Strange Bedfellows: More Enlightenment Thinkers

I am a great fan of Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin series of novels (The movie Master and Commander being a mash-up of several) and if your read the novels attentively you notice that the real hero of the series is not the somewhat dense and amoral navel commander Jack Aubrey, but his devoutly Catholic surgeon and side-kick and intensely intimate best friend, Stephen Maturin. (At times the relationship seems to be latently—or maybe even discreetly—homosexual.)  Stephen Maturin is not only a brilliant surgeon but also a secret British agent, an ardent republican determined to bring down Napoleon.  Several times in the 21½ novels Maturin expresses his contempt for “that scoundrel Rousseau.”  He is referring to Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the leading philosophes of the Enlightenment. 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was not French, but Swiss: a Calvinst from Geneva.  He was, perhaps most famous for his novel Emile (aka On Education).  Moving far from his Calvinist roots (Rousseau would convert to Catholicism c 1728 and then convert back to Calvinism in 1754 though he was by no means a professing Christian, his conversions being more a matter of political and social advantage) Rousseau believed in the inherent goodness of the human individual.  He found the idea of original sin repugnant and believed that the human person in the state of nature is blameless: the bon sauvage, noble savage.  (Sauvage in French, like the original meaning of the English term “savage” does not connote barbarism but simply the human person living wild and free in nature.) He blamed human corruption on the growth of human society that separates the human person from the natural state. He saw society as essential as persons must cooperate in order to survive but he also saw it degenerating into competition from which springs a variety of human evils.  Rousseau, reflecting his Swiss roots, was an ardent believer in republican government and direct democracy—the participation of the largest possible number of citizenry in directly making political decisions. His influence on American thought, especially Jefferson, cannot be missed.  As to religion, while he remained an admirer (even in his Catholic years) of John Calvin for his legislative career in Geneva, he was very post-orthodox in his theology.  He was a Deist though, unlike most Deists who saw God as impersonal and distant, Rousseau had a sort of natural mysticism that made him profoundly aware of and sentimental towards the manifestations of God in nature.  Like other Enlightenment figures he advanced the idea of the freedom of conscience and believed that each person should be free to follow the religious beliefs and practices to which he or she was drawn. 

Voltaire (1694-1778) (born François-Marie Arouet, was educated by the Jesuits at the College Louis le Grand in Paris where he—like so many educated by the Jesuits, lost his Catholic faith.  He adopted the name (nom de plume, nom de guerre) Voltaire in his mid-twenties. It was an anagram of the Latin form of his name Arouet.  He was an exceptionally witty man but as we know from our friends among the Katholik Krazies, not everyone is blessed with a sense of humor and his wit won him the enmity of one of its victims, the Regent, Philippe, the Duke of Orleans.  When you piss of a Regent it never goes well for you, especially under the cherished ancien regime, and Voltaire ended up in the Bastille for eleven months.  His friends—of which he was always to have many—won his release on the promise he would go to exile and he fled to the Netherlands.  There he met a lovely young Huguenot (French Protestant) Catherine Olympe Dunoyer and married her.  He sneaked back into France under somewhat false pretenses—and, as it was against the law for a Catholic (which he still was, at least nominally) to be married to a Protestant, illegally.  He enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress and this helped him—sometimes—to avoid the various penalties his opinions earned him.

Voltaire went after the Catholic Church and its position of being the established religion in France.  He firmly believed in the separation of Church and State and freedom for the individual to practice the religion of his choice—or no religion.  He was a most prodigious writer of plays, poems, novels, letters and essays as well as scientific and historical works, all of which advanced his very avant-garde ideas.  His brilliance at satire offended many in the establishment and while he had numerous friends outside the court, at court he had more than his share of enemies. 

Voltaire rejected classic Christianity for a vague belief in a creator.  He did have quite a bit of admiration for Hinduism, though how he became familiar with it except through books, I can’t be sure.  Sometimes we develop an admiration for something not so much because we know it or understand it, but because it is contrary to that which society has established for us. 

He was very skeptical of the Bible as he felt that God’s own moral ambiguities—telling various Israelite leaders that they should kill this person or annihilate that nation—only justified violence and oppression.  Yet he was tremendously admiring of nuns, especially those who served the sick and the poor as he saw a deep idealism in them. He saw that Christianity was useful in as that it imposed a certain moral code upon the common and uneducated people but he felt it had no place among those who could think for themselves. He is quoted as having said: “those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”  But perhaps my favorite quote of his is that on his deathbed, when asked by a priest to renounce Satan, he said: “This is no time to make new enemies.”  Humorous to the last.  Hopefully God appreciates the humor; otherwise we are all in deep trouble.

A somewhat less known figure of the Enlightenment was Denis Diderot (1713-1784).  He advocated inoculation against smallpox and he compiled the Encyclopédie which is an anthology of Enlightenment thought.  Unlike most of the philosophes, Diderot was not a Deist but an atheist.  His antagonism against religion may have been due in great part to the death from exhaustion of his much beloved sister, a nun in a very austere convent.  My reason for including Diderot is that he has my favorite quote of all the Enlightenment philosophes: “Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest.”  I have it hanging in my office right alongside one of my other favorite quotes from a far less distinguished source: si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. 

Finally, we need to backtrack a bit and deal with the Englishman Sir Issac Newton whom I have somehow overlooked.  Newton (1642-1727), like my buddy Stephen Maturin, was a natural philosopher: i.e. a scientist, and perhaps the most important scientist of all western history.  A great mathematician, it was Newton who established once and for all that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the solar system.  In addition to physics, mathematics, and astronomy, Newton did extensive work in optics.  Given his particular position at Cambridge he was expected to be ordained in the Church of England but he obtained a royal warrant excusing him from Holy Orders.  He never gave a reason but it seems while devout he was not orthodox in as that he did not subscribe to the Doctrine of the Trinity.  Like many in his day He saw God as the Master Mathematician, the Creator of the Universe and Newton attributed the unflinching order of things in the natural realm to the Divine Mind.  

The Christian Faith of George Washington IV (and final)

George Washington wearing his Masonic Apron

while laying the cornerstone of the United States

Capitol

Well back to the Christian faith—or lack thereof—of George Washington, the most important of our Founding Fathers. Washington was, as we have said, an Anglican (before the American Revolution) Episcopalian (after American independence when the Episcopal Church in America separated from the Church of England.)  He attended church with a respectable regularity (though far from every week) and even served as vestryman and warden of his parish for about twelve years before the American Revolution.  There is debate as to whether or not Washington participated in The Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church but it seems as though he did not.  Given his undisputed integrity in public and private life, this abstinence from the Lord’s Table might be an important indication of how he understood Christian faith. 
      In addition to Washington’s being an active member of the Episcopal Church he was also a Freemason.   He was initiated in Freemason Lodge no.4 at Fredericksburg in 1752 at age 20.  Freemasonry was not simply a social activity for Washington.  With the same or even greater regularity as Washington attended church, he attended Lodge Meetings both while at Mount Vernon and while away, including the years spent away commanding the American forces during the Revolution.  Many of the senior officers in Washington’s command were also Freemasons, including his favorites, the Marquis de Lafayette and Henry Knox.  When Washington was sworn in as President in 1789 he took the oath of office on the Bible belonging to Saint John’s Lodge in New York City,  and when he laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in 1793 he wore his masonic apron, a sign of his membership and status in the Freemasons.      
       Today many devout Protestants are members of the Masons—and even, despite Church Law, Catholics.  Traditionally, however Lutherans and Catholics, the two most doctrinally minded Churches in the spectrum of Christian denominations, have refrained from affiliating to the Masons because historically Masons have offered a questionable (from an orthodox point of view) theology that differs substantially from Christian faith.  Classic freemasonry does not embrace the Father-God revealed in the Christian scriptures whose personal oversight extends into the lives of each of his children but rather offers the rationalist deity who is the Master Mason of the universe, the great designer of the laws of nature and embodiment of a rational justice whose moral laws are written on the human heart not by divine revelation but by absolute reason.  Such religion has a positivist understanding of the human person as guided by reason, not by grace, to goodness and sees sin not as the violation of Divine Command but a failure of reasonable judgment on the part of the individual.  Such “sin” does not need atonement and Christ is no longer Savior of the World but moral guide whose teachings are founded in reason rather than in revelation.  Such a savior has no need of being divinity incarnate but an enlightened human person whose godliness is a measure of his reason and not a divine nature.  As we saw in previous postings this allows the thinker to move from Christianity to Deism, from faith in Jesus to an admiration of Jesus, from Trinitarianism to Unitarianism or Deism (or Agnosticism) and from a personal God whose immanence is apprehended by faith to a Supreme Being whose Transcendence renders the believer significant only to the extent of his reasonable choices in life.  Now, I am not saying that all Masons, and in particular contemporary Masons, have moved this far from orthodox Christianity but it was typical of the Masons of the late seventeenth and of the eighteenth centuries.  Did Washington embrace such a rationalist “faith” rather than Christian orthodoxy?  We cannot say for sure but it is interesting that when Washington wrote of God he used such terms as “Providence,” “The Great Architect of the Universe,” "that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be"and “The Blessings of Heaven.”  When he wrote about Jesus it was as a moral teacher, not as a Redeemer.   All in all, one would have to say that viewed from today’s perspective Washington was more the Mason than the Episcopalian; more the Deist than the Christian.   Yet, unlike Jefferson or Franklin, I don’t think one could say about Washington that he wasn’t a Christian, at least of some sort.  In religion, as in politics, Washington was not a theoretician but a doer.  I suspect that for him Christianity was not about affirming doctrinal faith in Jesus Christ but living according to one’s best ability to follow the practical ethics found in the New Testament.  Even here, however, I think modern Christians would find Washington wanting.  Most seriously he maintained slaves.  He supported the American rebellion against constituted legitimate authority and he did so, in great part, because it was to his personal economic advantage.  But again when it came to morality, I think Washington was a man of practical judgments not abstract theory.  He did provide in his will that his slaves (not Martha’s) should be freed upon Martha’s death.  Even though Anglicans, like most Christians (including Catholics) other than Quakers did not object to slavery, Washington’s own moral compass told him that slavery was morally unsupportable but he knew that he could not maintain his public responsibilities without the benefits of a slave economy, nor was he willing to leave his widow without the practical support she needed to maintain their standard of livelihood once he was dead.  (And actually the majority of slaves on their estates were Martha’s, not George's.  He had no right in law, of course, to free her slaves.) I think for Washington public responsibilities took moral precedence over the freedom of one’s slaves.  This is a curious perspective, indeed troubling to the modern mind, but where would our Republic be had he chosen otherwise?  Similarly, Washington had no qualms about violating the oaths of loyalty to the King he had taken as a member of the militia, as a member of his church vestry, and as a member of the House of Burgesses.  I think Thomas Jefferson made it clear in the Declaration of Independence that the King’s failure to maintain the welfare of his American subjects justified the colonists in turning away from his “protection,” but it must be noted that severing the political subordination to Great Britain was of immense financial benefit to Washington and other Virginia Planters.  All of this is a way to say that Washington seems to have been guided not by Christian moral teaching but practical ethics symptomatic of Deist thought.  On the other hand, I think it is noteworthy that Washington has never been accused of marital infidelity with either a slave nor a social peer, despite his well-known love for Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend and neighbor.  This is only one example of Washington being a person of exceptional ethical fiber. For Washington it would seem that moral integrity was more a matter of personal honesty rather than what we would call today “social justice.”  I don’t think that was atypical, however, of eighteenth-century men of his social position whether or not religious. 
     Finally, let us note that when Washington was dying no clergy were summoned to attend him.  His funeral at Mount Vernon comprised both the traditional Episcopalian (formerly Anglican) Prayerbook rite and Masonic rituals. 
     All in all, I think Washington might be categorized with the oxymoron of a “Christian Deist.”  Unlike Jefferson or Franklin, Washington’s practical mind permitted him a dual allegiance to a vague Christianity and the religious indifferentism of Enlightenment Freemasonry. Unlike the more militant (and mostly European) masons, Washington was not hostile to religion and he never tried to exclude it from public life.  In addition to Sunday Worship he attended various services organized for the Continental Congress.  He was not only a generous financial supporter of the Episcopal Churches to which he belonged, but local legend maintains that through the agency of his friend and former aide, Colonel John Fitzgerald, Washington was one of the first contributors to the building of Saint Mary’s Church, Alexandria, the first Catholic Church in Virginia.  On the other hand, religious principles cannot be said to have guided his public or private life.  One would have to lump him with Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams in embracing a public life guided not by Christian principles but by what we might today call humanist ethics.       

