The U.S. NOT founded upon Christianity

[AllieBaba]

After discussing the legality and morality of the American Revolution, Rushdoony declares, “Basic to all colonial thought was the ancient and Christian sense of the transcendence and majesty of law. According to John Calvin, ‘the law is a silent magistrate, and a magistrate a speaking law.’ In terms of the authority of this silent magistrate, the rebelling colonials moved, and in terms of this faith, their magistrates became speaking laws. Constitutionalism, for the colonials, meant, as Baldwin has demonstrated with reference to the New England clergy, the absolute and sovereign God and His law undergirding the silent magistrate and the speaking law (Rushdoony, 32).”
Rushdoony adds that the colonials were inspired by the Christian notion that government power and sovereignty should be limited. “This meant, first, a division of powers, which naturally implied, second, a multiplicity of powers, and, third, a complexity of powers (Rushdoony, 33).” Their esteem for complexity “had more than Calvinistic roots,” Rushdoony asserts. “It was deeply imbedded in the Augustinian and feudal inheritance of the Colonists (Rushdoony, 34).” Rushdoony concludes: “The colonial denial of [absolute governmental] sovereignty was an aspect of the Christian faith of the day (Rushdoony, 40).”

"The United States Constitution actually says “in the year of our Lord,” a direct reference to Jesus Christ as God. This phrase was not a “mere convention” as some people claim; it was an expression of honor to the one true God. We can know this to be true because we know that many atheists today hate to make any such reference to Christianity. If references to Christianity in 1787 were mere convention, then lack of reference to Christianity today would also have to be mere convention. "

"The Constitution also requires elected officials to take an oath of office. According to Bradford in Original Intentions, at the time the Constitution was written, to take an oath of office was to swear publicly by Almighty God. That is one reason the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution felt it unnecessary to require elected officials to also take a religious test in order to run for office. Why take a religious test when you have already sworn by God to uphold a document that expresses an explicit belief in the Christian Trinity? "

"
David Barton shows in Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion that the idea of having no religious test meant only that the federal government could not force political candidates to become members of one Protestant denomination. Thus, when the Constitution forbids making a religious test, it did not mean that candidates must be non-Christians. It meant they could be Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, or a member of any other orthodox Christian denomination.
The United States Constitution and the American political system were based on Christian principles. Included in those Christian principles are the following theological and moral imperatives:

• Government power and sovereignty should be limited to the specific theological and moral commands of the Christian God.
• There should be a balance and separation of powers within the government so that a small group of evil people will be unable to tyrannize others.
• All citizens should have the right to own property and to buy and sell freely, according to the moral law of the Christian God.
• The right to life and property cannot be abridged without due process.
• The ultimate source of all authority lies with the God of the Bible.
• The American Government was designed to be a sacred covenant between the people, the state, and God. If the state breaks this covenant, then the people have the right, and the duty, to oppose the state but to use violence only as a last resort.
• As the Constitution clearly states, Jesus Christ is our Lord because He is the second member of the “most Holy and undivided Trinity.”
• Although the Constitution affirms a belief in the deity of Christ and in the Holy Trinity, neither the church nor the state is allowed to physically force people to believe these biblical teachings. The state should, however, do everything it can to facilitate the spread of the Christian Gospel and to place moral limits on the behavior of people.

As the last constitutional, and biblical, principle shows, a truly Christian government should not really frighten atheists or non-Christians because a truly Christian government would recognize that people must have freedom to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A truly Christian nation would thus actually demand a high degree of religious freedom for everyone. A non-Christian government, however, as the current situation in our public schools demonstrates, violates this law of God. Our public schools may pretend to be neutral when it comes to Christianity, the Bible and politics, but such pretensions do not match reality."

Christian Heritage | The Culture Watch

 

[AllieBaba]

Bod, you should try reading some real history at some point. I would love it if you would occasionally reference the tomes from which you have gleaned all the specatucular knowledge you have, lol.

Of course you don't. Because you probably know that most people don't consider MAD magazine a historical text.

"
The late scholar M. E. Bradford spent much of his academic career examining all of the private and public writings of the Founding Fathers. According to Bradford in A Worthy Company, all but about five of the 55 Framers of the U.S. Constitution were orthodox Christians. These men had no intention of abolishing the Anglo-Christian culture which they had inherited, says Bradford. In Original Intentions, Bradford notes, “The concept of the Framers as ordinary Christians, as members in good standing of the various Christian communions found in early America, is supported by the recorded pattern of their lives. . . . The assumption that this majority was likely to agree to totally secular institutional arrangements in the very structure of American politics contradicts almost everything we know about human nature, as well as the most self-evident components of Christian teaching concerning the relation of the magistrate to the ultimate source of his authority in God (Original Intentions, 88-89).”
“Of course,” adds Bradford, “the most unmistakable evidence of orthodoxy comes in references made by the Framers to Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Son of God. These are commonplace in their private papers, correspondence and public remarks — and in the early records of their lives….Such declarations are so frequent in the papers of the Framers as to belie the now familiar theory that our Republic came into being in a moment of absolute tolerance, of religious neutrality qua indifference or deistic rationalism….And not all of this evidence is relegated to wills or very private documents (Original Intentions, 89-90).” Many of the Framers speak explicitly “of the promise of the Cross,” Bradford states (Original Intentions, 90). “The variety of surviving Christian witness in the papers and sayings of the Framers is indeed astonishing,” Bradford concludes (Original Intentions, 91).
DeMar and Bradford’s research is confirmed by other fine scholars.
M. Stanton Evans in The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition proves, by citing many historical sources, that America’s political traditions and governmental institutions are rooted in the Bible and in medieval and Protestant Christianity. Among the traditions and institutions he cites are the right to own property, the right to buy and sell freely, the notion that the powers of all rulers and all government institutions should be limited, the idea of representative government, and traditions of economic and scientific progress. “All of these conceptions,” Evans says, “come to us from the religion of the Bible (Evans, 307).”
The Christian era of the Middle Ages in Europe “nourished the institutions of free government,” Evans shows (150). Biblical ideas about kingship and the separate but overlapping duties of Church and State led to the medieval idea of constitutionalism, which established limits “on the power of kings, and on the scope of government in general (Evans, 151).” The rejection of this medieval doctrine by the leaders of the Renaissance and the French Enlightenment put Western liberties in jeopardy. The Protestants in Colonial America, however, kept this idea alive. They were influenced by Calvinist notions of covenantal government, a network of social, political, moral, and theological contracts between God and Man, and between people and their government. In their view, kings, presidents, legislators, and judges derive their sovereignty first from God and then from the people under them. Evans shows how this view led first to the Declaration of Independence then to the United States Constitution, and finally to the Bill of Rights. In other words, our whole system of government was founded by the religious right of the 18th century, not by deists, not by French intellectuals, and certainly not by pagans or atheists. Christian faith and American freedom must go together, Evans concludes. "

Christian Heritage | The Culture Watch

What a tremendous spinning of actual history by a person trying to shoe horn Christianity into our Secular Founding....

I actually giggled a little at your post.

That's because you're an idiot, and haven't a clue about history.

Why is it you never quote actual historical sources, Bod? YOu claim to have such an extensive education in history.

Anyone who actually had any education would reference sources, nitwit. You NEVER do. You just say you've read a lot.

What a goober.

 

[AllieBaba]

"
“Although Deism in America would seem to be at floodtide during the American Revolution,” writes Kirk, “actually a revived Christian orthodoxy already was vigorous then — and would be stronger still by the time of the Constitutional Convention. The American people came to expect their public men to be Christians, or at least give lip-service to Christianity (Kirk, 342).”
Six other scholars support Kirk’s statements on American deism. Ernest Campbell Mossner in the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy says, “Before the Revolution, deism made relatively little progress (Mossner, 333).” Rousas J. Rushdoony writes, “Actually, Deism was a late arrival in America, and very slight in extent and influence prior to the American Revolution (Rushdoony, 2).” Historians Forrest McDonald and Ellen Shapiro McDonald point out that not only did the French Enlightenment have no impact on America but also the Founding Fathers “cited the Bible more than any other source (Requiem, 6).” Most Americans “shared a Protestant Christian world view (Requiem, 12),” add the McDonalds. "

"
Finally, in 1989, the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company published God and Politics: Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government. Both Gary DeMar and John Eidsmoe, in two separate chapters, present evidence which denies the charge that the Founding Fathers were mostly deist (see pages 200-212 and 221-230)."

