All Comments (70)

Hello with my best regards
thank you for your interesting web
this web is very nice
good luck
www.theocentric-global.webs.com

Dr. E: many thanks for the words about one of my favorite professors. We had B.F. Skinner come to Yale to talk and later Dr. Pelikan regaled us with his attempted "Augustinian end run" around him. Of course it worked for him but not for Skinner. personally I thought my argument with Skinner afterwards was simpler, that Skinner was simply irrelevant because on cannot actually live one's life any other way than "as if" free, because you cannot actually incorporate determinism into a principal of action.

regards! (and I knew you hadn't ignored me ;-)

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

While I read all comments, please do not assume that I’ve read all that appear before one of my “to whom it may concern.” When I check it to locate the last comment I’ve read, I find a number of comments I could not have read before posting my latest. (MY POINT: I’m not overlooking you!)

HENRY JAMES -- 12.11 / 1:29p

Romney is to the right of my position. I don’t see the founders as “cheerleaders for Christianity” but as accepters (with various degrees of enthusiasm) (1) of the Christian heritage & culture (especially at the points at which it seemed to them to support Enlightenment insights) & (2) of the reality that Americans of their time were (with few exceptions) Christians. The founders were—by conviction as well as by convenience—BALANCERS/CENTRISTS vis-a-vis state/church, not christianistic or secularistic REVISIONIZERS (as I’ve called these extremists, ELIMINATERS [of state, as theocrats; or of church, as secularists).

Please stop mixing me in with Romney (I’m a Democrat!) & theocrats (whom I’ve long been known to be a battler against).

No, I don’t see all who disagree with me as “Radical Secularists.” A few, maybe. Most of you I see as failing to perceive & support the original American mind as attentive to & balancing of the sibling distinctively American realities of “church” & “state” (with “Bible” & “Enlightenment” aspects to re-conceiving, in contrast to the Old World, both politics & religion). (Labeling people, including oneself, is handy & dangerous. To put in a word the POV I’m taking in this conversation, I’m an “originalist,” including original-intent [contextual] reading of our founding documents.)

CHRIS EVERETT

Unsupportedly, you assert that “creature liberty, being a religious construct, is inherently incoherent.” You seem unaware of the long tradition, beginning with Augustine, arguing the superiority of creature-liberty over organism-liberty. Intellectual giants have COHERENTLY exposited this position (including, in American history, Jonathan Edwards). But for all I know, you may be so Inherently anti-religious as to hold that all religious thinking is incoherent.

Anent coherence, your relating teleology (inherent purpose in the universe, most visible in our species) to creationism has this much truth: the biblical paradigm sees a loving, mutually celebrative relationship between the Creator & his creation/creatures. We are made for the maximum liberty, which is expressed in both sections of the Bible as loving God/others/ourselves/creation. Love liberates: the mutitudinous forms of anti-love enslave, diminish (e.g., the Taliban) (Philosophers of science are now using “teleology” as an aspect of the nature-story called “evolution.” The biblical is the grace-story form of teleology.)

Wrongly, you say that I “apply the concept of freedom only to religious actions.” God gave us freedom for ANTIreligious actions, & in Eden Adam & Eve exercised that freedom. But if (as the biblical paradigm has it) we are made for love & use it to cut off love (as A&E cut off their love of & communion with God), we are ABusing our freedom (as, by analogy, a tool made for one purpose becomes damaged when used for
another purpose).

The world paradigms are, as you say, “mutually incompatible.” The first phrase in the title of my current column is “Cacophony of religions.” Religions/philosophies/cultures/nations compete. You seem to imply that this fact of life argues against religions as having anything to do with politics, particularly in America.
But America may be seen as a universal model, or as a particular religopolitical emergent in world history (Christianity being the religious element), or both. I see it as both, you see it as the former.

Your parsing of “learned” indirectly points to the scarcity of polymaths: almost all of us learneds are spottily learned. The spot may be small or large. In hiring me to teach the world’s religions, the University of Hawaii considered me a master of the large spot called “religion” (not what you call the “bubble” of biblical expertise). Of all the world’s paradigms, I consider the biblical the truest—so of course, it’s what I most argue from & for. / I used “cognitive dissonance” (which you’d offered) not in its psychiatric context but as the paradoxical element in human consciousness/cognition/re-cognition—as in the Wordsworthian “heart and mind,” which can work together to “make one music as before, but vaster.”

JOET

Sorry if you feel neglected! I read you, but till now didn’t come upon anything I felt moved to respond to.
But your mention of Pelikan rouses me to a few remarks. (1) Like me, he was a classical-orthodox Christian. (2) Unlike me, he became (Greek) Orthodox (capital “O”). (3) In addition to our Christian commitment, we shared a love of the Greek language (of which I had nine school-years). (4) On the dissertation-defense oral committee on my last doctorate, he asked me 11 questions without stopping. When I asked whether he would like me to respond seriatim or in some other order, he said “I don’t care whether you answer any of them; I was only trying to impress my colleagues.” A clear genius, & geniuses ain’t easy to live with.

TERRY

I largely agree with you. Einstein said he flub on quantum was his number-one flub.

Terry,

Interesting posts. Buddhism is indeed the more rational spiritual paradigm and is scientific inasmuch as it is focused on paying attention to the nature of awareness and the workings of the mind (although reincarnation, karma, astrology, etc. is just as superstitious as any Western superstitious nonsense). With respect to quantum mechanics, it is certainly common nowadays to see different religious traditions claim it as there own, but I mainly see this as coattail riding. Religions have never had anything reliable to say about nature. They're always RETROACTIVELY seeing a scientific truth expressed (obscurely and metaphorically) in their scriptures; they're never the SOURCE of discovery. In science we call this data mining, or "torturing the data until it talks". Although quantum indeterminism appears to be true, the quantum model of reality is nevertheless mathematically well defined, and if one were to consider the wave function to be the "material" of nature then quantum mechanics is materialistic (utterly so under non-Copenhagen interpretations, dualisticly so under the Copenhagen interpretation). As far as leaning toward a mysterious 'origin' for all things in creation (sans personality), what scientist wouldn't feel this way? "Creation" is either eternal or had an origin. If by "creation" you mean the universe that appears to have begun with the big bang, then we see that it had an origin. That leaves mystery, which is self evident, and sans personality, which to me is simply the exclusion of the preposterous.

Bottom line: beware of spiritual leaders who talk about "what the physicists are only now discovering". I have been to quite a few satsangs where physics was much maligned in the service of reinforced faith.