    

The Christian Faith of George Washington III

Pohick Church, one of the churches that Washington

attended regularly.  This picture is taken from the

website.  Notice the centrality of the pulpit and how

the commuion table is placed in a more subordinate

position.  This arrangement was not unusual in 

Episcopalian Churches before the Oxford Movement

of the nineteenth century 

  So what about George Washington and his religious beliefs?  Was he a Christian?  Did he believe that this new Republic which he was so instrumental in creating was to be a Christian nation?  Remember we are looking at this in the context of the controversy of atheist displays on the Courthouse lawn at beautiful Virginia Horse Country Leesburg (the Home Town of Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum) Virginia and the claims of Loudon County Maven Barbara Curtis whose Blog Mommy Life is filled with information (and misinformation) of all sorts.  In the debate over the Leesburg Courthouse lawn Ms. Curtis asserted that “There is also the fact that our nation is indeed a Judeo-Christian nation - there's no disputing that.”  Is there no disputing that?  I am not so sure.  We have been looking at American History, first in the colonial period and then in the time of the creation of the American Republic, to see whether or not the United States was meant to be a Christian, or a Judeo-Christian, nation.  Massachusetts history would support Ms. Curtis’ claim, but the Founding Fathers of the Republic are not so univocal.  We have looked at the religious opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, and the Adams cousins and it would appear that the three responsible for the Declaration of Independence would not support the claim that we should be “A Christian Nation,” at least not as that claim is put forth by modern political “conservatives.”  (I put “conservatives” in quotation marks because I think they deviate from our American political heritage in any number of matters.)  Sam Adams who was somewhat of what we might call today an “evangelical” may have supported the Christian Nation idea.  So now we have moved on to George Washington—the single most significant—though not the most influential—of the Founding Fathers.  I make that distinction because Washington was extremely proactive in the practical matters of establishing the new nation  but not in shaping the political theory behind it.  He was a member of the Continental Congress and an advocate for Independence.  He was given command of the American forces fighting for Independence.  I chaired the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  And he served as the First President under the Constitution.  Yet other than being an advocate for Independence in the Continental Congress and an advocate for a (relatively) strong Federal Government in the Constitutional Convention he was not given to participating in the debates that shaped the new nation.  Washington was never much of a talker but more of a doer.  And it is precisely for that reason that the religious opinions of George Washington comprise a tricky subject.  Our last two entries painted a picture of eighteenth century Anglicanism (and its American expression, The Episcopal Church), the denomination to which Washington was formally affiliated. We have seen that Episcopalianism in the eighteenth century was not easily or narrowly defined and that an Episcopalian might be anything from an agnostic to an evangelical.  So what about George?  
      Well, in the first place George was an Anglican/Episcopalian not just in name but in practice.  He was affiliated to several Episcopalian parishes relatively near to Mount Vernon, most especially Pohick Church and Christ Church, Alexandria.  He worshipped at each of these Churches though with some irregularity.  Washington kept a meticulous journal of his daily activities and they indicate that he went to church about one Sunday in four while at Mount Vernon.  This is not a bad record for eighteenth-century Virginia gentry; after all it was not easy going to Church in eighteenth-century Virginia plantation society.  New England townsfolk could be religious without much inconvenience.  Pohick Church was about seven miles distant and would have been about an hour and a half by horseback or two hours by carriage each way from Mount Vernon. Given that George invariably went to Church in Martha’s company he probably went by carriage but, usually leaving church after first service (Morning Prayer) while Martha remained for Holy Communion at the second service, he may have returned by horseback.  Such a schedule probably meant leaving Mount Vernon before six a.m. and returning between eleven and noon.  Christ Church was three miles further from Mount Vernon than Pohick Church and in another direction, making the round trip perhaps an hour longer each way.  Weather would be one deterrent to Church attendance with rain making the roads difficult and snow making them impassable. However, Washington’s diary mentions Sundays where he went Fox-hunting rather than to Church so it was not always a weather related skip.  Sometimes too he stayed home to catch up on correspondence or to meet with his farm manager. 

