Putting God Back Into American History

New York Times ^ | 2/27/05 | DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

[He Rides A White Horse]

Why is it that the more I read the former Soviet Constitution, the more I think of this:

"Open the pod bay doors please, Hal."

HAL: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

[wagglebee]

This part of the movie seems far more appropriate to me!

[He Rides A White Horse]

Maybe there is a case for evolution..........how about retro-evolution; being active on FR today I think there might be a case for mankind reverting to animalistic behavior.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I think the weapon thrown turning into a boomerang and hitting the ape on the head would have been more accurate.

[wagglebee]

I think the weapon thrown turning into a boomerang and hitting the ape on the head would have been more accurate.

I couldn't find the picture I wanted, so used the closest one I could find.

[elephantlips]

Fair and balanced? Perhaps. "The temperature of a lot of 18th century religion was just a lot lower," he said.
Much has changed over the 250+ years since. Social norms of the time didn't forbid your depth of feeling for your beliefs, just the public display of emotional extremes. The leaders of our country at its founding were gentlemen to the extreme. Decorum, manners and breeding were very important to them and delving into the personal beliefs of another was considered "none of your business." Being a Christian at their time frame was a basic, that was your starting point. Yes, the founders would definitely not approve of this country's present attitude toward religion.

[He Rides A White Horse]

It worked for me.(g)

[jan in Colorado]

Ping for later

[Clintonfatigued]

Interesting posting. For those who homeschool, are there history books which have such a cirriculum?

[DeweyCA]

Try history textbooks by ABeka or Bob Jones University textbooks.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Thank you for the picture.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Now I know were the radical feminist and Gay activist get their inpireration, from a MONKEY , lol.

[AmericanVictory]

Are you kidding? It has significant omissions on the true status of the faith of the founders that you could drive a truck through, as always with the worshipers of the Leviathan State. They seek to impose their view upon another time, a common fallacy that historians criticize except when it supports their "progressive" views. Particularly noteworthy is the usual distortion of Deism, as if it were some sort of religious sect rather than the Whig gentleman's philosophy of historical truth.

[Pharmboy]

From the same article...

[Pharmboy]

I agree with Torie--ESPECIALLY for the NY Times, this WAS a fair and balanced article.

I am an amateur Washington historian and can say that their depiction of the General's religious orientation is accurate. I have gone to mass in three churches that he attended with some regularity (Christ Church in Philadelphia, Christ Church in Alexandria and St. Paul's Chapel in NYC) to get a feel for what he saw as he attended church. And though Martha invariably took communion, the General never did.

He also was a founding member of the Pohick Church in Virginia, so he was indeed an active churchgoer. But, he was not the type to drop to his knees in prayer and that famous painting at Valley Forge is based on imagination and not history.

He attitude was based on a melding of Christian teaching (the Rules of Civility that he dutifully copied at the age of 16 and lived by were of Jesuitical origin) and the principles of the Enlightenment--a combination that seemed to work quite well for him, and through him, this great nation.

[GOPcapitalist]

Mr. Barton, who is also the vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, is a point man in a growing movement to call attention to the open Christianity of America's great leaders and founding documents.

Barton is a snakeoil salesman and a pseudo-historian fraud. He tries to pass off the founding fathers as if they were evangelical Baptists like he is, when in reality most of them were high church Episcopalians or Presbyterians. Many of his writings are also latently anti-Catholic and he's known for using questionable sources and quotes in his books. This guy does our cause no good, and the real tragedy of this article is not that the New York Times smeared his soiled name but rather that they associated it with legitimate views of the conservative movement.

[goldstategop]

Political correctness has upended even our view of American history. Credit goes to the ACLU for the idea we live in a God-free, secular republic.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[GOPcapitalist]

"Barton is a very hard-working researcher, but what I guess I worry about is the collapsing of historical distance, and the effort to make really anybody fit directly into the category of the early 21st century evangelicals," said Mark A. Noll, a prominent historian at Wheaton College, a prestigious evangelical school.

That more or less sums of the problems of David Barton's pseudo-histories: he tries to remake the founders so that they fit neatly into his own 21st century evangelical theology.