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Christianity Today, March (Web-only), 2008 |

Speaking Out

The Evangelical Founding Fathers

Remember the concerns of those to whom Jefferson wrote on the separation of church and state.

Steven Waldman | posted 3/25/2008 08:42AM

Much attention has been paid to the idea that evangelical Christians are, politically, in motion. Only 29 percent of "born-again" Christians now say they support Republicans, compared to 62 percent in ...

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John McAdams

Posted: March 29, 2008 12:13 PM

Waldman simply doesn't understand modern conflicts. The issue is not whether government should "promote" religion -- although the secular militants see government promotion in even-handed treatment of religion. We have government promoting a gay aganda, telling Christian kids in public schools that the Christian view of homosexuality is wrong. We have Christian groups being denied use of public facilities, while secular groups have full access. The Founders never dreamed that this would happen. They would be appalled that it's happening.

Greg	Posted: March 29, 2008 11:29 AM

I am simply wondering when evangelicals will wake up to the fact that the very heroes mentioned in this article would also REJECT the entanglement with government under IRS 501 3(c) recognition. None of these Baptists would have approved of recieving tax "incentives" in exchange for agreeing to censor speech from pulpits, regardless of the content being censored. 20th-21st century evangelicalism is a sell out. And this nation is about to reap the fruit that the evangelical sell outs have sown by mingling church seed with state seed.

Ryan	Posted: March 26, 2008 9:40 PM


What Leroy fails to mention is that our understanding of the text is progressive, just like our now belief that slavery is wrong & women have the right to vote. The passage cited is very clear there is a separation: how that is applied is part of Baptistic history for 400 years & is part of every demoninational statement of belief that I know of.

John H. Woolwine

Posted: March 26, 2008 9:22 PM


Will the author of this please explain: What "bill of rights" did he Baptists have in mind in 1784? When was the Bill of Rights added to our U.S. Constitution? What did Thomas Jefferson have to do with Madison's response to Patrick Henry's proposal? Where was Thomas Jefferson in 1784 and 1785? When did he return to this continent? Why are we so ignorant of American history?

Darrell

Posted: March 26, 2008 1:10 PM

Thanks for your thoughtful article. Prayer in schools would either be sectarian, or bland and meaningless. Neither appeals to me. A moment of silence, however, seems entirely appropriate. The phrase "wall of separation" has assumed the function of an unconsitituional, unratified amendment. Here is the actual text: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. These 2 clauses are equal, for good reason, although recent courts have not treated them this way.

Bobby N. Hill

Posted: March 26, 2008 7:25 AM

We could let Obama and Clinton have a duel as many of our founding fathers did at that time. I agree that the wall of separation is a good thing, but let's look at the entire atmosphere of the time. Prayer in government, the schools were not public, and men, even the elitiest Jefferson, knew from whence we came. The problem with the pushing of God out of the public arena started with the father of modern education. Another elitist and hater of God, John Dewey. He is a central reason our government, public education, and society is so anti-religion and education is so fundementally a failure.

Ted Voth Jr

Posted: March 25, 2008 11:43 PM


Amen. 5 stars. The Constantinian Establishment was the worst thing that ever happened to the Church.

Howard Pepper

Posted: March 25, 2008 2:09 PM

I think the historical reminders and the perspectives of this article are very helpful. I heard the author interviewed in depth on National Public Radio, and found him to have done extensive and careful research, and to share important findings in an objective way. I expect his book, Founding Faith, to be a very valuable contribution. The interview also revealed why he may not be as precise in theological or biblical understanding as some of the commenters expected... he apparently is not a Christian. I foget what he said had been his religious upbringing or affiliation, if any, but I believe he said he is Jewish... not sure. He is co-founder of beliefnet.com, so seems to have a commitment toward interfaith respect and cooperation, which I applaud and also support. As to one possible confusion about the article, shown by one commenter, Waldman does NOT consider Jefferson or Madison "evangelicals," but mentions that evangelicals sometimes allied with them.

