James Wilson, Religion, & The American Character

One of our relatively forgotten Founding Fathers is James Wilson, a signatory of The Declaration of Independence, a member of the Continental Congress, and among the first six Supreme Court justices chosen by President George Washington. One the most prominent lawyers of his time, Wilson is often credited as being the most learned of the Framers of the Constitution.

James Wilson was also someone who fretted over the youth of America and strongly advocated teaching young children the principles of liberty, freedom, and justice which inspired the American Revolution. Wilson takes on the teacher’s role in the following passage (from Of the Study of the Law in the United States), where we find him touching on the topic of the American character and how both the law and religion can degenerate into ridiculousness when in the hands of their “injudicious friends” who today many would say have become the majority.

Were I called upon for my reasons why I deem so highly of the American character, I would assign them in a very few words–that is, that the American character has been eminently distinguished by the love of liberty, and the love of law. The science of law should, in some measure, and in some degree, be the study of every free citizen, and of every free person. Every free citizen and every free person has duties to perform and rights to claim. Unless, in some measure, and in some degree, you know those duties and those rights, you can never act a just and an independent part.

Happily, the general and most important principles of law are not removed to a very great distance from common apprehension. It has been said of religion that though the elephant may swim in it, the lamb may wade there too. Concerning law, the same observation may be made. The home navigation, carried on along the shores, is more necessary, and more useful too, than that which is pursued through the deep and expanded ocean.

You have heard much concerning the forms of process, and proceedings, and pleadings. Much has been written in praise, and much has been written in ridicule, of this part of law learning. It has certainly been abused: in some hands, it has become, and daily does become ridiculous. And what is there that has been exempted from a similar fate! Religion herself, elegant and simple as she is, assumes yet an awkward and ridiculous appearance when dressed in the tawdry or tattered robes put upon her by the false taste of her injudicious friends.¹

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1. The above quote by James Wilson has been lightly edited for brevity and ease of reading. [↩]

George Washington, the Constitution, & Spiritual Tyranny

As we begin the final week of our month-long series on the Founding Fathers, Spirituality, and Religion, we turn our attention to George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and of course the first President of The United States. A fierce advocate of personal liberties, General Washington worried over the tyranny of establishments and institutions in all matters, especially regarding politics and religion.

As such, Washington belonged to no political party and in fact wished that America would not form parties, not simply out of a fear of tyrrany but also because he felt a party system would encourage conflict and prevent governments from getting things done. Looking at the current sad state of political affairs, we see that Washington’s concerns were very prescient.

The following passage is from a letter dated May 10, 1789, written to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia. Here we find Washington emphasizing that we worship by the dictates of our own consciences, not by the dictates of organized church bodies or religious establishments, which are more than capable of inflicting spiritual tyranny on their congregations. Washington held the belief (common among many of the Founding Fathers) that the individual alone is responsible for his or her relationship to God.

If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.

For you, doubtless, remember that I have often expressed my sentiment, that every person, conducting themselves as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for their religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their own conscience.

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Patrick Henry & The Great Christian Divide

Any series on the Founding Fathers and Christianity would be remiss without addressing the topic of slavery. For us today it seems amazing that such enlightened men, who demanded liberty and freedom for themselves, couldn’t see the hypocrisy in keeping slaves. But many of the Founding Fathers did clearly see the evil of the slave trade and bore no illusions as to themselves being masters over another race.

For some perspective on this matter, we turn to Patrick Henry, the former governor of Virginia, who is famously remembered for his “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” speech, which was a call to arms against the oppressive British government. The following passage from Patrick Henry is taken from a letter to a friend who had sent him a book condemning the slave trade. What is especially poignant in this commentary (for the modern reader) is Henry’s observation of the great divide that exists between what Christians know is wrong in their heads, and what they actually reject as wrong in real life. It is great chasm that still exists today, even among Progressive Christians.

I take this opportunity to acknowledge the receipt of Anthony Benezet’s book against the slave trade. I thank you for it. It is not a little surprising that the professors of Christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, and in cherishing and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong.

