Writing in the Washington Post, Randall Ballmer writes that Alabama Senate candidate is ignorant of the Constitution and of his own religion, both of which he consistently misrepresents.
Moore asserts that the Founders intended “freedom of religion” in the First Amendment for Christians only because they knew no other religion. Ballmer shows that this claim is demonstrably untrue.
Moore also misrepresents the history of Baptists, who staunchly defended separation of church.
He misrepresents Evangelical religion too.
“Historically, evangelicalism once stood for people on the margins, those Jesus called “the least of these.” Evangelicals in the 19th century advocated public education, so that children from less-affluent families could toe the first rungs of the ladder toward socioeconomic stability. They worked for prison reform and the abolition of slavery. They advocated equal rights, including voting rights, for women and the rights of workers to organize. The agenda of 19th- and early-20th-century evangelicals is a far cry from that of Moore and the religious right. I leave it to others to determine which version of “evangelical values” better comports with the words of Jesus, who instructed his followers to visit the prisoners, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and care for the needy.”
It is so important to know history.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This post helps connect some dots for me. When I watched the video of Rev. Johnson’s address at the NPE Oakland conference, I remember he mentioned that supporting public education was a “conservative value.” They wanted a clear separation of church and state. I didn’t really understand this statement at first as I was thinking of the response of today’s Christian right.
Most conservatives today actively campaign against public education, and they often support vouchers as well as home schooling. They want to gain access to public funds, but they want the public money without the oversight or accountability that generally follows public money.
I think we have to distinguish between ‘most conservatives today’ & the inner tug of war in the Baptist church. They are both engaged in culture wars, but ‘most conservatives today’ includes a large chunk who are just in it for the money. Folks who use culture wars as a tool for selling policy. Whether they argue libertarian, or small-govt, the rights of the rich or global trade, they are just about lowering taxes/ govt services.
W/in the Baptist church, it looks more to me like serious pastors w/a sense of history & a modern sensibility (like Johnson) trying to curb some of the last 50 yrs’ Evangelical excesses– like fraudulent televangelists, & the old-timey Southern pastors who spread a veneer of Christianity over deplorable, anachronistic cultural traditions– and lead their church toward better social traditions.
Re: Evangelical Christian Roy Moore and his appalling lack of knowledge as it concerns history, the Constitution and religion — “Ignorance is as ignorance does.” And, this is being kind. Just saying.
when Ballmer argues of the importance of Baptists in developing the notion of separation of Church and State, if anything he understates the influence. Baptist minister John Leland of Virginia was a friend of and a strong influence upon James Madison, who first shepherded Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom through the state legislature and then authored the First Amendment.
So, in other words, he’s your average evangelical American.
Shall we leave the fallacy of generalization to the Roy Moores of the body politic? Saying ” the average evangelical sounds ” too much like saying the average Black, Latino, Mulsim, or any one of a myriad other general slights at some branch of the population.
Have you ever tried to have a rational discussion with a so-called evangelical? Your comparison fails to make the distinction that being an evangelical is a choice, a very deliberate one that demands political uniformity.
I have a good friend who’s an evangelical and is extremely smart and very capable of having a great rational debate (arguably more capable than I am). But in general, yes, I land where you are on this issue.
I have had many rational discussions with evangelicals. Many of them agree with my own political and religious views. Others seem far from my own views. My point was that we should not generalize about people. The fallacy of generalization creates false narrative.
Separation of church and state was such a different idea when the country was born that I sometimes think we need to revisit what it means with a debate around a new amendment. There are so many influences on the body politic today that were not a part of discourse then. Moreover, influences that existed in 1788 are not really important today.
The first thing that was in the minds of the eighteenth century Americans was the damaging influence of the religious leaders of their day. Papal infallibility was widely accepted by the Roman Church and had produced centuries of strife in Europe, tied as it was to Monarchy and class structure. Anti-Catholic sentiment in America produced outpourings like “The Romish Lady”, a hymn William Walker put into the Southern Harmony, a hymnal used widely before 1860. In this hymn, a story is told about the faithfulness of a lady who is persecuted by the Catholic Church. With the decline of the Roman Church, papal infallibility has arguably disappeared with most of the faithful in America today.
The second influence on modern America that is decidedly different from the late 1700s is the growth of the agnostic population. This is the fast growing part of the American body politic that either believes in a god but does not accept organized religion as the path thereto, or does not think about a god at all, feeling the fulility of any approach to the divine. This describes a significant number of modern Americans.
The third significant group now joining traditional American religious thinkers are the followers of Islam. A growing influence on society, this group has garnered the most attention from fundamentalist Christians who see them as a threat.
Meanwhile eastern Asian religions are also on the rise as populations from these traditions migrate to the United States. Since these traditionally do not push anything like sharia law, they are more under the radar.
While the first amendment has been debated more than some of the others, it’s tradition is far from solid in meaning. I think we need a debate on what we really mean by separation of church and state. Two insertions would suffice. The first would be worded so as to prevent taxes from being used for pushing particular views of religion. The second would prevent religious views that contradicted constitutional law from taking precedence over the law of the land. For example, if a religion taught that arranged prostitution should be the path of all young girls, laws that prevented such would take precedence over religious practice.
A debate over such insertions into the constitution might not produce anything but a debate, which we already have, but it might serve to clarify philosophical area kept fuzzy on purpose by those who have an agenda. Many Christians view the United States as being only for Christianity. They should be called out for wanting to have a state-run peculiar religion. Many opponents of religion lean toward scrubbing religious thought from public discourse. This sounds like Robespierre’s revolutionary France, a failure in so many ways, especially where religion was concerned. These sides might benefit from argument about wording an amendment that would clarify what we the people really want as the relationship between religion and political life.
there is an historical problem in comment to which I am responding, and it is on Papal Infallibility. It was NOT an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church until solemnly proclaimed at the first Ecumenical Council in 1870. Yes, it had been around at least since Medieval times, and was probably the majority opinion among Catholic theologians and prelates shortly after Luther. For the record, the declaration limits the notion to when the Pontiff speaks”ex Cathedra.” Since the official declaration of the doctrine the only Pope to have asserted it was Pius XII in 1950 when he declared the bodily assumption of Mary the mother of Jesus. Yes, it was relied upon by several other popes previously, but only a very few times. Thus at the time of the ratification first of the Constitution in 1788 and the Bill of Rights in 1791 it was not widespread in use. It might be fairer to express it as having been a potential power/authority, given both the lack of formal declaration (which under Catholic theology requires a statement by a Council, and not just a dictum from a Pontiff) untill 1870, and how frequently even reference to it had been made since the doctrine first began being discussed
FWIW – I am not and never have been a Roman Catholic. When I was an Orthodox Christian for more than a decade, I did get a Masters in Religious Studies from St. Charles Borromeo in Wynnewood PA, the diocesan seminary for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which also provided priests for a lot of other dioceses (eg Allentown). As a a result of that I also have a license from the Vatican which in theory empowers me to teach religion in any Catholic school in North America, although since I no longer identify as Christian many dioceses would not consider me (although at the time I received my degree and my license the head of the religion department at Roman Catholic High School (aka Boys Catholic HS) in Philadelphia was in fact Jewish). I have taught Comparative Religion in religious education programs in a synagogue and an Orthodox Church, as well as twice in a public high school in Maryland.
Thanks for that input, teacherken. I am a Roman Catholic by choice, raised in a mixed Cath/Prot family, attending various Prot denominations over the yrs — & mass– even both on the same Sun for a pd of yrs. Baptised in 3 diff churches. Per my dad’s wishes I waited till age 18, then chose to take instruction & Cath bapt.
A big part of my choice was that my Prot denoms didn’t ‘really’ believe in miracles or much of anything that occurred in the gospels, seeming to see the gospels as an anodyne historical backdrop, fruitful only as research for advice. The mainstream Prot denoms seemed to me even in youth as headed for secularism.
By contrast, the Catholics had everything going on: the old-guard, rigid Irish parishes, the saint-art-dripping parishes of S.Euro ethnics [opposite Puritan-influenced ‘plain’-deco Prot churches], the wildly-left Dutch [the ’60’s Dutch Catechism was on my mother’s shelves], the ever-questioning, Talmudic Jesuits (one of whom, from Bombay, was our local asst-priest & fam friend)– all of them desperately trying to keep up w/JohnXXIII via ecumenical/ folk-guitar/ home masses… clearly the place to be in 1968! & it never stopped… In the ’80’s our Latina bbs was part of a back-to-basics ‘community church’ movement modeled on Christ’s early gatherings… In the early 2000’s the church was rocked by priest scandals, causing many a pow-wow in even the most reticent of parishes. Altogether, a very human place.
Tho I understand you no longer relate as a Christian, your historical input on infallibility was appreciated & discussed by me in CCD teen circles, along w/other such historical tidbits which seemed to give the lie to encyclicals– or did they? All grist for the mill in developing critical minds. Thanks for reminding readers that the RC church is hardly a monolith. It evolves.
