A Conversation of Religion and Education:
Subject: Re: Jefferson the Bible-believer
From: Kevin4VFT
To:
Separation of Church/State?
Date: 8/9/99
In article
<19990809091550.10615.00008566@ng-fb1.aol.com>, tulipsis@aol.com
(Tulipsis) writes:
> Actually,
I would enjoy seeing the part that allegedly forbids teachers to
>
keep a Bible on their desk.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in PELOZA
v. CAPISTRANO UNIFIED
SCHOOL DIST., 37
F.3d 517 (9th Cir. 1994), held that if a student asks a teacher
a question about religion during the lunch break, the teacher is
forbidden to answer. The court said a school has a right to
order a teacher to be silent in order to avoid a costly ACLU
lawsuit.
Peloza alleges the school district
ordered him to refrain from discussing his religious
beliefs with students during "instructional
time," and to tell any students who attempted to
initiate such conversations with him to consult their
parents or clergy. He claims the school district, in
the following official reprimand, defined
"instructional time" as any time the
students are on campus, including lunch break and the
time before, between, and after classes:
You are hereby directed to refrain from any
attempt to convert students to Christianity or
initiating conversations about your religious
beliefs during instructional time, which the
District believes includes any time students are
required to be on campus as well as the time
students immediately arrive for the purposes of
attending school for instruction, lunch time, and
the time immediately prior to students' departure
after the instructional day.
Complaint at 16. Peloza seeks a declaration that
this definition of instructional time is too broad,
and that he should be allowed to participate in
student-initiated discussions of religious matters
when he is not actually teaching class.6
The school district's restriction on Peloza's
ability to talk with students about religion during
the school day is a restriction on his right of free
speech. Nevertheless, "the Court has repeatedly
emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive
authority of the States and of school officials,
consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards,
to prescribe and control conduct in the schools."
Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School Dist.,
393 U.S. 503, 506-07, 89 S.Ct. 733, 737, 21 L.Ed.2d
731 (1969). "[T]he interest of the State in
avoiding an Establishment Clause violation `may be [a]
compelling' one justifying an abridgement of free
speech otherwise protected by the First Amendment. . .
." Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free
School Dist., ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 2148,
124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993) (quoting Widmar v. Vincent, 454
U.S. 263, 271, 102 S.Ct. 269, 275, 70 L.Ed.2d 440
(1981)). This principle applies in this case. The
school district's interest in avoiding an
Establishment Clause violation trumps Peloza's right
to free speech.
While at the high school, whether he is in the
classroom or outside of it during contract time,
Peloza is not just any ordinary citizen. He is a
teacher. He is one of those especially respected
persons chosen to teach in the high school's
classroom. He is clothed with the mantle of one who
imparts knowledge and wisdom. His expressions of
opinion are all the more believable because he is a
teacher. The likelihood of high school students
equating his views with those of the school is
substantial. To permit him to discuss his religious
beliefs with students during school time on school
grounds would violate the Establishment Clause of the
First Amendment. Such speech would not have a secular
purpose, would have the primary effect of advancing
religion, and would entangle the school with religion.
In sum, it would flunk all three parts of the test
articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91
S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). See Roberts v.
Madigan, 921 F.2d 1047, 1056-58 (10th Cir. 1990)
(teacher could be prohibited from reading Bible during
silent reading period, and from stocking two books on
Christianity on shelves, because these things could
leave students with the impression that Christianity
was officially sanctioned), cert. denied, ___ U.S.
___, 112 S.Ct. 3025, 120 L.Ed.2d 896 (1992).
|
In stark contrast to the myth of separation, the Founders
believed that schools should affirmatively teach religion. Every
single person who signed the Constitution believed that
religious and moral inculcation was the purpose of schools.
Peloza is light-years away from the original intent of
the Constitution. Consider Samuel Adams:
As piety, religion, and morality have a happy influence on
the minds of men, in their public as well as private
transactions, you will not think it unseasonable, although I
have frequently done it, to bring to your remembrance the
great importance of encouraging our University, town schools,
and other seminaries of education, that our children and youth
while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may
have their minds impressed with a strong sense of the duties
they owe to God. If we continue to be a happy people, that
happiness must be assured by the enacting and executing of the
reasonable and wise laws expressed in the plainest language
and by establishing such modes of education as tend to
inculcate in the minds of youth the feelings and habits of
"piety, religion and morality."
