Gary Amos, Christian Principles, and the Secularist Straw Man

About 9 months ago, I did a post where I quoted Gary Amos as stating that the Declaration of Independence was a document of interposition. The hope of that post was to generate a discussion about how Christian thought had impacted, or not, the birth of our nation. And a discussion we did have: 9 months worth of parsing the words of Aquinas, Hooker, Locke, Calvin, and others "to death". I think it was a job well done by all.

Nonetheless, I think it is time to move forward with some of Amos's other points about the Declaration and the impact that Christian thought had on our founding. Accordingly, I would like to start with what I would call the general Evangelical argument for Christian America. An argument that I feel has been misrepresented by secularists a great deal in that it seems that many set up a straw man to knock down instead of addressing the actual argument being made. This muddies the waters and makes the quest for truth in regards to the founding and religion an elusive endeavor.

All that being stated, I give the floor to Gary Amos to lay out the argument for a Christian America in order to expose the straw man, un-muddy the waters, and bring into the light what Christian America emphatically does not mean despite protestations to the contrary:

"Now for the surprise: Hardly anyone in the colonies fit this description.{that of a Deist} No one who played a key role in the writing of the Declaration or approving it thought this way in 1776, not even Thomas Jefferson.

The "clockmaker God" idea about deism and the founding fathers was invented by teachers in the 1890's and later years to explain the religious ideas of the colonies. A small handful of the French and English philosophers in the mid-1700's had believed this way. Sloppy interpreters of American history too took that obscure European view and pasted it to the history of the American Revolution. As a device to explain the general view of the founders fathers, it is all wet.

For example, John Adams has been called a deist. He helped write the Declaration of Independence and was a key player in the American Revolution. Adams once wrote in his diary that a nation that took the Bible for its law book would be the best of nations. On another occasion he wrote: "The great and almighty author of nature; who at first established the rules which regulate the world, can as easily suspend those laws whenever his providence sees sufficient reason for such suspension. This can be no objection, then, to the miracles of Jesus Christ." Adams sometimes strongly criticized those who had used organized religion as a way to control people politically. But he was far from critical about the principles of Christianity. He thought Christian principles were the heart an the soul of the effort for nationhood and independence:

Who composed that Army of fine young fellows that was then before my Eyes? There were among them, Roman Catholics, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists, Universalists, Arians... Deists and Atheists... Never the less all educated in the general principles of Christianity: and the general principles of English and American liberty... The general principles, on which the Fathers achieved independence, we... the general principles of Christianity.

But did not John Adams, as president, sign the Tripoli Treaty (1797) that said that the government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion? Yes he did. But what did he mean? He meant simply that "the Christian religion" as a formal institution was not a part of the American government in the same way that the religious structures of Islam are a part of Islamic governments. From many things that Adams and his contemporaries wrote it is clear that they did not use the word religion to exclude Christian ideas or principles as some do today. True, the founders did not make institutional religion part of the government. But they never thought of excluding Christian principles.

Another example is Thomas Jefferson. He doubted the deity of Christ and the inerracy of scripture. He even railed against the abuses of organized religion, but not against Christian principles. He believed that the moral principles found in the four gospels should be the guide of every man's life. As President, Jefferson read from a collection of these principles nightly. Because he took Christian principles seriously, he was extremely troubled by the immoral practice of slavery, saying: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.... The almighty has no attribute which can side with us."

Jefferson is a notable example of how a man can be influenced by Biblical ideas and Christian principles even though he never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord in the evangelical sense.  Like most of the founders, he was very supportive of Christian principles, even going so far as to call Jesus of Nazareth "our savior" but he could never bring himself to accept the Christ of Christianity: God in the Flesh.

Must a political leader confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to be able to at all accept and act on Biblical principles for government?  Many people seem to think so.  We are told that since Jefferson denied the deity of Christ, he could not have accepted any other truly Biblical ideas.  Every legal and political idea he had must, therefore, have been non-Christian. 

This sort of thinking breaks a number of rules of logic and is out of step with the Bible itself.  It is not remarkable for us to assume that Christians can easily be influenced by non-Christian ideas, but somehow non-Christians cannot be influenced by Christian ideas?  The point is, even if Jefferson had confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, some would still trace his legal and political ideas to deism.  A "born again" Jefferson would not automatically mean that the Declaration contained Christian ideas.

Another more subtle claim lies just beneath the surface of such thinking. If the Declaration can only contain Biblical and Christian ideas as long as Jefferson and others confessed Christ in an evangelical way, then a Christian view of government excludes un-believers.  To have a Christian nation would require all leaders to believe in eternal redemption before they could have the slightest grasp of God's plan for civil justice.  Only Christians would be competant to do anything where civil government is concerned.

