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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christian Roots of the U.S.
Message-ID: <1138@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Sep-86 13:38:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1138
Posted: Tue Sep  9 13:38:46 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Sep-86 04:17:36 EDT
References: <1583@vax135.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 32
Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:19 net.religion.christian:4601

In article <1583@vax135.UUCP> gks@vax135.UUCP (Ken Swanson) writes:
> The following is based on excerpts from a sermon, "Church and State," by
> Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy...
> 
> Question:	Did the founders of this nation intend it to be a secularist,
> 		neutral, humanist nation; or did they believe that this was
> 		a nation created to the glory of God and that it was to be a
> 		godly, Christian state?

Depends who you considered the founders of the nation.  The so-called
evidence considers only early settlers who moved here, but did not found our
nation.  And should you consider the leaders, or the masses as founders?

If you consider the signers of the Declaration of Independance and the
ratifiers of the Constitution to be the founders, then you can clearly
state that the founders were NOT united in what they intended our nation
to be in many ways: religious, social, economic, etc.

On the other hand, it's a moot question.  There's no reason why we should
be entirely agreed with the founders of our nation: indeed they might have
changed their minds on a variety of issues if they had survived into our
own times.  Such as slavery, interference in foreign affairs, religion
(their Christian denominations are mostly tiny minorities now), taxation,
etc.

Government is a dynamic system that changes with the times.  We cannot
entirely rely on a static idea of what was intended in the past for
conditions that have since changed.  The whole idea of what the founding
fathers thought is stupid without comparisons of the contexts then and now.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh