Thank you, danielle. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time at lunch and in the museum. If you will please take a moment to silence your cell phone or any other device that you might have with you. Please join me in giving our speak areas round of applause, theyve done an outstanding job. Today has really been an interesting look at how the bible influenced the people and events of the American Revolution and our nations founding. Im going to thank you to those that have submitted questions. Im going to randomly go through these. For our speakers. Well start with are dr. Kidd. Franklin quoted god helps those who help themselves, and can you put that into context in your remarks of franklins belief . Well, that is an example of franklin, that Poor Richards almanac was full of aphorisms that sounded like proverbs and sometimes they were proverbs. And i think that that type of philosophy, of god helps those who help themselves, is an excellent example of this type of emphasis on virtue and morality and industry and true gality that were the hallmarks of franklins philosophy about religion and morality. And so but theres a way in which i mean, it that statement in particular i think sort of decenters god in a way that his calvinist forbears would not have wanted to do. The point for his parents would be you dont need god just to help you, you need god to change your life. And what needs to happen is that if converted by an experience of gods grace transforming power and then were enabled to live a godly, moral life where i think that that type of philosophy of god helps those who help themselves is more of a god as a kind of supplement. That if you follow gods principles and you work hard and youre honest, that things will go well for you. Which is a kind of classic american creed. It may be that it sits somewhat uncomfortably with the council of scripture. Would you say that is a deist statement . Yeah, i would say that it has a kind of deist flavor to it in the sense of god, you know maybe being active, but also somewhat, you know you need to take responsibility for yourself, that gods work, gods power, is not the first thing that you need. The first thing that you need in that kind of formula is your own initiative. And so, again, god is being decentered a little bit. It seems to me just knowing what i know about franklin, that its a sense of god being a little bit secondary or distant. Great. Thank you. Another question from the audience for dr. Dreisbeck, i understand our government is a republic, so many people in america say its a democracy, can it be both . Or is it both . Well, the constitution explicitly makes reference to republican form of government. But i certainly dont think that these are inconsistent in some ways in which they manifest themselves. If you take the words and look at it in its purest definition there might be some restrictions. But let me just remind you of the core of what republicanism would have meant to i think most 18th century americans, which is government by the consent of the government as represented through representatives. In that second aspect could perhaps come into some tension with democracy in the purest form, but i think as these words might have been used at this time in history, they would not have seemed such a sharp clash between the two, they certainly did not view that some expressions and manifest case m of the peoples voice in republicanism as they understood it. If i could jump in there, too. You know, when i explain this to my students, i mean, the founders view of pure democracy, which they would have thought was a really bad idea, as if, you know, every single question that any level of government deals with, then the people have to vote on, say, a popular referendum, on every question. And so, you know, do they have the expertise to make these sorts of decisions . Probably not. If its an issue about some complex Foreign Policy issue or financial issue, banking issue, Something Like that. And so the ideal is that you elect people who do have sufficient expertise in these kind of areas, who the founders would have hoped these people would also be virtuous. Knowledgeable, independent people who then on behalf of the people can make informed decisions about these various kind of policy issues. So thats why i think i mean, weve definitely become more democratic since 1776, 1787. Because, number one, we have a lot more kinds of people voting. And so women, lets just start with women can vote. Lots of ethnic minorities now participate where they couldnt have at the time of the founding. But i still think that its, you know its fundamentally a democratic republic that we have, as opposed to a pure democracy that the founders would have considered to be illconsidered and chaotic. Republicanism is another way of putting a check on the exercise of power. That comes back to the biblical anthropology that we are fallen creatures and we need as many checks and restraints as we can possibly manage. In the way we frame or government. Thank you. Dr. Berg this one is for you. Could you please expound more on Thomas Jeffersons religious views . Thomas jeffersons religious views . Yes. Okay. I didnt mention Thomas Jefferson. That might be well jump in. You may be able to jump in. Yeah, i mean my basic understanding of Thomas Jefferson is that he was a little more purely deistic in what he had to say. He famously trimmed the bible of certain texts that were miraculous