Absolutely. I would contend the same. It’s called (you’re well aware) freedom of conscience – a principle found in the Biblical account of Joshua’s speech to the Hebrews at the end of his life, telling them that they must choose. He of course exhorted them to remain faithful, and warned of all that would befall them if they did not, but the choice was theirs. And he wrapped up his speech at the end by saying, basically, you can do what you want, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

I’m not trying to deny that Ben Franklin had some near-libertine proclivities. But whatever his – or any of the other Founders’ – personal flaws and shortcomings might’ve been, they did not prevent them from relying on Biblical truth as their guide in crafting our system of government. Anyone who cares to peruse the original sources of the Founders’ writings can see this right there in black and white over and over again. I’m afraid the history texts used in education today that tend to rely more on postmodern interpreters of the original sources have done a great deal of harm, and when you try to point out the discrepancies to the miseducated, they seem to think you’re portraying the Founders as nothing more than a bunch of irrational, petty, censorious scolds (and of course they were nothing of the kind). But as far as some can see, religious belief couldn’t have played that large a part because everyone knows religious people are irrational and not too bright.

(Re that last point, excellent arguments exist that the flowering of scientific progress could never have occurred in the first place in the absence of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Christianity and science are NOT in conflict – but that’s another subject.)

Anyway, what worries me most about this whole topic is: the kind of country the Founders handed down to us is (or is that now was?) the kind of country it is because of WHO the Founders were – I’m not saying they were a bunch of pious in-church-every-Sunday types; I’m trying to get at, not their outward foibles and flaws, but what they saw as the highest truth upon which to base the birth of the nation, setting it up on a rock, not shifting sand; who they were had a lot to do with their religious beliefs; and if we, as a people, are now unable to recognize and acknowledge who they really were, then we are not the kind of people who can keep this Republic.

I don’t believe the election of Obama and a now filibuster-proof moonbat majority in Congress was just a fluke. I don’t believe it was just a freak outcome of hoodwinked voters blindsided by the Obamanation’s silver-tongued lies. I think there are good and logical reasons why we find ourselves confronted with the menace of the current crop of wreckers. Still looking forward to the next election, but that may be a weak reed.

I guess the tactic is to rewrite history by rewriting biographies selectively, and recasting the principle founders (as the left) sees fit.

And omitting all manner of quotations where the principle discloses in public his otherwise private convictions regarding the role of the almighty per his or others prayers.

The Left breaks out in a rash a=t the notion of anyone expressing gratitude (to g-d) for anything that might have been forged by difficulty and struggle. As you’ve said, the object is to project the notion that man is the measure of all things, as opposed to the idea that what had happened was a miracle.

And could be lost if the first thing go was the humility that sees liberty as a blessing.

I still contend that the example set by our founders, is that none were rejected on the basis of any atheist disposition. The paradox is that for there to be freedom, it must include the right to choose not to believe in a g-d, and U.S has always been the most tolerant of this. Franklin and other Founders were certainly aware of Voltaire and his criticisms (and I’m sure you are aware of this too). I for one appreciate what you have shared to set the record straight, yet again. Some or most of it I have not seen before.

People can choose to be atheist, and it can open their eyes to reason. But, as you point out as well, reason without wisdom hardens itself into absolutes, and that condition has metastasized into a plague of evangelical atheism, or faux or compromised christianitys from the secularists.

I agree with you, comatus. And at the other end of the spectrum the lefty churches often do the same thing. The students at Liberty Univ. gave a pretty pitiful answer to your question.

An excellent book on the subject of religion and the Constitution is Original Intent by David Barton.

I know students at Liberty University, and when I asked them how the same Baptist churches that were champions of the cause of liberty during the Revolution came to be associated later with such causes as dancing licenses, liquor possession, gun laws and miscegenation statutes, they smiled and said “Christians and libertarians don’t have much in common.” For their part, I’m going to have to take them at their word.

My mind is still open on other brands of Christianity (they don’t seem to put the 2+2 together about what having an “established religion” here would really mean), but I don’t really see that kind of “conservative” “Christianity” having any useful role in this republic. They are statists pure and simple, and, as such, just as much my enemy as any Communist. Not any more, mind you, just equally.

But lemme add just one more thing. I was well into my 30s before I undertook to discover for myself just exactly what the Bible said and have read it cover to cover more than once since then. Even though I was made to attend church as a child, oddly enough, I still didn’t know that much about it. It’s amazing, all the stuff that’s in there. You can see the root of the ideas we take for granted as first principles. You can see the foundations. Were it not for this Judeo-Christian underpinning, people like the founders, who did what they did, never would’ve existed. The US would never have been been exceptional in any way. It’s just too sad that this heritage is largely uncredited today, and even attacked. Today people think our path traces back to ancient Athens and Rome. But Alexander Hamilton said that it would be “as ridiculous to seek for models in the simple ages of Greece and Rome as it would be to go in quest of them among Hottentots and Laplanders,” and in The Federalist it’s noted that the classical idea of liberty decreed “to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next,” and “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” The fact is, the primary and overriding influence in our country’s founding, notwithstanding some contributions from the classical ancients, was the Judeo-Christian Bible. But today, who cares?