Ultimately the church would have to be merged with the state, and Christians would be in charge of the state. Rather than seeing that a government is "Biblical" or "Christian" if its laws and structures agree with what God has said about civil justice and social order, a "Christian" nation would be one where "confessing Christ" becomes the test by which a person's political and legal ideas are approved.  Such a state would be primarily concerned with salvation rather than justice. It would confuse God's redemptive plan with his creation plan." --Defending the Declaration pp. 9-11

There is a lot here but I think his main point that one does not have to be an Evangelical to see the merits of Christian politial ideas is key.  This destroys the straw man that Christian America means a nation run by Evangelical Christians. It most certainly does not mean a return to living under Mosaic law as some think.  It simply means establishing a nation based on the Christian idea of justice as a part of God's "creation plan".  Does anyone deny that this was the goal of most of the founders whether they were Evangelical or not?

Jared Sparks on British Unitarians

Another repost at The One Best Way here.

A taste from Sparks:

And Locke must still be considered a Unitarian, till he can be proved a Trinitarian ; a task, which it is not likely you will soon undertake. At all events, he had no faith in the assemblage of articles, which you denominate the essence of christianity, and without believing which, you say, no one can be called a Christian. His whole treatise on the Reasonableness of Christianity bears witness to this truth. For the leading object of that work is to show, that “the Gospel was written to induce men into a belief of this proposition, ‘that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah,’ which if they believed, they should have life.”* He says nothing about total depravity, the atonement, the “sanctifying spirit of an Almighty Surety,” nor any of your peculiar doctrines. Yet who has done more to elucidate the sacred Scriptures, or to prove the consistency and reasonableness of the religion of Jesus? Your rule, however, will take from him the Christian name.

Plato's Noble Lie?

In accord with the discussion about Leo Strauss and Platos's Noble Lie in the comments section of my last post, I thought I would produce this quote by Thomas Jefferson:

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?"

My question is did Jefferson really believe that rights came from God or was he only concerned that the people believed this "myth" to preserve an ordered society?

The George Washington/Ashbel Green Affair

Another repost at The One Best Way here.

Robert P. Hunt on Leo Strauss III

In honor of Phil and Eli, here is one last excerpt from Robert P. Hunt's essay Christianity, Leo Strauss, and the Ancient/Modern Distinction:

"Strauss’s concern about the practical political dangers caused by (the Christian) adherence to immutable first principles of natural law arises precisely because Strauss (and, one could argue, many of those who adopt a Straussian reading of intellectual history) believes that “the guiding theme of political philosophy is the regime rather than the laws.” The fundamental questions of political life become “regime questions.” In his analysis of Plato’s Laws in What is Political Philosophy?, Strauss provides the following definition of “regime”:

Regime is the order, the form, which gives society its character.Regime is therefore a specific manner of life. Regime is the form of life as living together, the manner of living of society and in society, since this manner depends decisively on the predominance of human beings of a certain type, on the manifest domination of society by human beings of a certain type. Regime means that whole, which we today are in the habit of viewing primarily in a fragmentized form: regime means simultaneously the form of life of a society, its style of life its moral taste, form of society, form of state, form of government, spirit of laws. We may try to articulate the simple and unitary thought, that expresses itself in the term politeia, as follows: life is an activity which is directed towards such a goal as can be pursued only by society; but in order to pursue a specific goal, as its comprehensive goal, society must be organized, ordered, constructed, constituted in a manner which is in accordance with that goal; this, however, means that the authoritative human beings must be akin to that goal.14

In short, “classical political philosophy”—that form of political philosophy which Strauss most admires—“is guided by the question of the best regime.” And the best regime itself is, in principle, concerned with the comprehensive ordering of society consistent with its collective telos.15

To argue that Strauss wants merely to return to the classical model of politeia as the self-sufficient and comprehensive form of human association is to miss the point here. For example, Strauss would undoubtedly find the modern liberal regime’s commitment to religious liberty to be an improvement upon the classical view of society. Yet in his very adoption of the classical idea of “regime,” he seems to endorse at the political level what John Courtney Murray described as “a single, homogenous structure, within which the political power stood forth as the representative of society in its religious and in its political aspects.”16 Strauss’s very embrace of the question of what constitutes “the best regime” and his philosophical assumption of a conflict between reason and revelation cannot permit him—or anyone, for that matter, who commits himself to classical regime questions in the same manner as Strauss—to appreciate the extent to which a revelation—inspired worldview renders such classical regime questions largely irrelevant.