Dr. Elliot - I was moved to read (skim) the Meditations of Descartes where he proves the existence of God by a dialectical process (including the famous 'I think therefore I am' revelation). Pretty impressive thinking for his day and age, but ultimately he was a materialist with dualistic tendencies and not different from Einstein in that regard.

It's interesting to contrast his thinking process with that of the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna in the 2nd century, where he uses a similar rational/logical process to prove Emptiness and mere appearance as the ultimate reality (eternally coupled with awareness). In this way he believed that the basic tenets of dualistm were defeated, and it was thereby established that the material world does not exist as other than a transient/apparent reality (this finding is not too dissimilar from today's quantum mechanics). A divine personality never enters the equation.

Maybe religious thought depends on it's point of origin after all. Religion in the West assumes God from the start, whereas religions of the East do not (at least not necessarily in the form of a divine person). When particular quantum physicists begin to wax philosophical, they also tend to lean toward a mysterious 'origin' for all things in creation (sans personality).

In the end, quantum logic appears to find materialism and the real existence of a material universe far more tenuous than the world that Newton, Descartes, and Einstein took for granted in their work. One wonders if the 'timeless' truths of religion will stand the test of time.

regards -

Dr. Elliot - thanks for your response. It is curious that several of the (Deist) founders discovered substance in a religious philosophy that departed rather dramatically from mainline Protestantism.

And to the influence of early science, you pointed out that Newton for all of his genius was a traditionalist as regards religion - whereas Descarte sounds positively Vedic in his view of 'God as the only reality'. A coincidence?? This particular view begins to display signs of both mysticism and pantheism (although several of the great mystics of the age e.g. William Blake, greatly mistrusted science). The mighty Voltaire, on the other hand, was very much an avowed agnostic, if not a declared atheist.

It is interesting about Einstein - he was a man who believed in order, structure and purpose and would perhaps have supported the 'weak' anthropic view of present-day cosmology (the teleology you spoke of). Curiously he refused to buy in to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ('God doesn't play dice with the universe') as it underpins quantum mechanics, and thereby took a pass on the quantum view altogether - even though his own conjoint (EPR) experiment proved it out.

I'm willing to bet it's a real challenge to find a devoutly religious quantum physicist (but they must be out there). I think you can extract a religious view from quantum physics but for me the paradigm of the Cabala and the idea of emerging levels of manifestation from the Great Unmanifest (Ein Sof) are the closest parallels. As the first manifestation, there is even an infinite point (Kether) from which the cosmos emerges. This is not unlike physicist David Bohm's ideas found in 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order' (a book ahead of it's time).

but I digress -

It does seem that the founders who supported Deism tried mightily to both acknowlege and incorporate the science of the day in their religious/philisophical overview while at the same time implying that the universe must have a maker (however distant). All in all, a departure that was both advanced and daring in an essentially protestant/trinitarian world. Then as you say, came the Transcendentalists - a great group of singularly American icons.

The religious cum political hucksters running for office today are doing a disservice to the high standards set by our forebearers. One wonders if we'll ever hear about real solutions to real problems in the days ahead. We can only hope -

your personal responses are appreciated -

Henry (and Chris): and in such an unnecessarily opaque way. I studied religious history under Jaroslav Pelikan at Yale while getting my degree in Philosophy, before getting a J.D at Virginia with George Allen and Jim Gilmore in my class (pardon the digression). I also took his course on Augustine. He was a Lutheran scholar, wrote the definitive million volume trillion footnote history of christian doctrine from the death of Christ to Vatican II, was the dean of the Yale Graduate School, and spoke every indo european language but Finnish fluently (rusty on his Finnish vocab). He never needed to sound like Dr. E. And I'm just assuming he posted before he read me or I'd be hurt that he left me out of his reply. ;-)

Thank You Dr Elliot for taking the time to respond and engage. We appreciate it, and you are by far the best columnist in this regard.

I echo Chris on this point.

Indeed.

Nevertheless, Dr. Elliott, I'm sure we all appreciate your taking the time to converse with us.

Chris

Yes, Dr Elliot IS a puzzle, ain't he?

He has oodles of education, but he thinks and writes in such a convoluted and Christian-Centric way,

and seems to deliberately write not only opaquely academicly, but super-opaquely,

that with every post I end up shaking my head in disbelief.

It is not that he is religious. There are loads of religious writers whom I love and understand and often agree with, and certainly find interesting.

But this case...???

Mitt Romney's ignoring of non-believing Americans in his "Symphony of Faith" is akin to a performance of Brahms' Fourth Symphony minus its triangle.

I'm sure Dr Elliot knows of what I'm speaking.

Uh oh. I'm beginning to feel like a "new atheist." GRRRRRR!!!!

Dr. Elliott:

I do indeed struggle with the "the distinction between creature liberty (from, & with obligations to, the Creator) & organism liberty (the human organism seen as autonomous)." I think the reason for this is that creature liberty, being a religious construct, is inherently incoherent. You seem to be saying that according to your anti-evolutionist, "teleological" stance, we were explicitly DESIGNED by God to do certain things, and in fact are OBLIGATED to do these things. In this context, FREEDOM is the ability to fulfill our God-given obligations without the government interfering.

One word comes to mind: Taliban. Among all the possibilities for self-directed human action you make a distinction between those that fulfill religious obligation and those that are merely "autonomous", and you apply the concept of freedom only to religious actions. So, taken to an extreme, a society in which no actions were permitted save those that are decreed as serving God would be considered "free".

Of course, if specific religious obligations exist and can be followed, they must be enumerated somewhere. You say they're in the Bible. Others say Bagavad Gita. Koran. Book of Mormon. Dianetics. And they're all mutually incompatible. So what of religious freedom? How can there be ANYTHING in the nature of American government that is specific to Christianity without being ANTI everything else?

You say "And you underestimate the number of learned Americans who continue our affirmation of Bible+Enlightenment as the dynamic of the American mind." That may be true, although I would argue the word "learned". That implies the existence of the thing learned about. You seem to have been (highly) educated in a bubble of biblical credulity in which everything is interpreted in the service of religious belief. Frankly, having read your historical revisionism, your position on evolution and your apparent comfort with the cognative dissonance so characteristic of the "American mind" (whatever THAT is - MY American mind doesn't contenence cognative dissonance - I wonder why yours needs to, hmmm?), I'm amazed and disturbed that you're referred to by the Washington Post as "mainline Protestant". What are you mainlining?

