Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 28, 1994 TAG: 9403300132
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KINGSLEY GUY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The fact that some textbooks and teachers virtually ignore the impact of religion in American history for fear of violating the principle of separation of church and state is an insult to scholarship.
A law shouldn't be necessary, but if one is passed educators must make certain history is taught accurately and the lessons reflect the real religious views of the historical figures.
The religious concepts of many of the Founding Fathers, including the first three presidents, came straight out of the philosophical era known as the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason.
A century before America's revolution, Isaac Newton discovered scientific laws that gave a mechanistic twist to the Western concept of the universe. Many intellectuals began to equate the universe with a giant clock, with God as the clockmaker who set things in motion and formulated moral laws people could discern and live by. Their God, however, didn't directly involve himself in people's affairs.
The religious philosophy was known as deism. Certainly there was a supreme being, but he was not the personal God of the Old and New Testaments.
The Declaration of Independence was influenced by deist thinking. When Thomas Jefferson wrote, ``We are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights'' he was referring to a God who in the beginning created physical and moral principles, not a God who plays an ongoing role in the development of human society.
Benjamin Franklin, revered for his intellect on both sides of the Atlantic, wrote a deistic pamphlet as a young man. In ``A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,'' he argued that man is not morally responsible for his actions because in the final analysis he really doesn't have freedom of choice.
George Washington, the father of our country, and Franklin were members of Masonic orders. This might come as a shock to certain fundamentalist Christians who view Masonry as a tool of Satan in the ongoing march toward Armageddon.
Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson's rival and every bit his intellectual equal, had a strong Presbyterian background, but he had some interesting ontological ideas that would have given John Knox apoplexy.
He entertained the notion that immortality could be attained through heroic actions, and his entire life was motivated by an insatiable appetite for virtuous fame. Hamilton wrote that men become heroes, heroes demigods and demigods ``are raised to consummate felicity and enrolled amongst the gods.''
How would pious parents of students in Mrs. Filbert's 10th-grade history class react if they learned she threw that line into a lecture?
The nation's founders were students of history who saw the damage done to Europe by wars fought over religious orthodoxy. They also recognized that in a prior era, their religious views would have earned them a ticket to the stake or the executioner's block. So they gave America a First Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees religious freedom.
References to religion should be made in history classes, but those pushing for a law on the subject should remember that the Founding Fathers weren't 18th-century copies of Pat Robertson.
Religion has had an enormous impact on America, but it has come packaged in many different ways. Teach about all of it, and stress that the greatest moral principle given to us by America's founders was tolerance.
Kingsley Guy is editor of the editorial page for the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service
by CNB