What adds to the wonder is that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny, which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested.

Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision in a country, above all others, fond of liberty, that in such an age and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as repugnant to humanity, as it is inconsistent with the bible, and destructive to liberty? Every thinking, honest person rejects slavery in theory, yet how few in reject it in real life from conscientious motives!¹

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1. The above passage from Patrick Henry was edited lightly to make it easier to read by the modern reader. [↩]

John Dickinson, Divine Providence & Our Freedoms

In this installment of our series dealing with the Founding Fathers–thoughts on Religion, God, and Progressive Christian living, we turn to John Dickinson, a less widely-known Father from Philadelphia who fought during the American Revolution and served as a Pennsylvania delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. Dickinson is perhaps most famous for his declaration to King George III that Americans were resolved to die free men rather than live slaves.

The following passage is taken from John Dickinson’s “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies.” Here we find Dickinson, the former Progressive Christian President of Pennsylvania, writing eloquently on the freedom that is granted to us by God, and the vigilance that is required to retain that freedom. His comment regarding how our freedoms can be gradually usurped has special resonance for Americans today.

I am no further concerned in anything affecting America, than any one of you; and when liberty leaves it, I can quit it much more conveniently than most of you. But while that Divine Providence which gave me existence in a land of freedom permits my head to think, my lips to speak, and my hand to move, I shall highly and gratefully value this blessing I’ve received, and I’ll take care that my silence and inactivity shall not give my implied assent to any act, degrading my brethren and myself from the birthright, wherewith heaven itself “hath made us free.”

[With Regards to Great Britain] All artful rulers, who strive to extend their power beyond its just limits, try to give to their attempts as much semblance of legality as possible. Those who succeed them may then venture to go a little further; for each new encroachment will be strengthened by the former. In other words, that which is now supported by examples, grows old, and eventually become another example to support fresh usurpations.

A FREE people therefore can never be too quick in observing, nor too firm in opposing the beginnings of alterations in form or reality regarding those institutions established for their security. The first kind of alteration leads to the last. Yet, on the other hand, nothing is more certain than that our forms of liberty may be retained even when the literal substance is gone. In government, as well as in religion, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”¹

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The Living Hour’s SBNR motivational series combines history, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion to help bring about new perspectives on Progressive Christianity and spirituality. Sign up by entering your email address into the “Opening the Small Gate” box in the right corner of this web page.

1. The above passage from John Dickinson was very lightly edited to make it easier to read by modern readers. [↩]

The Test of Freedom

The writer and wandering traveler Isabelle Eberhardt was an extraordinary woman. The remains of her book Dans l’Ombre Chaude de l’Islam – In the Hot Shade of Islam (salvaged from a flash flood that killed the young author) was once called “one of the strangest human documents that a woman has given to the world.” In her early twenties, Eberhardt wrote the following:

Vagrancy is deliverance and life on the open road is the essence of freedom. To have the courage to smash the chains with which modern life has weighted us (under the pretext that it was offering us more liberty), then to take up the symbolic stick and get out! To one who understands the value and the delectable flavor of solitary freedom (for no one is free who is not alone) leaving is the bravest and finest act of all.

Most of us can feel sympathy with Eberhardt’s words and admire her courage, especially considering the fact that she wrote them sometime around 1900. Who has not felt (at some point) the desire to “smash the chains” and set out on the open road? Perhaps when we are young, this can be the bravest and finest act of all. But as we grow older, the act of fleeing is often neither brave nor fine.

Looking toward the life of Jesus, we discover that true bravery is to defend our liberty even when being denounced by others, to honor our conscience regardless of the consequences, and to embrace our independence while others toe the line. In other words, to remain free even when we are not alone. The true essence of freedom is defined not by the depth of our solitude but by how well it stands up to the crowd.

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To read about Jesus’ second coming and the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, please go to: Jesus & The Grand Inquisitor.