Talk about a loaded question… Still, having had this debate many times in my life with many different people of various religious backgrounds, it seemed like a good topic for additional research. Since I was putting in the time anyway I might as well share my findings with my three loyal readers.
The first question that must be asked is how do we define ‘Christian nation’? Well there are many ways one could do this but for the purposes of this article/series we will simply attempt to define the religious beliefs of the “Founding Fathers”. Though this will not tell us their intent as they defined our government it may provide insight into their frame of mind. It is after all entirely possible that a devout Christian may not have believed Christianity was a good basis for a nation, just as it is possible that a non-Christian could view Christian virtues as imperative to a successful society. It is likely we will never know for sure one way or the other but that does not stop us from examining the evidence.
Even this approach is not as simple as it may seem. First there is the deceptively simple question of who are the founding fathers? There are many different people that participated in the framing of the Constitution, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, or who fought in the Revolutionary war. All of these people have some claim on the title of “Founding Father”. Yet for the purposes of this article we will narrow our research to the seven founding fathers defined by Richard B. Morris’s 1973 book; Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries. These seven are Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.
Now that we have defined who the “founding fathers” are and that their religious beliefs will be the evidence we use to draw our conclusions. There is still one remaining problem that could cause confusion as we review their beliefs. It is the definition of those beliefs. Nearly all of the seven were religious but that does not necessarily mean ‘Christian’, therefore we must also define what a ‘Christian’ is. For the purposes of this article(s) a Christian shall be defined as one who believes in the divinity of Christ. Not just that Christ existed but that Christ is in fact the son of God.
This will be an ongoing series of articles. Each founding father deserves their own as does the summary and possibly an in dept review of the first amendment and how it has been interpreted over the years. I am not sure how long it will take to write them all but I am shooting for less than ten days. I sincerely hope you stick around for and enjoy the entire series.
1 comment:
This one is a no-brainer for those who paid attention in history class, or were at least taught history. The answer is NO. The problem is that the education system in this country has significantly failed us by neglecting to teach history in favor of teaching children how to take a stupid ass test. If our school system was not churning out mediocre students that can barely pass, we would not have to have a debate such as this... because there is really no debate. Facts are facts.
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