Historical Revisionism

[evangelist6589]

I am aware of the agenda by the liberals in releasing movies and books that takes Christianity out of the picture of American history. Films like the Patriot may be one example and perhaps Glory another example and no question about it Lincoln. Reading some quotes there was lots of Christianity in the patriots of the USA and that of Harvard, Princeton and such. Jonathan Edwards was a college president and no doubt that school has turned liberal after he died.

Know of any other examples of Historical Revisionism?

 

[preachinjesus]

Saying the Founding Father's were mostly devoted evangelical Christians.
Saying the Constitution is a God ordained, God inspired document.
Saying the America was a Christian nation from its inception.


You know, pretty much anything David Barton says...

 

[SolaSaint]

iJ, I don't like Barton either but America was founded upon Christian principles, please don't say it wasn't. Ever listen to or read William Federer? He is much more reliable than Barton.

 

[evangelist6589]

iJ, I don't like Barton either but America was founded upon Christian principles, please don't say it wasn't. Ever listen to or read William Federer? He is much more reliable than Barton.

Never head of him. What books has he published?

 

[Revmitchell]

The founding Fathers were mostly devoted Christians. Throwing in the word "Evangelical" is not helpful.

David Barton is another one liberals love to hate.

 

[go2church]

Barton is either ignorant of actual facts, which makes him an unreliable source or a liar, which makes him also an unreliable source. Either way he is completely unreliable.

 

[Rippon]

The founding Fathers were mostly devoted Christians.

No, they were not. The word 'Christian' should not be so elastic.

David Barton is another one liberals love to hate.

That's your stock phrase. But there are reasonable conservatives who differ with Mr. Barton because of his historical distortions.

Are you familiar with his debunked book :Jefferson's Lies? It was pulled from publication by Thomas Nelson because of its over abundance of factual errors. It was voted by a panel as "the least credible history book in print."

No, Mr. Barton is not reputable. His intentions may have been noble --but lying is never a way to advance one's cause.

 

[InTheLight]

No, Mr. Barton is not reputable. His intentions may have been noble --but lying is never a way to advance one's cause.

Seems to work for Gail Riplinger....

 

[preachinjesus]

iJ, I don't like Barton either but America was founded upon Christian principles, please don't say it wasn't. Ever listen to or read William Federer? He is much more reliable than Barton.

Well you can say that America was founded on Christian principles, also Jewish ones, Deist ones, Unitarian ones, Post-Enlightenment Rationalist ones, Colonialist ones, Continentalist ones, and others.

The reality is that America was founded as a melting pot of ideals and ideologies. Since Chrisitanity was the dominant religious form of Western Europe it certainly would be highly leveraged. However, if you look at the philosophers who informed the Founders you'll find more there than in the Bible.

As for Federer, I've seen bits and pieces, and I'm sure he's a nice guy. If I encounter him at a deeper level I'll pay attention.

Barton is a hack and a bad historian. People don't like him because he's a hack and a bad historian. His claims are erroneous, he lacks a decent historical method, he begs the question, basically all the bad things a historian could do...he does. I wish evangelicals would dispatch these fools and find better historians.

 

[Inspector Javert]

Well you can say that America was founded on Christian principles, also Jewish ones,

I would love to know what the appreciable difference is between a
"Christian" world-view and a "Jewish" world-view.
Is it moral absolutes?
Divine Command Theory?
Private-property rights?
Inheritance Law?

There's a term called a "Judeo-Christian" World-view...
And I'd love to hear the signifigant difference between them from the stand-point of Philosophy of Government.

Deist ones,

From the stand-point of the founding fathers...
even the Deists generally held that the Government should operate from a "Judeo-Christian" world-view, whether they personally ascribed to the Theology or not, the principles were the same.

Unitarian ones

Ditto the above ^^

Post-Enlightenment Rationalist ones

LOL Right....
There's no appreciable difference between the Governmental Philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Maximillien Robbespierre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau :laugh::laugh:

No difference, none at all.
The founding Fathers had little to zero "Rationalist" pre-dispositions at all.

Colonialist ones, Continentalist ones,

I am all ears as to what the general World-views of a "Colonialist" and a "Continentalist" are....

What are the general philosophical world-view differences of a "Colonialist"? And how did they differ from say, an Episcopalian? Did they worship, a giant turtle? Despise Republican Government?

and others.

What is the World-view of an "other"?

The only application of a people-group defined as "others" I am aware of is from the t.v. series LOST....

I confess to being ignorant of the World-view of an "other"....
or a "Colonialist" for that matter. (since most of them were Puritans, Methodists, Baptists, or Congregationalists)

The reality is that America was founded as a melting pot of ideals and ideologies.

