puritans extolled foreplay and orgasm by husband and wife. In a guide to marriage, Reverend William Gouge preached that sex "must be performed with good will and delight, willingly, readily, and cheerfully." Believing that conception depended upon a female orgasm, ministers urged every husband to attend to his wife's needs. Another marital guide instructed that "when the husband cometh into the wife's chamber, he must entertain her with all kind of dalliance, wanton behavior, and allurements to venery."

More striking still, the Puritans expressed their spirituality in erotic terms that transcended gender. Ministers exhorted Puritans, male and female, to submit to "an eternal love affair with Jesus Christ." One young man asked in his diary, "Will the Lord now again return and embrace me in the arms of his dearest love? Will he fall upon my neck and kiss me?" Since souls were equal and either without gender or vaguely female, Puritan men comfortably spoke of submitting as brides to ravishment by Christ as their spiritual bridegroom. Godbeer concludes that "Puritan sensibility offered a way to spiritualize sex and sexualize the spirit in a glorious and torrid symbiosis."

The Great Awakening 1739-1740

The American Soul is Born Again to Revolutionary Religious Independence

© Roger Saunders

George Whitefield woke them up. Jonathon Edwards went to war for their souls. America found cause for a new spiritual freedom, inspiring the political Revolution in 1776!

Early in the 18th century America already had an eclectic religious history. One great series of events became a precursor to the coming political unity. Occurring a full 35 years before the battles of Lexington and Concord, the aftershocks of the “Great Awakening” tore open the floodgates whose waters were used for America's baptism in the Spirit of 76. Oddly enough, this torrent of religious fervor had its roots in the same soil that produced the rugged American love of Liberty.

A New Birth

The groundswell began at tiny Bell Inn in Gloucester, England when the Anglican Priest, George Whitefield, was born. George Whitefield was an inconsistent student but he had a flair for the dramatic and an unusually loud voice that some would swear they could hear two miles away. He entered Oxford University under a work-study program that allowed him to finance his education by being a servant to the upperclassmen. There, another soon to be well known itinerant preacher, Charles Wesley, loaned him a book called “The Life of God in the Soul of Man”. This book was the impetus that led Whitefield to craft his inspirational sermons about the “new birth”. It was to lead to the modern renewal of the religious concept of being “born again”. From that time forward Whitefield dedicated his life to preaching this “gospel” to whoever would listen. Thousands did, first in England, and then in every colony in America.

Individual Freedom

Although Whitefield had already preached with profound effect to thousands in Philadelphia and New York, this spiritual awakening was to explode when he made a trip to New England in the fall of 1740. He preached to thousands in Boston and spent four days at the Northampton Congregationalist church where Jonathon Edwards was the pastor. He only spent a month in New England but his message of individual responsibility to God was to sweep south from Northampton over every colony for the next year and a half. His booming voice, along with the soft-spoken tones of Jonathon Edwards, was to inspire many more “evangelists” spreading the good news of religious freedom and fervor in wave after wave through America. The effects of this awakening were consciously felt for the next decade.

Religious Hierarchy Toppled

America’s subconscious was irreversibly affected by this revival. Religion, even through the reformation, had been symbiotically linked with governmental authority. This link gave the religious hierarchy a sort of monopoly on the hearts and souls of men. An individual’s conscience was invariably overruled by the religious elite. The Great Awakening broke this religious spell and imbued these individuals who had a personal religious experience with a sense of spiritual independence and liberty. They began to feel a freedom to pursue a “personal relationship” with their God apart from the religious establishment.

A New Spiritual Power

Individuals and whole churches dissolved the spiritual bonds which connected them to the established church. They began to independently assume the power to form their own new congregational “governments”. This was one great step that lead to that giant leap in the dark when these colonists would find it “necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.”

Sources:

Whitefield and Wesley on the New Birth by George Whitfield and John Wesley, 1986, F. Asbury Press

A Religious History of the American People by Sydney E. Ahlstrom, 2004, Yale University Press

Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land, A History of Church and State in America by Edwin S. Gaustad, 2003, Oxford University Press

Visible Saints, The History of a Puritan Idea by Edmund S. Morgan, 1965, Cornell University Press

This article, The Great Awakening 1739-1740 is reprinted with permission from the author.