because he mainly wanted to concentrate on the life and morals of jesus and see jesus as this example for morality, which was the key thing for him. And other than that, you know, thats i dont know much else about jeffersons religious views. I sometimes use the term, he was adhere rent of a natural religion, where he saw human reason as the final arbiter at the end of the day. Which gave him pause when he encountered the transcendent claims, the miraculous claims that he read in the bible. If he couldnt understand or explain it through reason, then he had questioned reason to doubt it. Having said that, he thought jesus of nazareth, who was the greatest moral teacher that there ever was, and there was great value in studying that. The kind of religion that he would have warmed to would have been nondogmatic. It would have been nonhierarchal. I think he was very distrustful of churches in which their government was very hierarchal, episcopal, oriented around bishops, for example. I think he had a certain affinity, even though he may not have embraced the specifics, with more congregational type expressions. The baptists in their church goshance. So he liked that kind of church governance, quite apart from the belief system. But i think talking here about a very nondogmatic, a religion that could be explained in rational terms. Famously, he got along well with baptists because they agreed on political views. They agreed on separation of church and state. He had sort of a fascinating relationship with baptists. John wheeland, one of the major baptist figures in the period, who was both kind of southern and new england, he kind of moved around and preached, loved Thomas Jefferson. He actually talked about thomas he was a very fervent biblebelieving baptist. And but he loved jefferson. He thought jefferson was a gift of god. And he knew about jefferson to the extent about jeffersons theology, that he disagreed with. But he thought jefferson was just such a gift to the nation because of jeffersons politics. And he spoke about him like he was a biblical figure or something. So he had religious meaning and value for even for baptists who disagreed with him, and he values the ban tistptists take politics because they agreed so well with as you were describing, viewing religion as basically morality and freedom for individuals. If you look at his account books, he was very generous in giving money to ministers. He maintained tripps with many ministers. Including ministers he would not have agreed with on theological matters. And i think that was of some importance to him. When you look at jeffersons views, especially some of the anticlerical statements that he makes, and he makes some very harsh ones, i think its always useful to look at the context in which he makes them. For example, some of the harsh anticlerical statements he makes is right in the midst of the war where he sees so many especially anglican ministers are leaving, theyre siding with the loyalists. At the same time, hes expressing great friendship and admiration with other 18 lick can herein administers who have sided with the patriot cause. The same comes up in the election of 1800. He is harshly attacked by the congregationalist ministers in new england. And so, again, hes very i think hes deeply and personally wounded by some of the things they say about him. And so again, i think you have to look at the context in which he makes some of the harsh statements against clergymen around the election of 1800, if we jump ahead another decade and a half, he runs into conflicts with presbyterians in Central Virginia over whos going to be the professors at his new university of virginia. There were some presbyterian ministers in his own community that were not keen on some of the people he wanted to hire. And again, he kind of lashes out in some very harsh anticlerical statements. And so i think its always useful to look at the political contexts in which he makes some of these statements to understand where hes coming from with that particular kind of expression from jefferson. Thank you. This next question is for dr. Kidd. Did franklins knowledgeable but nondoctrinal faith make him a better Bridge Builder between various religious groups . Did a similar thing work for lincoln . Yeah, i think it did. He was on very friendly terms with lots of different kinds of churches and ministers. When he was in philadelphia, he most commonly would attend the citys anglican church, church of england. His wife i think was more devout, she was a anglican, he would go with her to church. He gave money for the 18 lick can church to be expand. Some people said it was so he would have a higher steeple for his electrical experiment. But i think he also thought the church was a good thing. But he even gave money to help build a synagogue in philadelphia. So it wasnt just charity and benevolence extended to different kinds of christian denominations, but even to jews too. So, i mean, i think thats an upside to me of franklins kind of nondogmatic approach is that he was very ironic, very he definitely thought in a way that jefferson didnt, he thought institutional religion even is a good thing. And so he was keen to help a lot of different kinds of churches. If he weyou were here for my ta this morning you remember john adams saying every Christian Group probably thought he was one of them, the reason for that was he was trendily to groups in a very harsh time of interdenominational