But even in today's political landscape, what the Founding Fathers did or did not say, did or did not mean is still of perennial concern for Americans. Recently, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did an interview for the TV program 60 Minutes. Scalia is known for his view of "originalism" or that the Constitution has meanings fixed by the men who wrote it and that his job is to decide cases in view of those original meanings; this country's secular principles are under assault by certain religious groups who claim that America was founded as a "Christian nation" and would give their particular religious beliefs and concerns prominent places in the public sphere; the Bush administration's notion of the "Unitary Executive" is drawing fierce debate about the separation of powers. Here in Madison, we have the newly-formed UW chapter of Student for Concealed Carry on Campus which brings the Second Amendment into play. In popular culture, HBO's mini-series John Adams recently finished airing.
One man who is concerned with the FFs is Jonathan Rowe. Both at his personal blog and at the group effort Positive Liberty, the small "L" libertarian routinely discusses issues of church & state when not posting YouTube clips of one of his favorite bands, Kansas. If you need your fill of deism & the wall of separation on one hand and Steve Walsh guitar solos & Robby Steinhardt violin melodies on the other, Rowe is your man.
A graduate of Temple University, Mr. Rowe is an assistant professor at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, New Jersey where he teaches law and business for the college's Business & Technology Division. I discovered his blog after he left a comment at my podcast where I had posted a Kansas concert. I find his blog extremely interesting but at the same time am often reminded that I am woefully under-read when it comes to the Founding Fathers and the founding of America. And so I asked Rowe if he would submit himself to a smattering of questions to tease out some of the historical ideas and issues surrounding church-state separation and the FFs with an eye towards people like me who have only a basic understanding of the topics. Much to my delight he consented.
Jon, let me first say thanks for answering my questions. This should be most interesting. I want to start by asking when it was that you became interested in the topic of the intellectual and religious milieu surrounding the founding of America?
It was around five years ago before I started blogging. Flipping through television channels I’d see religious right figures, most notably D. James Kennedy, telling a tale of America as a “Christian Nation.” Most of the leading figures from the religious right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell seemed to affirm this reading. I heard the very opposite from my mainly liberal law school professors and from such groups like AU and the ACLU.
Also around this time I began to debate culture war and economic issues on various Internet venues. I came to these debates as a libertarian; so I sounded left-wing on social issues, but right wing on economic issues. And, on those social issues I’d encounter glib responses that seemed to boil down to “we are justified in putting issues through our Biblical litmus test because America was founded to be a Christian Nation and our forms of government derive from the Bible.” Something didn’t seem right about this response. But I was also skeptical about the left-wing “separation of Church & State” line that portrayed all of the American Founders like a bunch of ACLU style modern secularists.
I set out to find the truth about American history and found both sides were wrong; both sides overstate their case and the truth is somewhere in between.
What was is it about the subject generally and the religious views of the Founding Fathers specifically that drew your interest?
Religion and America’s Founding is important because someone’s religion, or lack thereof is a very important part of his or her life and one of the perennial philosophical questions. How America’s Founders treated religion, accordingly, matters because, like it or not, countries look to their foundings for guidance, and our Founders’ views influence how America ought to presently understand itself, what kind of nation America ought to be. Especially how we treat folks regarding their own personal religion or lack thereof. One thing I especially value about the American Founding is how liberal they were for their time regarding extending equal religious rights to all.
Today there are many who say that America was founded as a Christian nation and use bogus quotes from the FFs to support their claim. And I think it was Christopher Hitchens who recently declared that Thomas Jefferson was an atheist. So there are lots of people who seek to recruit the Founders to their side in ideological debates today. What does an understanding of the FF's religious views and intellectual influences offer to us here in 21st century America?
That’s a great question. On many moral issues – slavery, equal rights for women, treatment of American Indians – America’s Founders blew it and some (mainly from the left) argue why bother trying to look for any moral meaning in what they did. Paul Finkelman of Albany Law School notably represents this “trashing” of the Founders view. On the other hand, many on the right make a hagiography out of the American Founding and seemingly try to defend or at least “explain away” the indefensible moral sins of the past. Thomas West of the University of Dallas is probably the most notable “vindicator” of the American Founding. Again, I found the proper way to understand the US Founding is in between these two positions, put in nuanced context. Slavery – the owning of human beings – is morally indefensible wherever and whenever it occurred. But it was a global institution that existed virtually everywhere from time immemorial that Western European culture first ended. And in America from 1861-65 we paid a big price in blood for our “sin” of slavery.