George Washington Makes Justice Scalia like argument on Slavery (or Vice Versa)

In American liberal democratic (or constitutionally republican) politics, slavery typifies the inherent problem of individual rights v. democratic majority rule. Harry V. Jaffa termed it the "The Crisis of the House Divided." The slavery issue is now settled, but whenever a democratic majority denies individual or minority group rights (for instance, Prop. 8 in California) America has the issue of slavery to invoke. There are individual rights that are antecedent to majority rule; the Declaration of Independence teaches this. Yet, the US Constitution makes a compromise with slavery. Eventually we got a democratically vetted constitutional abolishment of slavery (and even then there are problems with just how "democratic" or "consensual" the Southern states' ratification of the 13th and 14th Amendments were).

Comparing any kind of issue, especially same sex marriage, to slavery is a bit over the top. But the point is NOT to make an equivalence, but merely to invoke the principle that our system is predicated on the notion that individual rights or minority rights (as groups of individuals) are antecedent to majority rule. The Claremont Institute trumpets this aspect of Founding era liberalism, though read through the strict lens of an Aristotle-Aquinas natural law that yields desirable socially conservative results. Democratic majorities should not, they argue, determine the issue of abortion or even homosexuality; these things are "pre-political." Just as those in favor of gay rights say even if a majority frowns upon homosexuality, that doesn't matter, Jaffa et al. flip that on its head and assert even if a majority approves homosexuality, that wouldn't matter; and a democratically enacted gay marriage statute nonetheless violates the "higher law" (which by the way, Jaffa argues correctly that the Founders derived from "reason/nature" not the Bible).

Enter Justice Scalia who argues contra Jaffa et al. Scalia puts the focus on democratic majorities/legislatures as the ultimate guarantors of individual rights and "deciders" of public policy issues. As Scalia argues:

It just seems to me incompatible with democratic theory that it's good and right for the state to do something that the majority of the people do not want done. Once you adopt democratic theory, it seems to me, you accept that proposition. If the people, for example, want abortion the state should permit abortion. If the people do not want it, the state should be able to prohibit it.

[...]

The whole theory of democracy…is that the majority rules; that is the whole theory of it. You protect minorities only because the majority determines that there are certain minority positions that deserve protection.

[...]

[Y]ou either agree with democratic theory or you do not. But you cannot have democratic theory and then say, but what about the minority? The minority loses, except to the extent that the majority, in its document of government, has agreed to accord the minority rights.

Here is Jaffa's response:

Justice Scalia says that if the people want abortion, the law should permit it. By the same reasoning, if the people want slavery, or any other form of plunder, there is no principled ground to oppose them (3).

He thinks he nails Scalia with the slavery reductio ad absurdum. Jaffa is famous for arguing that America should be read through the lens of its ideals (which hold slavery violates natural law/natural rights) and not through its compromises with those ideals (the Constitution makes a major compromise with slavery, permitting the practice of slavery to continue, which was necessary for the slave states to ratify the US Constitution).

On policy, I agree with Jaffa. I'm an individual rights loving, liberty loving classical liberal who does NOT sympathize with democratic majorities, especially as they would deny rights to individual or minority groups. But the problem doesn't resolve so easily. What do we do when the positive law, like American Founding era pro-slavery positive law, violates the natural rights in the Declaration of Independence? The solution that many small l liberals (and capital L Liberals) offer is to have countermajoritarian institutions (i.e., courts) strike down those democratically enacted laws. And again, I'm sympathetic.

There is also the even more radical notion of civil disobedience; even if the courts aren't yet on board, simply disobey positive law that violates "higher law." Many abolitionist heroes notably violated the positive law that guaranteed the "rights" of slave owners to their slave "property."

