Thought of the Day 11.30.09

I want to do something today which I almost never do in a thought of the day: refer you to another resource. Last week, Michael Medved wrote an outstanding column for USA Today correcting errors about the origins of this country. I strongly recommend you read it in its entirety.

The main one he describes is the inversion of motives for those who came here. Almost all of us have been taught that America was settled by people fleeing religious oppression to create a land of religious liberty and openness. This is exactly backwards.

The Puritans, for instance, came here precisely because they found European society too tolerant, immoral, and religiously lenient. They wanted to establish religious utopias with higher standards and greater purity (hence their name). And although it’s true that some did come here fleeing persecution like the Catholics, once here they established an extremely narrow religious society named “Mary”land.

The irony Medved hints at but doesn’t explicitly state is that America was founded by people who were fleeing places that had become, essentially, America in the year 2009.
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6 comments:

Naum said...

You and Medved conflate "settlers" with "founders".

The point about Puritans leaving Europe for a more restrictive, utopian religious purity is spot on (as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson could certainly attest to).

But ~1770-1790 (blanketing the time of rebellion to the Constitution and initial America government) is ~150 years later (would be like comparing founding fathers to leadership at time of great Republican depression (~1929-1933).

The founders (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, etc.…) rejected that Puritan philosophy, instead embracing reason (inspired by enlightenment thinkers Locke, Rosseau, Voltaire, etc.…) and those secular ideas of tolerance and universalism. I can cite a whole lot of Jefferson, Madsion writings…

Medved, as typical (like his abominable defense of slavery), jumbles his history to augment his own preconceived misconceptions…

November 30, 2009 at 12:45 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

The distinction between settlers and founders is indeed important. I believe you'll notice that I used the term settlers in my thought. Medved also makes this distinction, so your claim of conflation is inaccurate.

So, when you then accuse us of mashing together 150 years of history based on your false allegation, it looks very much like a straw man argument.

But this seems like a very weird response to my thought, since the main point I was addressing is the widespread (false) notion that our country was settled (primarily) by people seeking religious toleration or pluralism. Since you agree with this, I'm not sure why you're jumping to this other topic which I didn't even raise.

All that said, I certainly agree with you that much (though certainly not all) of the zeal of the settlers had become moderated by the time of The Revolution. Not nearly so much as it is today, and certainly not for everyone. Most of the colonies were still highly religious, even denominationally, in 1789.

You accuse Medved of selective fact use, but then you conveniently cherry pick the most favorable examples (Jefferson and Franklin...Madison is disputable) while overlooking others (Benjamin Rush, all three Adamses, Hamilton, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, John Jay, William Samuel Johnson, George Mason, George Washington, Daniel and Noah Webster, John Witherspoon, etc.)who were adamantly pro-Christian.

As for Locke, I would recommend you read the Second Treatise. It is thoroughly saturated in Biblical references. One might even call it political exegesis. Locke himself was a Puritan (Anglican) and then Protestant, so he's an odd choice to prove irreligious roots. Rousseau and Voltaire had more influence in France, where their (clearly irreligious) writings were followed without Biblical guidance into the disastrous French Revolution. Blackstone and the Bible were far more important in America and in forming the Constitution than either of them were.

November 30, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Naum said...

Not claiming founders were not pro-Christian.

Just that they were of a totally different stream from the Puritans — in direct contrast to the point Medved is making…

Yes, Locke's writing is "saturated" with biblical references… …but founders view of God and Christianity much different than conceptions today. Most would be rejected as "heretics" by today's conservative evangelical/fundamentalists…

Rosseau and Voltaire were big influences on Jefferson, Madison, Franklin. Paine, etc.…

John Adams recognized his being on wrong side separation of church/state as being big reason for his 1800 election loss…

Washington was not a devout Christian and much of the lore surrounding him is fable. Serious biographies of him show him to be more a stoic on religious matters… …not sure if he could be pronounced a Deist, but he certainly wouldn't be termed Christian by any 21st century megachurch standard…

Yes, the country was more religious and devout than the leaders of the country… …Franklin repeatedly in letters, talked of "spitting against the wind" in correspondence with others…

See:

Moral Minority by Brooke Allen
Head and Heart by Garry Wills
The Faiths of Founding Fathers by David Holmes

The David Bartons and Michael Medveds weave fanciful fictional yarns…

…not that the secularists are correct either.

As usual, the truth lies in between there and a lot more nuanced than painted…

November 30, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

I just heard the thought on the air, and I realized where you read (heard) the settlers/founders conflation. It's in that last line where I say "America was founded...." So I have to retract some of my surprise at your first comment. Still, I was talking about the colonies, but okay. You were more right than I gave you credit for. Sorry.

November 30, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

Agreed about the errors of extremes here. I don't know whether you caught the show we did on "Does it matter whether this ever was a Christian nation?" My point was simply that, either way, that doesn't much change the work needing to be done right now. Rome, China, and even South Korea weren't Christian at various points....

November 30, 2009 at 6:22 PM
Naum said...

Always been fascinated by history of that period (and not just the U.S., but Europe) — 1700-1800 the world changed so much and America was a glorious birth of that. Puzzled over how things played out and the simplistic schoolbook stories painted an woefully incomplete picture…

A prelude to the shattering of the Age of Malthus.

An age when the published word became "truth", as opposed to augmenting an oral dominance culture — that is, prior to this time, although Gutenburg and printing propagated, publishing looked little like the form it grew into during this century… (as well as the advent of newspapers, circulars and booklets)…

December 1, 2009 at 9:41 AM

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