PART III
:|From: ambrose searle AKA richard gardiner (
)
:|Subject: Re: Government churches should be constitutionally rabid
:|Newsgroups: misc.education.home-school.christian, alt.politics.libertarian, >:|alt.politics.usa.constitution, alt.politics, alt.education, misc.education, alt.atheism
:|Date: 2003-11-17 20:19:28 PST
buckeye-ELO@nospam.net wrote in message
news:<rsjhrv8v1a4t65sfruk3napobjlumnl1i1@4ax.com>...
:|>
(ambrose searle aka richard gardiner) wrote:
:|>
:|> The impartial reader will carefully consider what Ambrose Searle AKA
:|> Richard Gardiner has posted. In fact, I strongly recommend that. I
:|> recommend they carefully examine any cites that Searle/Gardiner has
:|> provided.
:|>
:|> That same impartial reader will then carefully examine all the information
:|> found at he following site:
:|>
:|> Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
:|> http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
:|Let's examine that "impartial" site again, shall we?
OK.
:|Allison has several cites to the work of John E. Semonche... a darling
:|of and active advisor to the ACLU.
JOHN E. SEMONCHE: Professor of American History.
American History and Law
http://www.ibiblio.org/semche/history/jackweb.html
JOHN SEMONCHE'S BIO BRIEF (1998)
http://www.ibiblio.org/semche/history/biobrief.html
Note, not a comment about any of the quotes by Prof. Semonche
No rebuttal of any. Just the usual poisoning of the well against the
messenger.
BTW he didn't even establish the claim he did make.
:|Allison cites good ole Alan Dershowitz. The great and mighty defender
:|of O.J. Simpson (I'm sure Allison thinks that the founders would have
:|all agreed that O.J. was innocent the same way they all agreed about
:|separating church and state).
Irrelevant and very lame. It is noted that once more Gardiner AKA Searle
goes after the messenger but doesn't utter a peep with regards to the
quoted material that was used by Dershowtiz. Dershowitz, a lawyer, an
appeals court expert, a constitutional law scholar and professor at one of
the top 3 law schools in the country. He is more than qualified to be
quoted as he was quoted in the article. Nothing that Gardiner AKA Searle
has said distracts from that in any manner.
:|Allison shows great preference for Gordon S. Wood at Brown, whose most
:|noted book "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" argues a firm
:|Marxist interpretation of the American Revolution that paints it as
:|being much closer to the French Revolution than most historians
:|concede. Wood is reputable, but certainly not a moderate, and even
:|more certainly, not a Religious Historian by any stretch of the word.
:|Wood's statement, as quoted by Allison, "At best, most of the
:|revolutionary gentry only passively believed in organized Christianity
:|and, at worst, privately scorned and ridiculed it" is demonstrably
:|erroneous, as shown by the scholars. Religious historians of the
:|period are far better sources to make this kind of assessment.
Gordon Wood was only one of a great many sources that said much the same
thing. One has to wonder why it is and has been since early march 1999 so
very essential to Gardiner AKA Searle that the founders be orthodox
Christian. I don't have th time or inclination to break down into specific
topics all of his posts from that time period to present. There are
patterns to be sure. However, generally speaking this has been one of the
big ones with this fella all along. It ranks right up there with his
Luther/Calvin posts.
:|American religious historians of the late 18th century have stated, in
:|no uncertain terms, that Gordon Wood's assessment is wrong. If Allison
:|really wished to present his readers with the most reputable of
:|American religious historical scholarship, you would see information
:|on his page from:
Ahhhhh, now we will get a discourse of Gardiner AKA Searle'S favorite
authors, those that support his views.
Kewl, I have no problem with that. I will say once again, there is more
than one side to any story and there are various viewpoints to most
stories. Readers are invited to read all the sources that Gardiner AKA
Searle recommends. I invite the readers to do just that. I also invite them
to read the various sources and cites given in this articles and the many
links to other articles on our web site and off our web site.
Readers can decide for themselves, they don't need me or Gardiner AKA
Searle to lead them by the hand.
:|Patricia Bonomi's UNDER THE COPE OF HEAVEN
:|Harry Stout's THE NEW ENGLAND SOUL
:|Nathan Hatch's THE SACRED CAUSE OF LIBERTY
:|James Hutson's RELIGION AND THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
:|(whoops, that the U.S. Library of Congress guy... Allison thinks he is
:|in a right wing conspiracy with Pat Robertson, LOL)
The laugh is on you. You employ your usual bull but you have never been
able to dispute a single item given in the following, and you never mention
the fact that 1 number of respected scholars blasted this exhibition as is
shown in the following URL. BTW you will be happy to know that I have more
information on this topic being sent to me.
But meanwhile here:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
L.O.C. EXHIBIT (update)
Newsgroups:
soc.history.war.us-revolution,alt.history.colonial,alt.atheism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,
soc.history,alt.deism,alt.atheism,alt.religion.deism,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.history
Subject: L.O.C. EXHIBIT (update)
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 12:14:18 -0400
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=d11tqs02s7dubb5jkbu3r1su3plnfaoq3c%404ax.com&output=gplain
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:|Alan Heimert's RELIGION AND THE AMERICAN MIND
:|Donald Lutz' nine books on the Covenantal development of the
:|Constitution
:|Winthrop Hudson's many books
:|Alice Baldwin's THE NEW ENGLAND CLERGY AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
:|Dan Dreisbach's RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC
Actually, Dreisbach's articles do appear on the web site, and appears in
some of the URLs listed in this very article. The Particular book mentioned
above is the book about the Rev Jasper Adams which I have and which is
cited in URLs from this article to the web site.
