Subject: Re: Jefferson the Bible-believer
From: KEVIN4VFT
To: Separation of Church/State?
Date: 8/9/99
In article <19990809091550.10615.00008566@ng-fb1.aol.com>, tulipsis@aol.com (Tulipsis) writes:
>Actually, I would enjoy seeing the part that allegedly forbids
teachers to
>keep a Bible on their desk. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in PELOZA
v. CAPISTRANO UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST., 37 F.3d 517 (9th Cir. 1994), held that if a student
asks a teacher a question about religion during the lunch break, the teacher is forbidden
to answer. The court said a school has a right to order a teacher to be silent in order to
avoid a costly ACLU lawsuit.
Peloza alleges the school district ordered him to refrain from discussing
his religious beliefs with students during "instructional time," and to tell any
students who attempted to initiate such conversations with him to consult their parents or
clergy. He claims the school district, in the following official reprimand, defined
"instructional time" as any time the students are on campus, including lunch
break and the time before, between, and after classes:
You are hereby directed to refrain from any attempt to convert students to Christianity
or initiating conversations about your religious beliefs during instructional time, which
the District believes includes any time students are required to be on campus as well as
the time students immediately arrive for the purposes of attending school for instruction,
lunch time, and the time immediately prior to students' departure after the instructional
day.
Complaint at 16. Peloza seeks a declaration that this definition of instructional time
is too broad, and that he should be allowed to participate in student-initiated
discussions of religious matters when he is not actually teaching class.6
The school district's restriction on Peloza's ability to talk with students about
religion during the school day is a restriction on his right of free speech. Nevertheless,
"the Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive
authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental
constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools." Tinker
v. Des Moines Indep. Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506-07, 89 S.Ct. 733, 737, 21
L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). "[T]he interest of the State in avoiding an Establishment Clause
violation `may be [a] compelling' one justifying an abridgement of free speech otherwise
protected by the First Amendment. . . ." Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free
School Dist., ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 2148, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993) (quoting
Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 271, 102 S.Ct. 269, 275, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981)). This
principle applies in this case. The school district's interest in avoiding an
Establishment Clause violation trumps Peloza's right to free speech.
While at the high school, whether he is in the classroom or outside of it during
contract time, Peloza is not just any ordinary citizen. He is a teacher. He is one of
those especially respected persons chosen to teach in the high school's classroom. He is
clothed with the mantle of one who imparts knowledge and wisdom. His expressions of
opinion are all the more believable because he is a teacher. The likelihood of high school
students equating his views with those of the school is substantial. To permit him to
discuss his religious beliefs with students during school time on school grounds would
violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Such speech would not have a
secular purpose, would have the primary effect of advancing religion, and would entangle
the school with religion. In sum, it would flunk all three parts of the test articulated
in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). See Roberts v.
Madigan, 921 F.2d 1047, 1056-58 (10th Cir. 1990) (teacher could be prohibited from reading
Bible during silent reading period, and from stocking two books on Christianity on
shelves, because these things could leave students with the impression that Christianity
was officially sanctioned), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 3025, 120 L.Ed.2d 896
(1992). |
In stark contrast to the myth of separation, the Founders believed that
schools should affirmatively teach religion. Every single person who signed the
Constitution believed that religious and moral inculcation was the purpose of schools.
Peloza is light-years away from the original intent of the Constitution. Consider
Samuel Adams:
As piety, religion, and morality have a happy influence on the minds of men, in their public
as well as private transactions, you will not think it unseasonable, although I have
frequently done it, to bring to your remembrance the great importance of encouraging our
University, town schools, and other seminaries of education, that our children and youth
while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may have their minds impressed
with a strong sense of the duties they owe to God. If we continue to be a happy people,
that happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of the reasonable and wise
laws expressed in the plainest language and by establishing such modes of education as
tend to inculcate in the minds of youth the feelings and habits of "piety, religion
and morality."