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Sorry for that 8-times repeat! My server kept signaling me “Message blocked” (though it wasn’t)—so I kept trying various ways to unblock. (Thanks to the four of you who alerted me to this technical glitch—which I can bypass by disbelieving “Message blocked.”)

ATHENA 12.10 / 4:43p

Thank you for raising the issue of “second-class citizens.” America is, politically, a classless society—so we have no “second-class citizens.” For any office, I vote for the person I consider best qualified, & religion is only one factor: single-qualification voting is as un-American as single-issue.

Now, all other things being equal (which they never are), my preference goes to whoever seems to me has the best grasp of the American Mind (historically, a unique “exceptionalist” mind), which BALANCES “church” & “state” (as in Jon Meacham’s AMERICAN GOSPEL).

Negatively put, I reject the two ideologies which strive to destroy the balance—by eliminating “church” (the secularist ideology) or “state” (the theocratic ideology, which has strangled Iran since 1979).

Please don’t think I’m talking about people when I’m talking about culture. And I apologize for sometimes not being as clear as I could have been in making the distinction.

CHRIS EVERETT

By “re-imaging” I do not mean “to make clear once again.” In re-imagining something, we see it through the lens of a new image. E.g., it was a cow but we see it as a horse. A pelican may throw a fish up several times before in comes down just right for gulping: human beings want to “see” history in its most gulpable form, gulpability determined by POV (point of view). Because we are incapable of complete objectivity (because of [to use Niebuhr’s phrase] “finitude and sin”), how & what we see is always “interested” (i.e., “interesting” to you because of our [personal-subjective] “interests”). So we need (as the roadsign says) to “proceed with caution” both in affirming our POV & in judging others’ POVs. (I’ll add this: proceed with prayerful & penitential humility.)

Read “marginality” in the light of “some.” “Some” of our founders were somewhat left of the fulcrum-center of the church/state balance, & I see their leftness as marginal “in the formation of American history & the American mind”: secularists see it as central. It’s a storytelling contest of consequence: who gets to write America’s children’s American-history school-texts?

You say “Jefferson was certainly NOT a Christian” & then mention the so-called “Jefferson Bible.” A Christian takes Jesus seriously enough to spend considerable time thinking of his message, as Jefferson certainly did (though his infatuation with the French Enlightenment convinced him against the miraculous).
Again, do you doubt that the last two words of this from the Declaration—“a first reliance on Divine Providence”--are Christian in reference though not in specific wording? And what of his regular attendance at Sunday worship in the capitol: do you think those worship services were nonChristian in language? / A further factor in the language of founders who went to France: being pro-French was natural at the stage when we Americans were anti-British. (As you know, the French fleet at Yorktown made possible our success in the Revolutionary War.)

For the convenience of your POV, you erect a sound-barrier between the Declaration & the Constitution. / In the Constitution, there’s nothing “negative” about religion; in the First Amendment, there are two negatives about Congress but no negative about religion. Rightly, Madison was concerned about the separation of church/state powers, & insisted that state documents deal only with state powers—though he had personal competence in religion, having studied (at the College of N.J., now Princeton) under Witherspoon, a great Christian theologian. / In the Constitution’s wording, just above the signatures is “in the year of our Lord [Jesus],” which was more Christian than “anno domini” (“year of [THE] Lord”) necessitated—hardly, I take it, merely conventional.

You say the Declaration was “a philosophical document that challenged King George....” Why only philosophical? Why not also political & religious? It’s wow force is from its tridimensionality. / You’re correct on the Enlightenment force of “nature,” but you know that the Declaration sources human rights not in nature but in God, “Divine Providence” understood in the common language of the time to be the biblical deity (yes, by revelation). Washington knew this. Your statement at he “never went to church” is incorrect: he disliked the ritual of Holy Communion, so would leave before that worship-ending & wait outside for Martha. That he like Lincoln was a man of prayer cannot be doubted/ / I can understand that you want to give “top billing” not to God but to nature, & thus to reason rather than revelation. But the divine source of “rights” is here no mere fight-fire-with-fire verbal tactic: the founders’ written remains provide massive evidence of this belief outside of, as well as within, this polemic context. / Of course you are correct that “the Enlightenment paradigm is that Reason, applied to Nature, reveals Truth,” & that (as you imply, & I now state) our founding documents, to have intellectual respectability, had to be written in the intellectual mode then dominant among the players, viz. that of the Enlightenment. But in its fight against state+church power, the Enlightenment (1) narrowed “reason” down logical process & “truth” down to the products of logical process, & (2) left no room for faith & revelation. This partisan rendition of “reason” & “truth” helped in the birthing of the American political distinctive, viz. the splitting of state+church power to two power-spheres, viz. “state” & “church” (as masterfully stated in the First Amendment). / Of course the founders didn’t claim that their products were by divine revelation!

Yes, the Constitution had to try to avoid “anything controversial.” I can imagine your point. Mine is that any affirmations in the religion sphere of power might conflict with the structuring of the government sphere of power.

BETTY

I want to “make Jefferson a southern baptist preacher”? Hardly. But now that you mention the Baptists, he solidly supported them—specifically, in VA & CN—in their efforts toward religious liberty. (RI was Baptist-founded for religious liberty.

HENRY JAMES

No, I don’t claim that “the nation is officially Christian,” though it is populationally Christian. As Jon Meacham in AMERICAN GOSPEL puts it: the people are Christian, the language of government is neutral. / Do you really think that Romney “did not have to broadcast that he is a good Christian”? Without that, no hope of catching up to Huckabee.

Your final paragraph falsely puts 17th-18th c. political philosophers on one side & Jesus on the other. All those philosophers were at least culturally Christian, with the Jesus Story a factor in their calculus of power/freedom.

TERRY

Thanks for your comments on the deism content of the founder’s thinking. New England Transcendentalism hit hard in the next generation (as you say, Emerson and Thoreau). “Pantheist” does not well describe the Christian deism among the founders. / Einstein was cautious about his religious expression but not about his basic piety, his religiousness. He showed up in 1937 for our specifically-Christian choir-concert at Princeton. / Newton & Descartes were both specifically Christian. Newton wrote commentaries on the Bible, & Descartes said only God is really real (i.e., has “substance”). / You seem to imply that all the founders were deist: not so.

Yes, “would that we all had” the wisdom to spot inauthenticity. But it should not be confused with the necessities of political rhetoric.

PAGANPLACE

Thanks for “Stay off the Caps Lock.” Am I doing better since reading you on this? I’d like to be able to use underlining/italics/boldface/(rarely)caps, but the medium permits only caps. (In my columns, I use all four.) And thanks for the implicit suggestion that I use *______*s.

Like you, Peggy Noonan panned Romney’s “symphony of faith.” Yes, it’s somewhat schmaltzy. But we Americans have a way of finding a sharing a common religious vein. Just this morning, a Manhattan playwright phoned me & spoke of a “citizens’ religion” in America—what Lincoln called our “political religious,” more recently called our “civil religion” (somewhat like what John Dewey meant in his book “A Common Faith”). Romney’s music metaphor for this American reality is accurate, as is also the first part of my column’s title, viz. “Cacophony of Religions.”

I have never said you were “not a real American.” But I believe the burden of carrying America’s unique political contribution to the world rests most heavily on those who understand & support the originalist balance of “church” & “state.” / As for your references to devils/Satan/evil, I don’t get what you’re getting at.

CHRIS EVERETT

We do have a lexical (word-choice) problem, don’t we? / You seem not to get the distinction between creature liberty (from, & with obligations to, the Creator) & organism liberty (the human organism seen as autonomous). / Yes, in our American heritage & present, “Creator-creature” is “in the Bible.” / Few in any of the Enlightenments made any distinction between “God” & “superstition,” so God-less = superstition-less. The distinction was made by some between “God-less” (i.e., minus the biblical deity) & “godless” (i.e., minus any deity except perhaps “the Goddess of Liberty” on the altar of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral). / The Bible purports to report divine revelation, & you are anti-Bible in the sense that you say “belief in REVELATION is a form of superstition.” We can agree to disagree on this. / I agree that the founders were more aware of & impressed by the Enlightenment than were the mass of Americans, & that this element was vital in the formation of the American mind as (as I frequently put it) Bible+Enlightenment. But you stretch it in saying that the founders were “radically UN-CHISTIAN relative to their peers. And you underestimate the number of learned Americans who continue our affirmation of Bible+Enlightenment as the dynamic of the American mind. / The 1933 quote is from the Supreme Court & represents the “cognitive dissonance” particular to the American mind. The way we learned Americans “follow the Christian bible” is not in the unlearned manner you spell out, but with the help of our learning—precisely as the founders respected America’s religious heritage/present/hope in light of the learning available to them.

Chris and JoeT

Boy, youse guys are smart! How many PhDs do you have?

Totally seriously, you, and many of the columnists here, make SO MUCH more sense than the Good Doctor.

And each or your last posts were exemplary for intelligence and sensible interpretation.

Romney, and mamy believers, try to make the Founding Fathers cheerleaders for Christianity. And Dr Elliot is abetting the crime.

We don't have to be Anti-Christian or Anti-Religion to believe in a strict separation of Church and State.

John Kennedy enunciated exactly that principle.

Dr Elliot paints those who disagree with him as Radical Secularists.

We are very happy to have people practice whatever religiion or non religion they please.

Just keep it out of politics.

How did I miss all the fun over here?

Henry (and others): thanks for keeping the faith. Dr. E reminds me of a Harvard lawyer who I referred to as someone who would not only miss the forest for the trees, but would argue from the trees that the forest does not exist and not see the problem.

Dr. E: the biggest problem with your exposition is that it misses the forest. Romney would die if he thought he was being read by evangelicals the way you read him. he was clearly trying to do anything but get his history right.

Even if the truth of our founding is somewhere between the totally secular revisionism that is out there and the totally christian revisionism that is out there as well, Romney was sure hoping that the evangelicals read him to mean that nonbelievers and those who would maintain any semblance of church state separation should be banished. He did say that only judges of faith were fit to be appointed.

I fully appreciate that radical secularists who would get In God we Trust off the coins (odd that our founding fathers didn't put it there) and make sure the state never mentioned religion are not what our founders had in mind. Romney's message was meant to make people think he wants to make our courthouses safe for the judge who tried to put the 5 ton granite commandments in the lobby and proclaim that they, not the constitution, were the law in his court.

In sum, Mr. E, the problem with your exposition is that it is fairly accurate with respect to Romney's text read in a fairly accurate historical context, it's just completely wrong with respect to what Romney was hoping his audience heard. You missed all the code for the words.

John Adams is often quoted by the religionists as saying "Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people"; the implication being that the country is INTENDED to be Christian. However, here is the quote in its larger context:

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."

It's clear that Adams was making the point that since the government was in the hands of the people, the people have the power to lead it to its own demise. He also seems to be of the opinion that "morality and religion" are necessary for contending successfully with otherwise unbridled human passions.

So we see that the point Adams was making is that there is NO INSTITUTIONALIZATION of either morality or religion in the Constitution. This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the religionists' interpretation! Instead, we are relying on the people themselves to restrain their collective passions, since America is constitutionally vulnerable to them, at least if mobilized en masse.

I see it as a triumph of Americanism that the trust has proven well founded and that this country DOES rest on a foundation of restrained passions. What doesn't seem to have been clear to John Adams at the time is that civility and religiosity are utterly separate things, and that one can exist without the other (in fact there is plenty of evidence that civility and religiosity are negatively correlated, but that's a whole other issue).

Well at least we know what the next term for creationism is going to be: Teleology!

Teach the controversy!

Alternatives to the Doctor

Garnder Taylor, another columnist with a very different view than M Elliott, writes about the Christianity of the Founders:

"There is not one clear word in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution which refers to the deity in terms of being related to Jesus Christ. In fact many of the people involved in formulation of our political documents were disciples of the English Deists and the French Philosophs [note: no correction necessary], notably lacking in faith in the God who is related in any way to Jesus Christ, who is the heart of the Christian faith."

I guess Mr Taylor does not conclude that the use of the term Divine Providence as a "clear word."

Oh, and by the way,

did Washington, Adams, or Jefferson ever say

You should vote for me, because I am a good Christian?

Is it just me, or does this underline the absurdity of Dr. Elliot's line of argument?

Chris

remember when we were a nation of immigrants?

even the Chinese (are they usually Christians?)

nostalgically
Henry

Well, Dr. Elliott seems to have pulled out all the stops with his last post, and to my mind has revealed himself to be unworthy of refutation. The old false choice of God vs. government as the origin of rights, only now with the added "obligation" to serve God in return for our rights (and how do we know what God wants from us... oh yeah, it's in the Bible!). The Soviet Union as some kind of atheist politicaly vision (now it's even an "Enlightenment-type [God-less] empire" to boot!). The assertion that the Enlightenment is God-less (It's SUPERSTITION-LESS, numbskull! If REASON leads to God, so be it. But belief in REVELATION is a form of superstition.).

As for the multiple posts, perhaps Dr. Elliott is trying out on us the form of argument that worked so well for him. As Dan Dennett says, "Every time you repeat a phrase you make another copy of it in your brain." And as Dan Dennett says, "Every time you repeat a phrase you make another copy of it in your brain."

My 10,000' assessment of the situation is that the colonies, and the country today, was and is demographically Christian, and Christianity has been integral to American life. But the founders were radically UN-CHRISTIAN relative to their peers, and it is the UN-CHRISTIAN-NESS of the founders and their intellectual allegiance to the ideas of people like Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Newton, Cicero and Franklin (who was an intellectual giant before he got actively involved in politics) that is at the heart of the American notion of freedom, liberty and democracy. However, I don't think the Enlightenment really ever spread into the general populace. Instead, what we ended up with is a tension between a minority of relatively more educated people who believe in the Enlightenment, and a majority of people who live according to the Christian bible and who embrace America as patriots, not intellectuals. To them, "freedom" is a slogan.

Look at the cognitive dissonance of Dr. Elliott's 1933 quote: “We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.” Who's to say what the "will of God" is. Since we are a "Christian people" I guess the will of God is outlined in the Christian bible. So our duty is to follow the Christian bible. Well, should we do it literally, stoning people like Paganplace to death? No? Maybe we should just follow the one about having no other gods but the god of Israel. Too bad the Hindoos and Muselmen are shirking their duties; this IS a Christian nation after all. They shouldn't even BE here.

Cause, Reverend. I get the general impression you never missed a meal in your life.

You know who pulls all-nighters trying to save the 'civilization' *you* claim to own?

Someone like me.

Shout all you want.

This is how we live. All of us.

And, speaking of previous decades, ...this is a picture of me... Being disgruntled.... Cause I'm losing sleep, not you, cleaning up after your messes where politics convinced people your devils are involved ... Every time life happens.

Gods.

If I'm gonna do this, I want to come home to my lesbian life and not be worried the ground will get ripped out from under us any more than it usually does.

Understand? Reverend?

WOULD IT HELP IF I LEANED ON THE SHIFT KEY?

Seems you got 'evil' loose in your world.

There is only so much a few Pagans can do to clean up after that noise in reality. You want your 'symphony,' it's about time you heard the horn section.

If you keep saying I am not a real American, *I will die,* you will feel divinely-vindicated, and then talking to people who think Satan is between them and their dish-rack will be on you.

Up for it, sport? It's possible you might find there's more work out there than you 'Reverends' think.

I will note for the good Reverend, though, (again) that at any hour, hitting Post twice rarely helps, and more than twice never helps.

Also. Stay off the capslock. I thought 'Photon Guy' was talking, and the fact that, given the choice I'd rather live in his world than yours notwithstanding,(except, of course, he apparently wants me dead for being queer, too, picky, picky, ).....didn't actually make me want to read any block of text with capsplock, Bible quotes, and, whatever else.

I like using *asterisks* for emphasis. It's cool, it's retro, and I'm shocked to the core when it still makes bold type. :)

I do, however, suspect more than one glitch. :)

All I have to ask is, if the 'Christian Nation' is so perfect, why am I staying up till four in the morning trying to convince people who live up the block to take comfort in the Virgin Mary while thay can't tell the difference between 'bipolar' and 'Satan?'

If you're gonna have a 'Christian Nation' that won't let me have health care, maybe you ought to work that bit out. Cause it's not exactly anything new to me, but it gets kind of insulting doing it whil you're calling me a partisan of your devil and all.

Really insulting.

Is there a technical glitch here?

Is there a technical glitch here?

Dear God - give me a perfect post some day.

First of all, the website's a mess. Something needs to be re-calibrated.

The Deist founding fathers were more the 18th century equivilant of the Einstein Club, rather than any remote comparison to a modern trinitarian Christian - they were that smart.
Einstein might almost be said to be a modern Deist, although the concept of God the creator was not part of his religious equation.

This country was fortunate to have been founded during the Enlightenment period after all, when religion was losing it's clout and REASON was beginnning to prevail. Deists were (in my opinion) closer to pantheists than any Christian group since the Gnostics. After all, the Indian Vedanta and the Upanishads greatly influenced the thinking of the Unitarians which were extant in the latter part of the 18th century and the early 19th century (in their original form). See Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

It's pretty clear the founders incorporated the thinking of Newton and Descarte with the concept of a distant creator (Brahma?) that left our clock-work universe behind for us to deal with. Men must rely on their own power and common sense, rather than supernatural powers, in order to thrive and survive. Thomas Payne told us life and the living of life was our own responsibility.

This was an age of political and philosophical brilliance that has yet to re-appear on our cultural horizon. While these particular men were by no means atheists, their concept of God and religion was not even remotely the same as that found in our modern-day religious (political) hucksters and purveyors of simple-minded religion.

Ladies and gentlemen - don't take our TV life seriously. It's a mirage. What would Thomas Jefferson say about viewing your favorite political personality on a wide-screen Sony??

Many years ago Ronald Reagon was presenting a typically famous speech on TV, and encephalitis patients were queried as to what they thought about this speech (this was exactly at the time the Awakenings/Oliver Sachs book was coming out) -curiously, and as severely disabled as these patients were, their ability to spot falsity and insincerity via the spoken word was infallible -the entire group was completely overcome with fits of hysterical laughter....virtually every word spoken was a complete lie and total fabrication (this is a savant-like ability that was akin to the Dusten Hoffman 'Rainman' talents seen in the movie by that title).

Would that we all had such talents -

First of all, the website's a mess. Something needs to be re-calibrated.

The Deist founding fathers were more the 18th century equivilant of the Einstein Club, rather than any remote comparison to a modern trinitarian Christian - they were that smart.
Einstein might almost be said to be a modern Deist, although the concept of God the creator was not part of his religious equation.

This country was fortunate to have been founded during the Enlightenment period after all, when religion was losing it's clout and REASON was beginnning to prevail. Deists were (in my opinion) closer to pantheists than any Christian group since the Gnostics. After all, the Indian Vedanta and the Upanishads greatly influenced the thinking of the Unitarians which were extant in the latter part of the 18th century and the early 19th century (in their original form). See Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

It's pretty clear the founders incorporated the thinking of Newton and Descarte with the concept of a distant creator (Brahma?) that left our clock-work universe behind for us to deal with. Men must rely on their own power and common sense, rather than supernatural powers, in order to thrive and survive. Thomas Payne told us life and the living of life was our own responsibility.

This was an age of political and philosophical brilliance that has yet to re-appear on our cultural horizon. While these particular men were by no means atheists, their concept of God and religion was not even remotely the same as that found in our modern-day religious (political) hucksters and purveyors of simple-minded religion.

Ladies and gentlemen - don't take our TV life seriously. It's a mirage. What would Thomas Jefferson say about viewing your favorite political personality on a wide-screen Sony??

Many years ago Ronald Reagon was presenting a typically famous speech on TV, and encephalitis patients were queried as to what they thought about this speech (this was exactly at the time the Awakenings/Oliver Sachs book was coming out) -curiously, and as severely disabled as these patients were, their ability to spot falsity and insincerity via the spoken word was infallible -the entire group was completely overcome with fits of hysterical laughter....virtually every word spoken was a complete lie and total fabrication (this is a savant-like ability that was akin to the Dusten Hoffman 'Rainman' talents seen in the movie by that title).

Would that we all had such talents -

First of all, the website's a mess. Something needs to be re-calibrated.

The Deist founding fathers were more the 18th century equivilant of the Einstein Club, rather than any remote comparison to a modern trinitarian Christian - they were that smart.
Einstein might almost be said to be a modern Deist, although the concept of God the creator was not part of his religious equation.

This country was fortunate to have been founded during the Enlightenment period after all, when religion was losing it's clout and REASON was beginnning to prevail. Deists were (in my opinion) closer to pantheists than any Christian group since the Gnostics. After all, the Indian Vedanta and the Upanishads greatly influenced the thinking of the Unitarians which were extant in the latter part of the 18th century and the early 19th century (in their original form). See Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

It's pretty clear the founders incorporated the thinking of Newton and Descarte with the concept of a distant creator (Brahma?) that left our clock-work universe behind for us to deal with. Men must rely on their own power and common sense, rather than supernatural powers, in order to thrive and survive. Thomas Payne told us life and the living of life was our own responsibility.

This was an age of political and philosophical brilliance that has yet to re-appear on our cultural horizon. While these particular men were by no means atheists, their concept of God and religion was not even remotely the same as that found in our modern-day religious (political) hucksters and purveyors of simple-minded religion.

Ladies and gentlemen - don't take our TV life seriously. It's a mirage. What would Thomas Jefferson say about viewing your favorite political personality on a wide-screen Sony??

Many years ago Ronald Reagon was presenting a typically famous speech on TV, and encephalitis patients were queried as to what they thought about this speech (this was exactly at the time the Awakenings/Oliver Sachs book was coming out) -curiously, and as severely disabled as these patients were, their ability to spot falsity and insincerity via the spoken word was infallible -the entire group was completely overcome with fits of hysterical laughter....virtually every word spoken was a complete lie and total fabrication (this is a savant-like ability that was akin to the Dusten Hoffman 'Rainman' talents seen in the movie by that title).

Would that we all had such talents -

HENRY JAMES

Well, this difference in FACT:
You say
Our founding constitution says NOTHING about the christian church being our underpinning, nor does the declaration, and congress in the legislation from the 1790's reaffirms that.
Referring to God as “Providence”—as in the Declaration’s “with a firm reliance on Divine Providence”—IS specifically Christian in early American literature, including founding documents.
AND this difference of OPINION:
You say
Should we Privilege Christian Values because a majority of the founding fathers were Christian, even though the constitution mandates no establishment, which I assume means either explicit or implicit?
ON YOUR SECOND CLAUSE: “No establishment” is precise, EXPLICIT legal language facing the fact that more than half of the American states had (explicit, legal) church establishments.

Jon Meacham in AMERICAN GOSPEL put it well: “God is central to this country’s experience, but faith is a matter of choice, not coercion.” The “God” he speaks of is the biblical deity, & the “choice” was at the federal level: at the state level, until 1833 you couldn’t vote in MA unless you were a member in good standing of a Congregational church (which was coercion by denial of suffrage); & our salaries, mine & my wife’s—as Congregational clergy in MA until our recent move to NE—would have been paid by the state government (which is coercion by denial of income to unestablished clergy).

ON YOUR FIRST CLAUSE: The reason Americans today should “privilege Christian values” is not just for nostalgia, old times’ sake, but because of the essential correlation of those values (i.e., the values of biblical religion) with the Enlightenment to form THE AMERICAN MIND, specifically the American understanding of ‘FREEDOM,” which is the heart in the body of THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

1 The American understanding of freedom is that we human beings are free not as autonomous beings but as creatures: our rights are (as the Declaration of Independence says) “Creator”-given by
”Nature’s God”: here, the merger of the biblical “Creator” & the Enlightenment “Nature.” Notice:
(1) Our rights are not government-given. If they were, we would be “obliged” to, as servants of, the state (as in etatism); since they are not, government is our servant, a tool of “We the People.”
(2) Our rights are GOD-given. Since they are, we are—like it or not—“obliged” to, as servants of, GOD. The idea that we are free from God (as “unbelievers”) is (a) an un-American divestment of the religion side of the Bible+Enlightenment American Mind & (b) a replacement of under-God liberty by the Enlightenment’s God-less liberty as autonomy (which is what the snake promised Adam & Eve [Genesis 3]). In the American Mind, creaturehood & liberty are inseparable: God intends & gives freedom “under God” (which was a precise 1953 addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, as in the Cold War we confronted an Enlightenment-type [God-less] empire, the Soviet Union).
(3) As “state” is the institutional form of power, “church” is the institution form of COUNTER-BALANCING piety. So, in an American formula, “No Creator, no [creature-]freedom.”
(4) I fear to get too technical here, but I must say that scholars name the difference the teleology/autonomy distinction. (TELEOLOGY is the latest element in the evolution debate: we antievolutionists claim that mere “natural selection—survival of the fittest” misses the fact of function-as-purposive: a machine or a worm is built to a specific “end” [Greek “telos,” result-of-purpose]. Theologically, the creation expresses the purposes of the Creator; ethically, the creatures are, to the extent of their consciousness, to conform their lives to the Creator’s purposes through the exercise of their GOD-GIVEN rights.)
(5) This Christian understanding of freedom was taught in America’s public schools (e.g., by the McGuffey Readers) before “secular humanism” succeeded in replacing it with the present atheist understanding of freedom as AUTONOMY (Greek, “self-law,” the self as law unto itself). This converted our public schools into enemies of the American Mind, & we are witnessing a deepening alienation between American public education & the American public. The “church” has been losing the war against the “state”; & at present, the “church” is enlisting more troops than the “state”--& the “church” wants the White House so we can pack the Supreme Court, which has been moving to the right. I say “we”: I prefer the American Mind with its wider-“we” marriage of Bible+Enlightenment; but when divorce occurs, I become a “Christian soldier” against the Enlightenment soldiers, the secularists. I pray & work of an armistice, a return to the American Mind--& there are evidences that may come as both sides are increasingly frightened—the right, of secularism; the left, of theocracy.)

