Our Founding Fathers Fought for Religion

[fossten]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Founding Fathers Fought for Religion

Jerry Falwell
Friday, March 16, 2007

Thomas Jefferson, author of the "wall of separation" that is revered as gospel by secularists and civil libertarians who want to purge Christianity from the public square, was firmly in favor of prohibiting public religious expression.

Right?

Hardly. But that's the message many in the so-called mainstream are preaching today.

I wonder how many Americans are familiar with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom? Authored by Thomas Jefferson, it appears on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial.

Here's an excerpt: "Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion . . ."

Mr. Jefferson clearly believed that America was a gift from God and that it was God himself who granted us the ability to reason and properly live our lives.

While it was Mr. Jefferson who drafted the measure, James Madison piloted it through the Virginia Legislature in 1786. History shows that each of these men deemed the legislation to be among their most satisfying triumphs, with Mr. Jefferson even noting on his tombstone that he was the author not only of the Declaration of Independence but also of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

I have been reading Newt Gingrich's latest book, "Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future." I believe every Christian in America should get a copy of this book in order to fully understand the rich Judeo-Christian influence on the burgeoning nation.

Mr. Gingrich takes readers on a journey through Washington, D.C., to observe a variety of monuments and relics, beginning with the National Archives. There, we see the undying words of the Declaration of Independence: we "are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Our nation's Capitol is full of these examples: from the striking statue of Moses holding the Ten Commandments looking over the rotunda of the Library of Congress, to the depiction of the Commandments in the floor of the National Archives, to the Adams Prayer Mantel in the White House ("I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it").

Last week, David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, spoke at Liberty University. He debunked the modern movement to cast our Founders as "a bunch of atheist, agnostic deists," calling it completely invalid. He detailed the history and writings of many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and their obvious allegiance to Christianity.

These men include:


Dr. John Witherspoon, who wrote, "I entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for there is no salvation in any other [Acts 4:12] . . ."

Dr. Benjamin Rush, an innovator of mass-produced Bible printing, initiator of the Sunday school movement in America and founder of the first Bible society in our nation.

John Dickinson, also a signer of the U.S. Constitution, who wrote in his will: "Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity."

John Hancock, first governor of Massachusetts, who issued at least 24 calls for public fasting and prayer and urged people to pray and fast about their fellow citizens becoming Christians.

This is not fallacy; it is our history. But it is a history that is being routinely rewritten, ignored, and disrespected.

I believe it is imperative that Christians go back to the basics to learn about the Judeo-Christian foundations of our nation. Purchase books like Mr. Gingrich's "Rediscovering God in America," regularly visit the WallBuilders Web site (www.WallBuilders.com) in order to become knowledgeable and conversant on our nation's glorious history. And to my pastor friends, I say that we must ensure that our congregations understand that America was founded on Christian principles and we must be proactive in defending them.

Let us work together to safeguard the chronicle of our nation's founding from those who are shamefully and falsely preaching that we are a godless nation.

 

[Marcus]

Thomas Jefferson, author of the "wall of separation" that is revered as gospel by secularists and civil libertarians who want to purge Christianity from the public square, was firmly in favor of prohibiting public religious expression.

Right?

Hardly. But that's the message many in the so-called mainstream are preaching today.

I wonder how many Americans are familiar with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom? Authored by Thomas Jefferson, it appears on the wall of the Jefferson Memorial.

Here's an excerpt: "Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion . . ."

Mr. Jefferson clearly believed that America was a gift from God and that it was God himself who granted us the ability to reason and properly live our lives.

While it was Mr. Jefferson who drafted the measure, James Madison piloted it through the Virginia Legislature in 1786. History shows that each of these men deemed the legislation to be among their most satisfying triumphs, with Mr. Jefferson even noting on his tombstone that he was the author not only of the Declaration of Independence but also of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

Clearly believed that America was a gift from God? How does the good Reverend come to that conclusion based on that line? What Jefferson clearly says is that free will is a gift from God.

No one has suggested that Jefferson was an atheist. However, he was a deist, and the passage that is quoted doesn't dispute that.

The actual statute in question was, in fact, a response against pending legislation that would have required tax money to be spent on local churches.

VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:

Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.

Jefferson and Madison were indeed proud of their work getting the statute passed, given the almost insurmountable opposition they had to deal with. Jefferson was thoroughly reviled as a godless atheist after its passage. Hardly the reaction one would expect for a man so devoutly religious as Doctor Falwell suggests. One only has to look at Jefferson's other writings to see how antagonistic he was towards organized religion, or more specifically, towards church leaders. While he had high regards for the ideas expressed in the Bible, he rejected anything to do with the supernatural, going so far as to write his own version of the Bible, purging all references to miracles, the resurrection, etc.

