A Voice

I dedicate these thoughts to my flaming liberal friend A VOICE For Now.

Here are some website citing pertaining the French Revolution and Church/State issues in the early American government.

I am a Christian Right kind-of-guy and I doubt that will change for me; however I have come to the realization that America has come full circle since the establishment of the U.S. Constitution. There seems to have been just as much political and religious polarity in the post American Revolutionary War days as there is now.

Washington, Adams and Hamilton represented the Conservative narrow view of Liberty, Civil Rights and Religious Liberty. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe represented an expanded (some what Leftist) view of Liberty, Civil Rights and Freedom of Religion.

The irony I discovered is that the Evangelicals (emerging Baptists) of the Founding Father’s day favored the Jeffersonian path on Church/State issues and what we call mainline Churches today followed the Conservative view. The irony being the Evangelicals today promote mingling of Christianity and politics due activist Conservativism while the mainline Churches today tend to be liberal (nearly Deist of the Jeffersonian style).

The one thing I perceive is that the Founding Fathers agreed on Christian Foundations for American Rule of Law; however they disagreed on Church involvement in government, a co-mingling with religion.

I am a Christian Right man thus a fall on the co-mingling of government and Christianity. Under the consideration that I perceive society through the glass of the Christian Right, I abhor the co-mingling of government with non-Judeo/Christian religions.

I am quite aware that position irritates Jeffersonian liberals and non-Christians so save the scathing comments. I support the idea of a Constitutional Amendment to install Christian ideals (not faith) without establishing a Christian sect or Denomination. In order to prevent persecution of non-Christian religions I endorse an emphasis of a Freedom of Religion and Thought clause in this Amendment. In this way the “hate speech” laws of Europe would not become applicable in America except in the case of the incitement of violence and breaking the common law.

But I digress with personal feelings.

An other thing I noticed about the Founding Fathers is their remarkable ability to NOT allow polarity of thought to fracture the young nation. When push came to shove Adams and Jefferson came down to national unity. Hamilton and Madison worked to get the Constitution ratified as the law of the land. Will such statesmanship be found in 21^st century America?

Founding Fathers Against French Revolution & Church/State

Washington was reelected president in 1792, and the following year the most divisive crisis arising out of the personal and political conflicts within his cabinet occurred--over the issue of American neutrality during the war between England and France. Washington, whose policy of neutrality angered the pro-French Jeffersonians, was horrified by the excesses of the French Revolution and enraged by the tactics of Edmond Genet, the French minister in the United States, which amounted to foreign interference in American politics. Further, with an eye toward developing closer commercial ties with the British, the president agreed with the Hamiltonians on the need for peace with Great Britain. (George Washington)

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Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) represented the Federalist Party perspective on events in France. He, and they, supported the moderate phase of the Revolution, which they understood to be about U.S.–style liberty, but detested the attacks on security and property that took place during the Terror. In particular, Hamilton distrusted the popular masses. However, even he concedes how important the French Revolution is.

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“The French Revolution is a political convulsion that in a great or less degree shakes the whole civilized world and it is of real consequence to the principles and of course to the happiness of a Nation to estimate it rightly.” (Alexander Hamilton)

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Napoleon would eventually declare himself "Emperor of the French." John Adams had feared just such a chaotic end: A revolution of this sort, he had argued, would lead not to democracy but despotism. France had abolished its monarchy only to find itself under the rule of an emperor. Years later Thomas Jefferson would admit that his own support for the French Revolution was misguided: "Your prophecies," he wrote to Adams, "... proved truer than mine. ... I did not, in '89, believe they would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much blood." (PBS on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson – Emphasis Mine)

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Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was not a reactionary. As a member of Parliament, he had supported the American colonists in their initial protests against the British government. He is most famous, however, for his writings on the French Revolution. His Reflections, written in the form of a long letter in 1791, in a sense marks the origin of modern conservative thought.

“Compute your gains: see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable. By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings! France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest, but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in severer manners, and a system of a more austere and masculine morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices; and has extended through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege, or laying open some secluded benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of wealth and power. This is one of the new principles of equality in France.” (Edmund Burke)

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The American Revolution was a conservative revolution unlike the violent French Revolution that set the stage for fascism and communism. The American founders sought liberty and freedom of conscience within the framework of the established society. They knew issues such as slavery and the status of women couldn't be resolved in their time, so they left a way open for later changes. They emphasized individualism, which already existed within Protestant culture to begin with.

But it was a belief in God that did guide the Founding Fathers, but not the raving bible-god of Augustine and Calvin. To quote: "Jefferson and other founders were Deists, believing in a universal God and a scientific universe. Since their writings constitute the legal foundation of the government, it is worth noting what they wrote and from where they derived their principles: Natural Law. Drawing from Locke, the Declaration of Independence grounds its legitimacy in the people; but why are the people the ultimate authority? Because "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and institute governments to secure these rights. (Christian Fundamentalism Exposed)

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After the revolution, there was a sense throughout the state that religion was in decline: Churches were struggling, and immorality was on the rise. Leaders of the dominant Anglican Church--which had turned into today's Episcopal Church--began pressing for state support of religion.

In 1784, Patrick Henry, the most popular leader in the state, campaigned for a law that would tax Virginians to support the promotion of Christianity. It is important to realize that Henry was not pushing to create a formal establishment of the Anglican church, and obviously Henry was no Royalist. He was taking the far more liberal view that religion in general should be aided. Under his proposal, voters could designate the denomination, or even the specific church, that their tax dollars would fund. Baptists could give money to the Baptist Church, and Presbyterians to their own church. Henry's bill even went so far as to provide that those who didn't want to support religion could have the option of targeting their tax dollars toward education in general.

The measure, "A Bill for Establishing a Provision for the Teachers of the Christian Religion," gained wide support. It was viewed as a gentle and flexible approach to encouraging religion--surely an important goal--while remaining consistent with the spirit of the revolution. Richard Henry Lee declared that "avarice is accomplishing the destruction of religion for want of legal obligation to contribute something to its support." A petition sent in by citizens in Amelia, Va., declared that "As every Man in the state partakes of the Blessings of Peace and Order" --and peace and order flow directly from the morality produced by religion--"every Man should be obliged to contribute as well to the Support of Religion." Even George Washington supported the approach. (The Framers and the Faithful)

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"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" he asked. The bill, he said, was "an offense against God," and previous efforts throughout history to provide financial support for religion had backfired. "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." [*Note: The thoughts are of the Deist James Madison. Take notice is against Establishing a Virginia State Church yet supports the foundational truths of Christianity] (The Framers and the Faithful)

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Some religious conservatives today point to a slew of comments and actions from the Founding Fathers indicating their support for an intermingling of religion and state. These are not hard to find--in part for a reason rarely acknowledged by either side in the culture wars: The founders did not agree with one another on how to interpret the First Amendment.

John Adams, Patrick Henry, and others believed the First Amendment really was meant to block the formal establishment of an official church, but allowed much mixing of church and state. For instance, Adams endorsed national days of fasting and prayer and appointment of congressional chaplains. Jefferson and Madison were on the other end of the spectrum, demanding the clearest separation of church and state. As president, Jefferson reversed the practice initiated by Washington and Adams, and refused to have a national day of prayer. Madison agreed. He cited the appointment of chaplains as being a direct violation of the "pure principle of religious freedom," especially given how "strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Government in the Constitution of the United States." (The Framers and the Faithful)