George Washington's "Infidel" Worldview:
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007/02/george-washingtons-infidel-worldview.html
[excerpt]
Friday, February 09, 2007
Peter Lillback's 1200 page book on George Washington's faith probably
contains more non-sequiturs than any other book ever written. As I've noted
before, he and his assistant do a great job reporting many facts about
George Washington's life as it relates to religion; but almost everything
they uncover simply does not support the their thesis that he was an
orthodox Trinitarian Christian. And it's quite amusing to see how as they
uncover every single new fact, they also attempt to weave those facts into
an argument that repeats the same mantra over and over again: this shows
Washington was a Christian not a Deist.
I've entitled this post George Washington's "Infidel" Worldview to counter
a chapter in the book entitled George Washington's Christian Worldview.
Now, like the terms "Christian," "Deist," and "Unitarian," the word
"Infidel" also has various meanings. George Washington (and the other key
Founders, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.) didn't consider themselves infidels
and both Washington and Franklin used the word in a pejorative sense. For
instance, Washington once said, "The hand of Providence has been so
conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks
faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge
his obligations...." Yet, Franklin once said, "Atheism is unknown there;
Infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great Age in that
Country, without having their Piety shocked by meeting with either an
Atheist or an Infidel." However, Franklin himself was a theological
unitarian who denied the infallibility of scripture. And indeed,
theological unitarianism and universalism were preached openly in various
parts of America. Franklin and Washington didn't regard their "hybrid"
belief system, which was theologically unitarian and somewhere between
Christianity and Deism with rationalism as the trumping element, as
"infidelity." The problem, though, is that the orthodox Trinitarian
Christians did.
Indeed, even though in one part of the book, Lillback insinuates that
"99.8%" of Americans were "professing Christians," elsewhere he notes that
pious Christians of that era were concerned with the ever increasing number
of "infidels" among not just church members, but church preachers as well.
(A surprising number of notable "infidels," including Joseph Priestly and
Samuel Clarke in England and Elihu Palmer in America, were ministers in
Churches which professed orthodoxy. Indeed, the New England Congregational
Clergy was so overrun with unitarian infidels, that these Puritan
Congregations eventually adopted "unitarianism" as their official Church
doctrine and became "Unitarian" instead of "Puritan" Congregations.)
Colleges like William and Mary, Harvard, and Yale likewise were hotbeds of
infidelity. And as with many Congregational Churches, Harvard's official
creed became Unitarian in the early 19th Century (though theological
unitarianism was firmly entrenched at Harvard in the mid to late 18th
Century).
And so it was that orthodox Christians in the late 18th Century urged
Virginia's Committee on Religion to be concerned with the rising infidelity
in that state. George Washington, when serving in Virginia's House of
Burgesses, was a member on its Committee on Religion. Lillback intimates
that this committee's purpose was to advance Christianity and impede Deism
in Virginia, and this, in turn is more evidence Washington was a Christian,
not a Deist. In fact, the Committee's purpose was more simply, how
Virginia, which at that time had an established church, would deal with
Church-State matters. Washington's membership on the Committee on Religion
is the ultimate non-sequitur when we consider that fellow "infidels"
Jefferson and Madison, when members of Virginia's House of Delegates, were
also on the Committee on Religion, and it was there that they initiated
Jefferson's revolutionary Virginia Bill for Religious Freedom which, when
passed, separated Church and State in Virginia.
[end excerpt]
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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