I have been reading Newt Gingrich's latest book, "Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation's History and Future." I believe every Christian in America should get a copy of this book in order to fully understand the rich Judeo-Christian influence on the burgeoning nation.

Mr. Gingrich takes readers on a journey through Washington, D.C., to observe a variety of monuments and relics, beginning with the National Archives. There, we see the undying words of the Declaration of Independence: we "are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights."

First, the Declaration of Independence did not establish any laws. Second, this passage is simply an acknowledgement of God, not an overt Christian message. The fact that some of the Framers were Christian is irrelevant. There are no religious overtones in the Constitution, unless you want to make the ludicrous argument about "in the year of our Lord", which was simply the standard way of dating official documents at the time.

Our nation's Capitol is full of these examples: from the striking statue of Moses holding the Ten Commandments looking over the rotunda of the Library of Congress, to the depiction of the Commandments in the floor of the National Archives, to the Adams Prayer Mantel in the White House ("I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it").

The problem with this argument is that nearly all of the religious accoutrements found in Washington DC had nothing to do with the framers.

The statue of Moses in the Library of Congress is one of 16 statues surrounding the main reading room. There are two for each of the "pillars of knowledge". Moses and St. Paul represented Religion, Beetoven and Michelangelo represented Art, Plato and Bacon represented Philosophy, Shakespeare and Homer, Poetry. Moses has no more prominence than the others. For a full list here's a full description of the entire building, from a book that was printed the year the library was completed. And here's a photo from that same book. Gotta love Google Books. More importantly, the constructon of the building started in 1888 and it was completed in 1897, a hundred years after the framing of the Constitution.

The National Archives was completed in 1934. The Framers had no say in its design.

Same with the Supreme Court Building, "In God We Trust", "Under God", and just about any other thing you guys like to throw in our faces as "proof" that the Founding Fathers wanted a Christian Nation.

To be continued...

 

[shagdrum]

Tommy, r u refusing to see the forest through the trees here, or are u just plan ignorant?

No one has suggested that Jefferson was an atheist. However, he was a deist, and the passage that is quoted doesn't dispute that.

The passage quoted doesn't prove Jefferson was a deist either (and the burden of proof on that claim logically falls on you). In fact, Jefferson called himself a Christian: "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." M. Stanton Evans noted that Jefferson "believed in the creative, sovereign, and superintending God of Scripture" but also thought that Platonic doctrine had corrupted the original monotheism of the Bible. Jefferson was probably a Unitarian rather than a diest.

First, the Declaration of Independence did not establish any laws.

So it is irrelevent? That is an absurd notion. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are extremely vauge and open to interpretation. In fact any law passed by the legislature is worthless without interpretation. This is where the courts come in. What was ment by the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses in the Bill of Rights? According to you we can only look at documents establishing laws, and not documents that may give an indication of the thought process behind the laws and contemporary understanding of the laws at the time the laws were written. This allows u to interpret laws however u please, to meet whatever ends u want (can we say "living constitution"?). To understand what the Framers intended the law in question to mean, u would have to look at non-lawgiving founding documents. In other words, the Declaration is relevent because it provides insight into the thoughts of the Framers behind the laws they wrote.

Second, this passage is simply an acknowledgement of God, not an overt Christian message

.
"endowed by their creator with certian unalienable rights". This is much more then a simple "acknowledgement" of God. It reflects the Framers understanding of where our rights come from, and does so in explicit terms. It a theory called "natural law", and any legal scholar will tell you that it is the theory that the Framers subscribed to in founding the nation. Basically, freedom comes by virtue of being human, from our nature, which is created by God in his image. so our freedom comes from a higher power then any government, God. Because man is created in God's image and likeness, he is endowed with inalienable rights that no man or government can rightfully take away (Locke 101). This is the theory of laws/rights that our country was founded on, and it inherently assumes a belief in God.

The fact that some of the Framers were Christian is irrelevant.

The fact that most were devote Christians is relevent. Again, look at the thought process behind the creation of the country; a thought process that inherently assumes the existense of a Christian God.

The problem with this argument is that nearly all of the religious accoutrements found in Washington DC had nothing to do with the framers.

You are refusing to see the line connecting point "A" (the Framers) and point "B" (the religious accoutrements found in Washington DC). Anything having to do with the national government has a connection to the Framers who created that government. In this case, the Christian traditions of this country instilled by the founders which are reflected in these accoutrements. Your logic is like saying the information presented on a gravestone has nothing to do with the person buried under in because the gravestone was made after the person died.

The burden of proof here is on you to prove that this nation wasn't founded as a Christian one (which you can't without huge flaws in logic).

John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.” What Adams was saying was that people needed religious and moral standards to maintain a free society. Adams also said this nation was founded on “the general principles of Christianity” and that a free government “is only to be supported by pure religion or austere morals. Public virtue cannot last in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics”