We Have Become Ignorant of the Founding Principles of This Nation
In the introduction to her book, The Rewriting of American History, Catherine Millard, historian and author, writes, “Rewriting a nation’s history is frequently one of the first strategies taken by a conquering nation. Why? Because a people who do not know from where they came also do not know where they are going to.” I believe we have become ignorant of the founding principles of this nation and therefore will believe whoever shouts the loudest in the public discourse.
The “wall of separation’’ between church and state, so often quoted today, was a line from a letter by Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802. This was a personal, private letter to a specific church. It was meant to protect their God-given right to exercise their faith without fear of government involvement. Unfortunately this has been used to attempt to keep Christians from exercising their faith by publicly praying, reading Scripture, displaying religious symbols, etc.
As John Adams wrote: “The general principles on which the father’s achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
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this letter was not to a church but to the state of Pennsylvania. The state was going to have an official church. Jefferson wrote the letter to tell them this is not allowed.
You make this claim it is to a church but do not tell the story of the whys. Why not? I thought you were trying to teach were the "wall of separation" phrase came from but you did not tell much of the story.
While many of the Founding Fathers had, at the least, a healthy skepticism when it came to "organized" Christianity, the vast majority of them believed that the moral values taught in the Bible were valuable words to live by, and so, by and large, the nation was founded on "Judeo-Christian" principles. That doesn't make the United States a Christian nation, however - it just means that the principles were recognized as having value.
Yes, the Founders were religious and used religious language sometimes. However, the principles behind the country were avowedly anti-religious, in that they rejected sacrifice, uniformity, supernaturalism and asceticism, in favor of happiness in this world and freedom, concepts antithetical to the European religious rule of the previous centuries. The Founders primarily embraced Enlightenment concepts, based on reason and freedom, rather than faith and servitude. They were not atheists , and their theism tinged the founding documents somewhat, but the core principles behind their ideas go against almost everything that religion had commanded. America embodies a philosophical rejection of religious, medieval scholasticism and coercive political rule, in favor of the reality-based, rational ideals of the Enlightenment.
The framers of the constitution and our united states were mostly anti-christen. Don't argue at me I only told the truth, if you don't believe it read read read.
Republics and democracy are not biblical concepts. The Biblical form of government is monarchy. We rejected that in our revolution. Everyone's favourite word 'disestablishmentarianism' describes our revolution. The The Christian religion was disestablished at our revolution. Even before the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution there was the clause forbidding religious tests.
We get our democratic traditions from the Greek/Roman world. We do not get it from the Bible. The good example is the Ten Commandments. Two of the ten coincide with our legal history and those two coincide with all legal traditions. The parts about not coveting are in direct contrast to American democracy.