Larry Craig

Posted: March 25, 2008 1:33 PM

The meanings of 'church' and 'establishment' have changed considerably since the founding of our nation. 'Church' has now come to mean anything that relates to God or religion, and 'establishment' now refers to anything that suggests approval by the government for anything religious. The basic meaning of the First Amendment was that Congress (N.B.) would not establish a national religion, like the Church of England. What they called religion is what we would call denominations today. Bible reading and prayers in school were common for the first 200 years of our country, and NOW all of a sudden they are found to be unconstitutional ? The first act of the first Congress was to call for a Day of Prayer. Our country was anything but a secular nation. It acknowledged its dependence and gratitude toward God. This article does not go far enough in telling the whole story of those early generations.

Dr RA Blacketer

Posted: March 25, 2008 12:34 PM

It's pretty hard to take an article seriously that describes Thomas Jefferson as an evangelical. The very thought is ridiculous. Jefferson was hostile to orthodox Christianity, and that fact is well established. Moreover, this comment is rather problemmatic: "For Madison and Jefferson, individual liberty trumped the rights of kings or governments; for evangelicals, an individual's personal relationship with God was more important than church and clerical authority." The author seems to be projecting his political individualism into his ecclesiology, or lack thereof. The obsession with one's "personal relationship with God," to the detriment of the body of believers and the Christian community, is a later development, and not a particularly healthy one at that. Overall, not a terribly helpful article.

Stephen Leonard

Posted: March 25, 2008 12:19 PM

It is not "establishment" of religion that is the problem today, it is the infringement and downright hostility of a secular government and judiciary toward the freedom of religion and worship that is the evil the country faces today. There is a purposeful intent to drive religion, let me rephrase that, Christianity in particular, out of the marketplace. This was never the case, no matter how one sees the early years of this nation, among the founding fathers.

Leroy

Posted: March 25, 2008 12:18 PM

Overall, this is a ridiculous article when belies the author's ignorance as revealed by this line "Christians were to render unto Caesar what was his — the religious and political spheres were meant, by Jesus, to be separate." The concept of separation of church and state would have been completely incomprehensible to anyone living in the 1st century. This text has nothing to do with such a concept, but rather with the relationship betweens one's allegiances and resources. This author's misunderstanding is typical of someone with zero understanding of the historical context of the gospels, no understanding of basis hermeneutics and a desire to find biblical support for one's personal views and understandings without being willing to actually study, read and understand the text. The notion of the separation of church and state springs not for the biblical text, but from the Enlightenment. That the author is ignorant of this, belies his ignorance of the history of ideas.

Rick	Posted: March 25, 2008 12:07 PM

A little history always goes a long ways towards gaining healthy perspective - especially amidst today's near daily reminders from pop Christian emails that the gov't taking away prayer in schools was the true watershed moment of American's decline into the abyss. In one sense, the political clout of Evangelicals today is actually a direct result of us thriving in a free market place of ideas - a free market bequeathed to us by a rag tag bunch of Christians, Deists and Revolutionaries who loved liberty more than anything. It's ironic then that we who have thrived in that system would want to use gov't to favor us alone. If we do, we'll kill the goose that laid the golden egg and, as our forefathers feared, relive the evils of the Church's slide into institutionalism and error after Constantine. Observing the jingoistic faith of so many Americas which passes as Biblical Christianity, we're probably already half way there.

Paul	Posted: March 25, 2008 12:03 PM

Separation was meant to keep the government from establishing a church, a denomination .. a religion .. but it was never meant to keep God out of our society. Unfortunately our government leaders are grossly misinterpreting the "separation of church and state" to mean we take God out of everything in America. Every state constitution has God written into it, and for good reason. And if it was important to establishing America and creating 50 United STATES of America, it's even more important today to have God in government and public social life than ever before .. "One Nation under God" .. and "In God we Trust" are and should stibe very vital parts of our American society. "God bless America" .. and He has. Why would we ever want to get rid of a good thing?

Jud	Posted: March 25, 2008 11:34 AM


Nicely done.

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