conflict, especially between catholics and protestants. But when franklin had the opportunity to visit the continent of europe, he was very complimentary towards catholics and catholic churches. Never quite got over some of his deepbred anticatholic sentiments that he grew up with, so at other times would make some nasty statements about catholics. But yeah, he was level a Bridge Builder between a lot of different kinds of denominations and relimb johns. And i think that reflected the fact that he basically had a positive view of religion and churchgoing and that sort of thing, just as long as you didnt use it to beat people over the head with doctrine. And did you did a similar thing work for lincoln . Oh, right. You know, i dont know as much about lincoln. Maybe professor byrd can Say Something about this. I mean, i think that lincoln definitely has, especially as a leader washington was like this too of making sure to reach out to different leaders of different denominations to say, we need your support, and youre valued here. This sort of thing. So i think in washington, lincolns case that you see that kind of principled outreach to different kinds of denominations. Yeah, i mean, with i think thats true. With lincoln, theres so much consistency i think that inn that comparison. Thats why i think its helpful. The only distinction that we might make with lincoln is that he had as strong a sense of prove determinism i think as anyone. Clearly believed in providence. However, he had a very pessimistic kind of providence. And part of this was his time, part of it was probably the war. But he you can see this even in his famous speeches where he talks about, we need to be on gods side. He talks about maybe god is not really in favor of what were doing. Maybe we are going down the wrong road in various ways. So he had a strong sense of gods judgment on the nation. And that i think may have been somewhat unique. And probably again, its easy to think of these figures as just kind of isolated intellects reflecting out of kind of out of body. But they were living people and situations. As professor dreisbeck talks about with specific situations with jeff so that, you have to think about the context. The same is true with lincoln. The context his entire presidency, and hes the only president who could say this i think, his entire presidency was bounded by war. From the time he took office, it was conflict. Thats what he dealt with. I notice when i read David Mcculloughs biography of john adams, john adams was also attending, wherever he was, Different Church services, different denominations. I found that to be unusual compared to how we attend church today. It seems like we go to our denomination. Do you feel like that visiting various churches we mentioned that was bridgebuilding with our earlier founders. Is that something that could help us with that today . Well, i think that that youre right, i mean, and in the 1700s, theres such intense conflict between especially catholic and protestant, also between baptists and congregationalists. Arguing about the difference between presbyterian and congregationalist pollty. Thats like an issue you shed blood over, right . It speaks to a time when people were, number one, a lot more theologically conversant than we are today. I mean but they also took these things, you know, so seriously. I think in retrospect you think especially in our day and time when you cant take christian commitment for granted in the culture. So it doesnt seem like you want to be fighting about those kind of issues anymore. But i think one of the real breakthroughs came with the new evangelical movement of the 1730s and 40s. If youve been to the museum youve seen about George Whitfield and the great awakening theater they have here. One of the things that was so distinctive about whitfield, who was the greatest evangelicalist of that era, that even though he was an 18 lick can minister, a church of england minister, especially in america he cooperated very avidly with nonanglicans, anybody who was supportive of his message of the new birth of salvation, being born again, this is the experience that all people need to have. He was quite willing to preach in their churches and to preach alongside them. And he was upbraided by anglican authorities about saying, why are you cooperating so much with the dissenters . The baptists and the presbyterians and the congregationalists and the quakers. And he said, because i see born again people among all denominations. So thats a unity thats born to me out of a specific kind of religious principle, which is the belief and the need for conversion and being born again. So theres a way in which i think these two trends towards religious unity are happening at the same time. One is the evangelical unity around the new birth of salvation, one is the enlightenment kind of trend of saying, we need to stop fighting about differences in theology, we need to stop having wars and murdering people over the differences small, apparently, differences in theology. These are both surging at the same time, and so you end up getting people like jefferson and john leland that you mentioned before who have very different personal views about theology, who have identical views about the role of religion in American Public life, which is that we need to have full religious liberty, that the government shouldnt persecute people because of their religious beliefs, that you should let people