I do think America’s Founding offers moral meaning to us in the 21st Century. And the way in which the key Founders believed in liberty and equality of religious rights for all people, including atheists is one such part of America’s religious history of which I am particularly proud.
On the recruiting America’s Founders for your side, in terming Jefferson and Franklin atheists, Hitchens is every bit as guilty as the David Barton types when they try to make almost all of America’s Founders into orthodox Christians.
I want to get into some specifics now and begin a bit before our Founding. Talk to me about John Locke. Who was he and what impact did his ideas have on the Founders?
English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) was the most important philosophical influence on the American Founding. Thomas Jefferson lifted large parts of his Second Treatise on Government in writing the Declaration of Independence. And Jefferson and James Madison wrote two groundbreaking documents on religious freedom in the struggle to separate church and state in Virginia – Jefferson’s Statute on Religious Freedom and Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance. Both of those works posit ideas taken from Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration. Yet, as liberal as Locke was for his time, he still didn’t include atheists or Roman Catholics into his vision of toleration. But Jefferson and Madison explicitly said they would take Locke’s ideas and go further, and protect everyone’s religious rights equally.
Because of his importance, there is a big dispute as to just how religious Locke personally was and how authentically Christian his ideas were. Locke was not a secret atheist as the followers of Leo Strauss believe, or a Deist. Yet, Locke also rejected original sin and the Trinity, and was most likely Arian in his Christology, which would make him a secret heretic. Back then non-Trinitarian heretics could be executed in the Christian West simply for speaking their minds (see Michael Servetus whom Calvin had executed in Geneva for publicly arguing against the Trinity). The push for religious liberty and separation of Church and State resulted in large part so that heretics would be able to freely think and speak their minds without fear of civil penalty. As such, it makes sense that bright, heretical philosophically minded thinkers would be on the forefront in arguing for religious liberty. Yet, I also recognized many orthodox Christians, particularly those of dissident Protestant sects – most notably Roger Williams and the Baptists – also to be the movers and shakers in bringing America and Western Civilization religious liberty and secular government.
I recently read Chris Hedges' American Fascists and, in the book, there are several of the aforementioned people who claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. I know that you disagree with this notion and recently wrote in your blog that the American Founding was a "synthesis" of many ideas including: Greco-Roman, Common Law, Christianity, Whig, and Enlightenment. Can you talk about what these five strands of thought contributed to our experiment in democracy?
The primary problem with the Christian America idea is that it seems to only recognize the Bible/Christian principles as a source of ideas for American government and practically pretends the other ideological traditions didn’t exist. Occasionally you get a more nuanced view that recognizes all four or five sources but argues Christian principles dominated. I disagree and see Enlightenment and Whig principles as key. However, once you recognize America’s Founding was a synthesis of these different sources, there is room for honest disagreement over which sources dominated.
Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn notably articulated the synthesis in his book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. To say a brief word on each of those sources: Greco-Roman refers to the Ancient democracies and republics of pagan Greece and Rome for which America’s Founders had a strong affinity. Indeed in their anonymous tracts, they adopted pagan Greco-Roman surnames like “Publius” and “Brutus.” And George Washington’s favorite play, one he had played to his troops to motivate them, was Cato the Younger about a pagan warrior who would rather commit suicide (a very un-Christian act, by the way) than submit to political tyranny. This anecdote shows how a pagan-world view, in tension with traditional Christianity, was very much part of the spirit of the American Founding.
Common Law refers to judge-made law in England as it evolved over hundreds of years. Many of the classic “rights of Englishmen” discussed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and state constitutions derive from the common law. William Blackstone was an English jurist who was the expert the Founders turned to for their knowledge of the common law.
Whig principles, like common law principles, derive from England. However, they were more radical and politically dissident. The Whig Party in England was largely responsible for the Glorious Revolution in 1688. And they produced a long line of pro-dissent, pro-political liberty literature that the American Founders had at their fingertips. Notable British Whig figures include John Milton, Algernon Sidney, John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, Benjamin Hoadly, Joseph Priestley, Richard Price, and James Burgh. Some of these figures also qualify as men of the Enlightenment. Most of them identified as Christians and quite a few were ministers and theologians (though they were disproportionately Unitarian). As you can see, many of these categories like “Enlightenment,” “Whig” and “Christian” aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
America’s Founders, their British Whig counterparts and the ministers and theologians they followed and who supported them cited the Bible and their understanding of the Christian religion for the cause of republicanism and political liberty. I see what America’s Founders did as something new – an 18th Century phenomenon – and arguably they did too; that’s why they called the American Founding a “Novus Ordo Seclorum” or “new order for the ages.” The Bible and the Christian religion, however, were old. Thus, I see them engaging in unorthodox hermeneutics to try to make the Bible speak more to political liberty and republicanism than in reality it does. However, they engaged in similar anachronistic “revisionism” when looking back to the Ancient Greco-Roman democracies and republics. Protestantism, as an event of political dissidence, as opposed to an orthodox Christian theology, most greatly impacted the American Founding and the creation of liberal democracy.