Pohick Church where Washington most frequently attended was the seat of Truro Parish which had been divided from Hamilton Parish by the Virginia General Assembly in 1732.  Pohick Church itself, originally known as the Occoquan Church (because of a local creek), had been founded in 1695 when it still was part of Hamilton Parish.   Washington served on the vestry of Truro parish from 1762 until 1774 and several times was one of the two Wardens.  It was during his time on the Truro Vestry that the Falls Church was built and Washington briefly served on the vestry at the Falls Church as well.  However as it was contrary to law for one to sit on two vestries simultaneously he did not stay with the Falls Church. (Before the Revolution when the Church of England was the Established Church, civil law governed matters spiritual as well as civic.)   Given the distance from Mount Vernon to the Falls Church it is unlikely that he attended services there with any regularity.  Modern day The Falls Church and also Truro Church have separated themselves from the Episcopal Church while Pohick Church is still Episcopalian.  We might talk about that in some upcoming blogs. 

     Before the American Revolution public office in Virginia was restricted to members of the Established Church, i.e. the Anglican Church and Washington’s dedication to public life would have required of him membership in the Established Church. He could not have served either in  the militia or held any public office unless he were a member of the Anglican Church.   

Ironically Washington’s church attendance was better when he was away from Mount Vernon than when he was there.  Stories that he only attended divine service when Martha was with him seem not to bear out the facts and all those Sundays at Mount Vernon when he skipped church indicate that Martha probably played little influence on his worship patterns.  During the periods of time that he lived in Philadelphia and New York attendance at church services was much more convenient as the churches were right in town—a walk from where he lived.  In Philadelphia he worshipped at Saint Peter’s Church; in New York at Saint Paul’s Chapel.  During his time in Philadelphia he also attended a Quaker service and, on one occasion, a service (I believe it was a Te Deum, not a Mass) at Saint Joseph’s, the Jesuit Church, which is Pennsylvania’s oldest Catholic Church.   

      While George was a Church-goer there is a dispute about whether or not Washington received Holy Communion at Anglican or Episcopal services.  This would be a significant indication as to what his faith—and the Christian religion—meant to him.  In Washington’s time, as mentioned in the previous blog, Anglican theology held for a Calvinistic approach to the Eucharist that Christ was truly present but in a spiritual (as opposed to physical) manner.  Some Anglicans/Episcopalians would have emphasized the idea that Christ was Truly present and considered the difference between spiritual and physical presence to be inconsequential.  Others would have gone for a more Zwinglian understanding that Christ’s presence was purely by “remembrance”—a sort of “present in my heart” approach.  The Anglican liturgy itself was (and to some extent still is) ambiguous so as to be as inclusive as possible.  Washington never commented on Eucharistic theology so we do not know what he believed.  Various family remembrances, primarily from a generation or two after Washington’s death, claim that he frequently attended Holy Communion.  Several of the rectors of the Episcopal Churches which Washington attended claimed, however, that he never took the Sacrament and one of them, the Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie of Saint Peter’s—the Philadelphia Church Washington attended during the Continental Congress—explicitly said that Washington was a Deist.   Abercrombie had, in a Sunday Sermon, criticized Washington and other public figures who refrained from receiving communion for setting a bad example by not remaining in church for the Sacrament.  Historians generally concur that the clergy records are more reliable than the family stories in this matter and take it that Washington attended Morning Prayer—a service  of psalms, prayers, and a sermon, but not Holy Communion. 

Washington’s devotional practices reflect his moral integrity.  If there is one thing one can say about Washington is that, despite Parson Weems’ story of the cherry tree being a fabrication, he was a man of superior integrity.  He was certainly a gentleman and respectful of the opinions of others but he was extremely discreet regarding his own religious beliefs.  Martha, his wife, was a very devout Episcopalian who received the Sacrament often.  Washington normally accompanied her to church, both attending the Morning Prayer.   George would usually then leave while Martha remained for the second service of Holy Communion.  Washington never said why, but obviously the Holy Communion was not important to him.  Or perhaps it was too important to him to participate in a rite whose basic significance differed from his personal “faith.”  Perhaps when we look at the various other rituals which Washington did practice we can understand his rather unique Christianity. 

