White House to host 9-hour prayer festival focused on Christian roots of U.S.

RileyG said:

Interesting considering many founding Fathers were deists.

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Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, nearly all (about 51) were affiliated with Protestant churches - predominantly Anglican/Episcopalian, alongside Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

Only very few (like Franklin) were deists.

Landon Caeli said:

Babies can't sow.

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Yet they reap.

And so much for "we always"....

iluvatar5150 said:

You'd be hard pressed to find a passage in scripture that signs off on violently revolting against a monarch because he doesn't listen to you and makes you pay taxes.

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The founding fathers were primarily Anglican/Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Congregationalist... None of those denominations are considered 'Fundamentalist', which means they weren't hard-core Bible based Churches.

DaisyDay said:

Yet they reap.

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Yes, everything that comes to live, must also die.

Landon Caeli said:

Yes, everything that comes to live, must also die.

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So, we always reap what we sow except if we are babies then we just reap? What about toddlers? Do they sow at all?

Landon Caeli said:

The founding fathers were primarily Anglican/Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Congregationalist... None of those denominations are considered 'Fundamentalist', which means they weren't hard-core Bible based Churches.

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The Adams family were Unitarian which, apparently, are not real Christians.

DaisyDay said:

What did the babies sow?

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Are you talking about abortion?

essentialsaltes said:

Franklin attended Christ Church in Philadelphia, an Anglican church where he is buried.

Ergo, it is not impossible to be both a deist and to be affiliated with a Protestant church.

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While some founders were deists, they were not a majority among the overall group.

"When you look to that constitutional convention, those fifty-five delegates, we find that contrary to what is commonly being taught today, the overwhelming majority were actively affiliated with Christian churches. Some fifty or twenty-seven of them were members of the Church of England or the Anglican Church, an orthodox church in those days with a Calvinist confession, the thirty-nine articles. About seven of them were Presbyterian Calvinists, about the same number were Congregationalist Puritans, again Calvinists, two of them were Dutch Reformed, two of them were Lutheran with a very similar theology in most ways. There were two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one who we just don’t know for sure what his religious beliefs were, and that leaves maybe about three or four that you would call unorthodox in their religious beliefs. That’s a very small minority; it’s about six percent.”

Most of the U.S. Founders Were Trinitarian Christians - Providence Forum https://share.google/Mgmb87ofA5FSpVL7B

What Was the Faith of Our Founding Fathers? What Was the Faith of Our Founding Fathers?

Landon Caeli said:

He gave us free will, right? I believe in free will...

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Landon Caeli said:

I can do whatever I want, and God won't stop me at all. I can sin, or I can choose not to sin. Depends on how I feel.

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Great.
You seem to be confusing "capacity" with "condoning".


What does God expect of us?

This is what came to mind reading the OP...



Seven Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.[c] 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.[d] 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell[e] as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah,[f] whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

essentialsaltes said:

Like Ben Franklin.

Being in a garage doesn't make you a car. Being a member of a particular church -- the only evidence presented in that article -- doesn't tell us much of anything about their beliefs, particularly when membership in a church had social advantages.

[I'm not asserting that the Founders were all hardcore Deists.]

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Ben Franklin openly stated he was a deist... That's how we know that he was a deist, though he also attended a church... But you want to extend that, and presume that other founders who attended church were also deists, even when they never claimed that title.

...On what premise do you make this assumption?

Landon Caeli said:

Yes, everything that comes to live, must also die.

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Ain’t it grand?

Landon Caeli said:

Ben Franklin openly stated he was a deist... That's how we know that he was a deist, though he also attended a church... But you want to extend that, and presume that other founders who attended church were also deists, even when they never claimed that title.

...On what premise do you make this assumption?

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Deists aren’t dedicated enough to their mindset to go out and build places of worship…until the Unitarians came around (because there’s “good” in coming together even if we don’t all agree on this (or that)).

rambot said:

Great.
You seem to be confusing "capacity" with "condoning".

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God could have easily have had us here without the ability to commit sin. But He gave us free-will instead. Do you think that was a mistake, and that He just has the "capacity" to deal with the flaws of His own creation because that was the best he could do?

I would say no. God invented freedom of speech, when he gave it to his creation. And so, freedom of speech is God-approved.

rambot said:

What does God expect of us?

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I wouldn't know. I'm not God.

essentialsaltes said:

You are shifting the burden of proof. You started this by making the claim that lots of the Founders were professing Christians because they attended churches.

Ben Franklin is a counterexample that shows this is a faulty line of argument.

(Or to turn this around if you want to meet the burden of proof for the claim you brought to the table, using the measure you have suggested, you could find Founders "openly stating" that they believe in the divinity of Jesus. Maybe start with Washington, Adams and Monroe.)

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It's pretty much generally understood that professing Christians attend churches... whether their views are orthodox according to their particular faith is one thing, maybe they were just as orthodox as Donald Trump is - that's quite likely! But to claim they were "deists", specifically, seems far fetched, and highly unlikely.