The most important component of the American Founding, in my opinion, was Enlightenment. Enlightenment defines as human progress through the untrammeled use of man’s reason. They believed man’s reason was so keen that it could look to all sources and pick out what was rational or useful and discard what was irrational or superstitious. Enlightenment was what made the synthesis possible. And man’s reason was the ultimate lens through which all sources were to be viewed. Noah Webster, when defending the US Constitution in 1787, citing mainly pagan sources, stated that they consulted the wisdom of all ages and in the Constitution contained an “empire of reason.” A better statement of Enlightenment could not be found.
John Locke, discussed above, was probably the quintessential philosopher of the Enlightenment. Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also important; though America’s Founders tended not to speak too highly of them. Hobbes was important because he first posited the concept of the “state of nature”/social contract and rights, key to Locke’s teachings on government. Rousseau likewise invoked the “state of nature.” Though articulated in different ways by each of the three philosophers, the idea of “the state of nature”/social contract and rights was an entirely Hobbsean construct, not used in the parlance of classical or Biblical politics.
Rousseau’s powerful ideas were probably absorbed through osmosis. If you asked them, America’s Founders would deny that they followed him. However, their idea of a generic monotheistic “public religion” that posits the existence of an overriding Providence who rewards good and punishes evil is nearly identical to Rousseau’s idea of a civil religion.
Other important Enlightenment philosophers who influenced the American Founding include Isaac Newton, Baron De Montesquieu and Adam Smith.
In your blog, you often write about broad issues but you also get down to fine detail. One of the finer points that you've addressed is how to define the religious beliefs of certain Founding Fathers such as Jefferson. In doing so, you often refer to Dr. Gregg Frazer's term "theistic rationalist". What's theistic rationalism and how does it differ from deism? Which of the FF do you think can best be described as theistic rationalists?
Dr. Frazer defines theistic rationalism as a mean between Christianity and Deism – a hybrid if you will – with rationalism as the trumping element. I first read his article summarizing his PhD thesis on Claremont’s website when I was initially deeply delving into what America’s Founders really believed. I saw they didn’t seem to be Christians in the traditional sense, that they had things in common with the Deists (for instance, their confidence in man’s reason, looking to nature to understand God), but were not Deists as strictly defined. All of the notable FFs with the exception of Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen, including Jefferson and Franklin seemed to constantly talk of an active intervening God, not a cold distant watchmaker, which is what I learned a Deist is supposed to be. And if God intervenes in man’s affairs, then prayer is a rational activity. Deists aren’t supposed to pray but the key founders prayed! There are a few other differences between Deism and theistic rationalism. The theistic rationalists also were more likely to identify as “Christians” not “Deists.” Indeed, because they thought of themselves as “rational Christians” or “Unitarian Christians,” I might, in other contexts, say they qualify as “Christians” in some broad, loose, sense. However, the Christian right, who most adamantly claim the Founders as Christians, tend to take their faith very seriously and define it strictly. Evangelicals and Catholics define Christianity according to its Trinitarian orthodoxy. Other groups, like the Mormons, might come along claiming to be Christians, but because they reject orthodox Trinitarianism, they don’t qualify as “Christians” as traditionally defined. It is in a similar sense that the theistic rationalists don’t qualify as “Christian.” Among other things, America’s key Founders rejected original sin, the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, eternal damnation, and infallibility of the Bible. This is why honest evangelicals like Dr. Gregg Frazer, or honest traditional Catholics like Dr. Robert Kraynak, understand America’s key Founders – Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and a few others – as not Christian regardless of whether they understood themselves to be Christian in their own way.
I used to be, although no longer am, surprised when I discover that someone doesn't know that the Christian deity is not invoked in the Constitution. How did our founding document end up being secular in nature?
