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Author: Alf J. Mapp
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742531154
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
In this book, the author cuts through historical uncertainty to accurately portray the religious beliefs of 11 of America's founding fathers. (Motivation)
Author: Alf J. Mapp
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742531154
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
In this book, the author cuts through historical uncertainty to accurately portray the religious beliefs of 11 of America's founding fathers. (Motivation)
Author: Ann Braude
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250083125
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
Pundits on both the right and the left often portray religion and feminism as inherently incompatible, as opposing forces in American culture. Transforming the Faiths of Our Fathers seeks to dispel that notion by asking sixteen well-known religious figures to tell the story of how they became involved in the women's movement. Their work-much of it ongoing-has helped transform the way religion is practiced in this country. They have worked for the ordination of women, for inclusive language and liturgy, for new interpretations of scripture, theology, and religious law, and for an end to religious teachings that contributed to destructive gender stereotypes. Authors include Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Evangelical, and goddess feminists. The personal stories of the fascinating contributors include watershed events in American religion and society over the last forty years. Each one of the women inTransforming the Faiths of Our Fathers has made history and seen it made, and gives her own version of what she has witnessed and experienced. They demonstrate the roots of their feminist activism in religious commitments, and the significance of struggles within religious arenas for expanding women's possibilities in society and culture.
Author: David L. Holmes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199740968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
It is not uncommon to hear Christians argue that America was founded as a Christian nation. But how true is this claim? In this compact book, David L. Holmes offers a clear, concise and illuminating look at the spiritual beliefs of our founding fathers. He begins with an informative account of the religious culture of the late colonial era, surveying the religious groups in each colony. In particular, he sheds light on the various forms of Deism that flourished in America, highlighting the profound influence this intellectual movement had on the founding generation. Holmes then examines the individual beliefs of a variety of men and women who loom large in our national history. He finds that some, like Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson's daughters, held orthodox Christian views. But many of the most influential figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison, and James Monroe, were believers of a different stripe. Respectful of Christianity, they admired the ethics of Jesus, and believed that religion could play a beneficial role in society. But they tended to deny the divinity of Christ, and a few seem to have been agnostic about the very existence of God. Although the founding fathers were religious men, Holmes shows that it was a faith quite unlike the Christianity of today's evangelicals. Holmes concludes by examining the role of religion in the lives of the presidents since World War II and by reflecting on the evangelical resurgence that helped fuel the reelection of George W. Bush. An intriguing look at a neglected aspect of our history, the book will appeal to American history buffs as well as to anyone concerned about the role of religion in American culture.
Author: Steven Waldman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812974743
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation.” Many on the left contend that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state. Neither of these claims is true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman. With refreshing objectivity, Waldman narrates the real story of how our nation’s Founders forged a new approach to religious liberty. Founding Faith vividly describes the religious development of five Founders. Benjamin Franklin melded the Puritan theology of his youth and the Enlightenment philosophy of his adulthood. John Adams’s pungent views on religion stoked his revolutionary fervor and shaped his political strategy. George Washington came to view religious tolerance as a military necessity. Thomas Jefferson pursued a dramatic quest to “rescue” Jesus, in part by editing the Bible. Finally, it was James Madison who crafted an integrated vision of how to prevent tyranny while encouraging religious vibrancy. The spiritual custody battle over the Founding Fathers and the role of religion in America continues today. Waldman at last sets the record straight, revealing the real history of religious freedom to be dramatic, unexpected, paradoxical, and inspiring.
Author: Jon Meacham
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812976665
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham reveals how the Founding Fathers viewed faith—and how they ultimately created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice. At a time when our country seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws on the past to offer a new perspective. Meacham re-creates the fascinating history of a nation grappling with religion and politics–from John Winthrop’s “city on a hill” sermon to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence; from the Revolution to the Civil War; from a proposed nineteenth-century Christian Amendment to the Constitution to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call for civil rights; from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating. Secularists point to a “wall of separation between church and state,” while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. As Meacham shows in this brisk narrative, neither extreme has it right. At the heart of the American experiment lies the God of what Benjamin Franklin called “public religion,” a God who invests all human beings with inalienable rights while protecting private religion from government interference. It is a great American balancing act, and it has served us well. Meacham has written and spoken extensively about religion and politics, and he brings historical authority and a sense of hope to the issue. American Gospel makes it compellingly clear that the nation’s best chance of summoning what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” lies in recovering the spirit and sense of the Founding. In looking back, we may find the light to lead us forward. Praise for American Gospel “In his American Gospel, Jon Meacham provides a refreshingly clear, balanced, and wise historical portrait of religion and American politics at exactly the moment when such fairness and understanding are much needed. Anyone who doubts the relevance of history to our own time has only to read this exceptional book.”—David McCullough, author of 1776 “Jon Meacham has given us an insightful and eloquent account of the spiritual foundation of the early days of the American republic. It is especially instructive reading at a time when the nation is at once engaged in and deeply divided on the question of religion and its place in public life.”—Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation
Author: Matthew Harris
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195326490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
Whether America was founded as a Christian nation or as a secular republic is one of the most fiercely debated questions in American history. Historians Matthew Harris and Thomas Kidd offer an authoritative examination of the essential documents needed to understand this debate. The texts included in this volume - writings and speeches from both well-known and obscure early American thinkers - show that religion played a prominent yet fractious role in the era of the American Revolution. In their personal beliefs, the Founders ranged from profound skeptics like Thomas Paine to traditional Christians like Patrick Henry. Nevertheless, most of the Founding Fathers rallied around certain crucial religious principles, including the idea that people were "created" equal, the belief that religious freedom required the disestablishment of state-backed denominations, the necessity of virtue in a republic, and the role of Providence in guiding the affairs of nations. Harris and Kidd show that through the struggles of war and the framing of the Constitution, Americans sought to reconcile their dedication to religious vitality with their commitment to religious freedom.
Author: Tim LaHaye
Publisher: New Leaf Publishing Group
ISBN: 0890512019
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Secular textbooks now fill our classrooms, while the Ten Commandments have been removed from their walls. Is this the vision held by those who worked to found this nation? What faith did our founding fathers truly believe and practice in their daily lives, and what does it really matter for us? Were they God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians or simply enlightened Deists, Transcendentalists, and Unitarians?
Author: Gary A. Kowalski
Publisher: BlueBridge
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
"Revolutionary Spirits" brings to life the complex creeds and personalities of America's founding fathers, and confronts many of the later myths about the religious views of some of the most notable figures in history. These founders worshiped Nature's God, not the God of the Bible, and sought spiritual inspiration in Creation rather than in the traditional religious creeds. They intended to found a republic of virtue, with the understanding that civic virtue entailed respect for the diverse religious landscape that characterized America from its very beginning. Together, they fashioned a new, democratic faith based on reasoned investigation rather than special revelation, grounded in free inquiry and the right of each individual to approach the Holy in his or her own manner. Offering clear and candid portraits of Franklin, Washington, Paine, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison as both religious reformers and political rebels, "Revolutionary Spirits" tells the illuminating story of these unorthodox men of faith and thought, and reclaims their spiritual inheritance for us all. -- From publisher's description.
Author: Gregg L. Frazer
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700620214
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Were America's Founders Christians or deists? Conservatives and secularists have taken each position respectively, mustering evidence to insist just how tall the wall separating church and state should be. Now Gregg Frazer puts their arguments to rest in the first comprehensive analysis of the Founders' beliefs as they themselves expressed them-showing that today's political right and left are both wrong. Going beyond church attendance or public pronouncements made for political ends, Frazer scrutinizes the Founders' candid declarations regarding religion found in their private writings. Distilling decades of research, he contends that these men were neither Christian nor deist but rather adherents of a system he labels "theistic rationalism," a hybrid belief system that combined elements of natural religion, Protestantism, and reason-with reason the decisive element. Frazer explains how this theological middle ground developed, what its core beliefs were, and how they were reflected in the thought of eight Founders: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington. He argues convincingly that Congregationalist Adams is the clearest example of theistic rationalism; that presumed deists Jefferson and Franklin are less secular than supposed; and that even the famously taciturn Washington adheres to this theology. He also shows that the Founders held genuinely religious beliefs that aligned with morality, republican government, natural rights, science, and progress. Frazer's careful explication helps readers better understand the case for revolutionary recruitment, the religious references in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious elements-and lack thereof-in the Constitution. He also reveals how influential clergymen, backing their theology of theistic rationalism with reinterpreted Scripture, preached and published liberal democratic theory to justify rebellion. Deftly blending history, religion, and political thought, Frazer succeeds in showing that the American experiment was neither a wholly secular venture nor an attempt to create a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. By showcasing the actual approach taken by these key Founders, he suggests a viable solution to the twenty-first-century standoff over the relationship between church and state-and challenges partisans on both sides to articulate their visions for America on their own merits without holding the Founders hostage to positions they never held.
Author: Daniel L. Dreisbach
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199843341
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 379
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Book Description
The role of religion in the founding of America has long been a hotly debated question. Some historians have regarded the views of a few famous founders, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Paine, as evidence that the founders were deists who advocated the strict separation of church and state. Popular Christian polemicists, on the other hand, have attempted to show that virtually all of the founders were pious Christians in favor of public support for religion. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, a diverse array of religious traditions informed the political culture of the American founding. Faith and the Founders of the American Republic includes studies both of minority faiths, such as Islam and Judaism, and of major traditions like Calvinism. It also includes nuanced analysis of specific founders-Quaker fellow-traveler John Dickinson, prominent Baptists Isaac Backus and John Leland, and Theistic Rationalist Gouverneur Morris, among others-with attention to their personal histories, faiths, constitutional philosophies, and views on the relationship between religion and the state. This volume will be a crucial resource for anyone interested in the place of faith in the founding of the American constitutional republic, from political, religious, historical, and legal perspectives.
