Founding Fathers Forged A Radical New Approach To Religious Liberty By Steven Waldman

This main theme of Founding Faith: How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty by Steven Waldman covers the simple proposition of, “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.” At the conception of the new royal colony, founders had supreme ideas to flee an oppressive established religion of king and country. Waldman states, “The Pilgrims were Puritans who had become ‘Separatists’ because they believed that the Church of England was so corruptly entangled with Catholicism that nothing short of a clean break would suffice” (p. 7).

As time progressed important men believing that America was a “Christian nation” stepped to center stage (p. 71). Starting with Benjamin Franklin, raised in a Puritan household with an

18-9). Franklin always admired teachings of Jesus but fell short in belief of Christ’s divinity. As he aged he acknowledged a supreme and high being and aided in pushing along the new religious movement in American culture. John Adams aligns similarly to Ben Franklin, both raised in church to follow Puritan guidelines and faith, Adams believed that God had created the Universe and the study of nature would better help us understand and please God’s wishes; this is closely aligned with the great enlightened thinker John Locke (p. 34). Scientific thought influenced men alike including George Washington, nonetheless Washington held somewhat to the hand of God, using it for justification and placed importance of faith stating “religion and morality are essential pillars of civil society” (p. 59). Though he later turned to masonry and he was not so much interested in

Escaping established religion was one of the purposes for the foundation of several new colonies. Rebellion was seated in the ideal of fleeing establishment from the crown and popular religion. When writing the Declaration many thought the inclusion of a statement of religious liberty should be included. Many founders were subjected or witness subjection of religious intolerance. Historian Lewis Peyton Little states that between 1760 to 1778 there were at least 153 serious persecutions just involving Baptists (p. 101). This type of intolerance would not be part of a new nation and it would be outline in the Bill of Rights (p. 131). Support for separation of church and state, whether it be a physical state, government, crown, or president, was an idea held by the populace; James Madison was even watchful of majorities imposing beliefs on minorities stating “The security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case of the multiplicity of interests and in other in the multiplicity of sects. The degrees of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects” (p. 132). This would protect religious liberty simply because of the sheer number of different sects, or denominations. The protection of one allowed for the protection of all. With the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788