In April, some will recall that there was a major conference in New York called Examining the Agenda of the Religious Far Right. Z Magazine has just published an article about the conference titled “Taking on the Christian Right” that will be of interest to many. (The conference organizers, by the way, have produced a one-hour DVD of the conference which they will make available soon.)
The Z piece also mentions Talk to Action, a project that I have launched with a number of colleagues — including BooTribber Pastordan. We have been posting on a temporary blog site while preparing a far more ambitious interactive site that will function much like (but certainly not be a replacement for) The Daily Kos and Booman Tribune.
Meanwhile, my Talk to Action colleague Scott Isebrand has a fine inaugural post on his new Religious Right Watch blog site. Scott picks up on the theme we have been stressing regarding the need to reclaim American history from the bogus version peddled by Christian nationalists like Dr. D. James Kennedy and David Barton.
Isebrand succinctly concludes: “…the governing document of the United States, our Constitution, nowhere mentions God. The Constitution demands that there will never be religious tests for public office, and Jefferson’s ideals of the separation of Church and State were embraced by the day’s thinkers.”
“But this is no longer the case. These concepts dear to Jefferson are not self-evident any longer. They are not embraced by the majority of our nation’s Congressmembers, our President, or many judges. They are in danger of being forgotten and replaced by something altogether different, something anathema to the rational citizen.”
This is the kind of thinking and writing that will help to change the terms of debate in America.
If you had to prove to an otherwise informed, but open minded person that the U.S. was not founded as a Christian Nation, how would you do it?
Isebrand sources some of his post the excellent book, The Godless Constitution. I also try to answer this question in my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. What are the simplest, best, and most convincing ways to make the argument? How would you tell the story of how the framers of the Constitution approached matters of religion? This is something that I expect we will be discussing a great deal (among other things) when we launch the interactive version of Talk to Action.
[Adapted from FrederickClarkson.com ]
Talk to Action – interactive.
Coming this summer!
Mr. Clarkson, can I call you Frederick? I feel lucky to have you post here. I am definitely going to look into your project.
Recommended.
I use Frederick primarily for public and publishing purposes. Call me Fred. Its always good to be among friends — and that goes for the rest of you too! 😉
Fred,
I read your book Eternal Hostility and linked it to my blog. It was excellent. Thank you for your unwaivering focus on the religious right!
from another Fan
Hey, Thanks RW! Its funny. Eternal Hostility seems to be well, born again. Its in some demand, although it is technically out of print. (but I have a good stash for sale through my web site).
There is a guy who has been lobbying my publisher to reprint. My publisher is willing, but is having a crisis and doesn’t have the capital!
Hmm. Know anyone who wants to invest?
Well the Kos community is pretty good at getting behind ‘good- books”- What kind of publisher? I did all mind with Print on Demand- no overhead no loss royalties and good quality not to mention quite affordable.
Maybe you could do an updated version also as there’s lots more info and stuff out there now. Though I thought your book very timely with good historical facts etc.,
Am proud to be in the company of those like yourself! A real doer of good things!
the Publisher is Common Courage Press, a publisher of of progressive non-fiction.
I would not do a fundraiser without thier permission, and I think its unlikely that there is enough support for EH or for my publisher to get a new printing out of it — although I appreciate the thought. If circumstances change, ya never know. I would also be concerned that merely reprinting my book would be enough to save the company… which would still make the book an orphan.
If it does not get reprinted, the rights revert to me and I can keep it in print myself through POD.
clearly marks the place in my mind about the Religious Right’s movement to circumvent and completely rework the Constitution of the United States of America.
I thank you for all the efforts that you put forth in keeping this insidious theocratic monster in front of the peoples eyes, so that reasonable and responsible citizens may continue to fight against the theocratic fascists who want to denigriate and ultimately disenfrachise a majority of the American people.
Thank you, GW. I do what I can. I never imagined that this would be one of my main roles in life… which is full of surprises.
How I’d frame the Framers and the Consitution would be in terms of history. Just off the top of my head, I’d talk about:
(1) The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that bloodied Europe, most notably, but not limited to, the Thirty Years War.
(2) The development of religious tolerance as a principle, that took place over a course of several generations. How it started out as a pragmatic necessity, and evolved to being seen as a positive virture.
(3) How this culminated in Locke’s argument that only uncoerced faith could possibly secure salvation, and hence coercion was injurious to faith.
This is, for me, the pivotal point in the development of religious liberty and separation of church and state–and it is most clearly not born out of hostility to religion, but out of protection for the individual and their personal relationship with God.
(4) How America was largely founded by people fleeing religious persecution.
(4A) But, how many of these were themselves intolerant of others.
(4b) And thus, how much of Colonial American history was marked by religious/political strife.
(4c) Such as the oppressive theocracry of Massachussettes, which drove out people such as Benjamin Franklin, who emigrated to Philadelphia, which, due to the Quaker influence, was the most tolerant city in Colonial America–and, thus, a very fitting capital.
(5) How the Federal Constitution was a conscious effort to transcend the persistent religious/political divisions that still bedeviled most of the states, in light of all the above.
(6) How the leading Founders were deeply influenced by Enlightment thought, and were largely either Deists, or open-minded Christians who respected the Deism of their colleagues.
(7) How (a) Deism among the Founders, (b) Locke’s arguement for religious liberty as supportive of genuine faith, and the (c) experience of religious strife both in Europe and Colonial America all contributed to (5) above.
(8) How the result was that, over time, the states became much less sectarian, and much more supportive of religious liberty as well.
(9) How grateful the Baptists were with these developments, as they were a despised religious minority at the time.
Now, history is always a good deal messier than myth, which in some ways is a disadvantage. It takes longer to lay out, and has more ambiguities. But, then, so does the Bible, when it comes down to it. So, to carry the analogy a bit further, we need to polish up some analogues to popular Bible stories as additional fodder for the fight.
good ideas, Paul. Thanks! I hope you will try some of ’em out for size when we launch TTA, phase II. You have a vast storehouse of knowledge.
We do need to get some overarching narratives worked out, and some good stories. I have honed a few, but we need more. And people have to own them and be able to use them so they make sense to people.
I’m reading Bruce Bawer’s book, “Stealing Jesus” about the doctrinal differences between the Church of Law and the Church of Love.
He said that there’s a tradition to give every memeber of congress a copy of “Jefferson’s Bible”. This turns out to be a special edition by Thomas Jefferson, which is a heavily edited version of Jesus’ life – he took out all of the miracles, everything supernatural, including the resurrection and the virgin birth. Jefferson thought this was the most moral document ever written.
He also included a nice quote from Ben Franklin from a letter to Ezra Stiles:
I’d describe the founding fathers like this:
This nation was founded by some idealists who considered the Bible and the classic greek legends to be in the same category. They were forward looking for their time, in many ways more modern than we, because they wanted to advance the latest research in philosophy by trying some new ideas for running a government.