(Addressing the Legislature of Mass., 1/16/1795)
Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate
the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys
and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity. . . and,
in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country. . . . In short, of
leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.
Letter to John Adams, 1790, who wrote back: "You and I agree."
Four Letters: Being an Interesting Correspondence Between Those Eminently Distinguished
Characters, John Adams, Late President of the United States; and Samuel Adams, Late
Governor of Massachusetts. On the Important Subject of Government (Boston: Adams and
Rhoades, 1802) pp. 9-10
It has been observed that "education has a greater influence on manners than human
laws can have." [A] virtuous education is calculated to reach and influence the heart
and to prevent crimes. . . . Such an education, which leads the youth beyond mere outside
show, will impress their minds with a profound reverence of the Deity [and] . . . will
excite in them a just regard to Divine revelation.
The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Wm.Wells., ed. (Boston: Little,
Brown, & Co., 1865) Vol.III, p. 327.
Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
Northwest Ordinance, 1787
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in
which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed. . . . No truth is
more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any
government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.
The opinion that human reason left without the constant control of Divine laws and
commands will preserve a just administration, secure freedom and other rights, restrain
men from violations of laws and constitutions, and give duration to a popular government
is as chimerical as the most extravagant ideas that enter the head of a maniac . . . .
Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and
prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition
of murder, robbery, theft [and] trespass.
Noah Webster, Letters, Harry A Warfel, ed., (NY: Library Publishers, 1953) pp.
453-454, to David McClure, Oct. 25, 1836.
The Father of his Country warned:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in exclusion of religious principle
And secularists would be quick to point out that Washington was less
Biblically-oriented than the most influential educators in the nation, such as Benjamin
Rush and Noah Webster.
All the scholars are required to live a religious and blameless life according to the
rules of God's Word, diligently reading the holy Scriptures, that fountain of Divine light
and truth, and constantly attending all the duties of religion . . . .
All the scholars are obliged to attend Divine worship in the College Chapel on the Lord's
Day and on Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving appointed by public Authority.
The Laws of Yale College in New Haven in Connecticut (New Haven: Josiah Meigs, 1787) p.
5-6, ch II, art. 1,4
Early US Supreme Court decisions agreed that in a Christian nation such as America, the
Bible must be taught in all government-run schools.
In 1844, the Court was asked, Can the state enforce a will which creates a
government-operated school which will not teach the Bible?
The Supreme Court said that the very idea of a school which will not teach the Bible is
contrary to the legal foundations of this Christian nation.
It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider what would be the legal effect of a
devise in Pennsylvania for the establishment of a school or college, for the propagation
of . . . Deism, or any other form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be
presumed to exist in a Christian country; and therefore it must be made out by clear
and indisputable proof.
The government made firm assurances that the Bible would be taught in the school, and
the will was approved. (Vidal v.
Girard's Executors)
The Vidal Court, as it talks about Christianity and the Bible, sounds more
like David Barton than anything one would hear from the post-1947 Court. The Vidal Court
said that the government in its school "may, nay must impart to their youthful
pupils . . . the Bible, and especially the New Testament," which must "be read
and taught as a divine revelation in the college -- its general precepts expounded, its
evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality inculcated." The
Court asked rhetorically:
Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as
from the New Testament? Where are benevolence, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry,
so powerfully and irresistibly inculcated as in the sacred volume?
The Bible MUST be taught in government schools, the 1844 US Supreme Court declared.
You would NEVER EVER hear language like this from the modern secularist Court. But you
ALWAYS heard language like this from the Founding Fathers.
http://members.aol.com/TestOath/Vidal.htm
The "separation of church and state" is a myth.