John Courtney Murray has cogently argued that Christianity has “freed man from nature by teaching him that he has an immortal soul, which is related to matter but not immersed in or enslaved to its laws. . . . It has taught him his uniqueness, his own individual worth, the dignity of his own person, the equality of all men, the unity of the human race.”17 For the committed Christian, this conception of man’s personal spiritual dignity does not sit atop the classical conception of man as a rational animal. Rather, it transforms that conception with the light of its radiance into something other than “Platonic,” “Aristotelian,” or “Kantian” Christianity. In freeing man from nature, it has rendered the most fundamental of classical regime questions largely irrelevant since no “regime” short of the Kingdom of God in its fullness can satisfy man’s thirst for heaven. In fact, the very effort to answer such a question (i.e. “What is the best regime?”) in anything resembling political terms (either “ancient” or “modern”) might be indicative of the fact that one has applied categories of political analysis more characteristic of a resident of the earthly city.

Strauss’s discomfort with any premature reconciliation of the possible truths made known through reason itself and the truths known through promulgation of the Divine Law forces him to “distinguish” political philosophy from political theology. “By political theology we understand political teachings which are based on divine revelation. Political philosophy is limited to what is accessible to the unassisted human mind.” Moreover, “political philosophy rests on the premise that the political association—one’s country or one’s nation—is the most comprehensive or the most authoritative association.” 18

Why one should base one’s political philosophy on any such premise Strauss does not answer fully, but it does provide insight into his distinction between “ancients” and “moderns.” Ancient political philosophers defined “the best regime” as one in which moral virtue was promoted and the hierarchy of natures within human nature itself was given its due; modern political philosophers lowered man’s sights and grounded “the best regime” in man’s passions, self-interest, and some conception of human equality. In other words, the fundamental shift in political philosophy for Strauss is a shift in what characterizes the best regime. For Strauss, to begin from the revelation-inspired premise that any effort to define the most comprehensive or authoritative association in political terms is itself impious is to be untrue to the goals of political philosophy, whether ancient or modern.

Christian political philosophers need not accept Strauss’s charge precisely because, unlike Strauss, they do not assume that reason and revelation are in conflict with each other. Rather, they begin from a contrary premise, laid out eloquently by Etienne Gilson:

If we admit, as we really should, that the miracles, the prophecies, the marvelous effects of the Christian religion sufficiently prove the truth of revealed religion, then we must admit that there can be no contradiction between faith and reason. . . . When a master instructs his disciple, his own knowledge must include whatever he would introduce into the soul of his disciple. Now our natural knowledge of principles comes from God, since He is author of our nature. These principles themselves are also contained in the wisdom of God. Whence it follows that whatever is contrary to these principles is contrary to the divine wisdom and, consequently, cannot come from God. There must necessarily be agreement between a reason coming from God and a revelation coming from God. Let us say, then, that faith teaches truths which seem contrary to reason; let us not say that it teaches propositions contrary to reason. . . . Let us rest assured that apparent incompatibility between faith and reason is similarly reconciled in the infinitewisdom of God.19

Gilson’s account of the reasonable basis for assuming a fundamental compatibility between faith and reason reflects the view of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose main point, as Gilson notes, was “not to safeguard the autonomy of philosophy as a purely rational knowledge; rather, it was to explain how natural philosophy can enter into theology without destroying its unity.”20 By seeing the Divine as “infinite wisdom,” St. Thomas—as well as those Christian philosophers who follow in his footsteps—renders such an explanation less problematic. By construing the Divine primarily as supreme lawgiver, Strauss actually seems to adopt a more voluntaristic view of revelation-inspired norms, thus making his desire to protect the autonomy of philosophy against the incursions of political theology more understandable. At the same time, however, it leads the careful reader to wonder precisely whata purely autonomous natural (as opposed to political) philosophy—as Strauss understands that term—can tell us about the nature of things.

The Christian philosopher begins with an assumption that the universe is intelligible, Strauss with the assumption that “philosophy is essentially not possession of the truth, but quest for the truth. The distinctive trait of the philosopher is that ‘he knows that he knows nothing,’ and that his insight into our ignorance concerning the most important things induces him to strive with all his power for knowledge.”21 Whether a purely autonomous natural philosophy can take us anywhere beyond the acknowledgement that there are important questions to be asked is a question that Strauss leaves unanswered."

