Reality Check On America's Christian Heritage

I see the Founders as men of their times, still grappling to wrap their heads around an understanding of The Enlightenment. It's not surprising that their language still made use of symbology hanging over from the Dark and Middle Ages. That was natural considering their environments, education, and the publications of their day and prior which they built upon. They weren't so shallow as to throw the baby out with the bathwater willy-nilly and they realized these still contained much thought provoking wisdom.

I think you may be fooling yourself to imagine they rejected the same from other cultures at the time. Their thinking was preceded by and overlapped the Scientific Revolution and the work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, and Isaac Newton, among others, as well as the rationalist philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and John Locke. But they also looked to other religions in the Middle and Far East.

Much of what you seem to be advocating didn't come from them but instead the failed and cast off of the southern colonies who became sharecroppers on the fringes of plantation society and the Scots-Irish late arrivals. These both embraced a crude Fundamentalist philosophy rather light on education and historical perspective.

In contrast the Founders explored and became invested in a range of social ideas centered on the value of knowledge learned by way of rationalism and of empiricism and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. They widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffeehouses and in printed books, journals, and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and religious officials and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries throughout the West.

Franklin in particular had little patience for the "churched" and their churches.

 

Appreciate your time, thoughtful insight, and writing skills Jacob Petersheim, but we have different sources of history that form significantly different conclusions. I have no further desire to counter your world view, which by the way is the perspective taught and accepted these days by the majority of people and educational institutions. I pray regularly though that God will preserve America's Christian heritage that was so prevalent in the past but rejected and opposed during my own, short lifetime. It's a sad trend to see from a Christian perspective.

 

According to the polls, abortion is the a big issue only among wealthy white women. For most others the border and the economy "trump" abortion.

 

Did you see that there has now formed a "Methodists for Kamala" movement @John Brunner ?

 

I do think Chrisitan faith was in the US Constitution.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=68bf...XVzLWNvbnN0aXR1dGlvbi0xMTM4NDg0MS5odG1s&ntb=1

 

Good article Marie, with many historical truths. One point not brought out is that the U.S. Constitution, though having subtle references to Christianity, wasn't meant to address religious matters. It was presumed at that time that all religious matters were to be left up to the states; thus, a document addressing a new Federal government had no business detailing religious matters beyond the First Amendment - which was written to ensure feedom of religion, not freedom from it.

America stayed that way until a liberal 1947 Supreme Court ruled that Federal law overules state laws in religious matters. That was the start of our nation's moral decline, forcing a secularization upon the entire populace.

 

Point proven! Full of knowledge and historical fact's.
Remember this other quote by Alexis de Tocqueville,


" I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her fertile fields and boundless forests, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her public school system and her institutions of learning, and it was not there. I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."

 

We had enemies within who despised Christianity also. Any of you ever read the story about the Federal Reserve, which of course isn't 'federal and never was,


https://www.bing.com/aclk?ld=e8Si9y...Q&rlid=0447056531381a5e85d362707c0d8d1e&ntb=1


While Jekyll Island might sound like something out of horror fiction, the island is a real place—and popular resort—in the state of Georgia. But author Edward Griffin argues that it was also the birthplace of a horrifying finance cartel disguised as a government agency: the Federal Reserve System. Griffin believes the Fed destabilizes the economy and encourages banks to engage in fraudulent practices that harm the general public and benefit elite financiers.

In our guide to The Creature from Jekyll Island, we’ll consider Griffin’s theories about the conspiracy of financiers that he says created—and continues to control—the Federal Reserve. Then we’ll review his