(Addressing
the Legislature of Mass., 1/16/1795)
Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite
their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds
of men with the importance of educating their little boys and
girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love
of the Deity. . . and, in subordination to these great
principles, the love of their country. . . . In short, of
leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues
of the Christian system.
Letter to John Adams, 1790, who
wrote back: "You and I agree."
Four Letters:
Being an Interesting Correspondence Between Those Eminently
Distinguished Characters, John Adams, Late President of the
United States; and Samuel Adams, Late Governor of
Massachusetts. On the Important Subject of Government
(Boston: Adams and Rhoades, 1802) pp. 9-10
It has been observed that "education has a greater
influence on manners than human laws can have." [A]
virtuous education is calculated to reach and influence the
heart and to prevent crimes. . . . Such an education, which
leads the youth beyond mere outside show, will impress their
minds with a profound reverence of the Deity [and] . . . will
excite in them a just regard to Divine revelation.
The
Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, Wm.Wells., ed.
(Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865) Vol.III, p. 327.
Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary
to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and
the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
Northwest
Ordinance, 1787
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important
and one of the first things in which all children, under a
free government, ought to be instructed. . . . No truth is
more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must
be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights
and privileges of a free people.
The opinion that human
reason left without the constant control of Divine laws and
commands will preserve a just administration, secure freedom
and other rights, restrain men from violations of laws and
constitutions, and give duration to a popular government is as
chimerical as the most extravagant ideas that enter the head
of a maniac . . . . Where will you find any code of laws among
civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not
founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the
prohibition of murder, robbery, theft [and] trespass.
Noah
Webster, Letters, Harry A Warfel, ed., (NY: Library
Publishers, 1953) pp. 453-454, to David McClure, Oct. 25,
1836.
The Father of his Country warned:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be
conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to
expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle
And secularists would be quick to point out that Washington
was less Biblically-oriented than the most influential educators
in the nation, such as Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster.
All the scholars are required to live a religious and
blameless life according to the rules of God's Word,
diligently reading the holy Scriptures, that fountain of
Divine light and truth, and constantly attending all the
duties of religion . . . .
All the scholars are obliged to
attend Divine worship in the College Chapel on the Lord's Day
and on Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving appointed by public
Authority.
The Laws of Yale College in New Haven in
Connecticut (New Haven: Josiah Meigs, 1787) p. 5-6, ch II,
art. 1,4
Early US Supreme Court decisions agreed that in a Christian
nation such as America, the Bible must be taught in all
government-run schools.
In 1844, the Court was asked, Can the state enforce a will
which creates a government-operated school which will not teach
the Bible?
The Supreme Court said that the very idea of a
school which will not teach the Bible is contrary to the legal
foundations of this Christian nation.
It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider what would
be the legal effect of a devise in Pennsylvania for the
establishment of a school or college, for the propagation of .
. . Deism, or any other form of infidelity. Such a case
is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country;
and therefore it must be made out by clear and indisputable
proof.
The government made firm assurances that the Bible would be
taught in the school, and the will was approved. (Vidal
v. Girard's Executors)
The Vidal Court, as it talks about Christianity and
the Bible, sounds more like David Barton than anything one would
hear from the post-1947 Court. The Vidal Court said that the
government in its school "may, nay must impart to
their youthful pupils . . . the Bible, and especially the New
Testament," which must "be read and taught as a divine
revelation in the college -- its general precepts expounded, its
evidences explained, and its glorious principles of morality
inculcated." The Court asked rhetorically:
Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so
clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament? Where are
benevolence, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, so
powerfully and irresistibly inculcated as in the sacred
volume?
The Bible MUST be taught in government schools, the 1844 US
Supreme Court declared.
You would NEVER EVER hear language like this from the modern
secularist Court. But you ALWAYS heard language like this from
the Founding Fathers.
http://members.aol.com/TestOath/Vidal.htm
The "separation of church and state" is a myth.