There is, once again, a lot to unpack here.  Nonetheless, the part that jumped out to me was that "Christian" and "Non-Christian" philosophers come to what both would see as ageless questions with two different sets of assumptions.  The former assumes that the universe is intelligible and the latter that "he knows that he knows nothing."  The question, for our purposes, is which approach the founders took?  Unless I am missing something, I think almost all of them came to the table with the same assumptions as the former group.

George Washington's Navy

In late 1775, as the fires of revolution and war were becoming hotter with each passing day, General George Washington commissioned two small schooners (named "Lynch" and "Franklin"), to patrol in and around Boston Harbor. Their mission: to harass the British whenever possible. Obviously this was no small task, being that the British had sent over 200 fully equipped warships to America. Obviously 2 small boats weren't going to present any major threat to the mighty British navy!

Yet despite this obvious disadvantage, Washington insisted on creating and maintaining this puny armada. The small "fleet" of ships, which eventually grew to include four additional boats, were officially commissioned by General Washington as the first "armed Vessels" of the "United Colonies of North America." In essence, this small fleet of ships became America's first Navy.

Washington himself financed the six-ship fleet out of his own pocket. Knowing that this small rabble of a Navy could never stand up to the mighty arm of the British, Washington requested that a unique banner be flown by each of these six ships. At the General's request, his navy adopted a "white flag, with a green pine tree, and the inscription, 'An Appeal to Heaven.'" In addition, Washington ordered that all crewmen of these ships be dressed in a green and white uniform.

Interestingly enough, this fleet lasted throughout the duration of the Revolutionary War, carrying out a diverse number of assignments and playing a number of different roles in the process. In addition, the "Washington Navy" became a symbol of pride for those who favored the revolution. The "Appeal To Heaven" served as a powerful rallying cry that embodied the sentiments of many who supported the "cause of liberty." In a very real sense, "An Appeal to Heaven" was every bit as important to the rhetoric of the American Revolution as was, "No taxation without representation" or "Don't Tread on Me." No wonder why Washington chose to use it for his navy!

The Most Religious State in America is...

So this post may not relate directly to our blog's theme but I still think it's worth posting.

Historian Paul Harvey of the Religion in American History blog (and my former grad school professor) has posted the results of a very interesting Gallup Survey on the importance that each state's citizens place on religion in their daily lives. The survey was actually very simple. Respondents were asked one fundamental question: "Is Religion an important part of your daily life?" The results are quite interesting. Here are the top 10 states that responded favorably to the question:

Mississippi: 85%
Alabama: 82%
South Carolina: 80%
Tennessee: 79%
Louisiana: 78%
Arkansas: 78%
Georgia: 76%
North Carolina: 76%
Oklahoma: 75%
Kentucky: 74%
Texas: 74%

What's fascinating about this study, as Dr. Harvey points out, is that the median score is quite high: at 65%. From the Gallup Poll:

And, although there is a wide range in the self-reported importance of religion, from a high of 85% for residents of Mississippi to a low of 42% for residents of Vermont, the distribution of religiosity by state takes the shape of a bell-shaped curve, clustered around the overall nationwide mean of 65%. Twenty-three of the 50 states and District of Columbia are in the range of 60% to 70% saying religion is important.

In addition, it's important to note how geography comes into play. Obviously the majority of the high ranking states lie in the south, as is illustrated in the following map from this same Gallup poll:


And here is a more detailed map (from a much earlier study not related to this Gallup poll) that breaks down where certain denominations are strongest:


One can't help but wonder how important of a role the social and cultural factors of a particular region play in determining the religion of a particular geographic area. Take for example this map of the United States prior to the Civil War:


And it doesn't look like a whole lot has changed. Even our voting trends are dramatically impacted by geography. This 2008 electoral map provides at least some insight into how geography can shape our views:


So what are we to make of this? That probably depends on who you ask. In my opinion, this Gallup poll (and the other studies/maps mentioned) prove that religion is still a very intimate, localized, and highly influential factor for most Americans. It can (and does) define our politics, our biases and our future. But most of all, I believe it shows just how diverse we are, and perhaps that is our greatest strength of all.

Or our greatest weakness as well?

No, Mr. Beck, That Wasn't 'Some Professor' - That Was Me

More from Chris Rodda, here.

The Protestant Case Against the Natural Law

Another repost at The One Best Way here.

An Interesting Book Review

I found this interesting Washington Post book review today on  The Long Road to Annapolis: The Founding of the Naval Academy and the Emerging American Republic By William P. Leeman.  Here are the portions that I think is germane to this blog:

"After American independence, patriots believed that standing armies and professional navies were instruments of royal tyranny and had no place in the new republic. George Washington, "Cincinnatus of the West," set the model, taking up arms to defend his country and then returning to the plow when the threat was past. Militias were to suffice for the new republic's defense.

