Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Revisionism on the right

Reading this kind of drivel that Frank Turek writes here saddens me for both the future of American conservatism and evangelicalism. Are we really so stupid as to buy this back of lies?


On the other hand, the Founders were Christian people with a proper understanding of human nature who thus recognized that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. So neither did they want the instability and abuse of power characteristic of a secular government. As a result, they brilliantly developed the perfect third alternative to the religious-secular dilemma. Instead of creating their own secular system or adopting laws directly from a sectarian religion, the founders wisely based the United States on the Moral Law (“Nature’s Law” in Jefferson’s words), which comes from God.
It is critical to recognize that our Founders based our government and moral rights on a theistic God, not on someone’s sectarian religion. This Moral Law is consistent with Christianity but does not require adherence to Christianity or even knowledge of the Bible. In fact the Bible itself says that even those who don’t have the Bible know basic right and wrong because God has “written it on their hearts” (Rom. 2:14-15).
In this respect, one could say that the country was founded on Christian theism, but the founders did not mandate the observance of Christianity. So even though most of the Founders were orthodox Christians who believed the Rights of the people came from God, they did not insist that every citizen believe in God; they simply saw no way to justify those natural moral Rights unless God exists. 

This is what is being passed for truth on conservative blogs and news shows.   Funny that Turek references Jefferson.   If anyone believes this, please study Jefferson, Madison, and especially Patrick Henry.  Then get back to me.