But it is by the attention it pays to Public Education that
the original character of American civilization is at once
placed in the clearest light. "It being," says the
law, "one chief project of Satan to keep men from the
knowledge of the Scripture by persuading from the use of
tongues, to the end that learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the
Lord assisting our endeavors..." Here follow clauses
establishing schools in every township, and obliging the
inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to support them.
Schools of a superior kind were founded in the same manner in
the more populous districts. The municipal authorities were
bound to enforce the sending of children to school by their
parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who
refused compliance; and in case of continued resistance
society assumed the place of the parent, took possession of
the child, and deprived the father of those natural rights
which he used to so bad a purpose. The reader will undoubtedly
have remarked the preamble of these enactments: in America religion
is the road to knowledge, and the
observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom
Alexis
de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol.1, p.40 -
p.41.
Subject:Re:The Dark Side of Kevinian History
From: KEVIN4VFT
To: Separation of Church & State
Date: 4/13/99
In article
<19990413114347.09759.00000053@ng-fu1.aol.com>, edarr1776@aol.com
(EDarr1776) writes:
>
> Grovelady said:
>>The New England
>> Primer, states that it is to
be used in Christian Schools. These were
>>
generaly written and taught in small
>> groups by the
local ministers. They made thier living in this way, since
>>
contributions were not that great. <<<
>
>
Kevin responded: >> ALL SCHOOLS in America were like
this. ALL THE FOUNDING
> FATHERS attended schools like
this.>>
>
> Actually, if you do a web search
on Infoseek for "Lawrence Cremin," you'll
> find
a couple of websites noting that almost none of the founders
attended
> schools like this. Schools were much,
much different. Kids were often
> expected to be
able to read just to get into school. Madison was educated
>
rather informally, boarded out to different families, to get to
learn from
> different men in Virginia. Many were
"homeschooled," because there were no
> schools
available. Franklin attended the first public school in
America,
> Boston Latin. He dropped out. It is
clearly in error to say that the major
> founders, or most
of the founders went to prearchers' schools -- and it is
>
pure balderdash to insist they all did.
This is correct. What I meant to say was
All of the
Founders who attended schools at all attended Christian schools
which taught the Ten Commandments through the Catechism. The
opposition of Secular Humanists to Christian home- schools and
parental control of education has no basis in history. I
certainly don't want to give a contrary impression.
Ed gives us no reason to doubt that every single Founding
Father learned the Ten Commandments in the same way the millions
of other students learned them in the New England Primer,
whether from tutors, homeschools, or whatever.
>
> Kevin said: >>
106 of the first 108 colleges formed in
> America were
formed on Christian principles. By 1865 there were
>
hardly a half a dozen universities not founded on Christianity,
and
> up until 1900 it was extremely rare to find a
university president
> who was not an ordained clergyman.
>
>
We should analyze what those "Christian principles"
were: Learn geography,
> learn history, especially
of Rome and Greece, and of France and of England;
> learn
mathematics. Learn navigation and literature. Learn
nature and
> science."
>
> The idea was
that preachers needed a full grounding in all of these areas
>
BEFORE they could start to comprehend the Bible.
There is certainly evidence that Christians were well-rounded
and well-educated (as opposed to the pop-psychology social
experimentation that passes for education in the schools created
by the
religion of Secular Humanism). But there is NO EVIDENCE that
anyone (except those way out in left field [e.g., Jefferson])
believed that children should not be taught the Ten Commandments
at the earliest age. I have already quoted several founders on
the need to do so for "our little boys and girls" and
other youth.
> It is true that these
>
universities were founded to education clergymen -- it is
telling that they
> educated the clergymen, the Men of
God, the Teachers of the Faithful, an
> almost everything
BUT theology. This was the time of Natural
Law. Colonists
> thought that we could get
closer to God by observing the way nature worked;
True. Very True. But it is now unconstitutional to help
students "get closer to God" no matter how they do it.
Even employing wholly secular means is
"unconstitutional" if the goal is to get kids
"closer to God." (See Stone
v. Graham [10 Commandments], Aguillard
[teaching facts which undermine evolution] and Jaffree
[allowing a moment of silence in the unstated hope that kids
might "get closer to God"].) Which proves that the
current "separationist" mythology was not derived from
the Founding Fathers, who would allow non-sectarian
religious means to get students closer to God.