2 I close with evidence that the war is recent & UNNECESSARY. Two quotes from not-too-old Supreme Court decisions:

1933: “We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.” The American mind in nuce: THE BALANCE!

1954, (liberal!) Chief Justice Warren Burger: “No one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book [the Bible] and the Spirit of the Savior [Jesus] have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.” All the colonies’ charters call us “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

is it my imagination

or did Dr Elliott just submit the same post
EIGHT TIMES??????????

i think that is just about a record on this site, don't you?

Dr Elliot indicatess that because the Declaration uses the term “divine providence, which was a Christian Term, therefore there is some implication that the nation is officially Christian. Many of us would not go that far with him.

Jon Meacham is quoted by Dr E saying “God is central to this country’s experience.” Yes. Probably has been. Does that mean that the political realm, where Separation is mandated, should have God be central to the political process?

Kennedy did not think so. Few of us on this site think so. It seems that Dr E thinks so.

I think that a candidate who keeps his religious views private, and who runs for office on moral and political and economic bases is more in line with the letter and spirit of the constitution, and the kind of republic the founders intended, than is one who thinks he has to broadcast that he is a good Christian. Again, Kennedy agreed with me. Romney is no Jack Kennedy.

American values of freedom have to be tied to Religious values? Baloney. Locke and Hume and other political philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries were much more influential on the political philosophy of Jefferson and Madison than was Jesus, George Bush’s favorite political philosopher.

To be continued

HENRY JAMES

Well, this difference in FACT:
You say
Our founding constitution says NOTHING about the christian church being our underpinning, nor does the declaration, and congress in the legislation from the 1790's reaffirms that.
Referring to God as “Providence”—as in the Declaration’s “with a firm reliance on Divine Providence”—IS specifically Christian in early American literature, including founding documents.
AND this difference of OPINION:
You say
Should we Privilege Christian Values because a majority of the founding fathers were Christian, even though the constitution mandates no establishment, which I assume means either explicit or implicit?
ON YOUR SECOND CLAUSE: “No establishment” is precise, EXPLICIT legal language facing the fact that more than half of the American states had (explicit, legal) church establishments.

Jon Meacham in AMERICAN GOSPEL put it well: “God is central to this country’s experience, but faith is a matter of choice, not coercion.” The “God” he speaks of is the biblical deity, & the “choice” was at the federal level: at the state level, until 1833 you couldn’t vote in MA unless you were a member in good standing of a Congregational church (which was coercion by denial of suffrage); & our salaries, mine & my wife’s—as Congregational clergy in MA until our recent move to NE—would have been paid by the state government (which is coercion by denial of income to unestablished clergy).

ON YOUR FIRST CLAUSE: The reason Americans today should “privilege Christian values” is not just for nostalgia, old times’ sake, but because of the essential correlation of those values (i.e., the values of biblical religion) with the Enlightenment to form THE AMERICAN MIND, specifically the American understanding of ‘FREEDOM,” which is the heart in the body of THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

1 The American understanding of freedom is that we human beings are free not as autonomous beings but as creatures: our rights are (as the Declaration of Independence says) “Creator”-given by
”Nature’s God”: here, the merger of the biblical “Creator” & the Enlightenment “Nature.” Notice:
(1) Our rights are not government-given. If they were, we would be “obliged” to, as servants of, the state (as in etatism); since they are not, government is our servant, a tool of “We the People.”
(2) Our rights are GOD-given. Since they are, we are—like it or not—“obliged” to, as servants of, GOD. The idea that we are free from God (as “unbelievers”) is (a) an un-American divestment of the religion side of the Bible+Enlightenment American Mind & (b) a replacement of under-God liberty by the Enlightenment’s God-less liberty as autonomy (which is what the snake promised Adam & Eve [Genesis 3]). In the American Mind, creaturehood & liberty are inseparable: God intends & gives freedom “under God” (which was a precise 1953 addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, as in the Cold War we confronted an Enlightenment-type [God-less] empire, the Soviet Union).
(3) As “state” is the institutional form of power, “church” is the institution form of COUNTER-BALANCING piety. So, in an American formula, “No Creator, no [creature-]freedom.”
(4) I fear to get too technical here, but I must say that scholars name the difference the teleology/autonomy distinction. (TELEOLOGY is the latest element in the evolution debate: we antievolutionists claim that mere “natural selection—survival of the fittest” misses the fact of function-as-purposive: a machine or a worm is built to a specific “end” [Greek “telos,” result-of-purpose]. Theologically, the creation expresses the purposes of the Creator; ethically, the creatures are, to the extent of their consciousness, to conform their lives to the Creator’s purposes through the exercise of their GOD-GIVEN rights.)
(5) This Christian understanding of freedom was taught in America’s public schools (e.g., by the McGuffey Readers) before “secular humanism” succeeded in replacing it with the present atheist understanding of freedom as AUTONOMY (Greek, “self-law,” the self as law unto itself). This converted our public schools into enemies of the American Mind, & we are witnessing a deepening alienation between American public education & the American public. The “church” has been losing the war against the “state”; & at present, the “church” is enlisting more troops than the “state”--& the “church” wants the White House so we can pack the Supreme Court, which has been moving to the right. I say “we”: I prefer the American Mind with its wider-“we” marriage of Bible+Enlightenment; but when divorce occurs, I become a “Christian soldier” against the Enlightenment soldiers, the secularists. I pray & work of an armistice, a return to the American Mind--& there are evidences that may come as both sides are increasingly frightened—the right, of secularism; the left, of theocracy.)

