One Nation, Yes - But One Viewpoint?

As I was rereading the article from the Guardian, "Texas School Board Rewrites US History with Lessons Promoting God and Guns", I came across one of the things that had been bothering me for several days now. Cynthia Dunbar, one of the Texas conservatives who has been elected to the state's Board of Education, supports the belief "in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy". She also wrote a book in 2008, entitled One Nation Under God. In this book she says "The only accurate method of ascertaining the intent of the founding fathers at the time of our government's inception comes from a biblical worldview.... We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." Dunbar wants the curriculum and textbooks in Texas public education to reflect this view.

Here is an important caveat: I have not read Dunbar's book. I don't know what details are there or are omitted. However, most other people won't read Dunbar's book either. What they will read is what she says about her book and what other people quote from her book. This is what I want to address.

The are several things that Dunbar seems to think are "very clear", but with which I (and I'm thinking most historians and any other careful student of history) take issue.

1. "We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." She says this in the context of the "intent of the founding fathers".

Okay. Sure, John Winthrop said in this speech to the other Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony that New England was meant to be like the Biblical "city on a hill", an example of what a truly godly community was supposed to be, and a way to show up the still too popish (Catholic-acting) Church of England. The Beacon Hill area in Boston was named so because of this speech. The oration was called "A Model of Christian Charity". The year was 1630.

This leaves me with some questions. Does this mean that Governor John Winthrop was a founding father? He had nothing to do with the founding of the United States, just the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Let's leave that question for a moment. One could say that since many elements of Puritan society worked their way into what would become American society around the age of the Revolution, this worldview was part of American beginnings.

But was it the "intent of the founding fathers"? More about that later on.

2. Dunbar says that there is a myth of the separation of church and state in the US. Since she talks about the Puritans as being the guiding light of the nation, I will talk about them as well. THE PURITANS BELIEVED IN SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Yes, true, according to the Puritans both the government and the church were created by God to enforce the divine will. The government taxed all people - whether church members or not - and supported the church in part with this money, and one had to be a member of the church in order to vote. But this was still a huge step away from England and the Church of England, where the Heads of State were also in charge of the church (ministers in New England could NOT hold public office), the government could tell churches what to do (they could NOT in New England), and the government could take away both civil and religious privileges (again - this was not true in New England).

As for the United States, the first amendment, the one regarding the separation of church and state, reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". This says that there will be no established - state - religion, and that no one can be kept from practicing the religion of their choice (insofar as it does not harm anyone else's basic rights). The colonists had fled from England and other European nations so that they wouldn't be told what to do. They weren't going to give that up just because they were now their own nation. It seems to me that if the Constitution took any lesson from the Puritans, it was the keep church and state separate.

So, tell me, how is that a myth?

3. I told you I'd say more about the "intent of the founding fathers": Dunbar is also quoted as saying "There's been this amorphous changing of how we look at religion and how we define religion within American history. One concern I have is that the viewpoint of the founding fathers is very clear. They were not against the promotion of religion. I think it is important to present a historically accurate viewpoint to students."

Ahem. The viewpoint of the founding fathers is very clear? I'm sorry, but if that were the case, why have we all been arguing about it for over two centuries now? Worse - and I know she is not the first, nor the only, person guilty of this - is the assumption that the "viewpoint of the founding fathers" was all the same. One of the principle failings of many people who try to base their arguments on history is to assume that everything in the beginning was clear and simple and one, and that through the years it has become confused and chaotic and multiple - "this amorphous changing of how we look at religion and how we define religion within American history." Dunbar maintains that there was one clear viewpoint of the founders and that history has screwed up how we look at it.

But, anyone who has really studied the founders - and even some people who have only had a cursory introduction to these fellas - knows that they were a motley bunch. Some were Christians, sure. Puritans, Anglicans, Baptists, New Lights, Old Lights, etc. Some were deists - meaning they thought of God as a sort of creator, a mechanic, who put all the elements of the universe into place, wound it up, and then let it go, and everything that happened since then has been up to the creation. Thomas Jefferson was a deist, and he also cut up the New Testament, taking out any parts that didn't make sense to him, and put them back together to make his own New Testament. Some of the founders were Freemasons - Benjamin Franklin and George Washington to name just two of the more famous - and much of the symbolism on our money and Capitol buildings is that of the Masons. Some founders were Quakers, whom many Christians in the nation looked down on. Some weren't very religious at all. The Puritan viewpoint was only one of many in the American colonies at that point. In fact, when the colonies came together to write the Declaration, and then those new states came together to write the Articles of Confederation (our first government) and then the Constitution, religion was only one of the many - many - things upon which they didn't agree.

There goes the view that everyone was in agreement at the founding of our nation - up in smoke. It seems the only thing on which they could agree was to let everyone have the freedom to disagree. And even if they, as a whole, in their "very clear" viewpoint, "were not against the promotion of religion", which religion are we talking about? I, for one, think it's "very clear" that Dunbar's definition of "religion" is Christianity, and the very conservative kind at that.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against talking about religion and Christianity, Puritanism and the Church of England, the Great Awakenings, New Lights, Old Lights, and what have you in a history classroom. In fact, I'm all for it. What I am against is skewing that history by giving students a pre-packaged interpretation. Tell them the facts. Even tell them even some ways that the facts have been interpreted in the past (also known as historiography). If they come to the conclusion that history points to Christianity as being the best way for them to live, they are certainly free to think that. But don't do their thinking for them.