Yet, I've discovered George Washington didn't take Jaffa's approach to the dilemma or that of the abolitionists; Washington's thoughts are consonant with Jaffa's notion of ideals and compromises with ideas. Yet, he resolves the "Crisis" exactly as Justice Scalia would. As we saw above, Jaffa thought he nailed Scalia with a slavery reductio ad absurdum, but in the process he nails George Washington. I don't write this because I approve of Justice Scalia's/George Washington's approach to individual rights/slavery. As noted, I sympathize more with the other view, as I think Jefferson and Madison would too. I simply uncover these facts as an honest historian.

The context of George Washington's letter is a bunch of Quakers have violated American positive law by helping and encouraging slaves to escape. George Washington notes that he believes slavery is wrong and hopes for the day that it is abolished (hence evincing an anti-slavery ideal of the Founding) but notes it's up to LEGISLATURES to decide when that will be and in the meantime the Quakers are wrong to violate pro-slavery positive law. It's ironic that the Quakers followed English positive law when they refused to take up arms against Great Britain and George Washington violated the same by leading an armed insurrection against Great Britain (and of course Washington and the Whigs based their case on the natural law of the Declaration of Independence). Now the shoe is on the other foot and Washington argues for the positive law, the Quakers the "higher law."

As Washington writes To ROBERT MORRIS, April 12, 1786:

Dear Sir: I give you the trouble of this letter at the instance of Mr. Dalby of Alexandria; who is called to Philadelphia to attend what he conceives to be a vexatious lawsuit respecting a slave of his, which a Society of Quakers in the city (formed for such purposes) have attempted to liberate; The merits of this case will no doubt appear upon trial. but from Mr. Dalby's state of the matter, it should seem that this Society is not only acting repugnant to justice so far as its conduct concerns strangers, but, in my opinion extremely impolitickly with respect to the State, the City in particular; and without being able, (but by acts of tyranny and oppression) to accomplish their own ends. He says the conduct of this society is not sanctioned by Law: had the case been otherwise, whatever my opinion of the Law might have been, my respect for the policy of the State would on this occasion have appeared in my silence; because against the penalties of promulgated Laws one may guard; but there is no avoiding the snares of
-408-
individuals, or of private societies. And if the practice of this Society of which Mr. Dalby speaks, is not discountenanced, none of those whose misfortune it is to have slaves as attendants, will visit the City if they can possibly avoid it; because by so doing they hazard their property; or they must be at the expence (and this will not always succeed) of providing servants of another description for the trip.

I hope it will not be conceived from these observations, that it is my wish to hold the unhappy people, who are the subject of this letter, in slavery. I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting. [Rowe: Bold mine.] But when slaves who are happy and contented with their present masters, are tampered with and seduced to leave them; when masters are taken unawares by these practices; when a conduct of this sort begets discontent on one side and resentment on the other, and when it happens to fall on a man, whose purse will not measure with that of the Society, and he looses his property for want of means to defend it; it is oppression in the latter case, and not humanity in any; because it introduces more evils than it can cure.

I will make no apology for writing to you on this subject; for if Mr. Dalby has not misconceived the matter, an evil exists which requires a remedy; if he has, my intentions have been good, though I may have been too precipitate in this address. Mrs. Washington joins me in every good and kind wish for Mrs. Morris and your family, and I am, &c. 19

Freedom of Conscience: Among the Blessings of our Christian Nation

Some people, not knowing that mortal nature disintegrates in death, torture themselves in conscience (syneidesis) with evil deeds performed during their lifetime. (Democritus, Fragment 297)

… the word ‘conscience’ (or syneidesis…) is a Western and almost exclusively Christian word. (Edward Andrew, Conscience and its Critics, p. 12)

I hope to advance two notions in the following post: (1) that “freedom of conscience” is conceptual gibberish in any setting other than (protestant) Christian theology; and (2) that “freedom of conscience” is an American theological innovation (in the same sense that hamburgers and french fries are American despite being invented elsewhere), for which we today can be grateful, as we live in a society architected by men who understood the American Christian theology of freedom.