Barbary pirates, conflict with France and the War of 1812 brought the realization that, indeed, an army and navy were needed, but Thomas Jefferson did not trust their officer corps because they were largely in sympathy with his political enemy Alexander Hamilton. This fear helped motivate Jefferson to establish the military academy at West Point in 1802 to inculcate republican values. Naval officers, while equally pro-federalist, did not present as great a threat as their Army counterparts for they were usually away at sea. Thus, he saw much less need for a naval academy.

So for the first half-century of the Navy's existence, its officers studied their profession in "the school of the ship." Captains took responsibility for the professional and moral training of young midshipmen, requiring them to take classroom instruction at sea from chaplains or civilian schoolmasters, who assigned extensive reading in the classics, science, philosophy and history...

If one were starting from scratch without historical anxieties and political pressures, it is unlikely that the current Naval Academy would be the outcome. There is an inherent conflict between a liberal education based on skeptical inquiry and military indoctrination requiring unquestioning obedience. Combining the two educational cultures tends to create a pressure chamber with too much to do and no time to think and absorb."

I know this is not a typical post but the last part about the "inherent conflict between a liberal education based on skeptical inquiry and military indoctrination requiring unquestioning obedience" really peaked my interest. Does it bother anyone else that at least some people are starting to doubt the merits of a liberal education because it undermines a culture of unquestioning obedience?  This sounds like Sparta not Athens and expresses an attitude that would have been anathema at our founding.

Robert P. Hunt on Leo Strauss II

This is another excerpt from Christianity, Leo Strauss, and the Modern/Ancient Distinction by Robert P. Hunt:

Under Glenn’s favorable interpretation of Strauss’s contribution to the recovery of political philosophy, Strauss’s view that the claims of reason and revelation are “mutually exclusive” need not be accepted by Roman Catholics. Rather, the Roman Catholic political philosopher can appropriate Strauss’s teaching in support of moral realism in the battle against subjectivism and relativism. In other words, Strauss shares with Roman Catholics an aversion to liberal modernity and provides a powerful philosophical argument for rejecting it, particularly in its positivist and radical historicist dimensions. The “ancient”/ “modern” distinction is a powerful hermeneutic tool through which one can embrace the moral realism of the “ancients” and reject the increasing nihilism of the “moderns.”8

And yet a closer reading of even the exoteric Strauss should give Roman Catholics pause before they embrace Strauss’s distinction. First, Strauss’s brand of “moral realism” is one which seems to be, at best, ambivalent to Christianity’s contribution to the history of political philosophy, particularly in its political ramifications. Second, Strauss’s distinction between ancients and moderns seems to be based primarily on the relationship between the philosopher and the city, not on whether the human mind has the capacity to grasp truths grounded in the nature of things. The first point is addressed obliquely in Natural Right and History, the second more directly What is Political Philosophy?

In his introduction to Natural Right and History, Strauss seems to indicate that “Roman Catholic social science” is preferable to most of “present-day American social science” in that it is not necessarily committed to “the proposition that all men are endowed by the evolutionary process or by a mysterious fate with many kinds of urges and aspirations, but certainly with no natural right.”9 In short, Straussimplies that Roman Catholic social science is at least open to the possibility of some view of natural right, implying for political philosophy the argument for a hierarchy of natural ends. The problem, however, is that “the modern followers of Thomas Aquinas” (i.e. neo-Thomists) have been forced to accept “a fundamental, typically modern, dualism of a nonteleological natural science and a teleological science of man” that seems to break with the views of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas himself, thus pushing, one infers, much of contemporary Catholic social thought in a non-teleological, imperativist direction.10 A possible implication: for Roman Catholics to salvage their own tradition from the shoals of the liberal politics of modernity, they must embrace a more fully (as envisaged by Strauss) Aristotelian Christianity and its hierarchical, prudentialist view of politics rather than a form of Kantian Christianity with its egalitarian and imperativist implications.11