2 I close with evidence that the war is recent & UNNECESSARY. Two quotes from not-too-old Supreme Court decisions:

1933: “We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.” The American mind in nuce: THE BALANCE!

1954, (liberal!) Chief Justice Warren Burger: “No one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book [the Bible] and the Spirit of the Savior [Jesus] have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.” All the colonies’ charters call us “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

HENRY JAMES

Well, this difference in FACT:
You say
Our founding constitution says NOTHING about the christian church being our underpinning, nor does the declaration, and congress in the legislation from the 1790's reaffirms that.
Referring to God as “Providence”—as in the Declaration’s “with a firm reliance on Divine Providence”—IS specifically Christian in early American literature, including founding documents.
AND this difference of OPINION:
You say
Should we Privilege Christian Values because a majority of the founding fathers were Christian, even though the constitution mandates no establishment, which I assume means either explicit or implicit?
ON YOUR SECOND CLAUSE: “No establishment” is precise, EXPLICIT legal language facing the fact that more than half of the American states had (explicit, legal) church establishments.

Jon Meacham in AMERICAN GOSPEL put it well: “God is central to this country’s experience, but faith is a matter of choice, not coercion.” The “God” he speaks of is the biblical deity, & the “choice” was at the federal level: at the state level, until 1833 you couldn’t vote in MA unless you were a member in good standing of a Congregational church (which was coercion by denial of suffrage); & our salaries, mine & my wife’s—as Congregational clergy in MA until our recent move to NE—would have been paid by the state government (which is coercion by denial of income to unestablished clergy).

ON YOUR FIRST CLAUSE: The reason Americans today should “privilege Christian values” is not just for nostalgia, old times’ sake, but because of the essential correlation of those values (i.e., the values of biblical religion) with the Enlightenment to form THE AMERICAN MIND, specifically the American understanding of ‘FREEDOM,” which is the heart in the body of THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

1 The American understanding of freedom is that we human beings are free not as autonomous beings but as creatures: our rights are (as the Declaration of Independence says) “Creator”-given by
”Nature’s God”: here, the merger of the biblical “Creator” & the Enlightenment “Nature.” Notice:
(1) Our rights are not government-given. If they were, we would be “obliged” to, as servants of, the state (as in etatism); since they are not, government is our servant, a tool of “We the People.”
(2) Our rights are GOD-given. Since they are, we are—like it or not—“obliged” to, as servants of, GOD. The idea that we are free from God (as “unbelievers”) is (a) an un-American divestment of the religion side of the Bible+Enlightenment American Mind & (b) a replacement of under-God liberty by the Enlightenment’s God-less liberty as autonomy (which is what the snake promised Adam & Eve [Genesis 3]). In the American Mind, creaturehood & liberty are inseparable: God intends & gives freedom “under God” (which was a precise 1953 addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, as in the Cold War we confronted an Enlightenment-type [God-less] empire, the Soviet Union).
(3) As “state” is the institutional form of power, “church” is the institution form of COUNTER-BALANCING piety. So, in an American formula, “No Creator, no [creature-]freedom.”
(4) I fear to get too technical here, but I must say that scholars name the difference the teleology/autonomy distinction. (TELEOLOGY is the latest element in the evolution debate: we antievolutionists claim that mere “natural selection—survival of the fittest” misses the fact of function-as-purposive: a machine or a worm is built to a specific “end” [Greek “telos,” result-of-purpose]. Theologically, the creation expresses the purposes of the Creator; ethically, the creatures are, to the extent of their consciousness, to conform their lives to the Creator’s purposes through the exercise of their GOD-GIVEN rights.)
(5) This Christian understanding of freedom was taught in America’s public schools (e.g., by the McGuffey Readers) before “secular humanism” succeeded in replacing it with the present atheist understanding of freedom as AUTONOMY (Greek, “self-law,” the self as law unto itself). This converted our public schools into enemies of the American Mind, & we are witnessing a deepening alienation between American public education & the American public. The “church” has been losing the war against the “state”; & at present, the “church” is enlisting more troops than the “state”--& the “church” wants the White House so we can pack the Supreme Court, which has been moving to the right. I say “we”: I prefer the American Mind with its wider-“we” marriage of Bible+Enlightenment; but when divorce occurs, I become a “Christian soldier” against the Enlightenment soldiers, the secularists. I pray & work of an armistice, a return to the American Mind--& there are evidences that may come as both sides are increasingly frightened—the right, of secularism; the left, of theocracy.)

2 I close with evidence that the war is recent & UNNECESSARY. Two quotes from not-too-old Supreme Court decisions:

1933: “We are a Christian people, according to one another the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of God.” The American mind in nuce: THE BALANCE!

1954, (liberal!) Chief Justice Warren Burger: “No one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book [the Bible] and the Spirit of the Savior [Jesus] have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.” All the colonies’ charters call us “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.”

HENRY JAMES

Well, this difference in FACT:
You say
Our founding constitution says NOTHING about the christian church being our underpinning, nor does the declaration, and congress in the legislation from the 1790's reaffirms that.
Referring to God as “Providence”—as in the Declaration’s “with a firm reliance on Divine Providence”—IS specifically Christian in early American literature, including founding documents.
AND this difference of OPINION:
You say
Should we Privilege Christian Values because a majority of the founding fathers were Christian, even though the constitution mandates no establishment, which I assume means either explicit or implicit?
ON YOUR SECOND CLAUSE: “No establishment” is precise, EXPLICIT legal language facing the fact that more than half of the American states had (explicit, legal) church establishments.

Jon Meacham in AMERICAN GOSPEL put it well: “God is central to this country’s experience, but faith is a matter of choice, not coercion.” The “God” he speaks of is the biblical deity, & the “choice” was at the federal level: at the state level, until 1833 you couldn’t vote in MA unless you were a member in good standing of a Congregational church (which was coercion by denial of suffrage); & our salaries, mine & my wife’s—as Congregational clergy in MA until our recent move to NE—would have been paid by the state government (which is coercion by denial of income to unestablished clergy).

ON YOUR FIRST CLAUSE: The reason Americans today should “privilege Christian values” is not just for nostalgia, old times’ sake, but because of the essential correlation of those values (i.e., the values of biblical religion) with the Enlightenment to form THE AMERICAN MIND, specifically the American understanding of ‘FREEDOM,” which is the heart in the body of THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

1 The American understanding of freedom is that we human beings are free not as autonomous beings but as creature