But not World-views....
There is a consistent general "Judeo-Christian" World-view which dominated the thought processes of the founding fathers....
and they took their cues from John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, not Voltaire and Roussea or any other rationalist as you allege.

That's the difference between the successful American Revolution of 1776 and the tyrranical bloodshed of the French Revolution in 1789 a scant 13 years later....

It was the difference between a godless rationalist worldview and a Judeo-Christian one.

Since Chrisitanity was the dominant religious form of Western Europe it certainly would be highly leveraged.

Not amongst the "Post-enlightenment Rationalists" who you just claimed were a significant force in the founding of our Republic...
So....
Give up that one on your list or remove this statement, they cannot BOTH be true.

However, if you look at the philosophers who informed the Founders you'll find more there than in the Bible.

You are confusing the "philosophers" of Caltholic Western Europe with the "philosophers" of Protestant America:

There's an appreciable difference between Voltaire, Rousseau, Spinoza, Murat, Robespierre and Locke and Hobbes.

One group founded their principles upon the notion that all men were Created equal with certain inalienable rights because they were made in the image of God....and they created the greatest nation in the history of the World:

The other group founded their principles upon a godless and humanistic libertie, egalitie, fraternitie, and slaughtered thousands of their own countrymen in what was known as the post-revolution "Reign of Terror".

 

[church mouse guy]

iJ, I don't like Barton either but America was founded upon Christian principles, please don't say it wasn't. Ever listen to or read William Federer? He is much more reliable than Barton.

Yes, Federer is very interesting. He is on cable tv a half hour on weekdays. He ran for Congress in St. Louis, wasn't it? Some of his lectures are on internet video.

One of the problems that the USA has is that Jefferson said that we are endowed by our Creator with certain rights. That is a Christian belief and the modern-day liberal/progressive rejects Jefferson and wants government to decide the rights of human beings. Also, the SBC believes in individual competency in spiritual matters and thus in freedom of conscience. I cannot name a liberal/progressive who believes in freedom of conscience.

On the subject of the thread, Marlin Maddoux (Point of View) used to say on the radio that historical revisionism began in earnest during the period of World War I and the time of Woodrow Wilson.

 

[Crabtownboy]

I wonder what the term "good Christian" meant in the days of the Founding Fathers?

I did find the following in the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog and found it interesting. Personally I do not have remember enough from the history classes I have taken or the reading I have done to make a firm declaration on this issue. I expect it is the same with many on the BB.

Although the Declaration of Independence mentioned “Nature’s God” and the “Creator,” the Constitution made no reference to a divine being, Christian or otherwise, and the First Amendment explicitly forbid the establishment of any official church or creed. There is also a story, probably apocryphal, that Benjamin Franklin’s proposal to call in a chaplain to offer a prayer when a particularly controversial issue was being debated in the Constitutional Convention prompted Hamilton to observe that he saw no reason to call in foreign aid. If there is a clear legacy bequeathed by the founders, it is the insistence that religion was a private matter in which the state should not interfere.

In recent decades Christian advocacy groups, prompted by motives that have been questioned by some, have felt a powerful urge to enlist the Founding Fathers in their respective congregations. But recovering the spiritual convictions of the Founders, in all their messy integrity, is not an easy task. Once again, diversity is the dominant pattern. Franklin and Jefferson were deists, Washington harbored a pantheistic sense of providential destiny, John Adams began a Congregationalist and ended a Unitarian, Hamilton was a lukewarm Anglican for most of his life but embraced a more actively Christian posture after his son died in a duel.

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/02/the-us-founding-fathers-their-religious-beliefs/

 

[church mouse guy]

The USA has never had an established church and the Democrat Party has attempted to say that Christianity has tried to become an unofficial official established church in a move to silence Christians.

We also are well aware that Jefferson's statement that rights come from God is not in the Constitution.

If Jefferson did not mean that rights come from the Holy Trinity, as the historical revisionists and Democrats suggest, then the Democrats themselves have no inalienable rights and get their rights from their vast $$$ and Obama.

So the religious left and the Democrats and the historical revisionists are once again hoisted by their own petard. But then the American republic was only intended for a Christian people who believe that Jesus gave them human rights.

 

[Salty]

The USA has never had an established church and the Democrat Party has attempted to say that Christianity has tried to become an unofficial official established church in a move to silence Christians. ...

As a Nation,we have not, but several States/Commonwealths did.

 

[thisnumbersdisconnected]

If there is a clear legacy bequeathed by the founders, it is the insistence that religion was a private matter in which the state should not interfere.

The member fails to consider this is a blog, not an entry in the encyclopedia, and therefore bears no authority beyond one person's opinion.