"For instance, at one point in Common Sense, after Paine urges the framing of a Continental Charter among the Thirteen Colonies, he writes, “Let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God (Paine, 98).”

Christian Heritage | The Culture Watch

This is as funny as Conservatives trying to take credit for the founding of our country when the Liberals were our Founders and the Conservatives were the Tories.

I giggled some more.

The definition of pearls before swine.

 

[AllieBaba]

Here's the bib from that piece.
It figures you would giggle. This is true scholarship.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ahlstrom, Sydney. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972.
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Barton, David. The Myth of Separation. Aledo, TX: WallBuilder Press, 1992.
—–. Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion. Aledo, Texas: WallBuilder Press, 1996.
Boller, Paul F., Jr. George Washington & Religion. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963.
Bradford, M.E. A Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution. Marlborough, New Hampshire: Plymouth Rock Foundation, 1982.
—–. Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the United States Constitution. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1993.
Cairns, Earle E. Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church. 2nd revised edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981.
Cousins, Norman, editor. In God We Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958.
Dawson, Christopher. Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1988 edition.
De Mar, Gary. America’s Christian History: The Untold Story. Atlanta: American Vision, 1993.
—–. “Theocracy: The Rule of God Not the Rule of the Church.” Biblical Worldview. Sept. 1994, 11-12.
Evans, M. Stanton. The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1994.
Federer, William J. America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. St. Louis, Missouri: Amerisearch, 2000.
Gaustad, Edwin S. Neither King Nor Prelate: Religion and the New Nation 1776-1826. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1993.
Hofstedter, Richard. The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Ketchum, Ralph, ed. The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.
Kirk, Russell. The Roots of American Order. 3d edition. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1991.
Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity. Revised edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Lull, Timothy F., editor. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
McDonald, Forrest. Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1985.
McDonald, Forrest, and Ellen Shapiro McDonald. Requiem: Variations on Eighteenth-Century Themes. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1988.
McNeill, John T., editor. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
—–. The History and Character of Calvinism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Mossner, Ernest Campbell. “Deism.” Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.
Padover, Saul K. The World of the Founding Fathers. New York: A.S. Barnes, 1960.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. London: Penguin Books, 1986 edition.
Rossiter, Clinton, ed. The Federalist Papers. New York: Penguin Books, 1961.
Rushdoony, Rousas J. This Independent Republic: Studies in the Nature and Meaning of American History. Fairfax, VA: Thoburn Press, 1978.
Schmidt, Alvin J. The Menace of Multiculturalism: Trojan Horse in America. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997.
Smith, Gary Scott, editor. God and Politics: Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1989.
Wilson, Jerome D., and William F. Ricketson. Thomas Paine. Updated edition. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989.
Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969.

 

[Metzor]

Name ONE LAW that mentions God Jesus.
And tell us why God or Jesus are not mentioned in any law in any state.
Do you know why?

I would hope that none do, for obvious reasons. However, many states have created laws that parallel biblical teachings. Sodomy & Blue laws for example.

Every state in the Union? Care to back that up, my friend?

Easily done, my friend.

God in the State Constitutions - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

What Blue laws were in the Constitution?
Funny you mention that. Washington was caught going from state to state by coach and almost imprisoned for doing that on a Sunday.
And you claim the Founders supported that?
Those incidents, that was one of many, were exactly why the Founders DID NOT mention God in any way or in any law.
We are a nation of LAWS, not men and their various and differing religous beliefs.

Are you really this dumb? The founders supported each state being a sovereign entity with it's own constitution.As long as the laws the states create don't violate the federal constitution, they can do whatever they want. Laws don't need to mention God in order to reflect God's will or the will of the people. "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't mention God either.

 

[Uncensored2008]

The Founding Fathers are all dead. You have to read their letters to understand their intent. They sure as hell didn't intend for the US to be a Christian theocracy.

Nice straw man.

Did you take a class in erecting them?

 

[AllieBaba]

I would hope that none do, for obvious reasons. However, many states have created laws that parallel biblical teachings. Sodomy & Blue laws for example.

