America's founding as a "Christian" nation (as opposed to other religions, or to atheism) cannot be disputed, but Reconstructionism is theologically unsound. Also called 'theonomy', it has been pretty much driven out of the two most conservative Presbyterian denominations (the PCA and the OPC).

Reconstructionists are the most frustrating people, not because they are combative (or threatening), but because they are so unhappy and detached (and frightened). Many of them went gonzo over Y2K, only to emerge from their bunkers to sunlight and freedom. I actually think many of them wanted chaos and radiation. Too bad.

Except by Article VI of the Constitution.

Again with the Aggrieved Avenging Angel of Establishment Clause (excuse me, I guess it's religious test provision this time) Purity schtick, eh Harry? It's always funny to hear you bloviate on about separation of Church and State when it's patently, bleedingly, blindingly obvious that the State itself is really your Church. Do stop using the Constitution for toilet paper and then bragging about it.

The very slenderness of the thread to which he clings suggests the desperation of Harry's plight.

OK, I'll jump in the middle here with my $.02. A big part of the problem is that the phrase "separation of church and state" is somewhat vague. What Harry points to, and what I support, means roughly "the government can't pick an official religion and force people to join."

The "myth" comes in when people stretch "separation" to mean "the two have nothing whatever to do with one another" or "no evidence of religion is allowed on public land." I agree that's not what the people who wrote the Constitution meant, and it would be silly and counterproductive to try to make it happen.

The Constitution is noteworthy for all its references to Christianity.

Only when it states is ends.

Actually, Papaya, I'd phrase it like this. The First Amendment says to Americans: worship anything you like, as long as it isn't the State. It's a reasonable analogue to the First Commandment, which says to Jews: worship anything you like, as long as it's Yahweh. That's a terrible problem for the American left, who basically do worship the state as do their European brethren. (The welfare state, that is. The security state functions as their Satan.) They don't see it that way, of course, because for them, religion and Christianity are coterminous. The idea that religion is the act, not the object; and that whatever you bow your head to, and bend your knee to, and look to for salvation, functions as God to you; goes right in their one ear and right out their other. You can ask Harry that, if he comes back. He'll quite likely have no idea what I'm talking about.

That was worth quite a bit more than 2 cents, Papaya.

It is true that the Founders expected America to remain a Christian nation, at least among the ruling classes. They certainly had no illusions about the godliness of the masses.

What Article VI did, though, was to establish that Americans would be Christians, and overwhelmingly Protestant Christians (except for a handful of Jews) in their private lives. Their religious and/or spiritual values would inform their political decisions.

But Art. VI divorces the state from religion. The Founders knew history and thought they saw a way to avoid the disasters of religion in politics and politics in religion.

They were, indeed, wise men.

Three things, though, they failed to foresee.

1. That the ungodly masses would get the vote, and without being churched to any significant degree.

2. That increasingly broad education would lead large amounts of Americans to stop taking religion seriously.

3. That Christianity would lose its almost absolute majority even among those who still did take religion seriously.

Although they didn't foresee all this, the structure they created has dealt with it very well.

The attempt to dismantle it is neither conservative nor intelligent.

From an Established Religion.

I think it is pretty silly to deny the seminal importance of Protestant Christianity to American culture, history, politics etc. At the same time, I think we should remember that the Founding Fathers were deathly scared of the religious wars between sects in Europe. The '14 and the '45 were both in living memory as WWII is for us. They did not want a nation where Virginia would be Anglican, Massachusetts Calvinist, Pennsylvania Lutheran, etc. because of the obvious discord that would result. However, it is impossible for me to imagine that people like Rev. John Witherspoon or Rev. Peter Muhlenberg or Rev. Peter Frelinghuysen wanted an America devoid of Christianity, broadly defined.

Bart:

That's antihistorical nonsense--the Constitution protected the established churches in several states. Their only concern was that the Federal government not choose one.

The established churches got formally disestablished pretty much instantaneously after the Constitution was ratified. South Carolina is a good example. When they remained established, and I think Maryland was the last one, their impact on actual political decision making was minimal at most. Rhode Island, New York and Pennsylvania never had an established church even as English colonies. Virginia had Thomas Jefferson's Statute on Religious Liberty. None of the colonies with the possible exception of Georgia was entirely of one religious faith in the way that Sweden is Lutheran or Italy is Roman Catholic.