And yet, at the very end of Strauss’s chapter on “Classical Right”—at the virtual center of the work itself—Strauss indicates that the problem with even St. Thomas Aquinas himself, a Thomas not read through the prism of neo-Thomists such as Jacques Maritain and Heinrich Rommen, is that “the Thomistic doctrine of natural right, or more generally expressed, of natural law, is free from the hesitations and ambiguities of the teachings, not only of Plato and Cicero, but of Aristotle as well.” Thus, for St. Thomas, there are certain immutable first principles of natural law that “suffer no exception, unless possibly by divine intervention.” Under a Thomistic dispensation, reason and revelation are reconciled in such a manner as to imply (1) that all men are conscience-bound to obey the natural law, even in its immutable first principles, and (2) that this places an undue burden on the latitude exercised by statesmen in their pursuit of the common weal. Thus, Montesquieu (a “modern” under any reasonable interpretation of Strauss’s “ancients”/”moderns” distinction) “tried to recover for statesmanship a latitude which had been considerably restricted by the Thomistic teaching.” The seeming gap between the “ancient” teleological view of political life and at least the early “modern” view (embodied in the writings of Machiavelli and Montesquieu) is bridged by a common rejection of immutable first principles that would limit the statesman’s capacity to do what might be necessary to serve the regime.12 It would seem, therefore, that the only way for political philosophers to salvage political wheat from the chaff of St. Thomas’s effort to reconcile reason and revelation is to return to a more overtly “classical” view of politics, or perhaps to argue for a Christian view which more greatly minimizes the difficulties caused by the ‘Christianizing” of “classical” political philosophy by portraying the Christian view of politics as an interesting footnote to Greek classicism.13"

I think Hunt's main point is that one does not have to throw in completely with all the implications of ancient philosophy to avoid the pitfalls of modern relativism.  The "immutable first principles" discussed here would seem to be rooted in imago dei and the inherent worth of the individual. My question is why any regime, whether ancient or modern, that would reject these principles is worth serving? 

Noll on Zuckert and “Christian America”

Another repost at The One Best Way here.

Another money quote:

Zuckert argues Locke’s influence transformed both politics and the Christian religion itself during the 18th Century. “Rational Christianity” (what Gregg Frazer terms “theistic rationalism”) is what Christianity turned into after first Locke and then Jefferson, Adams et al. transformed it into something more politically useful for the age of republicanism or classical liberalism. Whether what the Founders understood as “rational Christianity” is properly termed “Christianity” at all is debatable. To America’s key Founders, such “Christianity” often embraced theological heresies.

Noll notes that “republicanism” often presented itself with “Christianity” as though the two went together (hence the kernel of truth to the “Christian America” claim). However, Noll notes the genesis of republican ideas were outside of traditional Christian teachings. Hence a great “importing” of a-biblical, non-traditional teachings into Christianity during the 18th Century.

Some of my co-bloggers note, perhaps correctly, that rational Christianity didn't "import" anything new. The "rational Christians" may well have rediscovered or reinvigorated old Christian "heresies" like Arianism, Socinianism, Universalism, etc.

The Answers to all our Questions

Well, we had a good run. We have debated back-and-forth the founders and religion for over two years now but I guess all good things must come to an end. Why you ask? Because now we have the answers from the horse's mouth. Here's Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton discussing, amongst other things, religion and natural law:



Yep, game over. Thanks to everyone! We had a good run! =)

Conditions of Orthodoxy at Founding Era Colleges

Another repost to my new group blog here.

I'll throw in a money quote:

These men, Harvard alum preaching “Arminianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Socinianism, and Deism” from the pulpit, disproportionately were patriot Whig preachers arguing on behalf of Revolution — notable among them, Jonathan Mayhew, Charles Chauncy, Simeon Howard, and Samuel West. The orthodox failed to root out infidelity from Harvard. In 1747, they unsuccessfully attempted to boycott unitarian Jonathan Mayhew’s ordination. And by 1805 Unitarian Henry Ware was elected to head Harvard’s Divinity studies. Starting with John Thornton Kirkland, “[f]rom 1810 until 1933 all of the presidents of Harvard University were Unitarians.”

William Hogeland on American Creation

Author William Hogeland takes positive note of American Creation, here and here with some very nice and thoughtful observations.

Was New Zealand Founded as a "Christian Nation?"

Or as a "secular state?" Heh heh. It never ends.

By Simon Collins
New Zealand Herald


The Human Rights Commission has bowed to Catholic Church objections to a statement that New Zealand was a secular state and that religion was only for the "private sphere".

The statement, contained in a draft update of the commission's 2004 report on Human Rights in New Zealand Today, drew fire this week from the country's Catholic bishops.

"To suggest that matters of religion and belief belong only in the private sphere undermines the right of churches to seek to influence public opinion and political decision making," the bishops said. The evangelical Vision Network agreed, saying "no major religion sees itself as a privatised matter".

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said yesterday that the offending words would be rewritten.

"We'll look to rephrase that to say the right to belief is a personal matter," he said.

"There wasn't any intention to limit or to privatise religious belief. It's more about the fact that it's a matter of personal choice and not of state direction, and that there is a strong tradition of religious diversity in New Zealand going right back to the so-called fourth article of the Treaty [of Waitangi]."