But it is by the attention it pays to Public Education that the original character of
American civilization is at once placed in the clearest light. "It being," says
the law, "one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture
by persuading from the use of tongues, to the end that learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our
endeavors..." Here follow clauses establishing schools in every township, and
obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to support them. Schools of a
superior kind were founded in the same manner in the more populous districts. The
municipal authorities were bound to enforce the sending of children to school by their
parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who refused compliance; and in case
of continued resistance society assumed the place of the parent, took possession of the
child, and deprived the father of those natural rights which he used to so bad a purpose.
The reader will undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments: in America religion
is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws
leads man to civil freedom
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol.1, p.40 - p.41.
Subject:Re:The Dark Side of Kevinian History
From: KEVIN4VFT
To: Separation of Church & State
Date: 4/13/99
In article <19990413114347.09759.00000053@ng-fu1.aol.com>, edarr1776@aol.com (EDarr1776) writes:
>
>Grovelady said: >>The New England
>>Primer, states that it is to be used in Christian Schools. These were
>>generaly written and taught in small
>>groups by the local ministers. They made thier living in this way, since
>>contributions were not that great. <<<
>
>Kevin responded: >>ALL SCHOOLS in America were like this. ALL THE FOUNDING
>FATHERS attended schools like this.>>
>
>Actually, if you do a web search on Infoseek for "Lawrence Cremin," you'll
>find a couple of websites noting that almost none of the founders attended
>schools like this. Schools were much, much different. Kids were often
>expected to be able to read just to get into school. Madison was educated
>rather informally, boarded out to different families, to get to learn from
>different men in Virginia. Many were "homeschooled," because there
were no
>schools available. Franklin attended the first public school in America,
>Boston Latin. He dropped out. It is clearly in error to say that the major
>founders, or most of the founders went to prearchers' schools -- and it is
>pure balderdash to insist they all did.
This is correct. What I meant to say was
All of the Founders who attended schools at all attended Christian schools which taught
the Ten Commandments through the Catechism. The opposition of Secular Humanists to
Christian home- schools and parental control of education has no basis in history. I
certainly don't want to give a contrary impression.
Ed gives us no reason to doubt that every single Founding Father learned the Ten
Commandments in the same way the millions of other students learned them in the New
England Primer, whether from tutors, homeschools, or whatever.
>
>Kevin said: >> 106 of the first 108 colleges formed in
>America were formed on Christian principles. By 1865 there were
>hardly a half a dozen universities not founded on Christianity, and
>up until 1900 it was extremely rare to find a university president
>who was not an ordained clergyman.
>
>We should analyze what those "Christian principles" were: Learn
geography,
>learn history, especially of Rome and Greece, and of France and of England;
>learn mathematics. Learn navigation and literature. Learn nature and
>science."
>
>The idea was that preachers needed a full grounding in all of these areas
>BEFORE they could start to comprehend the Bible.
There is certainly evidence that Christians were well-rounded and well-educated (as
opposed to the pop-psychology social experimentation that passes for education in the
schools created by the religion of Secular
Humanism). But there is NO EVIDENCE that anyone
(except those way out in left field [e.g., Jefferson]) believed that children should not be
taught the Ten Commandments at the earliest age. I have already quoted several founders on
the need to do so for "our little boys and girls" and other youth.
> It is true that these
>universities were founded to education clergymen -- it is telling that they
>educated the clergymen, the Men of God, the Teachers of the Faithful, an
>almost everything BUT theology. This was the time of Natural Law.
Colonists
>thought that we could get closer to God by observing the way nature worked;
True. Very True. But it is now unconstitutional to help students "get closer to
God" no matter how they do it. Even employing wholly secular
means is "unconstitutional" if the goal is to get kids
"closer to God." (See Stone v.
Graham [10 Commandments], Aguillard
[teaching facts which undermine evolution] and Jaffree
[allowing a moment of silence in the unstated hope that kids might "get
closer to God"].) Which proves that the current
"separationist" mythology was not derived from the Founding
Fathers, who would allow non-sectarian religious
means to get students closer to God.
>they
>believed and practiced that there were some things so true that the Bible
>couldn't even get close to telling it accurately, such as the truths that all
>men are created equal.
Deceit. Give us a scrap of evidence that the Founders believed the Bible didn't teach
this. Where do you get these ideas, Ed? The movement to abolish slavery was led by
Christians who took their marching orders from the Bible. Wilberforce in Britain and J.Q.
Adams in the U.S. continually cited Scripture in their crusade for equality.
>These universities turned out clergymen who are the
antithesis of modern
>fundamentalist preachers. They were educated in the classics and in history,
>then, often conversant in three or four foreign languages. They were
deeply
>inculcated with learning.
All the evidence indicates that Ed is right; that Christians were the most educated in
the land.
>They had not had their time in school wasted on
>the Ten Commandments
This is unsupportable by any evidence, and is contradicted by the very next line:
>-- but instead could read or figure out the Hebrew
>version, if only by going through the Greek.
And this they did, and they went on to draft legislation which was consistent with the
Ten Commandments.
http://members.aol.com/TenC
4 USA/UShistory/index.htm
>When Thomas Jefferson was appointed to the Board of Visitors
of William and
>Mary College (the ruling body of the school), he complained about the
>academic laxity and utter uselessness of having teachers of theology on the
>faculty. The rest of the board agreed, and they fired the preachers and
>hired a lawyer and a rhetorician.
First, Jefferson was not representative of the views of those who actually signed the
Constitution. Many of his "progressive" educational plans were rejected by the
Virginia Legislature. All the evidence indicates that Christianity was part of the
education of the overwhelming majority of Americans, and all the Founding Fathers.
Second, most teachers of theology ARE useless and should be fired.
Instead of teaching generic Biblical principles (which all the Signers of the Constituiton
agreed should be taught in schools) the theology teachers were dragging students down in
ecclesiastical squabbles designed to buttress support for their own denominations and
institutions. As someone who despises sectarian ecclesiastical squabbles, I have no
problem at all with firing a silly cleric and replacing him with a dynamic Christian
lawyer like Daniel Webster.
The issue here is whether the lawyer they hired taught that it was unconstitutional for
common schools to teach the Ten Commandments.
There is not only no evidence to support this claim, but all the evidence suggests the
utter unlikelihood of that being the case. In Jefferson's day there wasn't a school to be
found that didn't teach the Ten Commandments.
>Kevin expects that because they wore the label
"Christian" they were
>fundamentalist nuts.
Ed, YOU are the one who thinks that because I say the Founders were Christian that I am
saying they were fundamentalist nuts. I hate fundamentalist nuts more than you, because I
claim to be a Christian and those nuts are an embarrassment to me.
Your failure to understand that there can be intelligent Christians who appreciate
learning in diverse fields and exercise dominion over the earth rather than retreat into
speculative and escapist theological squabbles leads to you commit egregious logical
fallacies. You falsely assume that "Christian" means "Fundie nut." You
prove (rightly) that the men who signed the Constitution were not fundie nuts, and
illogically conclude that they were not Bible believing Christians. Your posts are filled
with non-sequiturs.
>The fact is that the founders were much more thoughtful
>than Kevin gives them credit for,
No, they were more thoughtful than YOU give me credit for realizing. More thoughtful
than you give credit to Bible-believing Christians for being. You judge all Christians
throughout history based on the pathetic air-heads who claim to be Christians in our day.
In generations past, Christians were men of great intellect, broad education, and their
Christianity was the foundation of civilization. Men like J. Gresham Machen, conservative,
Bible-believing Christians, were even respected and acknowledged to be men of learning by
Secular Humanists. When Machen was defrocked by the liberal presbyterian church in the
early part of this century, it was frontpage news in the New York Times. You are
right to condemn modern-day fundie nuts. You are very very wrong to conclude that because
the men who signed the Constitution were not fundie nuts, they couldn't have been
Christian.
Very wrong.
>and they did not advocate teaching the
>Bible to otherwise innocent children.
And this is just plain wrong. Aside from Jefferson's wacked-out theories, you can't
name a single Founding Father who would agree with this, and I have quoted several who
explicitly say what you deny they say.
Thomas Jefferson's good friend Benjamin Rush, after he signed the Declaration of
Independence, was the first Founding Father to call for free public schools. He said:
[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.
Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and
liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion, I believe
that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.
(Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, p.6 ["On
the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic"])
Rush was clearly a Christian, but no "fundamentalist nut." In his paper
entitled, "A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a Schoolbook," Rush argued,
[T]he only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government .
. . is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of
the Bible. For this Divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind,
that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the soul
of republicanism.
Daniel Webster reflected the views of every single Signer of the Constitution:
We regard it [public instruction] as a wise and liberal system of police by which
property and life and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent in some measure
the extension of the penal code by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of
virtue and of knowledge. [1]
[However, t]he attainment of knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the
larger term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined; the passions are to be
restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to
be instilled, and pure morality inculcated. [Four years
later, the U.S. Supreme Court would agree that this could only be done by having the
government teach the Bible.] [2]
The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness . . . inspires respect
for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric.[3]
[1] Works of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1853) vol I, pp
41-42, Dec 22., 1820.
[2] vol II, pp 107-108, Oct 5: 1840
[3] vol II, p 615, July 4, 1851
>For example, read the stuff Kevin posts next -- and notice
that Dartmouth is
>not established to preach, but rather to educate kids to read and write and
>think critically.
A time-honored Biblical and Christian undertaking.
All the laws in this Christian nation requiring townships and parishes to ensure literacy
were motivated by legislatures which wanted to make sure that the Bible could be read and
understood, because this was the basis for civilization and republican governments.
>Kevin said: >>All the Puritans believed that the
purpose
>of education (reading, writing,
>etc.) was to build the Kingdom and carry out God's purposes.
>
>Thus, in 1754, Dartmouth was founded with a very clear purpose:
>
> Whereas .
. . the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock . . . educated a
> number of the children of the Indian natives with a view to their
> carrying the Gospel in their own langauge and spreading the
> knowledge of the great Redeemer among their savage tribes
> And . . . the design became reputable among the Indians
> insomuch that a larger number desired the education of their
> children in said school . . . [Therefore] Dartmouth-College [is
> established] for the education and instruction of youths . . . in
> reading, writing and all parts of learning which shall appear
> necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing the
children.
> The Charter of Dartmouth College,
pub 1779 by Isaiah Thomas, pp.1,4.<<
>
>Notice that the purpose of Dartmouth was to educate first
-- not preach.
Your implication is illogical.
Your premises are contrary to facts, as well. The purpose of the school was to train them
to "carry the gospel" and "civilize" and "Christianize"
others. I admit that theological squabbles weren't the priority, but this is far closer to
"preaching" than you seem willing to admit. Did you actually read the purpose of
the founding of Darmouth?
>The
>Bible is not mentioned.
What a stretch, Ed. How pathetic.
>It was assumed then that if one were broadly
>educated, one would become Christian.
Prove it. Cite one person who believed this. George Washington, the Father of his
Country, in his Farewell Address, completely DENIED what you just asserted. His remarks
capture the thinking of every single person who signed the Constitution:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in exclusion of religious principle
And you would be quick to point out that Washington was less Biblically-oriented than
the most influential educators in the nation, such as Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster.
>That is contrary to the assumption
>Kevin makes
And contrary to the assumption of every single person who signed the Constitution.
> -- that knowing a lot makes one Marxist or worse.
Right, Ed. I believe that more study makes one evil. This is childish slander. It
cannot replace evidence and logic. It will only persuade Grovelady. (That should scare
you, Ed.)