> they
>
believed and practiced that there were some things so true that
the Bible
> couldn't even get close to telling it
accurately, such as the truths that all
> men are created
equal.
Deceit. Give us a scrap of evidence that the Founders
believed the Bible didn't teach this. Where do you get these
ideas, Ed? The movement to abolish slavery was led by Christians
who took their marching orders from the Bible. Wilberforce in
Britain and J.Q. Adams in the U.S. continually cited Scripture
in their crusade for equality.
> These
universities turned out clergymen who are the antithesis of
modern
> fundamentalist preachers. They were
educated in the classics and in history,
> then, often
conversant in three or four foreign languages. They
were deeply
> inculcated with learning.
All the evidence indicates that Ed is right; that Christians
were the most educated in the land.
> They
had not had their time in school wasted on
> the Ten
Commandments
This is unsupportable by any evidence, and is contradicted by
the very next line:
> --
but instead could read or figure out the Hebrew
> version,
if only by going through the Greek.
And this they did, and they went on to draft legislation
which was consistent with the Ten Commandments.
http://members.aol.com/TenC
4 USA/UShistory/index.htm
> When
Thomas Jefferson was appointed to the Board of Visitors of
William and
> Mary College (the ruling body of the
school), he complained about the
> academic laxity and
utter uselessness of having teachers of theology on the
>
faculty. The rest of the board agreed, and they fired the
preachers and
> hired a lawyer and a rhetorician.
First, Jefferson was not representative of the views of those
who actually signed the Constitution. Many of his
"progressive" educational plans were rejected by the
Virginia Legislature. All the evidence indicates that
Christianity was part of the education of the overwhelming
majority of Americans, and all the Founding Fathers.
Second,
most teachers of theology ARE useless and should be fired.
Instead
of teaching generic Biblical principles (which all the Signers
of the Constituiton agreed should be taught in schools) the
theology teachers were dragging students down in ecclesiastical
squabbles designed to buttress support for their own
denominations and institutions. As someone who despises
sectarian ecclesiastical squabbles, I have no problem at all
with firing a silly cleric and replacing him with a dynamic
Christian lawyer like Daniel Webster.
The issue here is
whether the lawyer they hired taught that it was
unconstitutional for common schools to teach the Ten
Commandments.
There is not only no evidence to support this
claim, but all the evidence suggests the utter unlikelihood of
that being the case. In Jefferson's day there wasn't a school to
be found that didn't teach the Ten Commandments.
> Kevin
expects that because they wore the label "Christian"
they were
> fundamentalist nuts.
Ed, YOU are the one who thinks that because I say the
Founders were Christian that I am saying they were
fundamentalist nuts. I hate fundamentalist nuts more than you,
because I claim to be a Christian and those nuts are an
embarrassment to me.
Your failure to understand that there can be intelligent
Christians who appreciate learning in diverse fields and
exercise dominion over the earth rather than retreat into
speculative and escapist theological squabbles leads to you
commit egregious logical fallacies. You falsely assume that
"Christian" means "Fundie nut." You prove
(rightly) that the men who signed the Constitution were not
fundie nuts, and illogically conclude that they were not Bible
believing Christians. Your posts are filled with non-sequiturs.
> The
fact is that the founders were much more thoughtful
> than
Kevin gives them credit for,
No, they were more thoughtful than YOU give me credit for
realizing. More thoughtful than you give credit to
Bible-believing Christians for being. You judge all Christians
throughout history based on the pathetic air-heads who claim to
be Christians in our day. In generations past, Christians were
men of great intellect, broad education, and their Christianity
was the foundation of civilization. Men like J. Gresham Machen,
conservative, Bible-believing Christians, were even respected
and acknowledged to be men of learning by Secular Humanists.
When Machen was defrocked by the liberal presbyterian church in
the early part of this century, it was frontpage news in the New
York Times. You are right to condemn modern-day fundie
nuts. You are very very wrong to conclude that because the men
who signed the Constitution were not fundie nuts, they couldn't
have been Christian.
Very wrong.
