[Magdalen] 239th year since the birth of the United States of America as a nation

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

The religion of the Founding Fathers has been often discussed, and opinions
differ.

The bottom line is this:

Our Constitution -- in our case, a very specific document -- is what drives
our laws.  Jimmy Madison did most of the homework for that document.

If he were a staunch member of the RCC, if he were a member of the Jewish
faith, if he were an ordinary deist, if he were a convicted atheist, it
makes no difference. The Constitution is what the Constitution is.
Religious faith or lack thereof in those who wrote and those who ratified
it is utterly trivial.

In this case, the document is purely what the document is, like it or not.
To say anyone was a Christian or an agnostic or whatever does not change
the writing on the page.  The writing on the page, the words on the page,
are all that matters.  Speculation about the religious views of the people
involved is certainly a fascinating exercise, but it does not impact on the
meaning of the Constitution.  At. All.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 7:48 AM, Zephonites--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
> Folk
>
> Interesting article on this matter
>
> Any one agree with any/all of it?
>
> Blessings
> Martin
>
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> America celebrates her 239th birthday tomorrow.  According to a  recent
> survey, nearly two in three Americans say God has granted our nation  an
> exceptional role in human history.  Is this true?
>
> Charles  Murray earned a BA in history from Harvard and a PhD in political
> science from  MIT.  In American Exceptionism: An Experiment in History, he
> states  categorically: "American exceptionalism is a fact of America's
> past,
> not  something you can choose whether to 'believe in' any more than you can
> choose  whether to 'believe in' the battle of Gettysburg."  In its early
> years, the  United States was considered to be "exceptional" by foreign
> observers as much as  by Americans.
>
> According to Murray, four factors contributed to the  nation's uniqueness:
> 1. Our  geography: rich soil for farming, a frontier to encourage
> immigration, and the  Atlantic Ocean to separate us from European conflict.
> 2. Our people:  hardworking pioneers who formed close-knit families.
> 3. Our ideology: the  belief that humans possess innate rights which the
> state cannot bestow or  withhold.
> 4. Our religiosity: by separating church and state, we formed
> congregations composed of people committed to their faith, not just those
> born  into it.
>  John Adams was blunt: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral  and
> religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any
> other."
>
> Do these factors mean that our founders  were all Christians?  We sometimes
> hear that 52 of the 55 signers of the  Declaration of Independence were
> "orthodox" Christians, and that 24 held  seminary degrees.  But their
> personal
> spiritual commitments are actually  hard to determine.  We can characterize
> only about 20—half were biblical  Christians, while the rest were deists or
> non-orthodox.
>
> While America's founders were not all committed  Christians, they were
> clearly committed to a Judeo-Christian moral  standard.  Even Thomas
> Jefferson,
> himself a deist, insisted: "Injustice in  government undermines the
> foundations of a society.  A nation, therefore,  must take measures to
> encourage its
> members along the paths of justice and  morality."
>
> How can we take such "measures" today?
>
> Abraham  Lincoln warned, "America will never be destroyed from the outside.
>  If  we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
> ourselves."  Spiritual renewal is critical to the future of our
> democracy.  Our
> greatest need today is not to make America a Christian  nation, but to help
> America be a nation of Christians (Matthew 28:18-20).
>
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