I just don’t understand how we can hope to reverse the current on-going destruction by insisting that we cherish certain principles simply because they’re principles we’ve decided to cherish, without acknowledging what is behind those principles and what upholds them. It’s not enough to say, we support equal rights and human dignity. We’ve been saying that all the while we’ve been sliding on down the slippery slope for decades up til the present time, only to find ourselves at last under the thumb of a Marxist elite seemingly bound and determined to smash us all to smithereens.

(People who would interpret what I’ve said as a prescription for a theocracy don’t understand Christianity in the least.)

Karen – I share your frustration with the mischaracterization of the founding fathers re: the role of religion (in particular Christianity) in public life, and its influence/importance to the health of the nation. Somehow methinks if Franklin had not been such a notorious (old) debaucher in his private life, he would be much less of a darling to the secularists who want to use him as their sock puppet.

At any rate, there are at least two things at work, I believe: One is the agenda of those who want to extirpate the influence of Judeo-Christian belief, and especially open expression of the Christian portion thereof, from the American public square. The most zealous of them will not be satisfied until every county named “Trinity,” every town with “San” preceding it, every “Merry Christmas” utterance, and every hint of every cross on every municipal flag is scrubbed and disremembered, like those vanishing commissars in Soviet photos.

The other thing at work is a theological sorting, trying to reconstruct and categorize who actually believed what, all under the added challenge that several of these guys lived to exceedingly ripe old ages and their views tended to change somewhat over the course of their lives. This practice is serious academic work, often shaded with nuance and always to be taken in the context of an understanding of human complexity, of which these men were not exceptions.

Unfortunately, any statement made in the course of Item B that shows, or even appears to show, either an aberrant (from an orthodox Christian POV) theological belief or a distancing from religion by a founding father tends to get seized on by members of Group A and trumpeted as PROOF, PROOF, that Barry Lynn is right and should be thanked for saving us from the coming (here, by some claims) American mullahocracy.

Whereas I think we have to look at not only the whole of these men’s lives, but the laws of the society in which they lived at the time — ie, what they found not just tolerable but acceptable, even preferred. Those who think that living under a society governed by James Dobson would be intolerable to the Nth degree would, I suspect, find it a far lighter yoke than living in the actual society that was governed by James Madison.

We can, and should, I think, continue to make theological inquiries and distinctions where applicable. But my take is that in the aggregate, most of these men were, in their public demeanors and day-to-day habits, a lot more pious than, ehhhh, probably about 50% (at least) of Americans today. The Bible knowledge of Jefferson or Franklin would likely put the vast majority of evangelicals today to shame. Christianity was just “in the air” back then in a way it is not today. The way children were educated, the expectation of public speech and manners and dress, the strict social standards re: relations between the sexes, rates of marriage & divorce … all vastly different back then. Was it a perfect society? Of course not. But we kid ourselves if we believe that, where it had faults and injustices, genuine Christianity was the root of the problem.

BTW – re: the mini-series, the Franklin character definitely gets his “ewwww” moment later on in the story, when he and Adams are sent to France. Franklin was an old goat by almost anyone’s standard, and this is illustrated by way of contrasting him with Adams, who was, acc to McCullough’s (and others’) research, both deeply in love with Abigail and faithful to her through the entire course of their marriage. IOW, Franklin is no peach as depicted in the mini-series, so everything he says, including “smacks of the pulpit,” should be understood in that context. (What really struck me about the mini-series was that Alexander Hamilton came off like a complete, well, word-not-to-be-used-in-polite-company.)

Okay, I can go along with the supposition that Benjamin Franklin could have said something in the spirit of “remember your audience,” mindful of the audience being wider than just his compatriots.

But I still say his modern reputation as one of the least religious of the founding fathers is inaccurate and misleading. As for the term “self-evident” being intended to be an argument-ender, there is, was and will be no shortage of persons for whom the universal rights of mankind are in no way self-evident. It is only self-evident to those who believe those rights are conferred upon us by our Creator. With the Creator out of the picture, then we confer those rights upon ourselves (man is the measure of all things). And, as we all know, what man gives, man can surely take away.

I can see why religion-haters could take some of the things Franklin is known to have said and conclude that he was more or less of an irreligious temperment and cast of mind. Franklin’s reply to Thomas Paine’s request for Franklin’s thoughts on religion is one example that can be seized upon to buttress that position, but even that is far from definitive.

It might be instructive to cite more of Franklin’s speech at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, parts of which I quoted from above. Was he just being his usual unorthodox and mentally cagey self when he said:

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights, to illuminate our understanding? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I therefore beg leave to move – that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

It grieves me that many people today walk around with the idea, not only that many of the Founders were secularists who wanted to make sure that religion stayed the hell out of government, but also that many of the sources the Founders looked to were also rationalist Enlightenment-type atheists. For example, many claim John Locke as one of these irreligious influences in our country’s founding. Yes, John Locke, not only a political theorist but also a theologian who authored The Reasonableness of Christianity and A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity.

I respect anybody’s right to believe or not believe but, please, must we hear Benjamin Franklin being made to say curtly and dismissively, “Smacks of the pulpit.” That smacks of our politically correct times.