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| Toland's (1696) Deistic Tract |
But the web is abuzz and atwitter
with the question, ranging from the scholarly to the much less scholarly –
provoking even simpler grass-roots, tea-party loving Americans to a
non-sequitur defense of their much-loved deist/theist/therefore-Christian,
Thomas Paine. In this grass-roots link
the distinction between deist, theist, and Christian is initially important to
the Washington argument, because Lillback (the above revisionist [sic]
historian) is apparently somewhat “too” arbitrary in defining his terms; but
then our grass-roots guide to American history assures us, textually, that
Thomas Paine, who was a deist of the theistic persuasion believing in the God
Providence (one of the five deities of Christianity) and founding the Church of
Theophilanthropists, by virtue of being a deist/theist, was therefore also
Christian, because anyone who believes in Providential Deity in a Thomas
Painean kind of way is de facto
Christian. It’s enough to befuddle even the clearest-minded among us.
Well, what is my pre-coffee reflection on this question? It seems like my first
and only-a-little snide response is pretty simple – it certainly doesn’t matter
to George Washington himself, who, at this point, has already had a fairly
decent amount of time to make his peace with his belief choices. Less snidely,
though (because I’ve gotten up to make my own coffee! Sigh…), while George
Washington was a fine military man,
no one, historian or lay, has tried seriously making the case that Washington
was an intellectual beacon among the
Founding Fathers. So I think it is pretty safe to say that the philosophical
framers of our constitution – who were for the most part our American version
of the French philosophes-- called on
Washington when they needed a swift sword and a winning military strategy, but
not when it came to sweating out the ideas, words and phrases that would
become, “We the people…”
Which brings us back ‘round to the crux of my wife’s question. What is gained
by the debate about whether or not the Founding Fathers were Christian? For the
record, while I certainly concur that the vast majority of the American Fathers
(even Thomas Jefferson) were church-goers (they are listed on the church rolls,
paid tithes, etc.,), evidence suggests that this is more significant from a
societal point of view than from an informed philosophical conviction of
metaphysical reality. No one would dispute the fact that (1) church pews are
replete with church-goers, nor that (2) many of those who occupy the pews do
not necessarily do the work of the church, nor that (finally!) many
church-goers find comfort in attending church (a social event) but not
necessarily in believing the church stories (a philosophical event). So my
concurring that America’s Founders were church-goers, although not necessarily
Christian believers in a modern evangelical kind of way, should pose no
inordinate problems.
So, on to our crux… Why might it be important for Modern America to re-discover
or to re-invent for itself a Christian foundation? The question itself suggests to me that there is a
not-so-subtle theocratic or religious junta afoot in American, an attempt to
control or influence the social voice of the people by imposing upon (or inserting into) the American foundation myths a supposedly
‘original’, and therefore truly
American, religious heritage, which is Christian. Yet, I teach in my
Introduction to Philosophy classes that America was never/is not a Christian
country – not because I particularly care about any America’s (Early or Modern)
religious convictions, but because it is important philosophically to understand that the architects who framed the
American Constitution (1) very deliberately avoided allowing any type of power
to be consolidated in the various institutions of state (hence the separation
of powers), and (2) argued for the absolute separation of the church from the
state, to avoid establishing a religious-political entity, which is to say a
theocracy (a god-powered state), with a Deity as head of state. Nor can one
dispute that the supreme philosophical contribution of the Founding Fathers to
the western thought tradition was the disestablishment of religion in general,
and Christianity in particular. This is just history. The very framing of the
American political structure is, philosophically and fundamentally,
anti-theocratic in nature!
When we consider Iran, for example, or other religious states such as the
Vatican, they are theocracies, which
means that acts of state, i.e.,
political and legislative decisions, are dictated and controlled by the Keepers
of the sacred text (such as the Koran or the Bible and/or Papal Tradition). In
theocracies, questions of right and wrong are grounded in absolute and
unchanging metaphysical truths, which are pronounced and announced by the
Religious Interpreters; so ethical questions are not in the least influenced by
political, social, or international expediency (ethical philosophers call this
moral absolutism).
In democracies, on the other hand, which are people-powered states, questions
of right and wrong have no permanent or absolute answers; instead, the answers
to ethical questions are grounded in the flow of social and political consensus,
which evolves with the changing convictions of the ongoing generations (this is
called moral relativism). Understanding this concept of a people-centered
government as morally relative, is also useful in explaining Jefferson’s
emphatic devotion to education-- to educate the public is the sacred duty of a
state governed by the people, because education is the last redoubt for the
American citizen against the permutation of power into all types of tyranny, political as well as
religious (see Jefferson’s letter to Joseph C. Cabell, 1818, FE 10:99; for a
reference to Papal tyranny, see Adam’s letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 2,
1813, CAPPON, vol. 2, p. 404).
This is the type of enlightenment government, grounded in reason and reasoned
argument, that was established by the American Founding Fathers, and which all
political players are called upon to protect when they are sworn in to office.
According to this source,
in Article 6 of the US Constitution:
The Senators and Representatives
before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all
executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several
States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution;
but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office
or public Trust under the United States.
In
enlightenment democracies of this American type, then, relativist consensus
building looks a whole lot like public involvement, ballot initiatives,
elections, and voting. Thus, to use a provocative example, up until 1973 it was
criminal in the United States for a woman to have an abortion, but in January
of 1973 the right to abortion became
written into the American Constitution, thereby becoming an inalienable constitutional right for all Americans, until another generation should be persuaded
to vote differently on the question. So unlike in a theocracy, in a morally
relativist political state like America the truth-value of any specific ‘act’
(like abortion, or gun control, or individual health care, or any other
issue-act) ebbs and flows with the changing will of the voting public. It is
for this reason that I tell my students that it does not matter what their/my private opinion is about the act of
abortion- we the people have the private right to our private convictions, and
it is so intended and so designed in American that we citizens should be
engaged in the public arena to try to persuade other citizens to our view. But
any politician or political entity who/which erects a political campaign formally committed to overturning inalienable constitutional rights (in my provocative
example the pro-choice platform), is engaged in some type of religious or personal proselytization that is clearly opposed to, actively committed to subverting by any and all means, and unwilling
to uphold, rights guaranteed to all Americans under the constitution
(specifically those broad rights as defined in the 9th and 14th
Amendments). And such politicians, I tell my students, to whatever degree they
fail to give adequate reason and argument for their position, should therefore
be voted out of political office as
quickly as possible so they can assume their rightful calling among the religious voices of America.
For the record: In secular (read: non-theocratic) America, arguments grounded
in reason do not begin with anything resembling the following phrase: “The
Bible says…” or “God…” If this enlightenment axiom
were respected, it would take some significant degree of philosophical
ingenuity and persuasion to make an ethical
case against abortion (as opposed to a medical case, or other). This is why
most pro-life politicians who take a public/political stand against abortion,
simply issue a statement either that they are morally opposed to “it”, giving no reason for their opposition, or they
issue a statement that their opposition is based on moral reasons, but then
there is bewildered and confused argument when it comes to
stating those reasons for the record. Yet, from my philosopher’s point of view,
in this American Republic there should be no shame or fear in taking a
philosophical stance against a given position; shame should only be present
when American politicians’ private religious convictions override their
public/political and moral duty to defend the rights guaranteed to all citizens
protected by the American Constitution.
This, it seems to me, is the reason for all the fuss about whether or not, or
which of, the Founding Fathers were/were not/might have been/could have been Christian.
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