Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch
When Jefferson died he asked that three of his accomplishments be noted on the grave obelisk -- "author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom," and father of the first non-religious college in North America. You and I might have gone with "Former U.S. President" "Governor of the Commonwealth" or "Noted Architect" or even "Prominent Sufferer of Jungle Fever," but no, he went with the religious freedom thing -- both because it was something for which he believed he was on the right side of history {cough, slavery, cough} and because it was a non-obvious proposition. But the fact that Virginia and Massachusetts and Maryland had their various state toleration acts doesn't mean the Founders were universally of the view that states couldn't have sanctioned religions -- it was a very typical sovereign power at the time, and the Founders were smart enough to know that there is a difference between a Good Idea and a Condition for Statehood and Membership in the Union.
I love these discussions, but it's a fool's errand to try to define what "the Founders" or "the Framers" thought about religion. They were quite two-faced about it all -- no different from today's politicians.
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Agreed completely on the diversity of views, but the most important point historically is that the views expressed by many (not all) of the founders would have been radically anti-Church and anti-religion by today's standards. This is a period when American religion is relatively demure, organized, and on the side-lines, but when there is a sizable anti-clerical anti-establishment crowd that is in the ascendancy. The fact that the British lost the war and the establishment church was run from Canterbury, of course, had nothing to do with any of this.