>Notice, too, that Kevin misinterprets the demands by
Columbia. They wanted
>kids who knew how to read Greek. Kevin seems to miss that entire point when
>he posts: >>Entrance requirements for Columbia Univ in 1785 were something
>attainable
>only by those who had gone through Christian Readers like McGuffey's:
>
> No candidate shall be admitted into the College . . . unless he
> shall be able to render into English . . . the Gospels from the
Greek. <<<
>
>We should note that by the evidence Kevin posts, his point is disproven.
My point is that students in a Christian nation are more knowledgeable than students
educated in schools created by the religion of Secular Humanism. I have clearly proven
that point. No college today requires a knowledge of Greek. I argue also that students
were required to have knowledge of Christianity. The requirement was not that they can
translate Homer from the Greek, but that they translate THE GOSPELS from the Greek, a
requirement which is CLEARLY "unconstituitional" under the establishment of the
religion of Secular Humanism.
>The
>requirement clearly requires knowledge of Greek. Kevin claims it is a
>requirement for knowledge of Christianity.
It is clearly BOTH, Ed.
>I posit that knowing the verses
>in English will not allow one to fake them in Greek -- and anyone who read
>Greek (as most of the faculty at Columbia did then) would know in a trice.
>McGuffey's Reader doesn't teach Greek. Those schooled in McGuffey's
>reader alone would be ruled not educated enough to enter Columbia;
Students completed the McGuffey readers when they were 10 or 12. THEN they learned
Greek. Most Secular Humanist college students in our day could not successfully complete
the last McGuffey Reader.
>those
>schooled ONLY in Greek, without any background in Christianity, would be able
>to pass the test.
This is wrong. Or at least misleading. It misleads us to think that a Secular Humanist,
of the type that refuses to stand respectfully while the rest of the class is praying, and
asks the federal government to prohibit all the other students from the free exercise of
their relgion, would last for any length of time in an American university which required
of its students in 1787:
All the scholars are required to live a religious and blameless life according to the
rules of God's Word, diligently reading the holy Scriptures, that fountain of Divine light
and truth, and constantly attending all the duties of religion . . . .
All the scholars are obliged to attend Divine worship in the College Chapel on the Lord's
Day and on Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving appointed by public Authority.
The Laws of Yale College in New Haven in Connecticut (New Haven: Josiah Meigs, 1787) p.
5-6, ch II, art. 1,4
William Samuel Johnson, signer of the Constitution, was appointed Columbia's first
president. Under him,
It is expected that all students attend public worship on Sundays.
Columbia Rules (NY: Samuel Loudon, 1785) 5-8
Johnson's views on public education were similar to those of every other signer of the
Constitution. In his commencement address, he told the graduates:
You this day, gentlemen, . . . have . . . received a public education, the purpose
whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country . . . .
Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator
and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and
conduct.
Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of piety towards God and a reverence and fear
of His holy name. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom [Proverbs 9:10]. Remember
too, that you are the redeemed of the Lord, that you are bought with a price, even the
inestimable price of the precious blood of the Son of God. . . . Love, fear and serve Him
as your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Acquaint yourselves with Him in His Word and
holy ordinances. Make Him your friend and protector and your felicity is secured both here
and hereafter.
"Fundamentalist nut," right Ed?
>Kevin said: >>The purpose of virtually all
universities remained constant
>even after the
>signing of the Constitution: to glorify God by producing Godly Christians.
>The universities required daily prayer, chapel and Bible reading. These
>universities produced perhaps the majority of the signers of the
>Constitution, who did not repudiate what they had learned in college.<<
>
>So what's the point?
If it isn't clear to you by now, Ed, you're willfully blind.
>Are you arguing that by teaching religion, we get
>people who will write a godless Constitution?
No, I'm arguing that by teaching religion we get people who write state constitutions
which require all office holders to believe in God and a federal constitution which does
everything possible to keep the federal judiciary from interfering with the states'
established religion. I'm arguing that if education had continued to be Christian, the
religion of Secular Humanism would not have been established by law, imposed by the
federal judiciary, in clear violation of constitutional principles.