Benjamin Franklin--A Most Unorthodox "Christian"

Onwards with the Judeo-Christian Nation issue to determine whether or not our American heritage is indeed, undisputedly as Ms Barbara Curtis of Mommy Blog asserts, a “Judeo-Christian nation.”  We looked at our colonial roots (December 15) which can give some affirmation to the idea and then to the Founding Fathers where the issue becomes more complicated.  We had two entries (December 16, 17) on Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, as well as being the author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom which, in turn, influenced the non-establishment clause of the Bill of Rights which lies at the heart of the problem of religious displays in public space.  Yesterday I tried to use the Tim Tebow phenomenon to illustrate the difference between government-space and public space as well as between religious holidays/symbols and cultural celebrations/symbols.  So now back to the Founding Fathers and we will look at Benjamin Franklin to see his religious convictions and what they might say about “Christian Nation.”  Franklin is usually identified as a Quaker but his roots, in fact, were Congregationalist and he was baptized as an infant at the Old South Meeting House in Boston.  His parents destined him for the clergy—a fate for which Benjamin would have been incalculably ill suited.  I don’t know that he ever affiliated with the Quakers—it seems unlikely as having fled to Philadelphia (the seat of American Quakerism) at age 17, then on to London for a brief period before returning to Philadelphia where he joined the Masons at the age of twenty-five and within four years was elected Grand Master of his Lodge.  Quakers eschewed secret societies and while Franklin dressed plain and lived frugally his ties to the Masons would indicate he had already become a rationalist rather than a believer when he settled in the City of Brotherly Love.  Indeed when Franklin wrote his autobiography in 1771 he identified himself as a Deist and claimed to have long been won to that philosophy.  Franklin was very interested in religion.  In 1774, when living in London as the agent of the Pennsylvania Colony, he was present at the founding meeting of Unitarianism.  A decade later while serving as ambassador to France, Franklin gave advice to the Papal Nuncio regarding administration of the Catholic Church in the newly independent United States.  Indeed Franklin recommended John Carroll as superior of the American Mission—the provisional administration of the Church until the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy in 1789.  Franklin had become acquainted with Carroll in 1776 when they journeyed together and with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll (John’s cousin) to Canada to seek Canadian support for the Revolution.  Carroll, incidentally, was excommunicated for this act by the Bishop of Quebec, but he retained Franklin’s esteem.  Franklin, like so many liberals across the ages, was an elitist and while he admired Jesus as great moral teacher he favored organized religion principally because of its potential to shape the morals of the common people of which he did not consider himself one.  Not only did he not affiliate to any organized religion, but Franklin himself, while exalting moral behavior as the necessary foundation of any civilization, was no moral rigorist and always allowed himself considerable latitude in his personal life.  He was however, the consummate gentleman and charmed all, religious and agnostic alike.  John Adams said of him “The Catholics consider him almost a Catholic, The Church of England claimed him as one of them; the Presbyterians thought him half-a-Presbyterian and the Friends believe him a wet Quaker.” 

     In order to clarify Franklin’s religious stance we perhaps should briefly look at Freemasonry and also at Unitarianism and its relationship to orthodox Christianity and to Deism. 

      Freemasonry rose in Britain in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries.  The oldest lodges were in Scotland but the movement seems to have travelled into the southern kingdom along with the Stuarts when in 1603 James VI of Scotland came to the English Throne as James I.  While the origins seem to have been a fraternal organization of artisans and craftsmen, from the very beginning there was an interest in scientific knowledge.  Indeed the Scots lodge at Kilwinning, considered to be the Mother or first lodge in Masonry, is spoken of in the 1559 Schaw Statutes: the warden of the lodge of Kilwinning …take trial of the art of memory and the science thereof, of every craftsman (fellowe of craft) and every apprentice according to the air of their vocations.”  William Schaw, by the way, was not only one of the leaders of the Kilwining Lodge but the “Master of Works” to King James VI of Scotland before his ascension to the English Throne.  This provides a possible link to the spread of Freemasonry from Scotland to England. 

     Scottish Freemasonry is linked to the (Protestant) Reformation in Scotland and while the Scots Reformation was Calvinistic many of its supporters were no more interested in Calvinism than Catholicism but only wanted the intellectual freedom that the break with Rome seemed to represent.  This is true in both Scotland and England where once papal authority was broken, the Church—now the Reformed Church—was never able to establish control over the belief of the citizenry.  The origins of the separation of Church and State are firmly rooted in the Reformation principles that each individual is the judge of his or her orthodoxy.  Freemasonry attracted inquiring minds that wanted to discuss matters of science, politics, morals, and natural religion without the dominance of hierarchy.  There are strong ties between Freemasonry and the Enlightenment.  While today many Masons are devout members of mainline Protestant Churches with an orthodox appreciation of the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity, that would not have been typical in the seventeenth and eighteenth century where Freemasonry was tied to rationalism and Deism—and even agnosticism. 

