The White House Wasn't Always God's House

[Q]

Published on Tuesday, October 26, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

The White House Wasn't Always God's House

by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

George W. Bush's presidency is the first faith-based administration in U.S. history.

The founding fathers did not mention God in the Constitution, and the faithful often regarded our early presidents as insufficiently pious.

George Washington was a nominal Anglican who rarely stayed for Communion. John Adams was a Unitarian, which Trinitarians abhorred as heresy. Thomas Jefferson, denounced as an atheist, was actually a deist who detested organized religion and who produced an expurgated version of the New Testament with the miracles eliminated. Jefferson and James Madison, a nominal Episcopalian, were the architects of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. James Monroe was another Virginia Episcopalian. John Quincy Adams was another Massachusetts Unitarian. Andrew Jackson, pressed by clergy members to proclaim a national day of fasting to seek God's help in combating a cholera epidemic, replied that he could not do as they wished "without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the general government."

In the 19th century, all presidents routinely invoked God and solicited his blessing. But religion did not have a major presence in their lives. Abraham Lincoln was the great exception. Nor did our early presidents use religion as an agency for mobilizing voters. "I would rather be defeated," said James A. Garfield, "than make capital out of my religion."

Nor was there any great popular demand that politicians be men of faith. In 1876, James G. Blaine, an aspirant for the Republican presidential nomination, selected Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, a famed orator but a notorious scoffer at religion, to deliver the nominating speech: The pious knew and feared Ingersoll as "The Great Agnostic"; a 21st century equivalent of Ingersoll would have been booed off the platform at the Republican convention of 2004.

There were presidents of ardent faith in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson had no doubt that the Almighty designated the United States — and himself — for the redemption and salvation of humankind. Jimmy Carter, like Bush, was "born again." Ronald Reagan, though not a regular churchgoer, had a rapt evangelical following. But neither Wilson nor Carter nor Reagan applied religious tests to secular issues, nor did they exploit their religion for their political benefit. These are the standards that Bush has systematically violated.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1026-22.htm

[Anakin Skywalker]

1. Wanna Bet?

$100 says this Schlesinger is not related to Laura Schlesinger (The Holier-than-Thou Dr. Laura) :)

[starroute]

3. You really don't know who Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is?

You need to do a little homework


http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/schlesinger.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/books/09/13/arthur.schlesinger.ap/

[Shakespeare]

4. Took the words right out of my mouth.

And I'm sure he'd be horrified at the very thought he might be related to that harpy.

;-)

[American Tragedy]

2. I don't get it

Like you, I've read enough about the founding fathers to know their thoughts on religion, enough to know that most of them would be virtually unelectable in the current political environment. How do fundies reconcile this with their constant tenuous appeals to the Constitution as a document that reinforces Christian influence in the government?

[Cat Atomic]

5. Bush is the worst, but the entire Republican Party has been

playing with fire since the 80's, openly courting the fundamentalists as a group. That strategy is largely what got Gingrich and his crew into power in '94, and it's at the root of our problems today.

Going after fundamentalists as a voting block, and even organizing them on a massive scale politically, was terribly irresponsible. The Republicans have a tiger by the tail these days.