> and
they did not advocate teaching the
> Bible to otherwise
innocent children.
And this is just plain wrong. Aside from Jefferson's wacked-out
theories, you can't name a single Founding Father who would
agree with this, and I have quoted several who explicitly say
what you deny they say.
Thomas Jefferson's good friend Benjamin Rush, after he signed
the Declaration of Independence, was the first Founding Father
to call for free public schools. He said:
[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic
is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no
virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and
liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.
Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief
to the morals and principles of mankind.
(Benjamin Rush, Essays,
Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, 1798, p.6 ["On
the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic"])
Rush was clearly a Christian, but no "fundamentalist
nut." In his paper entitled, "A Defense of the Use of
the Bible as a Schoolbook," Rush argued,
[T]he only means of establishing and perpetuating our
republican forms of government . . . is the universal
education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by
means of the Bible. For this Divine book, above all others,
favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just
laws, and those sober and frugal virtues, which constitute the
soul of republicanism.
Daniel Webster reflected the views of every single Signer of
the Constitution:
We regard it [public instruction] as a wise and liberal
system of police by which property and life and the peace of
society are secured. We seek to prevent in some measure the
extension of the penal code by inspiring a salutary and
conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge. [1]
[However,
t]he attainment of knowledge does not comprise all which is
contained in the larger term of education. The feelings are to
be disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; true and
worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious
feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated. [Four
years later, the U.S. Supreme Court would agree that this
could only be done by having the government teach the Bible.]
[2]
The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses
licentiousness . . . inspires respect for law and order, and
gives strength to the whole social fabric.[3]
[1] Works
of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1853)
vol I, pp 41-42, Dec 22., 1820.
[2] vol II, pp 107-108, Oct
5: 1840
[3] vol II, p 615, July 4, 1851
> For
example, read the stuff Kevin posts next -- and notice that
Dartmouth is
> not established to preach, but rather to
educate kids to read and write and
> think
critically.
A time-honored Biblical and Christian undertaking.
All the
laws in this Christian nation requiring townships and parishes
to ensure literacy were motivated by legislatures which wanted
to make sure that the Bible could be read and understood,
because this was the basis for civilization and republican
governments.
> Kevin
said: >> All the Puritans believed that the purpose
>
of education (reading, writing,
> etc.) was to build the
Kingdom and carry out God's purposes.
>
> Thus, in
1754, Dartmouth was founded with a very clear purpose:
>
>
Whereas
. . . the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock . . . educated a
>
number of the children of the Indian natives with a view to
their
> carrying the Gospel in
their own langauge and spreading the
>
knowledge of the great Redeemer among their savage tribes
>
And . . . the design became reputable among the Indians
>
insomuch that a larger number desired the education of their
>
children in said school . . . [Therefore] Dartmouth-College [is
>
established] for the education and instruction of youths . . .
in
> reading, writing and all
parts of learning which shall appear
>
necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing the
children.
>
The Charter
of Dartmouth College, pub 1779 by Isaiah Thomas,
pp.1,4.<<
>
> Notice
that the purpose of Dartmouth was to educate first -- not
preach.
Your implication is illogical.
Your premises are contrary
to facts, as well. The purpose of the school was to train them
to "carry the gospel" and "civilize" and
"Christianize" others. I admit that theological
squabbles weren't the priority, but this is far closer to
"preaching" than you seem willing to admit. Did you
actually read the purpose of the founding of Darmouth?
> The
>
Bible is not mentioned.
What a stretch, Ed. How pathetic.
> It
was assumed then that if one were broadly
> educated, one
would become Christian.
Prove it. Cite one person who believed this. George
Washington, the Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address,
completely DENIED what you just asserted. His remarks capture
the thinking of every single person who signed the Constitution:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be
conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to
expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle
And you would be quick to point out that Washington was less
Biblically-oriented than the most influential educators in the
nation, such as Benjamin Rush and Noah Webster.
> That
is contrary to the assumption
> Kevin makes
And contrary to the assumption of every single person who
signed the Constitution.
> --
that knowing a lot makes one Marxist or worse.