Bishop [Brian] Tamaki said Christianity underpinned New Zealand institutions.

Despite this protest, the commission's new draft statement initially repeated lines from the 2004 document that "New Zealand is a secular state with no state religion", and that "matters of religion and belief are deemed to be a matter for the private, rather than public, sphere".

The Catholic bishops and Vision Network director Glyn Carpenter still object to the claim that New Zealand is a "secular state".

"This is contradicted by official statistics which show that a majority of New Zealanders described themselves as having a religion in the 2006 census," the bishops said.

Full story here.

Robert P. Hunt on Leo Strauss

The following in an excerpt from the essay Christianity, Leo Strauss, and the Ancients/Moderns Distinction by Robert P. Hunt:      

Leo Strauss’s effort to rekindle an appreciation of classical political philosophy in the face of the challenges posed to it, and to any serious effort to recover the truth about political things, is to be commended. Strauss’s seeming “moral realist” approach to the study of political life was viewed by many of his contemporaries, influenced as they were by the tenets of value non-cognitivism, positivism, and historicism, as hopelessly naïve. These proponents of a “value-free”political science believed that one could understand the workings of political institutions and the ideologies that supplied justifications for those institutions without reference to some transcendent source of meaning and purpose. As Strauss ably pointed out, however, these “value-free” efforts were doomed to trivialize the study of political things, replacing political philosophy (“a doctrine which claims to be true”) with the history of political philosophy (“a survey of more or less brilliant errors”).1 For Strauss, liberal modernity was incapable of providing sustenance for an experiment in self-government, most especially that experiment explicitly grounded in an acknowledgement of the “truthfulness’” of natural rights claims.2

For Roman Catholics in particular, Strauss’s work—and the work of the scholars who express an intellectual indebtedness to him—is of special importance. It has forced them to reconsider the relationship between the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition and classical political philosophy. It has also forced them to consider the wisdom of any full-throated embrace of liberal modernity, particularly in light of the development of Catholic social and political thought as embodied in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Moreover, as Father James V. Schall has noted, Strauss (along with Hannah Arendt and Eric Voegelin) has “forcefully raised the question about the relation of reason and revelation, of modern and classical political philosophy to each other,” thus challenging “the very philosophy upon which the modern state has rested.”3

Central to the Roman Catholic tradition’s quest for a fuller understanding of its own intellectual premises, however, is a need to understand the relationship of the tradition to Strauss in particular and to the reading of intellectual history upon which the Straussian distinction between “ancients” and “moderns” rests. The use of the word distinction here is important, for few Roman Catholics would argue that there is indeed a distinction between a type of philosophical and moral realism that acknowledges the existence of a hierarchy of ends within nature itself—usually associated with the tenets of “classical” or “ancient” philosophy—and a philosophical and moral voluntarism and nominalism that acknowledges no natural teleology and reifies human choice as the highest human good—usually associated with “modern” philosophy. To the extent that the Straussian distinction between “ancients” and “moderns” points Catholics back to this fundamental philosophical “turn,” thereby assisting Roman Catholics to appreciate the consequences of liberal modernity’s rejection of the aforementioned transcendent norms and standards that are not a product of human will, it is helpful. To the extent to which it is hardened into something more than a useful distinction—that is, into a principled dichotomy whereunder the person who employs it seems to be pushed into embracing either classical or modern philosophy, especially as Strauss characterizes the distinction—it might fail to do full justice to the richness and integrity of the Catholic intellectual tradition and that tradition’s reflections upon the nature, purpose, and limits of political life. I will argue that Strauss’s distinction between “ancients” and “moderns” in general and between “classical” and “modern” political philosophy in particular does tend toward a dichotomizing of intellectual history whereunder even an ostensibly Catholic view of political life is, upon even a favorable reading of Strauss’s distinction, more classical than Catholic in its philosophic orientation and political ramifications.4

Ted McAllister has pointed out that “Strauss devoted little space [in his works] to an examination of Christianity,” but that “he often employed a more expansive language” in his analysis of natural right and natural law, “designed to suggest to the uninitiated reader a broad Judeo-Christian tradition when he meant the Jewish heritage simply.”5  McAllister’s reference to “the uninitiated reader” and the inference he draws from it is based at least in part on Strauss’s famous hermeneutic distinction between exoteric and esoteric writing and the need for the philosopher, in the interest of the commonweal, to cloak or disguise his true philosophic intentions. On this reading, “the great quarrel” and tension between Jerusalem (representing revelation-based societal adherence to divine law) and Athens (representing the corrosive character of reason and of true philosophic inquiry) is “the root of Western civilization,” not the transition from Greek particularism to Roman universalism.6 The recovery of the root of western civilization, therefore, requires not merely a return to classical political philosophy as Strauss understands it, but to an awareness of the tension between the conflicting demands of reason and revelation. The effort to dissolve the tension in the interest of revelational norms or philosophic truth is one of the hallmarks of modern philosophy and its proclivity toward political utopianism."