Easily done, my friend.

God in the State Constitutions - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

What Blue laws were in the Constitution?
Funny you mention that. Washington was caught going from state to state by coach and almost imprisoned for doing that on a Sunday.
And you claim the Founders supported that?
Those incidents, that was one of many, were exactly why the Founders DID NOT mention God in any way or in any law.
We are a nation of LAWS, not men and their various and differing religous beliefs.

Are you really this dumb? The founders supported each state being a sovereign entity with it's own constitution.As long as the laws the states create don't violate the federal constitution, they can do whatever they want. Laws don't need to mention God in order to reflect God's will or the will of the people. "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't mention God either.

Yes, she really is that dumb.

this thread is a testament to it.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Why is it you never quote actual historical sources, Bod? YOu claim to have such an extensive education in history.

I suspect that bod goes to Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann for all the history she needs.

 

[AllieBaba]

Have you ever seen a reference to any of these history books she claims to be so familiar with?

I never have.

 

[AllieBaba]

Bod's #1 *history* book:

 

[bodecea]

Bod, you should try reading some real history at some point. I would love it if you would occasionally reference the tomes from which you have gleaned all the specatucular knowledge you have, lol.

Of course you don't. Because you probably know that most people don't consider MAD magazine a historical text.

"
The late scholar M. E. Bradford spent much of his academic career examining all of the private and public writings of the Founding Fathers. According to Bradford in A Worthy Company, all but about five of the 55 Framers of the U.S. Constitution were orthodox Christians. These men had no intention of abolishing the Anglo-Christian culture which they had inherited, says Bradford. In Original Intentions, Bradford notes, “The concept of the Framers as ordinary Christians, as members in good standing of the various Christian communions found in early America, is supported by the recorded pattern of their lives. . . . The assumption that this majority was likely to agree to totally secular institutional arrangements in the very structure of American politics contradicts almost everything we know about human nature, as well as the most self-evident components of Christian teaching concerning the relation of the magistrate to the ultimate source of his authority in God (Original Intentions, 88-89).”
“Of course,” adds Bradford, “the most unmistakable evidence of orthodoxy comes in references made by the Framers to Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Son of God. These are commonplace in their private papers, correspondence and public remarks — and in the early records of their lives….Such declarations are so frequent in the papers of the Framers as to belie the now familiar theory that our Republic came into being in a moment of absolute tolerance, of religious neutrality qua indifference or deistic rationalism….And not all of this evidence is relegated to wills or very private documents (Original Intentions, 89-90).” Many of the Framers speak explicitly “of the promise of the Cross,” Bradford states (Original Intentions, 90). “The variety of surviving Christian witness in the papers and sayings of the Framers is indeed astonishing,” Bradford concludes (Original Intentions, 91).
DeMar and Bradford’s research is confirmed by other fine scholars.
M. Stanton Evans in The Theme Is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition proves, by citing many historical sources, that America’s political traditions and governmental institutions are rooted in the Bible and in medieval and Protestant Christianity. Among the traditions and institutions he cites are the right to own property, the right to buy and sell freely, the notion that the powers of all rulers and all government institutions should be limited, the idea of representative government, and traditions of economic and scientific progress. “All of these conceptions,” Evans says, “come to us from the religion of the Bible (Evans, 307).”
The Christian era of the Middle Ages in Europe “nourished the institutions of free government,” Evans shows (150). Biblical ideas about kingship and the separate but overlapping duties of Church and State led to the medieval idea of constitutionalism, which established limits “on the power of kings, and on the scope of government in general (Evans, 151).” The rejection of this medieval doctrine by the leaders of the Renaissance and the French Enlightenment put Western liberties in jeopardy. The Protestants in Colonial America, however, kept this idea alive. They were influenced by Calvinist notions of covenantal government, a network of social, political, moral, and theological contracts between God and Man, and between people and their government. In their view, kings, presidents, legislators, and judges derive their sovereignty first from God and then from the people under them. Evans shows how this view led first to the Declaration of Independence then to the United States Constitution, and finally to the Bill of Rights. In other words, our whole system of government was founded by the religious right of the 18th century, not by deists, not by French intellectuals, and certainly not by pagans or atheists. Christian faith and American freedom must go together, Evans concludes. "

Christian Heritage | The Culture Watch

What a tremendous spinning of actual history by a person trying to shoe horn Christianity into our Secular Founding....