Right, Ed. I believe that more study makes one evil. This is
childish slander. It cannot replace evidence and logic. It will
only persuade Grovelady. (That should scare you, Ed.)
> Notice,
too, that Kevin misinterprets the demands by Columbia.
They wanted
> kids who knew how to read Greek. Kevin
seems to miss that entire point when
> he posts:
>> Entrance requirements for Columbia Univ in 1785 were
something
> attainable
> only by those who had gone
through Christian Readers like McGuffey's:
>
>
No candidate shall be admitted into the College . . . unless he
>
shall be able to render into English . . . the Gospels from the
Greek. <<<
>
> We should note that by the
evidence Kevin posts, his point is disproven.
My point is that students in a Christian nation are more
knowledgeable than students educated in schools created by the
religion of Secular Humanism. I have clearly proven that point.
No college today requires a knowledge of Greek. I argue also
that students were required to have knowledge of Christianity.
The requirement was not that they can translate Homer from the
Greek, but that they translate THE GOSPELS from the Greek, a
requirement which is CLEARLY "unconstituitional" under
the establishment of the religion of Secular Humanism.
> The
>
requirement clearly requires knowledge of Greek. Kevin
claims it is a
> requirement for knowledge of
Christianity.
It is clearly BOTH, Ed.
> I
posit that knowing the verses
> in English will not allow
one to fake them in Greek -- and anyone who read
> Greek
(as most of the faculty at Columbia did then) would know in a
trice.
> McGuffey's Reader doesn't teach Greek.
Those schooled in McGuffey's
> reader alone would be ruled
not educated enough to enter Columbia;
Students completed the McGuffey readers when they were 10 or
12. THEN they learned Greek. Most Secular Humanist college
students in our day could not successfully complete the last
McGuffey Reader.
> those
>
schooled ONLY in Greek, without any background in Christianity,
would be able
> to pass the test.
This is wrong. Or at least misleading. It misleads us to
think that a Secular Humanist, of the type that refuses to stand
respectfully while the rest of the class is praying, and asks
the federal government to prohibit all the other students from
the free exercise of their relgion, would last for any length of
time in an American university which required of its students in
1787:
All the scholars are required to live a religious and
blameless life according to the rules of God's Word,
diligently reading the holy Scriptures, that fountain of
Divine light and truth, and constantly attending all the
duties of religion . . . .
All the scholars are obliged to
attend Divine worship in the College Chapel on the Lord's Day
and on Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving appointed by public
Authority.
The Laws of Yale College in New Haven in
Connecticut (New Haven: Josiah Meigs, 1787) p. 5-6, ch II,
art. 1,4
William Samuel Johnson, signer of the Constitution, was
appointed Columbia's first president. Under him,
It is expected that all students attend public worship on
Sundays.
Columbia Rules (NY: Samuel Loudon, 1785) 5-8
Johnson's views on public education were similar to those of
every other signer of the Constitution. In his commencement
address, he told the graduates:
You this day, gentlemen, . . . have . . . received a public
education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the
better to serve your Creator and your country . . . . Your
first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to
Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever
present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and
conduct.
Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of
piety towards God and a reverence and fear of His holy name.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom [Proverbs 9:10].
Remember too, that you are the redeemed of the Lord, that you
are bought with a price, even the inestimable price of the
precious blood of the Son of God. . . . Love, fear and serve
Him as your Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Acquaint
yourselves with Him in His Word and holy ordinances. Make Him
your friend and protector and your felicity is secured both
here and hereafter.
"Fundamentalist nut," right Ed?
> Kevin
said: >> The purpose of virtually all universities
remained constant
> even after the
> signing of the
Constitution: to glorify God by producing Godly Christians.
>
The universities required daily prayer, chapel and Bible
reading. These
> universities produced perhaps the
majority of the signers of the
> Constitution, who did not
repudiate what they had learned in college.<<
>
>
So what's the point?
If it isn't clear to you by now, Ed, you're willfully blind.
> Are
you arguing that by teaching religion, we get
> people who
will write a godless Constitution?
No, I'm arguing that by teaching religion we get people who
write state constitutions which require all office holders to
believe in God and a federal constitution which does everything
possible to keep the federal judiciary from interfering with the
states' established religion. I'm arguing that if education had
continued to be Christian, the religion of Secular Humanism
would not have been established by law, imposed by the federal
judiciary, in clear violation of constitutional principles.