To my first point, that “freedom of conscience” is gibberish outside of Christianity, how can that be? After all, Wikipedia helpfully redirects us from freedom of conscience to freedom of thought, so there isn't really anything special going on here, is there? Ah, but there is.

Consider, first, the postmodern view, e.g. that of Freud, a post-Christian writer who, given his chosen field of analysis, ought to have a thing or two to say of freedom of conscience, if there is anything for a post-Christian to say. Alas, we have to translate our query into Freud's terminology, but having done so, we can Google “freedom of superego” to confirm that there is nothing there. Freud shares the pre-Christian view (e.g. that of Democritus, quoted above) that conscience is not something that can be free, but rather something that stands in the way of freedom: to be free, the ego must (among other things) overcome the superego (i.e. the will must overcome the conscience). The superego is not an agent of freedom, it is an obstacle to freedom, an artifact of our conditioning acting to rein us in.

Similarly, in the traditional medieval philosophical view, the conscience stands in conflict with the will when the will wants what is wrong. The advice of the conscience (conscientia antecedens) can be ignored by the will, in which case the conscience remains to condemn the act (conscientia subsequens), or else the free person can choose to conform his will to his conscience. The person experiencing conflict between his will and his conscience cannot choose to conform his conscience to his will: the will is free, the conscience is not. There is no “freedom of conscience” in traditional philosophy, the expression is incoherent.

So how is the Christian view different from this, if at all? First, many Christian philosophers (e.g. Locke) have held the philosophical view, rather than the Christian view, of conscience. Locke went so far as to take, regarding conscience and its origins, the Freudian view long before Freud did (that conscience is a result of conditioning, holding us back). But apart from Christian philosophers, Christian theologians have has always wrestled with the problem of errors of conscience. The conscience has, in Christian theology, been viewed both as capable of learning on the one hand, and of wandering into error on the other. This is a far cry from the capriciousness of the free will, but it is still indicative of freedom of a sort for the conscience, and unfortunately it has also always formed the basis for Christian persecution: what is free can be influenced, and coercion is just the influential cousin of persuasion.

Aquinas, for instance, taught that (1) an erring conscience must be obeyed; but (2) man has sufficient innate knowledge of the Word of God to recognize moral truth if it is shown to him. It is sinful on the one hand to act in opposition to your conscience, but sinful on the other hand for your conscience to reject correction when it is provided on the basis of scripture or other authoritative teaching. In other words, the conscience is capable of error, and even of choosing to persist in error. This is not yet encouraging for the development of Christian freedom of conscience, but our story gets there eventually.

In launching the Reformation (not his intent, but his effect), Luther published an influential tract on Christian freedom. Building on Thomistic ideas of conscience, (and also curiously anticipating Freud's concept of the id in his analysis of the role of desire interacting with reason and conscience), Luther argued that an intact conscience agrees with the Word of God, but a conscience that falls away from the Word is no longer a conscience at all. This is a refinement on the Thomistic view that a conscience can recognize the Word when taught it; for Luther a conscience ceases to be a conscience except in the Word, and can only be revived with reinstitution of the Word. The significance of this for freedom is that a fallen conscience cannot be coerced, because there is no conscience there to respond to the coercion. One can do no more for a fallen conscience than provide the Word in every way, in preaching and example. This doctrine didn't lead to our modern freedom of conscience either, as it justified (indeed implicitly called for) mandatory religious education, which in practice meant mandatory membership in the regionally dominant church. Freedom of conscience, as we now understand it, had a tough time finding support in either scholastic or Reformation thought (full disclosure: I am Lutheran).

Roger Williams, the renegade hero of American religious liberty, hit upon a different perspective on the problem of coercion of conscience: he believed that coercion was possible, unfortunately, but that it was not soterially effective. Williams was a believer in individual covenants, thus distinguishing himself from the mainstream of Puritan New England with their tradition of collective covenants. For Winthrop and others of the Massachusetts Bay colony, the sovereignty to covenant with God resided in the community, just as in previous times God covenanted with Israel, rather than with individual Hebrews. For Williams (and other separatists, and later Baptists and Methodists etc.), the sovereignty to covenant resided with each individual, and congregations were simply voluntary associations of like-minded believers. The consummation of such an individual covenant was regeneration (the Puritan term for being “born again”), a conversion experience to which Williams and others imputed intrinsic significance beyond its instrumental value in bringing about conformance of conscience to the Word.