Dreisbach is an accommodantionist author, but at least in his earlier
writings was fairly balanced in his articles and writings, frequently
pulling the rug out from under some of the cherished religious right
positions.
:|Barry Shain's THE MYTH OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM: THE PROTESTANT
:|ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT
:|These are the kinds of scholars who "specialize" in this area of
:|research.
Oh dear. Well let me tell you, many of those that are cited in this article
and in the various URLs from the article also specialize in such areas of
research. Hell if it comes down to who is who,
here is a partial list of books in my room here, and as already stated, it
one were to check each cite and source from the article and the URLs back
to other articles there a hundred, maybe several hundred scholars listed
and I am willing to bet that they probably pretty much span a wide area of
the spectrum as far as their leanings, etc.
SEE:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=f5aapvoe0m94n76h1r9qr89lespbt6p62p%404ax.com
:| Gordon Wood deals with the revolution from a socio-economic
:|perspective, and is not in a position to assess the religion of the
:|revolutionaries in the same way that Bonomi or Stephen Marini is.
:|Marini's upcoming book, GOVERNMENT OF GOD: RELIGION IN REVOLUTIONARY
:|AMERICA, may well be the most authoritative study to date.
So you say and frequently say about many if not most of those you
recommend. It is remarkable how you feel you have to spoon feed the readers
to be sure they understand that which you want them to understand, even if
it isn't so.
:|When Wood says that the revolutionary leaders were, at best, passive
:|believers in organized Christianity, is, well, reckless and
:|unsupportable. Certainly that cannot be said about the Rev. John
:|Witherspoon! Okay, we'll there's one exception, perhaps, right?
As is pointed out in the article:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
The founders, no matter how you define that term, were a mixed bunch as far
as their religious beliefs, practices etc,
Some were orthodox Christians that were very into religion.
Some were orthodox Christians who were rather indifferent to religion
Some were Deist (Non-orthodox)
Some were Quakers (Non-orthodox)
Some were Catholic (Considered non-orthodox by most Protestant types who
were orthodox)
Some were Unitarian (Non-orthodox)
Some probably were closet atheists or "infidels"
Some began as one thing and later moved into other areas of thinking and
beliefs.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:|Well, it certainly cannot be said about John Jay who was president of
:|the American Bible Society and who said that Americans have the duty
:|only to elect Christians to government positions. Okay, we'll there's
:|two exceptions, right?
LOL, yea, well that was his opinion, now wasn't it?
:|Well, was Alexander Hamilton being "passive" when he wished to form
:|the Christian Constitutional Society? Well, perhaps three exceptions,
:|right?
Ahhh, and how about when Alex was guilty of having an affair? How about
when he urged the President to use religion for political reasons, now that
is a great example of an orthodox Christian, huh? BTW, as I recall the
Society was for specific political reasons and faltered.
I would have to brush on that to be sure.
:|How about John Marshall, was he being a "passive" believer in
:|Christianity as the vice president of the American Bible Society and
:|as an officer of the American Sunday School Union? Okay, well Marshall
:|is another exception to Wood's sweeping claim, right?
I have different information about Marshall, that being that he wasn't a
orthodox Christian, but was rather unitarian. That his wife was quite
religious and he respected her beliefs. The he never joined the Episcopal
church, to which his parents, wife, children, and all other relatives
belonged. He did attend church with his wife. He wasn't anti religion, but
wasn't that religious either.
:|What of Roger Sherman, an active Puritan Deacon in his
:|Congregationalist church in Connecticut? Sherman headed up the
:|building committee of the Puritan church in Milford Connecticut:
:|sounds real "passive." Sherman served the church as deacon and clerk
:|of the newly formed Ecclesiastical Society. And Sherman, according to
:|Allison, is second, only to Madison, as the "most important founder of
:|our country." http://members.tripod.com/~candst/founder1.htm
LOL! What does his being second have to do with religion?
:|Guess we'll have to add Sherman as a "exception" to professor Wood's
:|comments about "passive" Christianity.
Now, additionally in response to the above I direct the readers to the
following
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
The following section of that article especially::
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Another view of America and it's founders and founding:
Subject: A Series, Founders & Religion [Feb 1, 2003] [10 parts]
Part #1 Part #2 Part #3 Part #4 Part #5
Part #6 Part #7
Part #8 Part #9 Part #10
------------------------------------------------------------------------
:|Given the fact that James Madison went to a Christian seminary,
:|studied Hebrew as a grad student, led services of worship at
:|Montpelier, etc., it is difficult to see how Wood can accurately
:|characterize that as "passive" Christian behavior.
You can't claim Madison as especially religious either, though you have
tried for 4 years.
I point once again to the extensive amount of information contained in the
article
Christian Orthodoxy And The Founders
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/orthodox.htm
concerning Madison and the other founders with regards to religion.
:|The exceptions just keep piling up until it is no longer reasonable to
:|call them exceptions.
Your exceptions are pretty weak and lame. You end up with Sherman, Jay and
Witherspoon that you can claim for certain. Not much there.
:|So you see, the single line that Allison cites from Wood's Radicalism
:|book is demonstrably erroneous.
Not by you it wasn't.
TO BE CONTINUED WITH PART IV SHORTLY
.
