A Christian Nation? Be Careful What You Preach

A good friend sent me this article the other night written by Rob Boston and published in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette.  My friend wanted to know my thoughts about the article.   He also wanted to know if the article was factual. 

After reading the entire piece I advised my friend the article was indeed factual even though it was contrary to those who happen to think certain members of the Founding Fathers were Christians in the same sense the Religious Right profess to be.

For the most part while I tend to be a Conservative in political matters, I also tend to part ways with the Religious Right in this county who follow a hard-line stance regarding their view concerning our nation was founded on Christian beliefs.  

  

It really comes down to understanding what the Religious Right believes a Christian to be and how the majority of our Founding Fathers actually viewed Christianity when you place them under a microscope.

I advised my friend, “We have to remember these were all educated men during their time and as such their classical education included views of the Age of Enlightenment….science and fact took the lead.  While they believed in God their views regarding Christianity don’t exactly match up with the Christian Right today.

Boston brings up the issue of Deism when discussing George Washington.  Deists believed in God but didn't necessarily see him as active in human affairs. He set things in motion and then stepped back.

Washington saw religion as necessary for good moral behavior but didn't accept all Christian dogma. He seemed to have a special gripe against communion and would usually leave services before it was offered.

Stories of Washington's deep religiosity, such as tales of him praying in the snow at Valley Forge, are pious legends invented after his death.

I have to agree with Boston.   Back in 2007, I wrote about Washington praying in the snow at Valley Forge here and here.   I’ve also examined the controversy about Washington’s inauguration and the fact that there really isn’t any true documentation regarding those little words, “So help me God!” here.

Boston didn’t just pick on historical myths regarding Georgia Washington.   He discussed John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Thomas Paine as well.

Boston states John Adams was Unitarian, although he was raised a Congregationalist and never officially left that church. Adams rejected belief in the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, core concepts of Christian dogma. In his personal writings, Adams makes it clear that he considered some Christian dogma to be incomprehensible.

In February 1756, Adams wrote in his diary about a discussion he had had with a conservative Christian named Major Greene. The two argued over the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity. Questioned on the matter of Jesus' divinity, Greene fell back on an old standby: some matters of theology are too complex and mysterious for we puny humans to understand.

Adams was not impressed. In his diary he wrote, "Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

As president, Adams signed the famous Treaty of Tripoli, which boldly stated, "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..."

It is very well known among historians that Thomas Jefferson, our third president, did not believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, original sin and other core Christian doctrines. He was hostile to many conservative Christian clerics, whom he believed had perverted the teachings of that faith.

Boston goes on to discuss what is known as The Jefferson Bible…..

Although not an orthodox Christian, Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral teacher. In one of his most unusual acts, Jefferson edited the New Testament, cutting away the stories of miracles and divinity and leaving behind a very human Jesus, whose teachings Jefferson found "sublime." This "Jefferson Bible" is a remarkable document -- and it would ensure his political defeat today. (Imagine the TV commercials the religious right would run: Thomas Jefferson hates Jesus! He mutilates Bibles!)

While I have written about James Madison and his college days at Jersey College….we know it today as Princeton… I have left his religious beliefs alone until now.   Boston doesn’t.  He advises….Nominally Anglican, Madison, some of his biographers believe, was really a Deist. He went through a period of enthusiasm for Christianity as a young man, but this seems to have faded. Unlike many of today's politicians, who eagerly wear religion on their sleeves and brag about the ways their faith will guide their policy decisions, Madison was notoriously reluctant to talk publicly about his religious beliefs.

Madison was perhaps the strictest church-state separationist among the founders; taking stands that make the ACLU look like a bunch of pikers. He opposed government-paid chaplains in Congress and in the military. As president, Madison rejected a proposed census because it involved counting people by profession. For the government to count the clergy, Madison said, would violate the First Amendment.

Madison, who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, also opposed government prayer proclamations. He issued a few during the War of 1812 at the insistence of Congress but later concluded that his actions had been unconstitutional. He vetoed legislation granting federal land to a church and a plan to have a church in Washington care for the poor through a largely symbolic charter. In both cases, he cited the First Amendment. 

Finally, we come to Thomas Paine.  The man who never held office but wrote a little pamphlet we remember as “Common Sense.”  

Boston advises he was also a radical Deist whose later work, "The Age of Reason," still infuriates fundamentalists.

In the tome, Paine attacked institutionalized religion and all of the major tenets of Christianity. He rejected prophecies and miracles and called on readers to embrace reason. The Bible, Paine asserted, can in no way be infallible. He called the god of the Old Testament "wicked" and the entire Bible "the pretended word of God." (There go the Red States!)