>The delegates to the
>Constiutitonal Convention were not schooled overwhelmingly in these Christian
>academies, and they were not the fundamentalist patsies Kevin wishes us to
>believe.
Ed, resort to this kind of slur reveals that you just don't have the facts. Christians
are not the "fundamentalist patsies" YOU wish us to believe, Ed. The Christians
who signed the Constitution were well educated, and believed that teaching religion in the
schools could keep people from falling prey to illogical and immoral forms of
argumentation like yours.
>Here is how the prize-winning historian Clinton Rossiter
describes
>the religion of the delegates (underlines mine): "Whatever else it might
>turn out to be, the Convention would not be a 'Barebone's Parliament.'
>Although it had its share of strenuous Christians like Strong and Bassett,
>ex-preachers like Baldwin and Williamson, and theologians like Johnson and
>Ellsworth, the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom
>the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were
>nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the
>coutnry -- the New Englanders Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the
>Southerners Episcopalians, and men of the Middle States everything from
>backsliding Quakers to stubborn Catholics -- and most were men who could take
>their religion or leave it alone.
This is more propaganda than scholarship. Name one single signer of
the Constitution would agree with this statement:
"My life and thought would not be fundamentally altered if I were an
infidel."
Name one signer of the Constituiton who would agree with this
statement:
"The social order of America would not be fundamentally altered if all
Americans were infidels."
Not a single Signer would agree.
>Although no one in this sober gathering
>would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone
>have dared to proclaim that his opinions had the support of the God of
>Abraham and Paul.
What a silly thing to say. Are we to believe that the Signers of the Constituiton
believed that God DISapproved of what they did? There isn't any evidence which can even
make sense of Rossiter's remark (the best indication that it is mere propaganda, not
scholarship.) One does not have to agree with Declaration Signer Benjamin Rush to see the
outrageous falsity of Rossiter's allegation:
I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as
perfectly satisfied that the Union of the States in its form and adoption is as much the
work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.
Benjamin Rush, Letters, L.H.Butterfield, ed., (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1951) vol I, p. 475, to Elias Boudinot, July 9, 1788
>The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even
>secular in spirit."
>Clinton Rossiter, 1787, The Grand Convention (Norton 1966), pp. 147-148.
Many "prize-winning" historians are fanatic SecularHumanist fundamentalists.
Rossiter's account of history will not withstand close scrutiny. I have analyzed it here:
http://members.aol.com/EndTheWall/JointBaptists.htm
Many of the men in Philadelphia were in their 20's or 30's. What is Rossiter talking
about, "old fires." These remarks are designed to mislead those who are ignorant
of the facts of American history. First, the "old fires" weren't just flickers
in the hearts of a few. Christianity was a conflagration which engulfed the New World. It
was too great a flame to have died out by 1776, and those who met in 1787 had no intention
of putting it out. If you can't see the flames from where you're standing, click here.
Second, Rossiter joins other Humanists in confusing anti-clericalism with
anti-Christianity. Many who despised organized religion believed that Christian principles
were necessary for the success of the new nation. I am a fanatic Theocrat, but I am no fan
of organized religion, and I am not
a member of any church. The men who signed the Constitution are far closer to my
theocratic beliefs than they are to the ACLU.
>If anything, the educational history of the founders suggests
that organized
>religion in public schools is not the path to truth.
>
>Ed
Only your wishful thinking suggests this. I have quoted primary sources all over this
post, and you have quoted only one very biased secondary source. On balance, I would say
that the education history of the founders suggests that Christianity [don't try to trip
us up with "organized religion"] in public schools was the widespread practice
and the perennial expectation.
Nevertheless, even Clinton Rossiter at other times admits the overwhelming Christian
character of the Founding Fathers, and the centrality of religion and morality in the
social order in which they lived and which they did not repudiate. Read Rossiter here.
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