     Freemasonry requires the belief in a Supreme Being but as a matter of principle leaves that Supreme Being undefined.  There is also the reference to “Sacred Law.”  While in the United States this “volume of Sacred Law” is most commonly the King James Bible, it can be any religious or philosophical text depending on the makeup of the members.  Indeed in Lodges of mixed religious memberships—Christians, Hindus, Muslims—several “volumes of Sacred Law” might be displayed together.  In other words, religion is somewhat of whatever the individual decides to make it.  In a Christian context this not only produces a religious relativism, but it permits the Christian faith to be understood so broadly as to be without substance. In this system natural science rather than revealed truth is the basis of moral behavior and that would be perfectly consistent with the thought of not only of the Mason, Franklin, but the non-Mason Deist, Jefferson. It is not Christian doctrine however in which the teachings of Jesus are not only illustrative of good morals but their foundation.  Well, that is enough for today.  We will save Unitarianism for another day.  Suffice it to say that Franklin was very definitely post-Christian in his own beliefs but thought that organized religion was a good thing for shaping the moral character of individuals less sophisticated than himself and his fellow Deists.  I don’t think one could say that he supported the idea of a Christian Nation, one built on orthodox Christian (or Judeo-Christian) doctrine but while not practicing it himself, he did encourage formal religion for the common citizen.  It would be inconsistent with his thought, however, to claim that he would support special legal or societal status for one religion over another.      

    

America: Undisputedely a Christian Nation?

Jefferson's home at Monticello

In my previous entry I spoke about the Christian roots of our American nation.  I mentioned that there were three colonial foundations on which the United States is built—the English, the Spanish, and the French and all three represented Christian monarchies.  Two of these colonial societies were Catholic, one was Protestant.  While all three have contributed to our culture, our political identity as a nation is taken only from the English/Protestant heritage and that heritage represented both an Anglican (Virginia, New York, Georgia, and the Carolinas) and a Reformed (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut (Congregationalist), Rhode Island (Baptist), Delaware and New Jersey (Presbyterian).  Pennsylvania (Quaker) and Maryland (Catholic) were anomalies, though Remember that Maryland had strong Anglican and Reformed contingents and Catholics were not only a minority but after 1688 were excluded from political life.  Nevertheless, given the wealth of the Catholic gentry they were certainly not without influence in the life of the colony.    Now despite the religious ties of the colonies—several with “Established Churches” (Anglican in the South and in New York, Congregationalists in New England)—we also saw that in only three—Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—did religion play a significant role in their foundation.  Reconsidering, I suppose we should include Rhode Island in that number as Roger Williams and his friends left Massachusetts over theological disputes that led to their excommunication from the Congregationalist Church.  Only one of these four, however, was founded with the explicit intention of being a Christian society and that was Massachusetts.  So on to the time of our Revolution and the “Founding Fathers.” 
      Well, what were the religions of our Founding Fathers?   Were they Christians and what were their intentions regarding the religious identity of our nation?  Did they intend to establish a Christian Nation? 
      Almost all of the Founders of the American Republic were Christians, of a sort.  I say “of a sort” because the understanding of what it meant to be a Christian differed in the mid- and late-seventeenth century than what we hold to and we would not recognize all of them as Christians today. Indeed in today’s world several, and several of the more important founders of our nation, would probably not identify themselves as Christians if they had access to our understanding of the term. 
       Almost all delegates to the Continental Congress who approved and signed the Declaration of Independence were affiliated with one religious group or another.  More than half of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence were Church of England, now Episcopalian.  Others were Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Unitarian, and Quaker.  One, Chalres Carroll of Carrollton, was a Catholic.  Several signers identify themselves with double affiliations.  John Adams, for example, was a Unitarian but also Congregationalist.  Unitarianism was at the time a faction within Congregationalism.  Thomas Jefferson is usually identified as Episcopalian and Benjamin Franklin as a Quaker when in fact both were Deists and not Christian at all. This is particularly important to note given that Jefferson and Franklin played an especially key role—along with John Adams—in the development of the Declaration of Independence.  They would go on to be among the principal shapers of our American Republic.  Franklin was the dean of the Founding Fathers, the oldest and most distinguished to whom the others deferred and he took an active role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that gave us our Constitution.   
      Jefferson was baptized an Episcopalian and when he died his grandson read the Episcopal burial service at his grave but in between Jefferson was what today would call an agnostic. He acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being and indeed wrote eloquently of the Supreme Being.  I particularly like his quote inscribed on the architrave of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”  Great Quote.  Of course, one of the forms of tyranny over the minds of man for Jefferson was organized religion, particularly hierarchical denominations such as the Anglican and the Catholic.  When Jefferson writes of “God” it is important to keep in mind that he did not believe in the God of the Judeo-Christian revelation but rather the Rationalist Deity of the Enlightenment, an impersonal “clockmaker-god” who set up the universe with its laws of nature and then let it wind its mechanical way unguided by a divine hand.  Jefferson regarded Jesus as a great moral teacher but did not think him more divine than any other human person. Jefferson created his Life and Morals of Jesus of  Nazareth by cutting (literally cutting with a razor from his King James) and pasting selections from the canonical gospels in a chronological order and eliminating anything of the supernatural—the virgin birth, miracles, angels, the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, and his resurrection.  Jefferson’s exegetical skill had convinced him that these were accretions added by the evangelists to the original message of Jesus.  With a bible like that, Jefferson couldn’t be elected nothin’ in Virginia today—though he would be a strong Democratic candidate in Massachusetts.  Jefferson’s agnosticism did not make him opposed to Christianity, however, and he made contributions in his old age to various churches—Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist—as he felt that religion was a good vehicle to train the common folk (he also was a elitist) in good morals.  During his time as ambassador to France he had extensive contact with Catholicism at the court of Louis XVI.  He felt that Catholicism was identified with the ancien regime and humanity would be better with Catholicism passing into the historical oblivion that Enlightenment figures were confident was its destiny.  (My favorite Enlightenment quote—which which Jefferson was familiar—is Diderot’s: Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest.  I don’t share the sentiment, I just love how outrageous the quote is.) With his every day relationships with Catholics Jefferson was a gentleman and wrote a cordial letter to Bishop John Carroll in 1801 supporting Carroll’s effort to purchase land in the district of Columbia for the building of a Catholic church. Jefferson, for his part, could not have but noticed that the Catholics in the colonies were ardent supporters of Independence from Britain and though few in number were enthusiastic supporters of the Republic.   Once America split into parties in the mid 1790’s Catholics tended to side with the Federalists rather than we Jefferson’s Republicans—the ancestors of today’s Democrats, but unlike the more virulent Federalists, the Catholics were strongly committed to republican rather than monarchical government.  Catholic thought favored a stronger central government at the expense of the States while Jefferson and his Republicans (now Democrats) were for a weak Federal government and stronger powers to the States.  See how things change, Kundun?  Most important to understand Jefferson’s ideas regarding the place of religion in public life is to remember that Jefferson had authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty.  I will post it in a future posting, but suffice it to say here that it makes religious belief or disbelief irrelevant to public and political life.  Given Jefferson’s own disbelief in traditional Christianity it is clear to the reader that Jefferson was not only concerned about strife between Anglicans and Baptists—the immediate area of strife in newly independent Virginia, but also to protect his own position as a post-Christian rationalist who was also governor of Virginia.  I will post that in my next posting and then we will go on to Adams, Franklin, and other Founders of our Christian Nation.  Or not. 

