The Most Dangerous Hypocrite

Does our society suffer more on account of “hypocritical pretenders to religion or by the openly profane?" Given the relatively recent resurgence of the religious right in all branches of government, this question is no less relevant now than when it was originally posed.

Here are a few (mildly paraphrased into modern English) of Benjamin Franklin’s thoughts on the matter, excerpted from Albert Henry Smyth’s collection of Franklin’s writings:

[A] public hypocrite every say deceives his betters, and makes them the ignorant trumpeters of his supposed Godliness: They take him for a Saint, and pass him for one, without considering that they are (as it were) the instruments of public mischief out of conscience, and ruin their country for God’s sake.

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[T]he most dangerous Hypocrite in a Commonwealth, is one who leaves the Gospel for the sake of the Law: A Man compounded of Law and Gospel, is able to cheat a whole Country with his Religion, and then destroy them under color of Law: And here the Clergy are in great Danger of being deceived, and the People of being deceived by the Clergy, until the Monster arrives to such Power and Wealth, that he is out of the reach of both, and can oppress the People without their own blind Assistance."

I wonder what Franklin would say to Huckabee's grassroots groundswell, or Obama's faith in faith-based programs, or McCain's explicit conflation of Church and State?

Progress in Religious Liberty

James Madison, in a letter to Edward Livingston dated July 10th, 1822:

Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Govt. & Religion neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst. And in a Govt. of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

Here is the part to bear in mind when imparting the profundity of the founders to future freethinkers:

Perfect separation! Not partial separation, not merely neutrality in funding various religious programs, but perfect, utter, absolute separation between affairs of state and church.

How sublime!

Question with boldness!

When the door-to-door Baptists came to my porch last weekend, I tried to explain why we are no longer their coreligionists. Alas, I neglected to mention that my own apostasy was primarily the result of following the path laid out by Thomas Jefferson some centuries earlier:

Full original page image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Transcribed letter courtesy of UVA’s Electronic Text Center

Here is the keynote excerpt:

[S]hake off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them. But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from god. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature…

Honestly, I cannot fathom why my evangelical friends and neighbors continue to insist that they are honoring our Founding Fathers by narrowing our national discourse to the confines of ancient monotheism. Thus far we have seen George Washington heartily approving of atheists, John Adams marginalizing the central dogma of Christianity, and now we have Thomas Jefferson encouraging the widest possible scope of rationalist freethinking upon one of his protégés, even to the point of deliberately courting atheism. Can the narrative possible get any worse for those (e.g. John McCain) who claim that America was founded as a Christian nation?

You bet it can! James Madison is up next.

Operation Infinite Justice

An excerpt from the diary of John Adams:

February 13, 1756
Major Greene this Evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ.

All the Argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature, or finite Being, could not make Satisfaction to infinite justice, for any Crimes," and that "these things are very misterious."

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Here we have a luminous thinker and future founding father privately recording his impression of Greene's argument in favor of the "Divinity and Satisfaction of Jesus Christ," that is, the Christian doctrines that Jesus was God (in some mysterious sense) and that Jesus died so as satisfy the "infinite justice" of God as to the many and various crimes of humankind. Greene's argument is one formulated originally by St. Anselm and which apologists use to this day.

What did Adams think of the idea that Jesus was in fact an incarnation of deity, sent to earth in order to vicariously satisfy God's "infinite justice" by sacrificing himself on the cross?

"...thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

Absurdity, indeed! The idea that a supremely wise and benevolent deity finds himself incapable of forgiving his own creatures without first having the satisfaction of killing himself (in human form) in order to slake his own sense of honor/justice/blood-thirst buggers the mind and beggars all imagination. It is no great surprise, then, that the practitioners of preistcraft have tirelessly endeavored to cover up the absurdity of their position with the blanket claim that such things are so very mysterious as to be beyond our impoverished mortal ken.

Scholars of the Adamses have noted many positive comments on the Christian religion, and there can be no reasonable doubt that he and Abigail held a positive view of the virtues of public piety and the ability of religion to promote morality. That said, one should always be careful not to imply that he held to an orthodox and traditional view of Christian dogma.

On whom one ought to indenture

Atheists can have good character after all!

[see original letter for full context]

Consider for a moment the implications of the letter excerpted below. Not only was the illustrious Father of our Nation willing to hire indentured Germans of any religion or none (thereby giving them the opportunity to become American citizens) but he also recognized that personal disposition and moral character are attributes wholly independent of one's particular religion or sect.

George Washington, in a letter dated 24 March 1784:

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I am informed that a Ship with Palatines is gone up to Baltimore, among whom are a number of Tradesmen. I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me.

I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of any Sect, or they may be Atheists.

I would however prefer middle aged, to young men and those who have good countenances and good characters on ship board, to others who have neither of these to recommend them, altho, after all, the proof of the pudding must be in the eating.

If only our modern politicians were so enlightened!

Founders, Framers, Freethinkers

Which of America’s foundational figures are those most worthy of close examination? Joseph J. Ellis has expounded upon the emergence of those heroic figures who originally “deserved to be inducted into…the American pantheon.” (Passionate Sage, p. 212) starting of course with the apotheosis of George Washington followed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Later, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin were joined to the constellation of great American luminaries, even as the first generation of founders passed from life into living memory. These six figures, commonly considered the most influential and defining figures of the founding/framing generation, are the primary subjects of a book by Brooke Allen titled Moral Minority – America’s Skeptical Founding Fathers, which I heartily recommend to anyone interested in the emergent mythology of Christian Nationalism. Contra Novak, these six men were those most prominent in the American pantheon (among scholars and laypersons alike) for generations before Allen was born, rather than hand-picked by her on account of confirmation bias. These six men are those whose lives and characters are most apposite to the question of whether this nation was founded on secular or sectarian principles, regardless of how Allen or Novak happen to feel about them.

If one takes the time to “go back to primary sources,” as State Rep. Sally Kern has so often recommended, one will find that not one of these men was a professing Christian during the time of the national founding and constitutional framing. Indeed, only one of them turned back to Christianity in the twilight of his life, that is, Alexander Hamilton. This is unsurprising to those who study American history, since of all the great luminaries of his generation Hamilton was the most comfortable with the idea of a strong authority concentrating power at the centre of things and having dominion over all aspects of life. To a Jeffersonian, these are fighting words, but Hamilton was not among those devotees of liberty who considered John Locke a far greater man than Julius Cæsar.