Comments on: Happy Birthday, Milton

By: Joe B.

Joe B. — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:45:43 +0000

I really have to laugh at some of the Posting here. The thought that the Puritans were deists and not fundamental Biblicists is absolutely hilarious. Puritans were in constant self examination of their walk with God to ensure they were part of the faith. One need only read their prayers in the Valley and the Vision

Link: http://www.oldlandmarks.com/puritan.htm

In short the Puritans applied:

2Co 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?

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By: Joel Mark

Joel Mark — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:36:42 +0000

#38, Kyle A, very well summed up, sir.

The persecution of dissident sects is a staple of human history that took centuries to emerge away from. Examples of this can, of course, be found in America, but far far less so than in the old world. America’s founding represented a huge leap forward toward religious liberty and it is no coincideence that this leap took place among Christians.

And speaking of the “old World,” in recent history (including modern times), we have see that atheist/secularist persecutions can be the worst and bloddiest of all such persectuions (of dissidents) in human history. The more secular or atheist the Old World became (from France, to Russia to Germany), the worse the persecutions got. Now Europe’s secular status is getting weak under the advance of Islam, a religion that has its own legacy of persecuting dissidents more agressively than most.

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By: Joel Mark

Joel Mark — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:18:00 +0000

Religious/political liberty took root in very Christian soil here in America. The friendliness toward freedom that we saw in such a Christian culture as ours is part of what makes America such a special place.

I agree with Peter Leavitt at #36.

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By: Jon Rowe

Jon Rowe — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:45:12 +0000

Good comment Kyle. I might reproduce it on my blogs. I have a new blog out called “American Creation” where we are striving mightily to obtain balance. My friend Tom Van Dyke — a neo-Thomist who has written for the American Spectator — I insisted be added as a coblogger because his thoughts help to put mine in perspective, even if ultimately we agree that America was not founded as an “orthodox Christian” nation. See his post here.

What I have called “theistic rationalism” he calls “Judeo-Christianity.” Not orthodox Trinitarian Christianity, but some broader creed within the “Judeo-Christian” tradition.

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By: Kyle A

Kyle A — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:02:04 +0000

Jon Rowe, I too have a hard time accepting your theses as a middle-ground approach. You are a man on a mission to prove that America was not founded upon Christian principles and to discredit those who say that she was. Your view of the Founding Fathers doesn’t strike me as any more nuanced than the view(s) that you oppose.

Joel Mark’s and Peter Leavitt’s approach seems more moderate to me. As we look back to the Founding Fathers we can acknowledge that there were varied beliefs among them and that America’s founding principles come from varied sources. It’s neither as simple as David Barton implies or as simple as you, Jon Rowe, imply.

The ideas of religious and political liberty did not spring up in the eighteenth century. The entire history of the world contains a continuous struggle between liberty and control. It’s true that liberty scored an enormous victory in 1776 and again in 1789, but thousands of years of history underly it–not just Christianity and not just the Enlightenment.

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By: Jon Rowe

Jon Rowe — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:47:18 +0000

Peter I simply disagree and think that the lack of political liberty and rampant persecution of dissident sects was indeed the virus of Christendom that gave rise to the antibody of religious and political liberty.

Joel perhaps I seem not so centrist and nuanced because you have to look to your left to get to my position. To the strict secular leftists they have to look to their right to see where I am coming from. But I do admit that, in having to pick my battles, I most often attack the “Christian Nation” idea, not the “strict separationist” point of view, giving the illusion of being more of a secularist than I really am.

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By: Peter Leavitt

Peter Leavitt — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:16:00 +0000

Jon, Tocqueville and Jonathan Edwards credited Christianity more than the Greeks/Romans, and Enlightenment for laying the foundation of democracy in America.Your suggestion that there was some sort of virus inherent in Christianity that was cured by an immunity among some of its branches is an intellectual stretch.

The truth is that there was/is a confluence of Christian/Greek/Roman influences on the development of freedom and democracy, none of which could be regarded as having some sort a virus that needed an antibody.

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By: Jon Rowe

Jon Rowe — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:29:03 +0000

A kernel of truth — religious/political liberty wasn’t necessarily a “biblical” concept (spiritual liberty, rather, is) but a result of sectarian squabbles that took place in the Christian West. A way to resolve a problem. My co-blogger Jason Kuznicki uses the analogy of the body developing an immunity to a virus by producing “antibodies.” Religious/political liberty is an antibody to problems that were inherent in the Christian West.

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By: Joel Mark

Joel Mark — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:28:24 +0000

Jon, I don’t think yours is a “middle ground position.” It seems to me to be an axtremely dogmatic and judgmentalist position at times. For some reason, you are driven to discredit the Founders in the eyes of Christians. You often lump them into large groups of Founders to accuse them of “heresy” as if you are qualified to make those judgments two centuries later. It gets rather ridiculous and unscholarly at times. At other times, you bring in some rather rare and isolated quotes and anecdots and that’s fine, but you draw too many dogmatic conclusions from too little evidence. Since the Founders were diverse, you probably come close to being right sometimes.

Well said peter, at #33.

But your positions on this matter do not seem middle ground to me. When it comes to evaluating the faith-stances of the Founders, it is silly to claim a position in the middle or on either side of the spectrum. Better to just say that they were diverse and as a group of great men, the correct answer is “all of the above.” But I am far less willing to trash their Christianity (especially of those who claimed it and practiced it) than you are.

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By: Peter Leavitt

Peter Leavitt — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:20:08 +0000

The key point, as Bottum points out, is that our religious freedom came more from the Baptists opposing the Episcopalians in Virginia and the Episcopalians opposing the Congregationalists in New England than from the Enlightenment thinkers. The cultural influence of Christianity has always had an enormous influence in America including the governmen and the public square, much to the dismay of the hard edged secularists.

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