That’s a really good question. I’m not sure why they didn’t invoke God in the Constitution. To tell the truth, they never told! Hamilton was purportedly asked and replied “we forgot.” However that story has no basis in the primary sources. Some argue that they wanted to establish the United States as a godless republic. Others argue they just wanted to leave religion to the states. Madison argued in his Memorial and Remonstrance that the best way to safeguard religious rights – or the unalienable rights of conscience – was for government not to take cognizance of religion. Well, by leaving God out of the Constitution, they succeeded in not taking cognizance of Him. My opinion would be close to that – the Founders were greatly concerned with religious rights and wanted to take sectarian disputes out of politics. Leaving God out of the Constitution, forbidding religious tests or laws respecting an establishment of religion and guaranteeing the free exercise thereof were the means they used to achieve those ends. Though many religious conservative ministers of the day noticed that God was left out of the Constitution and warned the US would pay the price for so “offending Providence.”
Did the FF argue about the validity of religion/various religions amongst themselves? What views did they have about the role of religion in public life?
Oh sure. There were plenty of orthodox Christians who believed that to be the only true religion. But they tended to play secondary roles. They include Sam Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry and Elias Boudinat. The key Founders were theistic rationalists – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin. And Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen were strict Deists and very hostile to organized religion in general. As such, these different factions argued amongst one another. With some exception most of the Founders agreed the right kind of religion (that which was totally voluntary and didn’t believe in conversion by the sword) was good for society and preferred society to be religious. However they disagreed on whether state governments should fund or support religion. Madison and Jefferson said no. Washington and J. Adams said yes. In principle they wanted everyone’s rights to be respected including those of atheists and still have a healthy religious populace. It’s how to balance those two desires that gets us in to trouble both back then as well as today. Madison in his Detached Memoranda realized that the presence of Congressional Chaplains really didn’t, in principle, adequately respect the equal rights of all. Though, in practice they were there for the time being.
In your opinion, what should be the role of religion in public life today?
My personal preference is government, when it speaks, remain neutral. And that means it can’t say “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, because that is not neutral. However, I’m not sure if such neutrality is constitutionally mandated. When it comes to tangible rights, like government funds, then yes, I absolutely believe the original meaning of the Constitution requires government to be neutral between all of the various religions and between religion and non-religion. The best way for government to be neutral and still permit public expression of religion is to make public forums available on a generally neutral basis. Someone wants to donate their dollars for a Ten Commandments monument in a public park, fine. Then let another group put up a monument right next to it with the words of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, “the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.”
When I was in the 8th grade, my Social Studies class for the whole year was devoted to helping me pass the Constitution test. If I didn't, I would not be allowed to proceed to the 9th grade. We began with the Colonial Period, went up to the Revolutionary Era, and ended by going through the Constitution article by article, section by section. What do you think about civics education in America today? How much do the students at Mercer Community College know of the topics about which you blog?
I generally try to keep my two worlds separate. Some of my research, I worry, is a bit too focused and not that which interests typical community college students. Most of them wouldn’t know what the Arian or Socinian heresies are for instance, or see what the big deal is if you deny Jesus’ full Godhood. Though, when I visited a public lecture at Princeton, Lockean scholar, Professor Paul Sigmund seemed impressed when I asked him whether he thought Locke was an Arian in his Christology. My students know I am interested in religion and I often discuss religion when relevant to course material. Some religious issues are genuinely interesting (like end times prophesies and whatnot) and I always try to “edutain” in my lectures. I have a pretty strong knowledge of pop culture and a sophomoric component to my sense of humor, so I like to use examples from Family Guy, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, classic movie comedies like Trading Places, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Animal House, and Caddyshack.
Sometimes I worry my blog is too opinionated for class discussion and I’m extremely cautious about not proselytizing my politics. On a few occasions I reveal I’m a libertarian, but when it comes to discussing controversial issues, I try to remain neutral like Brian Lamb on CSPAN (and because I’m neither a partisan Democrat nor Republican, it’s easier for me to play that role). Presently I teach law and business courses and the political issues come up tangentially. Though I am going to start teaching legal issues in political science classes as of this summer and perhaps I will talk more about my blogging then. Though there is a chapter in my Business Law I course on constitutional law and I make sure the students study who is on the Supreme Court, what their positions are and I test them on it. It’s a little sad the way they tend NOT to know about Court membership. Interestingly, Justice Alito, like many of them, grew up in Hamilton Township and graduated from Steinert High School. That usually helps them to remember him.
Lastly, have you been watching the John Adams mini-series on HBO? If so, what do you think about it?
I don’t have HBO so I haven’t seen it (other than clips on YouTube). I’ve admired Paul Giamatti’s work ever since his role in Howard Stern’s movie and I look forward to viewing it when it comes out on DVD.
Jonathan Rowe, thank you very much.
2 comments:
My pleasure!
Sorry I forgot to email you last night when I posted it.
Post a Comment