I think we would have heard about it by now if the founding fathers were mostly Deists. I think the only mostly category the founding fathers might have satisfied is Non-Anglican. And even this I’m making a ‘s.s. & s.’:
( " stoop, squat, and squint " ).
There is this in the Treaty of Tripoli 1796, “[T]he Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” To me the biggest concern of the founding fathers was to not have a State Religion which would require the government to be neutral on the question of God.
I can only find seven men who can be identified as Deists so I must retract the “mostly” and go with “some.”
And talk about going rather far afield, but this discussion certainly has.
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The only reason that this is even a “thing” is because of far-right Christians like David Barton (see post #73), who rewrite American history to prove their thesis that this is a “Christian nation.” I hate to keep repeating myself, but there is obviously a pattern of intellectual dishonesty running through the conservative evangelical wing of the American church, and it is repulsive, especially to young people. (And, honestly, to old people like me, too.)
@Christy
Thanks for the tip on Grudem’s book. It makes me a little sad, because his systematic theology was the first book of “real” theology that I ever bought. He literally changed my life. I am not surprised that an evangelical leader would write a book to give theological justification to the Republican party, however. They are presently joined at the hip, to the detriment of the church, in my opinion.
This is true. I’ll have to think through the implications.
I am not a fan of American exceptionalism. This is not a theocracy. We do not live in Israel under the old covenant. As far as I’m concerned, the kingdom of God has rendered the nations of the world meaningless and less than nothing. But … if we want to be Scriptural about the matter, we should consider how God judged the nation of Israel. In all the “covenant lawsuits” that God brought against Israel and Judah in the prophets, the primary charge is that they have not remained faithful to him as Lord. Secondarily, the charges always involve the nation’s corrupt justice system and mistreatment of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. It seems to me that Jesus only reinforced the message of the prophets. So, if God is going to judge this nation (or any other), I humbly submit that it will be on the same basis: the quality of our justice and our treatment of “the least” among us.
Hmmm. I have to disagree on the distortion part. Mainly, the development of the U.S. education system lagged far behind Europe. Until the end of the 19th century, education in this country was a hodge-podge of home schooling, private schools, private tutors, church schools, some public elementary schools, etc. The Founders would have had no conception of a universal, state-supported education system in mind. That part of your statement is an anachronism, I’m afraid.
Separation of church and state was one legacy of the Founders. It is one of the founding principles of our republic. Once you introduce universal, state-funded education, it seems inevitable to me that the courts should stand by that principle and rule that Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, etc., should not be promoted by official employees of the state, i.e. teachers. We can try to guess what was in the Founders’ minds, but we know for sure what they put on paper.
This doctrine of separation came directly from the experience of many colonists who immigrated to America from European countries with official “state churches.” I would be interested in your take on this, but off the top of my head, it seems to me that most of the European nations that had official state churches now have the greatest numbers of “atheist/religiously unaffiliated” citizens. Ireland, for example, based many laws on Catholic morality, such as outlawing divorce until 1996. That nation has seen a 400% increase in atheists in the last 10 years alone. My opinion is that the church never benefits when it becomes entangled with earthly powers.
Absolutely!
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Who brought up Bernie Sanders?
@Eddie, my friend, Jesus commanded us not to detest anyone.
Matthew 5:43-45 (NIV2011)
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Furthermore, one does not judge people on their politics, one judges people based on their character. As far as I can see the businessman has no real character. He tells people what they want to hear and is only in things for himself. The former US Senator has a legacy of service as well as a practical side. She by far passes the test of the Fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV2011)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Many evangelicals have fallen victim to the unholy alliance which their leaders have made with the GOP which has resulted in the demonization of the Democratic Party. This is a very has commentary on the faith of evangelicals which is based on fear rather than faith.
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My friend, I am not talking polit5ics. I am talking about Christianity, and I hope you are too.
The issue is not right or left. The issue is polarization and demonization that goes against every thing that Jesus Christ stood for.
For a sense of scale… I wonder how many Deists there might have been in the UK Parliament in 1776!!!
Could there have been As Many As Seven in that deliberative body?
Fine, fine. No endorsing candidates. Though I can see how Roger felt his comment was on topic (or at least on topic of the off-topic rabbit trail 
) because it was an example of the unquestioning alignment of Evangelicals with conservative politics. But, yes, please resist the urge to devolve into a partisan political discussion. 
Again the question is about values. Maybe I should not have said that one candidate expressed Christian values of reconciliation and acceptance, while another did not.
Still the question remains as to why very many evangelical voters are expressing support for the candidate that promotes polarization in our country and in our world, Also why do you use that language too…
I apologize for hijacking the thread and injecting politics into the discussion. Perhaps I should have started one of my own? … Nah. That’s crazy talk!
So, I will interject a couple thoughts on this topic. There actually are quite a large number of temperate intellectuals that are Christians now days. However, they are currently not embraced by the church at large. I think this is important to recognize.
It seems a bit odd to praise C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton for not being caught up in the US culture wars, when they were never really part of the US. I like them, of course, but we have a separate problem in the US, that their approach has done little to rectify. Remember, we still have Os Guinness and Ard Louis and others in our time. As much as there is to like about them, there is a real disconnect with american culture at large. I think there are a few reasons.
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American Christianity has been captured by populism and anti-intellectualism. This does not mean there are no Christian intellecuals. There are. We just tend to regard them with deep suspicion. I find it ironic that we are much more accepted by our secular peers (even though we have small ‘o’ orthodox theology) than we are by the american church. A great book on this is “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”. As much as Christians have been excluded from academia, we can also see full scale retreat and retrenchment, including creation of parallel alternate intellectual enterprises. To be a true Christian intellectual in the mold of CS Lewis now days is to be scorned by the large portions of the American Church.
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American Christianity is captured by politics. A great book on this is “To Change the World” by James D. Hunter. The dominant lense of our world is politics, left and right, and it even arises in this blog post. American politics becomes the Roman Circus and the dominant moral framing and intepretive lens of all thought, including church praxis. This is a real problem, a type of idolatry we need to repent of and reform from.
Just my 2c.
Is The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind written by Mark Noll? Even though that book is more than 20 years by now, I still really want to read it. I do wonder how much things have changed since, if at all.
It is worth the read…
Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Knoll
To Change the World, James Davis Hunter
Confident Pluralism, John Inazu
In that order. These books are seminal for understanding american christianity, and the way forward from here.
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