Stone's Founders

Thanks, Rob, for linking to Geoff Stone's blog post on the founders and religion.  The Stone post is depressingly old hat: an exaggerated, historically selective "secular nation" claim in reaction to an exaggerated, historically selective set of "Christian nation" claims (very few of which Romney actually made in his speech).

First, even as to the framers Prof. Stone cites, he oversimplifies the record.  To take just one example concerning Washington:  It's hard to see the belief that "religion was fundamentally a private and personal matter that had no place in the political life of [the] nation" in the president who issued an official proclamation in 1789 that "[i]t is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."  Every president after him, except for Jefferson but including Adams, issued similar statements.  These are not restrictively Christian in content; moreover, even such ecumenical official statements may be in tension with other, more separationist elements of the founding tradition on religion.  But to say that the framers thought religion "had no place in political life" is wildly overbroad.

More importantly, as Rob notes, the confident claim that "[the framers] would have been appalled at the idea of the federal government sponsoring 'faith-based' initiatives'" is unsupportable.  At the time of the founding, virtually all social services and education were provided by private organizations, and virtually all of those were religious.  There is little or no evidence that the framers, even the ones Prof. Stone emphasizes, had a problem with that fact.  Once government enters into these areas in a massive way -- education in the 19th century, social services in the 20th -- you can't simply say that allowing people to use government support at faith-based providers, if they choose, is a retreat from our founding tradition of religious liberty.  Even less convincing is Prof. Stone's implicit claim that the equal eligibility of faith-based providers rests on a "Christian nation" premise.  Rather, making them equally eligible -- including non-Christian faith-based providers, as the programs do include -- preserves the ability of  citizens to receive their education or social services in a religious setting if they wish, without government pressuring them through selective funding to forego that option.  That has precious little to do with any "Christian nation" claims.

Tom B.