Williams, like others wrestling with Anabaptist ideas, believed that it was possible to bring a person into conformance with Christian teachings and beliefs (e.g. by raising them in Christianity from childhood, as was done in Anglican and other established churches) without thereby bringing them to an effective conversion experience and regeneration. By stressing the importance of the conversion experience and regeneration over any version of learned or coerced orthodoxy or orthopraxy (however sincerely held), Williams was denying the effectiveness of coercion at effecting salvation, even if it was effective at changing beliefs, because a person could sincerely believe everything that Christianity required, yet still not have the transformational experience that makes it all soterially effective.

In this, Williams finally had a tight answer to the dilemma of Christian freedom: how do you affirm that the conscience is free, yet deny that it can or should be coerced? Williams' slippery answer is to say that while it may very well be that conscience truly can be coerced, nonetheless coercing conscience doesn't get you the only outcome that would justify the coercion in the first place, namely salvation, because it only achieves belief without fostering the conversion experience. By contrast, other Christian and humanist defenders of religious toleration either argued that in fact the conscience simply cannot be coerced, a claim which was in plain contradiction to scholastic teaching, to the experience of previous generations of inquisitors, and even to the teaching of philosophers such as Locke (for whom conscience is a product of conditioning, itself a form of coercion); or else they argued that truth in matters of religious dispute was not known, and the risk of coercion on the side of error was too great to take the chance, an argument that had no traction among those certain of their correctness.

It is important to understand that Williams was not a tolerant Christian; far from it. He was ultimately kicked out of the Bay colony over the issue of communion with Anglicans in Britain. The Bay colony Puritans were for communion with their mother church, believing that their mission in America was to shine like a “city on a hill”, to show the proper way to God to their lost brethren overseas. Williams was opposed to transatlantic communion fellowship with Anglicans, arguing that the Anglican church was impure and anti-Christian. Because the Puritans of Bay colony remained in communion with Anglicans, Williams cut off communion fellowship of his own congregation with the Puritans. The Puritan civil authorities tried to bring the intolerant Williams back into the larger community, and Williams began to preach against the jurisdiction of civil authority in matters of religion. Williams taught religious freedom in defense of his own religious intolerance.

As interesting as all of this might be, (or not), what has it to do with events a century later, when the civil institutions of a new independent nation were being formed? The answer is that these issues of freedom of conscience, conditioning in established churches, and evangelization of nominal Christians, which were a sideshow curiosity in Winthrop and Williams' era (Williams looms more significant to us in hindsight than he appeared to his contemporaries – Rhode Island had a population of only 7181 as late as 1708, its first census), grew and came to the front of national debate in the fullness of time. One of the important scandals of the pre-revolutionary generation was the licensing of preachers by the various states with their established churches, and deregulation of evangelization was an important objective of those who framed the first amendment to the Constitution. Just as Williams was more concerned to convert nominal Christians who were nonetheless unregenerate than to convert the Indians, so the Baptists and revivalists of later generations were concerned to preach in the public square, and they often found their way barred by civil authority. Separation of church and state was not intended to keep religion out of the public square, but rather to open the floodgates, releasing an inundation of religion into the public square. The check on promulgation of religious beliefs was not meant to be secularization of civil authority but respect for freedom of conscience, an American Christian theological principle that established a condition necessary for effective evangelization, a condition that civil authorities were charged with protecting. This is important to remember whenever we see the expression “rights of conscience” in the founders’ writings. This is a Christian civil principle, not a secular enlightenment principle, and the founders (who often praise generic “Christian principles” without enumerating them) knew it.

Was freedom of conscience intended to be limited to Christians? Of course not. For instance Williams, in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, explicitly makes the point that freedom of conscience is necessary for conversion of the Jews. Our civil doctrine of freedom of conscience was motivated by, and intended to fulfill, Christian principles of evangelization both of Christians and of non-Christians. Freedom of conscience is a uniquely Christian concept, incomprehensible outside of a Christian context, and advanced specifically by the most intolerant Christians of America in their day, those who looked upon their nominally Christian brethren and said “I’m concerned that you may not be saved, not yet anyway”.

If you have made it this far through my post, you probably think me daft, bereft of reason, ignorant of the facts, or all three (and more). But the casual counterarguments that I know of don’t impress me. For instance, the Constitution and Federalist papers don’t explain any of our civil institutions as being required by any theological principle. How do I answer that?

By wondering why anyone would think, in an American context, that they should.

By an American context I have in mind the distinction between the bottom-up approach of the establishment of American civil institutions (where the people describe and limit the powers that they grant to institutions) and the top-down approach of, e.g., divine-right monarchy, socialism, the UN, etc., where institutions enumerate their own prerogatives, and perhaps also some freedoms granted to the people or to subordinate institutions. In the latter case it is easy to see how reference might be made to religious principles, while in the former case it is equally easy to see why God, Jesus, and the Bible are not mentioned in the Constitution, or its defense in the Federalist papers, as requiring certain forms for our civil institutions: those institutions are explicitly fallible human creations, not divine designs. To claim that our fallible human creations are designed by God would be blasphemy. And yes, the founders were very aware that they were establishing fallible human institutions, hence their healthy respect for checks and balances.

To take another try, many founders quoted Locke and claimed his influence upon the founding. To be sure, they also often cited general “Christian principles”, but still, mustn’t we give Locke (and others) his due? In short, my answer is “no”. The founders were proven historical revisionists, rewriting American history to weave Locke in, ex post facto, where he didn’t belong, e.g. JQ Adams giving a Lockean twist to the pre-Lockean “Mayflower compact” (i.e. Mayflower covenant) thus: “the first example in modern times of a social compact or system of government instituted by voluntary agreement conformable to the laws of nature, by men of equal rights and about to establish their community in a new country.” Given such willingness to interpret pre-Lockean events in Lockean terms, the founders’ enthusiasm for Locke should be seen as rationalization, not explanation.

To the common claim that the founders weren’t, by and large, Christian, because they were Unitarians, or whatever, my reply is to defend big-tent interpretations of Christianity, at least when we are acting as students of history, rather than engaging in sectarian squabbles. To the historian, the criteria that delimit Christianity must, of course, be different in detail than the criteria that delimit Buddhism, or Marxism, but they should be similarly loose and inclusive. Just as all Marxists are Marxists to anyone but a devout Marxist, so also anyone who attributes historical singularity to Christ (whether as redeemer of mankind, son of a unitary God, one person of a triune God, a member of the divine troika, seal of the prophets, resurrected worker of miracles, etc.) should be acknowledged, by any historian thinking in his capacity as a historian, to be a Christian, even if the historian happens also to be a strict sectarian Christian who denies the true Christianity of competing sects. By this standard, historically speaking, (whatever I think as an orthodox Lutheran), Arians, Nestorians, Mormons, etc., are all Christians for scholarly purposes of historical analysis.

To the obvious claim that the founders weren’t in agreement on the relationship between Christianity and republican democracy, and therefore could not have had any consensus on whether America should be founded as a Christian nation, I would reply that the principal division among the founders was on priority between Christianity and republican democracy, but as Tocqueville rightly observed, there was broad consensus on combination of the two. In other words, the founders disagreed on whether America is a republican democracy, and therefore should be a Christian nation, or whether instead America is a Christian nation, and therefore should be a republican democracy. Note in particular the former position: that America can be a republican democracy first and unconditionally, but that it then must therefore be a Christian nation as well, despite the unconditional nature of the founding of republican democratic institutions. This is an interpretation that fits “left-wing” founders well, and bypasses all objections of the sort that we cannot be a Christian nation because our institutions were founded without determining them from Christian principles (even though, as I argue above, freedom of conscience is an American Christian principle).