Regarding Juanita Schoff’s letter (“Founding fathers firmly rooted in faith”), there is no question that some of our nation’s founders were deeply respectful of religion and its mission to uplift morality. George Washington, an Episcopal vestryman, delivered this message in his farewell address. Adams and Jefferson and many of the other founders had similar views.
And there is no denying that religion was a major part of the landscape of the 17th and 18th centuries. But it was – as it is today – also to be feared and criticized. Thomas Paine in his best-seller, The Age of Reason, pilloried many aspects of religion and argued for skepticism and reason over revelation. But he also shared Washington’s and Jefferson’s views of religion as a moral agent.
Schoff mentions the Mayflower Compact, which was hastily written to prevent a faction that did not share the religious views of the majority from splitting off to settle in Virginia. But their own religious intolerance was one reason Rhode Island was founded, and the colonists’ “morality” did not prevent them from murdering the native Wampanoag who had befriended them. We had early warnings that mixing religion and politics was a bad idea.
Nor did religious morality put up much of a fight against slavery or slow down the destruction of millions of Native Americans. In fact, religion happily offered metaphors and language for America’s “Manifest Destiny.”
Schoff mentions Thomas Jefferson. But Jefferson, who literally took scissors to the bible to produce his own redacted version, had ethics and society in mind. Religion (like the French, Latin, and Greek, math, law, and science he studied) to Jefferson was intended to improve man’s reason and nature. But learning and reason were equally esteemed.
I find myself agreeing with much of Juanita Schoff’s letter. Who’s to dispute the fact that America was founded by Christian fundamentalists? But it’s clear that the message of her letter was: “Faith is important and the Founding Fathers said so.”
But our conception of religion 250 years later is quite different. America is no longer a homogenous Anglo-Saxon Protestant colony with citizens used to, or tolerant of, a state religion. We live in a world where religious power has been attenuated for centuries. And we have other options – philosophy, ethics, and humanism – or our own combination, including our own religious views. And in the interest of learning to live with our fellow man, these philosophies are best shared with like-minded friends – and not foisted upon the public at large.
But writers like Juanita Schoff continue to press religion on us publicly. So perhaps it is time to question whether religion truly has a monopoly on creating ethical and moral behavior – as the founders assumed. If not, then these assumptions are no longer valid. Cannot service, contemplation, cultivating respect for the rest of humanity, and following precepts like the Golden Rule lead to an ethical life? I think so. And if so, why do we need to revive the Continental Congress’ practice of buying bibles?
Religion is best practiced privately and earnestly, rather than poorly and in public.
Whatever the limits of the founders’ vision, today our Constitution prevents government from establishing any national religion or imposing any religious litmus tests on public officials. I wish groups like the one Schoff cites would quit trying to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. We’ve seen what religious regimes look like in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran. We don’t need one here.
This was published in the Standard Times on January 2, 2010
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/20100102/opinion/1020321
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