Turning Religion On Its Head

Don't ever go to Rome without

seeing Caravaggio's "Inspiration

of Saint Matthew in the Church

of San Luigi Francese.

I had a fascinating conversation on the airplane last evening with a man who teeters between agnosticism and atheism.  He identified himself as an atheist but when he actually outlined his beliefs he is more at the rationalist perimeter of agnosticism than pure atheism in as that he admits, indeed somewhat warmly embraces, the notion of a spiritual dimension to reality by which he posits the existence and immortality, after a fashion, of what a Christian would call the “soul,” though he himself refrains from that word.  He actually more closely resembles the rationalist Deism of the American Founding Fathers such as Jefferson or Franklin in as that he denies the existence of a personal—or as he said personalist—deity but does subscribe to some sort of what one might call an “Eternal Order” of being.  I have met atheists before and found them, without exception to be fools.  I don’t think atheism itself is foolish; I believe that one must be very intelligent or very stupid to deny the existence of a god.  (God being the deity of the three monotheistic religions; god referring to some sort, any sort, of a deity including the Jewish-Christian-Islamic deity.)  As I said, one must be very intelligent or very stupid to deny the existence of a god and to date I have only met the stupid ones.  By stupid I don’t mean uneducated—education has long ceased being a bulwark against ignorance, much less stupidity, once it abandoned requiring philosophy as a foundation and allowed the houses of the sciences, mathematics, and technology to be built on the sand  of data rather than the rock of metaphysics.  To what purpose is knowledge if it does not impart understanding?  Agnostics, on the other hand, I often find to have the best minds because they are not afraid of the great and important questions but go fearlessly into the dark night of the unexplored queries that relentlessly lead the soul to deeper and deeper searching.  I have much more confidence in the faith of the true agnostic (as opposed to the intellectual sluggard whose laziness leave him or her indifferent  to the search for truth) than the rattler of dogmatic formulae—whether that be the Mormon missionary with his prepared answers or the catechism toting Catholic who thinks all theology lies digested in his (or her) brain once they had memorized the old Baltimore claptrap and calendar of saints.   

     This fellow on the plane is no fool.  Though he works in the technology field he has a Master’s degree in French literature from a prestigious east coast university.  In our wide ranging discussion—most of the way across the Atlantic—I found myself fascinated by his insights on politics, economic, sociology, anthropology and even religion.  It was our discussion of religion—where he confessed he was an “atheist, or perhaps an agnostic”  where I found myself articulating some basic beliefs, the methodology of belief rather than dogma per se, that gave me an interesting insight into my own way of thinking about religious faith as well as why there is tension both between believers and non-believers and among believers who see things from (at least) two very different perspectives. 

     When Patrick—his name—mentioned that he rejected religion and didn’t want his children exposed to it except as a sociological phenomenon, he said that religion claims to be authoritative over the human intellect and thus stifles the human mind in its pursuit of truth.  I know what he meant.  There are plenty of people who think “God said it; I believe it; that settles it, end of discussion.”  This might reflect an “evangelical” (I prefer to say pseudo-evangelical as I don’t think most evangelicals today are true evangelicals, i.e. those who shape their life according to the Gospel.  I think too many take the “Good News” (evangelion in Greek) and make it bad news, something with which to hit  people who disagree with them over the head.  Or it could reflect a lot of super-Catholics who agree unflinchingly with Church authority, or at least as long as Church authority agrees with them.  You know: the Pope is dead right on abortion and same-sex marriage, but when he talks about capital punishment, economic  justice, health care, war, and distributive justice—well that’s just his personal opinion.  What these “evangelicals” and “faithful” Catholics share in common is a highly vertical understanding  of how God communicates himself (I am not into inclusive language when we talk about God, though I don’t have a problem with those who are as long as they don’t get silly.) 