Further, the conclusion reached by the blogger is completely erroneous, given that, had the founders viewed Christianity as "a private matter" they would never have even mentioned it in the Constitution.

More of the member's "stuff" on display.

 

[Crabtownboy]

The USA has never had an established church and the Democrat Party has attempted to say that Christianity has tried to become an unofficial official established church in a move to silence Christians.

We also are well aware that Jefferson's statement that rights come from God is not in the Constitution.

If Jefferson did not mean that rights come from the Holy Trinity, as the historical revisionists and Democrats suggest, then the Democrats themselves have no inalienable rights and get their rights from their vast $$$ and Obama.

So the religious left and the Democrats and the historical revisionists are once again hoisted by their own petard. But then the American republic was only intended for a Christian people who believe that Jesus gave them human rights.

Jefferson was a Deitist. I am not sure what their thoughts were on the trinity.

Thomas Jefferson was always reluctant to reveal his religious beliefs to the public, but at times he would speak to and reflect upon the public dimension of religion. He was raised as an Anglican, but was influenced by English deists such as Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury. Thus in the spirit of the Enlightenment, he made the following recommendation to his nephew Peter Carr in 1787: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."[1] In Query XVII of Notes on the State of Virginia, he clearly outlines the views which led him to play a leading role in the campaign to separate church and state and which culminated in the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom: "The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. ... Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.[2] Jefferson's religious views became a major public issue during the bitter party conflict between Federalists and Republicans in the late 1790s when Jefferson was often accused of being an atheist.

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-religious-beliefs

 

[church mouse guy]

If Jefferson was not referring to the Holy Trinity, then no American has any human rights because there are no human rights except those given by Jesus. I believe that the Democrats think that their rights are based upon there extensive $$$ and Obama and their ability to cheat non-Democrats. The Democrats do not believe that human rights come from Jesus, and the statement that Jefferson was a deist is proof. There are no human rights under deism.

The member's constant posting of the creed of neo-orthodoxy (What I believe must be subject to change as God gives me new insights. It must be alive! Otherwise it is just dead doctrine.) is further proof that the member does not believe that human rights are given by Jesus. We know for a fact that Islam does not have human rights or even a notion of such a thing, and the other oriental religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism have made it clear that they do not even believe in freedom of conscience let alone any other human right.

 

[FollowTheWay]

iJ, I don't like Barton either but America was founded upon Christian principles, please don't say it wasn't. Ever listen to or read William Federer? He is much more reliable than Barton.

Jesus said repeatedly that His Kingdom is NOT a kingdom of this world but rather the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you reject this and believe that He really came to lead God's only favored nation (Israel) out from under the bondage of Rome? There is no such thing as a Christian country. Some of the founding fathers were devout Christians. Some were not. Many like George Washington were Deists and some were atheists. Look at this article:
http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4783149/k.778D/Deism_and_Americas_Founders.htm


Washington's bishop and pastor while he was in Philadelphia admitted that "Truth requires me to say, that General Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am parochial minister."{11} Another pastor added, "Sir, he was a Deist," when questions about his faith arose shortly after his death. The fact that Washington was never confirmed in the Episcopal Church and ceased to take communion after the war adds to the case for him being a Deist.

Also here is a quote by Thomas Paine:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]

Thomas Jefferson developed his own "New Testament" by removing all statements about miraculous deeds or the divinity of Christ from the Bible.

http://www.thejeffersonbible.com/

Here's a quote from jefferson:


“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Our constitution was based on Biblical values as well as ideas from the centuries-old English Magna Carta. The focus of the Christian faith has NEVER been on nations but rather on individuals. Placing the emphasis on nations like America is unBiblical and harmful to evangelism because it instantly aligns Christianity and the conservative political philosophy. This is one of the things that is minimizing the influence of His Church in today's world.

The time has come to break the shackles of Republicanism that try to put Christianity in its own neat little box and let the mighty power of Jesus Christ work in our country. Then we will become a great country filled with true not false Christians but not a Christian country. The one word to describe America is FREEDOM not theocracy.

 

[church mouse guy]

It is historical revisionism to say that the USA was not founded on Christian principles. The Revolution against the English monarchy was made up of many people so there were people such as Thomas Paine, now discarded.

Perhaps the historical revisionists are trying to say that Americans have no God-given rights.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

It is historical revisionism to say that the USA was not founded on Christian principles. The Revolution against the English monarchy was made up of many people so there were people such as Thomas Paine, now discarded.

Perhaps the historical revisionists are trying to say that Americans have no God-given rights.

Where do we find Bible support for the concept of God given political rights? The early church certainly had none of those rights and all that the Bible says about that Roman government is to obey the law and pray for their leaders.