Boston states, “There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth. The question is, could any of them get elected today? The sad answer is probably not.

Based on this knowledge, wouldn’t it would be interesting to see the founding of our nation played out in more contemporary times?

I have a feeling it would be as much of a circus as our primary and election seasons have become today.

The Architect of the Capitol

Okay, stick with me here.  The architect of the U.S. Capitol doesn’t refer to the actual person who designed the U.S. Capitol who as it turns out wasn’t an actual architect anyway, but he was the first one to hold the “office”.   Also, the title doesn’t refer to a person only….it refers to a Federal agency, too.

Confused?

Let’s wade into this slowly….

The Architect of the U.S. Capital is an agency within the Legislative Branch responsible for the maintenance, operation, development and preservation of the U.S. Capitol Complex. This means they are responsible for over 17.4 million square feet of building space and 450 acres including Congressional office buildings, the U.S. Supreme Court Building and the Library of Congress.  The agency oversees any special ceremonies that take place within the complex including inaugural events. 

The person in charge of the agency is referred to as “the” Architect, and since George Washington’s term in office there have been 11 Architects of the Capitol. 

Yes, it seems like there should be more, but in the past they served long terms and there have been periods when the position was vacant.   Washington appointed William Thornton for the position back in 1793, and yes…..he happens to be the one who won a design competition for the U.S. Capitol building meaning he really WAS the architect of the U.S. Capitol, but he wasn’t a trained architect.  Thornton received a $500 prize and city lot.  Eventually Thornton was appointed by Washington as supervisor or Architect of the Capitol.  I’ve written about Thornton before here.

The ninth Architect, George M. White, was the very first person to serve in the office who was a trained architect.  He was appointed by Richard Nixon and served from 1971-1995.  White was also the last architect to serve who did not have to have Senate confirmation.

Most of his time in office was taken up with repairing the damage that occurred when a bomb exploded in a first floor restroom.  There were no injuries but several hundred thousand dollars worth of damages occurred.   The Weatherman took credit for the bomb as part of their ongoing opposition to the Vietnam War.  

Here’s a news report from ABC News at the time:

White is also responsible for the Visitor’s Center and restoring the Old Supreme Court and Old Senate Chambers.

Until 1989, the Architect position was filled via Presidential appointment and had an indefinite term. 

The new legislation calls for the position to have a term of ten years.  The President must choose a candidate from a list of three names provided by a Congressional Commission.  The candidate is then  subject to Senate confirmation.   After the Architect has served his or her ten year term they can be re-appointed.

So…..why was the law changed?

This report  published by the Congressional Research Service states, “The appointment of the Architect has been a subject of periodic consideration for at least 50 years. It is a topic that has received increased attention during periods in which there has been a vacancy in the position and periods of congressional dissatisfaction with either the work of the incumbent or the involvement of the President in what some Members view as an internal legislative branch matter. The 111^th Congress has considered changes to the appointment of the Architect, with one bill (H.R. 2843) reported and passed in the House.  These changes will conform the process of the appointment of the Architect more closely to the appointment procedure followed for other officers of similar stature. The Committee believes this will accord proper recognition to the importance of the functions of this office and help to promote greater accountability in their performance.”

Yep….apparently it would just make things smoother and give Congress a little more input into the person in charge of the building they work in.   It would appear the checks and balances thing is fluid….always changing.

The current Architect of the U.S. Capitol is Steven T. Ayers, and the official website for the Architect of the U.S. Capitol can be found here.

When Cross Curriculum Intentions Go Wrong

So....little Johnny or Susie brings home a teacher prepared worksheet filled with several math problems for homework.  At some point a parent decides to check the answers or at least review  the sheet to see what type of assignment had been given.

Some of the problems are troubling:

1. "Each tree had 56 oranges.  If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?"

2. "If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?"

Yes, I'm serious.   This actually happened recently in a Georgia classroom per  this link.

I hope you have a problem with these questions.  I certainly do, and I applaud the parents in this situation for complaining.

Why would teachers include such insensitive questions within a math assignment?

The spokesperson for Gwinnett County Schools advised the teachers were trying to provide students with a cross-curricular activity by incorporating social studies lessons into the math problems.

The school system agreed the questions were inappropriate.  The assignments were gathered and shredded so they wouldn't resurface.  The spokesperson was quoted as saying, "The problem with the question is there is no historical context."

True...there is NO context.

An article from the Atlanta Journal provides another quote from the system spokesperson..."It was just a poorly written question."

