MoJo on the Religious Right:
Jonathan Rowe on Nov 30th 2005
I can’t say I agree with everything they write in this issue (for instance, I don’t think it’s proper to associate Marvin Olasky with Christian Reconstructionism), but it’s certainly interesting to see Mother Jones’s critical take on the religious right, to which they devote their entire December issue.
The best part of their issue is the lead article by Susan Jacoby on the secular origins of the US Constitution. She basically summarizes passages in her book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, about the secularism of founding era America and its impact on our Constitution. Although her thesis, that the Constitution was revolutionary for the time in leaving God out of it, and in having entirely secular aims, is quite correct, it was originally put forth a few years earlier by two Cornell scholars in their book entitled The Godless Constitution.
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
“Cornell scholars in their book entitled The Godless Constitution.”
Which I’m reading right now! Eerie.
It’s a great book. I read it when I borrowed it from the library but I might order a copy from Amazon to have in my collection.
Just like to say that I believe that Ms. Jacoby overlooks a key, perhaps the key point about the religious founding of the Federal Constitution. None of the Bill of Rights was to be incorporated to the states at the time of its inception, and if I am not mistaken, all of the state constitutions at ratification, if not mentioning god, certainly were not indifferent to the concept. It was not untill the ratification of the 13th and 14th amendment that the Federal Constitution started to give due process rights across the board to all citizens, showing the original limiting features of the document. It was not supposed to be comprehensive - state law was designed to do that. There was no need for mention in the Federal Constitution.
Disregard that last comment - I was shooting from the hip, and my response certainly was not well thought out nor worthy of rebuttal. I will have to come back at some point with a more cogent argument.
Actually, I think it’s a very good comment and a serious alternative way to interpret the Founding.
It basically says, even if Jacoby and Kramnick & Moore (the authors of The Godless Constitution) are correct, state establishments were still left alone and as a federal constitutional matter, states were allowed to pursue non-secular policies, promote Christianity to the exclusion of of non-Christian religions, promote certain Christian sects over other Christian sects, establish religious tests for public office, etc.
I think we are on very solid ground to say both 1) that Jacoby was right about federal establishment, while neglecting the state establishment issue as relatively unimportant to the story of secularism and 2) many state governments continued to keep established religions. The Tennessee state constitution of 1796 even declared that it wasn’t establishing a religion — and then made all officeholders swear that they believed in trinitarian Christianity. I’d have loved to see someone square THAT with the U.S. Constitution, but until the Fourteenth Amendment, there was simply not a federal case to be made. And we all know what happened to Tennessee just before the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Well, I made the comment without fully reading the article, and even after, I don’t think that I put enough time in to fully research my position. Anyway, it is finals, and I gotsta get crackin’ on my Agency and Partnership law. I would recommend a book by Kevin Hasson, called “The Right to be Wrong”. Fascinating stuff.
One of the consequences of the formation of the Constitution was the change in the religious make-up of the elected officials following the Am. Rev. Prior to the Am. Rev., the religion of the elected officials in the assemblies of the colonial governments changed.
For example, in Pennsylvania, the elected officials were largely Quakers. The independence of the colony (and the end of the feudalism of the Penn children’s ownership of it–a little-recognized aspect of Pennsylvania’s colonial status), led to the dominance within the new “Commonwealth” of Presbyterians within the unicameral legislature under the efforts of the man who should be considered the “Father of Our Country,” Benjamin Franklin. The Reformed were to take a strong hand throughout many other former colonies as well.
The change to a secular constitution was not framed by the pioneers, but by a much different group, and constitutes a successful “counterrevolution” for purposes other than that which brought forth the Articles of Confederation. Certainly part of it was the defanging of the Presbyterian dominance within the United States.
Was it due to the Masonic influence as some Presbyterians (and a few later historians?) thought? There has been several writers who have made this case and, upon study of the work of prior European and English Masons, there are distinct possibilities to be addressed.
Was it due to the rising immigrants from other religions, and often more radical traditions, than that of the Presbyterians who had become part of the American polity? Certainly there were radical deists from Ireland, Scotland and England who were shipped off to America who desired to ensure that their new land would be acceptable to their beliefs.
In any event, it is a field worthy of consideration.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/