     Now before I go further, let me reaffirm that this blog is not a theological blog and I am not going to approach this question as a theologian, but as a social scientist—that is from a historical/anthropological point of view. 

     The books of Scripture all had historical authors.  Whether or not the Holy Ghost came down and sat on their shoulders, whispering words into their ears as their pens glided across the papyrus and parchment sheets, is not relevant to the historian.  They had human authors and they were written in historical contexts.  The Book of Daniel, for example, was written, or at least much of it was written, in the context of a Hebrew society that was being religiously challenged by Graeco-Syrian political overlords who were trying to move the Jews of their time from traditional belief to a more universal synchronistic religion that would unite the diverse peoples and cultures of their rule.  The Gospel of Matthew was written for a community of Jewish Christians who were trying to harmonize their ancestral faith with some startling new insights developing among the disciples of the lately crucified religious leader, one Yeshua from Nazareth and Capernaum in the Galilee.  And nobody has ever been able to figure out what the author of Revelations had in mind, though there are plenty of theories.  This historical context issue is not limited to Judeo-Christian revelation.  Mohammed wrote in the context of sixth century Arabia with is warring tribes, religious strife, and a society in which alcohol abuse was a significant problem.  He also wrote with a personal exposure to Judaism (less than favorable) and Nestorian Christianity (which was overall a positive experience for him).  The Buddha came out of a Hindu society and culture where he was veddy veddy upper crust and he seems to have had a traumatic introduction to the question of human suffering that shaped his life and doctrine.  Ignatius Loyola wrote his Spiritual Exercises in an attempt to share his own spiritual awakening with his followers.  Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith is rooted in Saints Paul and Augustine but also was profoundly influenced in the way it was formulated by his own scruples and crises, not to mention his alleged digestive tract issues.  We could go on but there is no need.  The point is clear.  While some of these writings may claim to be of “Divine Revelation” that question is of no concern to the historian but only to the religious believer.  There is no objective way to determine with any objective certainty what is and what is not of divine revelation—if there were then faith would not be a required component of the equation. 

      Now, again, I am not writing from a theological perspective but solely from the historical/anthropological point of view, but religion, viewed from the social sciences, is not a matter of “Truth” being imparted from the top down—from God to the Pope, or some Chief Rabbi or Grand Mullah, or even the Dalai Lama (whom I admire tremendously.)  From a historical/anthropological perspective, Truth rises from human experience and crystallizes in the shared experience of a community of believers who shape it into doctrines and practices that reinforce it.  That is not to say that God is not involved but the historian or social scientist (in their role as a historian or social scientist) cannot speak of God but only of what he or she observes.  Of course, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and others can be men or women of faith as well as professionals in their fields.  As men and women of faith they can supply the God-piece to the puzzle but not in their work, at least not directly.  So while as a historian I believe that Christian Revelation –as all other religious systems—rises from human experience, as a man of faith I believe that the truths of Christian Revelation reveal themselves through human experience by the Grace of God.  What is the faith of the faithful is the crux question for me.  In the Catholic Tradition this called the consensus fidelium   and while it has generally been ignored for the last five centuries (some would say the last fifteen) it once was the crucial element in defining Christian orthodoxy. 

      Does this mean that all religion is on a level playing field?  Is the “truth” of Buddhist experience equal to the “truth” of Muslim experience and equal to the “truth” of Christian experience?   As a historian I affirm that each must be taken with the same respect and openness as the others.  I can also see, however, as a historian, that not all religious doctrines have the same success rate in articulating well the core human experiences.  Why has Buddhism lasted when Celtic religion died?  (I think the current revival of paganism is little more than a very ahistorical playing at nature cults.)   Where is Osiris now?  Where is Athena now?  While a host of deities have disappeared,. Jesus has lasted so far.  So have Allah, Shiva, and the Great Spirit.  Time shows that not all religions capture the Truth with equal resonance.  As a Christian, I believe that the religious experience around the teachings and person of Jesus of Nazareth have a unique depth of human truth, that is to say that they reflect the Divine inbreaking into human experience with a unique and superior authenticity.  In other words, I believe they are Divinely Revealed, or better, capture the Divine Revelation, with a unique truthfulness.  As a historian, however, I can only observe they are one of the major religious traditions and comment on how they function in comparison to other belief systems. 

      This view of revelation as rising from human experience is problematic for Churchy people because it moves the cheese.  It takes power from the select few and distributes it through the whole body of the faithful.  It overturns power structures—casts the mighty from their thrones and raises up the lowly, so to speak.  This is why I think, as a Catholic, that we must restore the balance of power between the magisterium, the theologians, and the consensus fidelium.  Do you remember in The Prisoner of Azkaban, the image of Professor Snape dressed up in Neville’s Grandmother’s clothes?  I am afraid, as a historian, that that is what the magisterium looks like when left unsupported by serious theological research and rooted in the everyday faith experience of the everyday believer.  And that is why so many people walk away from religion—it has just too often become ridiculous looking to too many good thinkin’ folk.