There is a lot said here and much of it is, as TVD would say, the "tall weeds" of scholarship.  I thought it germane to this blog on many levels but particularly since it mentions modern philosophies "proclivity toward utopianism" which I stated in a recent post was the Enlightenment answer to the Christian notion of the "millennial reign of Christ".  This is the much ignored back drop in many discussions on political theory leading up to, and many years after, the founding.  It would seem me that one, the other, or both was at the root of "American Exceptionalism".  In fact, if this book is correct, this concept was in the forefront of the Puritan mind that spoke of a "City on a Hill".  

Anyway, that is what jumped out to me. But, like I said there is a lot here, and I would like to here from others that may have insights.

Aquinas, the Social Contract, and Catholic Resistance Theory

Here is a good article on Aquinas, the social contract, and Catholic resistance theory.


A taste:

"One of the myths of the English-speaking world is that there was an internal connection between Protestantism and freedom. Martin Luther supposedly instituted an age of individual freedom of expression when he challenged the monolithic authority of Pope and Church. In fact, the vast majority of Protestant Reformers were just as intolerant as their Roman Catholic counterparts. There was no more tolerance of heterodox views in Calvin's Geneva or Cotton's Massachusetts than in Spain under the Inquisition.

In Hispanic countries, in contrast, Catholicism is often seen as the seed bed of democratic ideas. Thomist notions (that is to say, notions derived from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, 1225-74) of natural law were inherently hostile to arbitrary or despotic government. During the Religious Wars in France, Roman Catholic Leaguers wrote tracts in support of resistance to tyrannical rulers, and developed theories of original popular sovereignty.

In much of Central and Eastern Europe, the Counter-Reformation Church allied with secular authorities to reconvert the population to Catholicism and so (particularly from the later 17th century) Catholicism and Absolutism became seen as natural allies - embodied in the person of the Catholic absolutist Louis XIV of France. But this link was far from clear in Western Europe in the age of Shakespeare."

Note to Evangelical on George Washington's Religion

I was prompted to enter this discussion forum because my work was being cited there. Here is one of the notes I left:

Matthew,

... [M]y point about Glenn Beck wasn't to poison the well but rather get folks to think what is it that Beck, insofar as he fully understands what Lillback wrote (like most folks I doubt he read all 1200 pages), probably values about the book.

That GW was more religious and religion friendly, less deistic than most scholar conclude? Sure, most Mormons would value that. But that GW believed in orthodox Trinitarian doctrine? No, because Mormons reject that.

Re labels, David Holmes in his book "The Faiths of the Founding Fathers" (published by Oxford) labels the creed of the "key Founders" (the first 4 Presidents and Franklin) "Christian-Deism" as distinguished from the "non-Christian Deism" of Paine and Allen.

That is, all of the "Christian-Deists" were affiliated with Churches that professed orthodoxy, and these "Deists" believed in an active Providence, and seemed comfortable with the "Christian" label. Paine, Allen and Palmer were the ones who probably didn't consider themselves "Christians" and wanted nothing to do with the Bible. But even with them, there are instances to doubt their pure "Deism." They were all raised in a Christian culture and to an outsider looking in, most Muslims or Buddhists for instance, would label all of them from Washington to Witherspoon to Jefferson to Paine, Allen and Palmer, "Christians." Much in the same way that we look at someone like Saddam Hussein and conclude he was a "Muslim" when best that I can tell, he was a "Muslim-Deist" and a secular tyrant. (Hussein believed in religious pluralism, sadly, precisely because he didn't take his Muslim religion as seriously as for instance, Bin Laden does.)

The reason why, I think, we go thru these distinctions is when evangelical mega-churches and orthodox theologians get in the "history," culture-war game they see these issues thru their strict theological standards. Was Washington (and Jefferson, and J. Adams, etc.) a "Christian" according to certain cultural, historical and sociological standards? Yes, of course. Did he meet the minimal standards of "Christian" according to the strict test that evangelicals require? I seriously doubt it for the reason I lay out in my original article.

Glenn Beck University

I know Chris Rodda can't wait to get her "degree."