Thanks for the correction. I could not have imagined that. I am not sure that affects the assertion that Protestant hostility grew out of the papal political power wielded in post reformation Europe and the corresponding opposition by Protestant monarchs and princes who used that power for political feuding.
Much as I like the idea of a national debate engendered by proposed constitutional amendments, I don’t see the need for either of your ‘insertions.’
“Prevent taxes from being used as pushing particular views of religion”: that’s in there already, regardless of some who claim the US is ‘only for Christianity’. I can’t wait for the first lawsuit by a madrassa who was refused voucher funds ;-). That’ll shut BdeVos up in a hurry.
“Prevent religious views that contradict constitutional law from taking precedence over the law of the land.” Are there any examples of where this has taken place? You give the example, “if a religion taught that arranged prostitution should be the path of all young girls, laws that prevented such would take precedence over religious practice.” Huh? Anything like that happening? As far as I know, Mormon bigamy is illegal, ditto sexual relations w/a minor regardless of old-timey-Baptist culture; sharia honor-killings are called murder.
Perhaps you are correct. Maybe the debate would stir the pot instead of letting it settle. I meant only to present extreme cases illustrating places where all could agree government should take precedence over religious dogma as it relates to civil law. I am sure there are more debatable points.
As usual with the amendments to the constitution they are too short to tell you exactly what the founders intended . So to understand what was intended you do have to put things into historical context . The best way to do that is in the writings of the framers . Of course there were many that disagreed with Madison and Jefferson on parts of the constitution but it is important to remember that both in The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the Constitution these issues were debated and adopted by legislative bodies . The Roy Moore’s of the time lost that debate.
This has become one of my favorites . It clearly demonstrates that it was freedom from religion that Jefferson and Madison had in mind . Freedom from religion was the best way to preserve freedom of religion .
“[Y]our sect by it’s sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practised by all when in power. our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious, as they do our civil rights by putting all on an equal footing. but more remains to be done…..”
Later in the letter he goes onto say something of particular interest to those on this blog.
… nothing I think would be so likely to effect this as to your sect particularly as the more careful attention to education, which you recommend, and which placing it’s members on the equal and commanding benches of science, will exhibit them as equal objects of respect and favor.”
1818 May 28. (Jefferson to Mordecai-Manuel Noah)
This has become one of my favorites . It clearly demonstrates that it was freedom from religion that Jefferson and Madison had in mind . Freedom from religion was the best way to preserve freedom of religion .”
Nice post. And thanks, Joel. Freedom, like love, is one of those things that we multiply by giving it away. We want freedom to worship, so we must give away freedom to force worship. The reward is precisely freedom to worship. The equal footing thing is what modern conservative Christianity cannot deal with.
“Freedom to Molest”
The Freedom to Molest
Was Fondling Fathers’ goal
And Moore has put to test
With all his heart and soul
I thought Ben put it to the test
Assuming he has a heart and soul!
Hello? All of that is irrelevant. In Alabama what he did was defined as against the law. The law prevails, not the Bible or public opinion.
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: ” Writing in the Washington Post, Randall Ballmer > writes that Alabama Senate candidate is ignorant of the Constitution and of > his own religion, both of which he consistently misrepresents. > https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/roy-moore-is-a-fraud/2” >
Not when he can not be held accountable in a court of law.
What is the “what he did” to which you refer, Steve? Gracias.
Presumably sexual acts on Leigh Corfman in 1977, when he was 32 and she 14, right? She has given details, WaPo has corroborated. Age of consent in AL then & now 16. No doubt statute of limitations has elapsed; not a matter for criminal court. Others have come forth w/similar stories, but they were 17-18. Establishing a pattern of legal yet questionable social behavior– but again, a matter only for the court of opinion for AL voters in determining whether they are OK w/this historical behavior for their Senator.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure.
The founders of this nation, were well-aware of the blessings of religious liberty. see
http://www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter
Charles, thank you for citing George Washington’s letter to the Touro Synagogue. I thought of it when I read Roy Moore’s assertion that the Founding Father’s protected only Christianity because it was the only religion they knew. As Washington’s letter shows, they were well aware of Judaism.
I felt it was appropriate. I have seen up close and personal, the blessings of religious liberty and tolerance. My first wife was Buddhist, and my second wife is Russian Orthodox.
Too many Americans take our religious freedoms, for granted.
We need to remember, that the Pilgrims did NOT come to this nation for religious liberty. They already had complete religious freedom in Holland, prior to embarking for the New World.
Fact is, as soon as their feet hit the ground, they immediately outlawed all other religions!
Inspiring link
I add my thanks. Fascinating exchange. Replete wi enlightenment thought and religious imagery.