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.
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.