Poorly written?   Seriously?

Teaching across the curriculum is a little more involved than taking one aspect of a historical event and throwing a question into a worksheet.These questions are more serious in my view than having no historical context and being poorly written.   

They are without question insensitive and indicate the teachers involved have no clue regarding what “teaching across the curriculum” means.

Instead of focusing on the slavery issue the math questions could have taken a look at the large numbers of soldiers killed on both sides of the war where students could work on determining the differences between battles or averaging the numbers across a few battles similar to this lesson plan.   This would open up discussion regarding the cost and benefits of war.

Here's a lesson plan involving symmetry and the Civil War.  

Another idea that would bring in the slavery issue but would be more sensitive than the worksheet questions I mentioned above involves freedom quilts to teach geometry.   A great book to introduce freedom quilts to students is….Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt (Reading Rainbow Books (Pb))

There are lots of great resources out there to help teachers get on track with cross curriculum  thinking....which is one of the reasons why I’m going to be shaking my head over this situation for a long time.

War Horse

Christmas Day I sat in a very full movie theater and experienced a crowd so moved by what they had watched they cheered and clapped at the end of the movie.    It’s such a rare occurrence.   I think I can count on one hand the times in my life where I’ve witnessed clapping after a movie, but the particular movie I saw deserved it.  I just have to wonder how many of those people realized they enjoyed a story that was originally published as juvenile fiction.

Yes!   The movie War Horse was originally published as a book for young adults in 1982 by Michael Morpungo.

The movie could be summed up by five words – a boy and his horse – but it’s so much more than that.   While the main storyline involves a very special horse and a young man who owns him there are other story lines as well involving duty, responsibility, patriotism, etc.  Morpungo expertly weaves a tale about the horse and various people he meets before and during the course of World War I. 

 

The horse ends up entering the war when he is sold to an English cavalry officer.  From there the horse ends up pulling ambulance wagons for the Germans, living with a French girl and her grandfather, and then has the arduous task of pulling German artillery before miraculously meeting up with his owner again following the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918.

Once the horse entered military service I couldn’t help but think with every new scene how great it would be to use the movie in the classroom to enhance a World War I unit.  The realism of no man’s land, the mud and muck of trench warfare, the gas, the barbed wire, the stories where men from both sides would meet up at times under a flag of truce within no man’s land were all part of the real war.  There are many facets of War Horse that would help students key in on content they have learned in the classroom regarding the Great War.

One aspect of the war I have never taught is the use of horses.   One million horses died on the British side alone.  Most folks learn World War I was the first war with modern technology.  This is true since it was the first war where the tank, motorized vehicles, poison gas, etc., were used, but it was actually a war where warfare was in transition.   Cavalry units were used as portrayed in the movie, and as more and more machine guns were utilized the cavalry units were phased out.  In fact, trench warfare had made the cavalry superfluous.   The Germans had disbanded theirs by the end of 1917.

One of the key scenes in the movie involves a disastrous cavalry charge by the British which was filmed appropriately at Stratfield Saye House in North Hampshire, the estate of the Duke of Wellington who along with his charger, Copenhagen, became famous for their heroic exploits during the Napoleonic Wars.  This site indicates:

Copenhagen and the Duke became synonymous and even in retirement from war they remained together.  The Iron Duke, as he was affectionately known, become Prime Minister of Britain in 1828 and rode Copenhagen up Downing Street to No. 10 to take up his new position of leadership….When the great horse died in 1836, at the remarkable age of 29, he was given a funeral with full military honors.  

As technology took over the role of horses began to change.  Since horses were better at traveling over mud and rough terrain many were used for logistical support as many of the scenes in War Horse supported.

   

Artist Alfred Munnings is considered to be Great Britain’s finest painter of horses, and during World War I he worked as a war artist where he painted many scenes and often worked a few thousand yards from the German lines.

One particular painting by Munnings is titled Charge of Flowerdew’s Squadron 1918, seen below, which portrays what is described as “the last great cavalry charge” during the Battle of Moreuil Wood.  

Flowerdew’s squadron rode into the fire of fine infantry companies….more than half of the men in C Squadron were killed.   Flowerdew was fatally wounded.

This link is about another horse and its rider during the Battle of Moreuil Wood.   The article and the recollections regarding the cavalry charge have many similarities to the cavalry charge in the movie War Horse.


I have a feeling War Horse will be receiving several awards over the next year, and I highly recommend the movie to everyone who wants to see an emotional and interesting movie regarding historical content. 

The Official White House Christmas Card for 2011

I've been writing about the official White House Christmas card here at History Is Elementary and American Presidents Blog since 2006.  I love to look back at past administrations to see what design was chosen.

Unfortunately, over the last few years the card seems to cause some type of controversy...either it causes the politically correct leaning folks to be appalled because a Bible verse is on a card that happens to be recognizing a holiday  which happens to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ OR the card happens to be too secular for the taste of Christians who get their feathers ruffled because there aren't enough details on the card to determine it is in fact a Christmas card.

Well, this year is no different.

Head on over to American Presidents Blog for the whole story and to get a glimpse of this year's official card.

13 Things About Flappers

When we think of Flappers we think of women in the 1920s wearing dresses with low waistlines, with hemlines a little below the knee, long strands of beads, rolled stockings, cloche hats, bobbed hair and lots of dancing, right?

1. All of that is true and more including rather scandalous behavior for the times that had to do with smoking, wearing make-up and being sexually promiscuous.  It has to be pointed out though some women took on the Flapper style, but they opted out regarding some of the more scandalous behaviors, but others took to some of the more tame activities which including driving a car.

2. The word "flapper" dates back as far as 1631 and meant "prostitute."  Eventually, it came to be a slang term referring to a mid-teenage girl.  In 1904, the novelist Desmond Coke used the term "flapper" in a sentence that read, "There's a stunning flapper."

3. Many think the Flapper Era began in the United States, but it can actually be traced to Great Britain via Germany.  By 1910, there were a series of stories in a London magazine regarding a 15 year old girl and her Flapper adventures, and in 1912, John Tiller, a British dance troupe organizer who specialized in precision dance mentioned a Flapper was a girl who had "just come out."   Tiller eventually brought his dance troupes to America and the "Tiller girls" eventually morphed into groups like The Rockettes.

4. Author, F. Scott Fitzgerald and artist, John Held, Jr. are credited with first using the term in the United States.   Fitzgerald described the Flapper as "lovely, expensive, and about nineteen."  Held drew young girls wearing unbuckled galoshes that would make flapping noises when walking.  It is his illustrations that provide the idealized image we know today as the "The Flapper."

5. By 1920, the ideal image we have of a Flapper had evolved.  CoCo Chanel introduced the "garconne" look which means "little boy".  Women actually wound their chests with strips of cloth in order to flatten their breasts.  Waistlines dropped to the hips.

6. The Flapper Era encouraged clothing that was lighter and more flexible.  This encouraged women to be free and move around.  The laces and stays that were the norm during the Victorian Era were gone.  Many critics state the loose clothing led to independent thinking and of course, ended up with many having contempt for Victorian values.  Flappers certainly had image AND attitude.

7. The type of "step-in" panties women wear today came into use during the Flapper Era replacing restrictive corsets and pantaloons.

8. Dances such as the Charleston, Black Bottom, and Shimmey were created during the Flapper Era.   A quote from Atlantic Monthly dated May, 1920 states, "...trots like foxes, limp like a lame ducks, one-step like cripples and all to the barbaric yawp of strange instruments which transforms the whole scene into a moving-picture of a fancy ball in bedlam."

9. The concept of dating was born during the Flapper Era.  Pre-arranged and chaperoned courting would soon become a thing of the past.

10. In an article during the decade titled, "Too Many Women", Dr. R. Murray-Leslie described Flappers as, "the social butterfly type...the frivolous, scantily-clad, jazzing flapper, irresponsible and undisciplined, to whom a dance, a new hat, or a man with a car, were of more importance than the fate of nations."

11. However, many historians argue the Flapper Era had its start because "the fate of nations" referring to World War I.  Many historians theorize the Flapper Era became so entrenched with society in the 1920s due to the loss of so many men in the Great War.  By the time the war was in full swing young men were dying left and right which led many people to cling to the eat, drink and be merry attitude.  

Men and women opted for extreme (considered then) life changes.  Women had a very hard time...without possible suitors they didn't want to waste their life in spinsterhood.

12. Once the war was over it was hard to get back to normal.  Folks wanted to enjoy life, and they did.   They took risks.

13. The Flapper craze did not survive the Great Depression, but the new or modern woman had been created.

The President's Overdue Library Books

I have to admit that I have had my fair share of overdue library books before.

  

Stuff happens, right?

We don’t mean to steal the book.  We just get a little sidetracked with our busy lives or the book ends up in a place where it is no longer in our line of sight and we forget all about it.

We’re human, right?

Why on Earth would we think that the same thing couldn’t have happened to President George Washington?

(Head on over to American Presidents Blog here for the rest of my story……)