> The
delegates to the
> Constiutitonal Convention were not
schooled overwhelmingly in these Christian
> academies,
and they were not the fundamentalist patsies Kevin wishes us to
>
believe.
Ed, resort to this kind of slur reveals that you just don't
have the facts. Christians are not the "fundamentalist
patsies" YOU wish us to believe, Ed. The Christians who
signed the Constitution were well educated, and believed that
teaching religion in the schools could keep people from falling
prey to illogical and immoral forms of argumentation like yours.
> Here
is how the prize-winning historian Clinton Rossiter describes
>
the religion of the delegates (underlines mine):
"Whatever else it might
> turn out to be, the
Convention would not be a 'Barebone's Parliament.'
>
Although it had its share of strenuous Christians like Strong
and Bassett,
> ex-preachers like Baldwin and Williamson,
and theologians like Johnson and
> Ellsworth, the
gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom
>
the old fires were under control or had even flickered
out. Most were
> nominally members of one of the
traditional churches in their part of the
> coutnry -- the
New Englanders Congregationalists and Presbyterians, the
>
Southerners Episcopalians, and men of the Middle States
everything from
> backsliding Quakers to stubborn
Catholics -- and most were men who could take
> their
religion or leave it alone.
This is more propaganda than scholarship. Name one
single signer of the Constitution would agree with this
statement:
"My life and thought would not be
fundamentally altered if I were an infidel."
Name one signer of the Constitution who
would agree with this statement:
"The social order of America would not be
fundamentally altered if all Americans were infidels."
Not a single Signer would agree.
> Although
no one in this sober gathering
> would have dreamed of
invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone
>
have dared to proclaim that his opinions had the support of the
God of
> Abraham and Paul.
What a silly thing to say. Are we to believe that the Signers
of the Constitution believed that God DISapproved of what they
did? There isn't any evidence which can even make sense of
Rossiter's remark (the best indication that it is mere
propaganda, not scholarship.) One does not have to agree with
Declaration Signer Benjamin Rush to see the outrageous falsity
of Rossiter's allegation:
I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of
inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of
the States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a
Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old
and New Testament.
Benjamin Rush, Letters,
L.H.Butterfield, ed., (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1951) vol I, p. 475, to Elias Boudinot, July 9, 1788
> The
Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even
>
secular in spirit."
> Clinton Rossiter, 1787, The
Grand Convention (Norton 1966), pp. 147-148.
Many "prize-winning" historians are fanatic
SecularHumanist fundamentalists. Rossiter's account of history
will not withstand close scrutiny. I have analyzed it here:
http://members.aol.com/EndTheWall/JointBaptists.htm
Many of the men in Philadelphia were in their 20's or 30's.
What is Rossiter talking about, "old fires." These
remarks are designed to mislead those who are ignorant of the
facts of American history. First, the "old fires"
weren't just flickers in the hearts of a few. Christianity was a
conflagration which engulfed the New World. It was too great a
flame to have died out by 1776, and those who met in 1787 had no
intention of putting it out. If you can't see the flames from
where you're standing, click
here.
Second, Rossiter joins other Humanists in confusing
anti-clericalism with anti-Christianity. Many who despised
organized religion believed that Christian principles were
necessary for the success of the new nation. I am a fanatic
Theocrat, but I am no fan of organized religion, and I am not
a member of any church. The men who signed the Constitution
are far closer to my theocratic beliefs than they are to the
ACLU.
> If
anything, the educational history of the founders suggests that
organized
> religion in public schools is not the path to
truth.
>
> Ed
Only your wishful thinking suggests this. I have quoted
primary sources all over this post, and you have quoted only one
very biased secondary source. On balance, I would say that the
education history of the founders suggests that Christianity
[don't try to trip us up with "organized religion"] in
public schools was the widespread practice and the perennial
expectation.
Nevertheless, even Clinton Rossiter at other times admits the
overwhelming Christian character of the Founding Fathers, and
the centrality of religion and morality in the social order in
which they lived and which they did not repudiate. Read
Rossiter here.