Saturday, November 25, 2006
Liars for Jesus:
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2006/11/liars-for-jesus-thats-title-of-chris.html
That's the title of Chris Rodda's new book.
http://www.liarsforjesus.com/
I don't have the book but have read some of its excerpts at the book's
website (indeed, much of it is excerpted, including a whole chapter on
The Northwest Ordinance.
http://www.liarsforjesus.com/downloads/LFJ_chap_2.pdf
Currently, I am reading Brooke Allen's "Moral Minority: Our Skeptical
Founding Fathers,"
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Minority-Skeptical-Founding-Fathers/dp/1566636752
which is a great book, eloquently written and meticulously researched.
I do have a few problems with Allen's analysis. Mainly, she lumps the
key Founders -- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and
Hamilton -- in with Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen as "Deists." Unlike
David Holmes' book
http://www.amazon.com/Faiths-Founding-Fathers-David-Holmes/dp/0195300920
which notes that deism had many varieties and the key founders were
more deistic than strict deists, Allen goes so far as to assert that
the key Founders believed the same as Paine and Allen. This is a
common mistake that secular leftist scholars make, even the very good
ones like Allen. I've got a few other issues with her analysis that
perhaps I'll mention in a subsequent post.
Allen's book doesn't tend to name the "Christian Nation" figures
against whom she argues. Rather she (accurately) takes note of their
thesis. And then meticulously researches the historical record --
letting the Founders do the talking -- and shows that they (the key
figures) were not pious orthodox Christians seeking to "found" the
nation on "Biblical principles," but rather were Enlightenment
rationalists, cut from the philosophical elite. And it was their
Enlightenment worldwiew which provided most of the ideas for the
Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
As I said, her book is excellently researched and is worth buying for
the wealth of quotations and detail of primary sources she unearths.
Chris Rodda's book takes a different approach. She specifically
targets the "Christian Nation" crowd by name. It's mainly David
Barton, William Federer, D. James Kennedy, and Tim Lahaye (who, many
folks don't know, wrote a really bad book on The Faith of the Founding
Fathers). Her book specially examines what they have written and
(again from what I have seen on her site) refutes it in detail.
(Similar to what I do on my blogs).
Given that the title of her book is "Liars for Jesus," it has the tone
of a polemical attack and at times seems unduly harsh. But given the
abysmal level of scholarship that has come from the above mentioned
"Christian Nation" figures, her attacks are duly harsh.
As I have noted before, there are plenty of serious scholars who
question modern Supreme Court Establishment Clause jurisprudence and
the ACLU's ideal interpretation of it -- Philip Hamburger, Daniel
Dreisbach, Phillip Muņoz, James H. Hutson, Mark Noll, to name a few.
At times, going after Barton, Kennedy and Federer may seem like
knocking down straw-men when there are serious arguments on the matter
to be engaged. But, as long as millions of people believe their
twaddle (and they do) scholars like Chris Rodda (and myself) have a
legitimate job to do.
posted by Jonathan @ 6:24 PM
***************************************************************
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/
***************************************************************
.. . . 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)
.. . .
****************************************************************
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
****************************************************************
.
|
