Our Founders Were Not Deists!

[Dave]

Here's a letter to the editor (doesn't say which paper this appeared in) found on the Clements Family Page:

Editor,

Here we go again...yet another attempt at history revisionism. I was pleased, however, to see that you added the word “Commentary” to that diatribe “Experts: Founding fathers not necessarily Christian.” These people were anything but experts.

Their first mistake was drawing the above conclusion based on the fact that the Declaration of Independence was “vague” in references to God. I don’t believe “Nature’s God, Creator, Supreme Judge of the Word, and Divine Providence” can possibly be considered vague. In addition, there is no other God than the God of the Bible that these words refer to. If they had done the research they implied they did, they could have examined the documents, quotes, diaries, and decisions, of the founders, framers, courts and contemporaries. Since all of the above adhere to our country’s Christian foundation and propagation of the gospel, they probably felt that it was unnecessary to make the document a Biblical quotation. A trip through their writings, however, make if VERY clear that our Nation was and should always be, a Christian nation.

In fact, they derived our “three forms of government (Executive, Legislative & Judicial)” from Isaiah 33:22. In addition, they drew from Jeremiah 17 to implement the “Separation of Powers” and Ezra 7:24 to grant the church the tax exempt status [501©3]. According to the University of Houston, who collected 15,000 writings of the founding fathers (took 10 years), more than 34% of their quotes came right out of their Bibles and 60% came from authors who got their ideas from the Bible.

Their second mistake was referencing the “Treaty of Tripoli”. In it (allegedly) Article 11 states that, “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...” Most researchers are now aware that this article is NOT found in the treaty at all. Charles Bevans, who wrote “Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of American 1776-1959” - The U.S. State Department said “ ‘.....not in any sense founded on the Christian religion’, does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.” The treaty, as originally written (1797), contains no such quote. Further, since piracy continued even WITH the treaty and America went to war with Tripoli in 1801, a second treaty was drafted (1806) and again...THAT original did not contain the false quote either.

What was REALLY interesting, was that they CHOSE to omit quotes from treaties that DID reference our Christian heritage: American/Great Britain Peace Treaty (“In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity”), among others.

Their third mistake was stating that “Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin could pass today for secular humanists.” They had to completely turn a blind eye to the thousands of quotes that came from these men to make a statement like that. Out of the 54 public declarations of denominational affiliations, only one claimed to be a Deist with no adherence to the Christian religion, and that was Franklin. He did, however, attend worship services and was a strong advocate of prayer and the assertion that God governed in the affairs of men.

By today’s standards, in light on the “only on Sunday” standards of many Christians....these guys were saints!

[PedroX]

They certainly had many strong religious beliefs, but some were hardly orthodox, even for Protestants. Jefferson cut many verses out of his Bible, because he didn't think they were accurate. (miracles, etc.) However, all of them believed strongly that the church had a role to play in society, and none of them would have sanctioned the barring of religion from the public square.

peace...

[kdewolf2]

For an interesting and somewhat persuasive Catholic view of the founding fathers, check out Charles de Nunzio Review, especially these articles:

Our "Christian Nation" and Other Dubious Legends

Modern Conservatives, Old Liberals

Living Under The Leviathan

The Theme Is Freedom

These articles argue that profession of Christianity by the founding fathers isn't good enough. They failed to organize the American political community on genuinely Christian principles.

I would hardly suggest that this point of view, critical of the founding fathers, should be considered "the" Catholic perspective. But I think it is worth consideration. I prefer a policy of "epoche" (suspended judgment) in doubtful matters.

The founding fathers' views on Christianity and its place in civil society is hardly relevant to us now. Regardless of what the founding fathers would have thought about it, we as Christians still have an obligation to redeem our country, not by forcing anyone to espouse our beliefs on the pretext that this is supposed to be a Christian nation, but by quietly and gently converting America to Christ, like the early Christians in the Roman Empire.

[Kilroy the Ninja]

Hmmmmmm, ah, ah, ah, ah ahbull........choo! Sorry, I sneezed.

Didn't Jefferson rewrite the New Testement and take out ALL the miracles??

Isn't that tatamount to rejecting the divinity of Christ?

Not very Christian.

There's a whole big ole long thread about this on the old board. I'll let Don John dig it up for ya.

:ph34r:

[Dave]

I never said they were orthodox according to Catholic standards. My point was that they thought God should have a place in society, unlike those today who want to take God out.

[Don John of Austria]

I never said they were orthodox according to Catholic standards. My point was that they thought God should have a place in society, unlike those today who want to take God out.

That would make them Deist, You said they were not Deist and they where, they( most of them ) where not Christian. More than that they were not all fired up about God in general witnessed by the Fact that He isn't mentioned once in our countries governing document- the Constitution. This is true even though it Caused some scandal with the lower classes at the time. They where hostile to Christianity and to Catholicism in Particular. They did not embrace athiesim you are correct, they were brilliant men and realized the folly of Athiesm-------BUT THEY WERE NOT CHRISTIANS At lest not the majority of them.

[DojoGrant]

Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin were overtly deistic. It's clear in their writings. Jefferson, one could claim was a Christian, I suppose, but only by his own standards (as he was bound by no authority other than his own).

As for the others, I don't know.

Deism believes in ONE CREATOR GOD, but that this god left everything up to us, is no longer present, and that we have no way to get to know him/it. Divine revelation to a deist is foolishness.

Edited August 27, 2003 by DojoGrant

[Dave]

All right, let's just forget it. I guess I really showed my ignorance. I didn't really know what a Deist is. I merely posted this because I thought it was interesting. Well, I think I'll think twice before posting any article again.

[Azriel]

All right, let's just forget it.  I guess I really showed my ignorance.  I didn't really know what a Deist is.  I merely posted this because I thought it was interesting.  Well, I think I'll think twice before posting any article again.

You are not ignorant.

Now stop. Post what you want ... and prepare yourself for whatever anyone else has to post.

[PedroX]

Dave,

you are from from ignorant, as you have demonstrated many times on this forum. Don John and I are just history freaks, who love to spout little known facts about times from long ago. You happened to make a mistake. The article you posted did have some good points. Modern society does inDouche seem to want to remove religion completely from the public square. This is a thought that is completely ahistorical. No society in the world has ever tried to remove religion before the 20th century. Anyway, enough rambling. Keep posting.

peace...

[hyperdulia again]

the founding fathers were deists and jefferson at least denied the divinity of christ.