At no point in post-Revolutionary America has there ever been a church with as much local power as the Church of England had before WWII.

Bart:

Stop clouding the issue with facts.

Not only do ideas have consequences, Orrin, but consequences have ideas.

The state churches were disestablished -- thought Bart is incorrect to say 'almost instantaneously,' Connecticut didn't act until 1808 -- for some reason.

The reason was, obviously, that having seen the consequences of not having an established church in some states (a really revolutionary idea, something genuinely new in human experience), everybody wanted to get some of that good stuff.

There are established churches around the world today, and they are hardly advertisements for the idea.

Most Americans do not even know Art. VI exists, but you're the one rewriting history. When it was written, it was by far the most extreme measure in an otherwise fairly conservative document.

The Founders didn't make that choice casually.

Harry:

Yet no one noticed its extremity until atheists went looking for something to cling onto. States disestablished because their populations grew more diverse. It's why there's no danger of us establishing a Federal church no matter how much we reChristianize government.

Although they didn't foresee all this, the structure they created has dealt with it very well.

No and yes. The structure they left didn't succeed, exactly; what it did was to fail in a way which Harry finds congenial. The Founders left a structure which dealt well with the problem of religion in politics as it was understood at the end of the eighteenth century. That the state churches got disestablished quickly is a feature of that system, not a bug -- it speaks to how well Madison understood the power of faction, and what a good job the Founders did of getting that eighteenth-century elite to hold itself at gunpoint. The big weakness in that structure is that it relied on the common sense at the time of what religion is, and what sects were out there that needed to be reined in. The Founders left us as idiot-proof a system as they could. What they couldn't prepare for was the spectacular new class of idiot that the 19th and early 20th century would produce, particularly its great theologians of the state (I'd say Marx and Joseph Campbell; I imagine the brothers would add Darwin and Freud ), or the great new religion those idiots would invent, all the while they were preaching the end of religion. Harry's sanguine about all this (at least to the extent that he wraps his sneers at the Founders in what seems like a compliment) because it's left us with an established religion -- the church of the state -- which happens to be his religion also.

I would not use the Warren Court and those who love it as the last word on constitutional interpretation. Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. Banning prayer and readings from the King James Bible in school perhaps was good policy(I wouldn't say so but I know people who do), but there is no way that any sane person can claim that they are unconstitutional. But then these are the same judges who claim the death penalty is unconstituional, when at least my copy has this language about depriving people of life with due process.

The behavior of the Founding Fathers when the went back to their states has always seemed to me the best indicator of what their interpretation of that document is. The Founding Fathers did change the laws in their home states regarding 'establishment' and that should be dispositive as to what they meant.

More indicative is their first act when gathered as a Congress--they hired official chaplains.

For themselves. They did not hire chaplains for everybody.

That's exactly the point.

Religious people should bring their religion into their political decisions (and their business, familial and romantic decisions).

They should not bring it into other people's decisions.

That's why they should not be reading the King James Bible (as the word of God) to other people's kids.

I hadn't thought of Bart's point about what they did when they got back home. It's a good one.

For the Federal Legislature.

For the federal legislators.

I sit through those prayers all the time. The preachers pray for the personal performance of the members of the legislature. I've never heard one pray that the legislative acts themselves be influenced by religion.

A subtle but real distinction.

Harry:

Wasn't it the Kansas Legislature where the prayer was too much for the members (about 4 or 5 years ago, I think)? In that case, there was a definite request for divine intervention and/or guidance for the whole body, plus a lapse into contrition (which outraged a fair number of people).

Or perhaps, just that one time, people actually listened to the prayer. But there was a storm, as I remember.

The legislators are the government.

Hmmm. That's an interesting version of the Constitution you have there.

I thought the government was the people, and the legislators were their representatives, but I get Orrin's point. He does not believe in self-government.

Never been to Kansas, jim. I was just relaying my experience, mostly at county board of supervisor meetings.