I actually giggled a little at your post.

That's because you're an idiot, and haven't a clue about history.

Why is it you never quote actual historical sources, Bod?

I have linked the Treaty of Tripoli a few times....are you so bereft of knowledge that you need me to link the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of RIghts too? I will be glad to do so if you need me to, and I apologize for assuming you already knew their content.

YOu claim to have such an extensive education in history.

Certainly to the point of understanding that the Actions of our Founders count for more in the scheme of REAL history than Words alone do. That's a basic tenet of Reality.

Anyone who actually had any education would reference sources, nitwit. You NEVER do. You just say you've read a lot.

You don't have to ask again, allow me to link all the sources needed.

The United States Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

Includes all 29 Amendments

The Declaration of Independence

the Treaty of Tripoli

Treaty of Tripoli - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And if you cannot read these documents for yourself and note the utter lack of Christian connection....some other sources.

The U.S. NOT founded upon Christianity

and

The enigma of America's secular roots | Sam Haselby | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk (Interesting take on the American who wrote the draft of the Treaty of Tripoli)

Federalist Papers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and Supreme Court decisions:

Secular Humanism in U. S. Supreme Court Cases

and interesting book:

Northern Illinois University Press

Founding principles:

Founding.com: A Project of the Claremont Institute

A little cross section for you to start with....I recommend the first three.

What a goober.

Ah...your Christian principles in action, I see.

 

[AllieBaba]

This is interesting...Bod refuses to comment on the Declaration or acknowledge it's status as a founding document....

Yet her own link, Founding.com: A Project of the Claremont Institute

is a link to the Declaration....

The Northern University Press is an organization that advertises for authors....

 

[AllieBaba]

And she's proven time and again she's clueless about the docs that she quotes, their meanings or the history surrounding them.

 

[AllieBaba]

From your link to the scholarly (guffaw) wiki article:

"The assurances were contained in the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 and were intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. "

Sheesh even when it's spelled out for you you just don't know what constitutes research, do you?

 

[Uncensored2008]

This is interesting...Bod refuses to comment on the Declaration or acknowledge it's status as a founding document....

Yet her own link, Founding.com: A Project of the Claremont Institute

is a link to the Declaration....

The Northern University Press is an organization that advertises for authors....

She linked them; you didn't expect her to actually READ them as well, did you?

 

[AllieBaba]

From her founding.com link:

"The Declaration of Independence is one of our nation's most important founding documents, expressing the basic purposes of self-government, limited constitutionalism, and what it means to be an American. Below one can read the original text, as well as consult three annotated versions explaining the Declaration's basic principles, its historical context, and a glossary of terms. "

"WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions"

 

[AllieBaba]

More from that site:

"
Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear the danger of thraldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence, in short, from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God, -- that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness, -- and that God Almighty has promulgated from heaven, liberty, peace, and good-will to man! "

That's
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (On man's standing in the order of creation)

Thanks, Bod. That's a good source of stuff that supports my argument.

http://www.founding.com/founders_library/pageID.2138/default.asp

 

[bodecea]

From her founding.com link:

"The Declaration of Independence is one of our nation's most important founding documents, expressing the basic purposes of self-government, limited constitutionalism, and what it means to be an American. Below one can read the original text, as well as consult three annotated versions explaining the Declaration's basic principles, its historical context, and a glossary of terms. "

"WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions"

Yep....not the word Jesus....not the word God......


IF they were using Christian tenets, why the need to talk in code.


I always appreciate it when you make my point for me....even better when you don't mean to, but do it anyways.

 

[AllieBaba]

They didn't talk in code. It's a shame you don't read your own material.

 

[bodecea]

This is interesting...Bod refuses to comment on the Declaration or acknowledge it's status as a founding document....

Yet her own link, Founding.com: A Project of the Claremont Institute

is a link to the Declaration....

The Northern University Press is an organization that advertises for authors....

She linked them; you didn't expect her to actually READ them as well, did you?

Every word, on many an occasion....something that it is evident you guys don't bother with.