meet in their own churches in freedom, that you shouldnt force them to pay religious taxes to support a church they dont attend, which is what most people in the colonial era had to do. So, i mean, yeah, i think that theres this is why that tradition of religious liberty is so important. And i mean, it doesnt mean i mean, we all only have so much time, we dont have time to be attending everybodys church and such, i understand that. But we should at least follow their example and say, religious liberty is for everybody. I think theres a couple interesting things going on when you look at some of the communication that the founders and particular washington during the time of his inauguration communicated with two or three dozen religious societies across the spectrum. These are main groups and minority communities. There are several things going on. He wants to reassure them they are part of the american experiment. He wants to bring them into the fold and ensure they are full participants and have parked his experience. They use is a prime duty use this opportunity to communicate to that community at large. Writing letters to religious societies and groups was one of the ways to communicate to a broad audience. All of the early president s used to letter writing to religious society as a way to communicate important ideas. Washington is talking succinctly about conceptions of religious liberty. Thomas jefferson used a letter to a Baptist Association to express the famous metaphor of a world of separation between church and state. A few years later, the closing days of his presidency, he writes to a method is society and says, the deer is part of our constitution is the part that protects the liberty of conscience. They are using these communications to express heartfelt issues and important issues. Its important to focus on these communications because the societies are communicating with them also. They are communicating their concerns and fears. The concerns about their liberty and matters of religion will be respected. It helps them understand the fears and concerns of religious minorities and have an american understanding of religious liberty that would include them. Thank you. Dr. Byrd, this next question is for you and its a long one. Take notes. You reference david as a model for war, a man after gods own heart and yet a man of war. God said to david because he was a man of war and shed much blood on the earth, david would not be the one to build god a house but rather his son, solomon, a man of peace. God said reconcile these as you can. I think its fascinating that opponents of war did not use that text reference. Part of the reason could be there were other text less obscure and more to the moment in terms of Something Like the sermon on the mount. Someone who is a patriot and are going to go to war, i will not mention that incident. Its a valid point in many ways. It does not undercut the larger point that god, in some ways when david went to war and defeated goliath and the philistines, scripture speaks he was doing gods work and doing back. I think its a complicated question. I did not see it in the research i did. I did not see anyone pointing that out and saying those of you calling david a warrior, you might want to think about this. That is one of the texts they drew on and it made an interesting point. It would have helped to reinforce the argument for not only pacifists but those that were not but did not exactly support the war for run reason or another. For one reason or another. Dr. Kidd, what they consider christ before his death . I dont know that he did, he did not have much time left, he was dead five weeks after franklin responded. It is true there were people all through franklins life who are directly imploring franklin to accept christ as his savior. This is one of the reasons why i dont see franklin as a traditional christian because the traditional christians around franklin did not think he was a christian. The best example is George Whitfield, who i mentioned a minute ago, whitfield and franklin were friends and Business Associates for 30 years. They had a transparent relationship about understanding they were not on the same page spiritually. Whitfield thought franklin needed to do something about that. Whitfield would pull no punches and say, you need to put your faith in christ for salvation. Franklin with say, im all set. They would have these conversations. My favorite is in the 1750s, whitfield wrote a letter to franklin. They are business partners, franklin publishes a lot of whitfield stuff. Whitfield says i need you to take care of this publication and so forth. Now, by the way, ive noticed the success you have had with electrical experiments. You have made progress in understanding the mysteries of electricity. Now i implore you to consider the mysteries of new growth in christ. You can imagine franklin rolling his eyes. Whitfield was constantly talking to him. I wonder what the private conversations were because they were not recorded. I wish i couldve been there. Franklin and his sister had conversations like that. There was one time, after franklin had made it big in publishing and went back to boston from philadelphia to visit his family, it is clear they fought. This is one of the struggles you have writing a biography of any late 18th century figure like this, almost all the letters that jane wrote to ben franklin are lost because they throw priceless stuff in the trash. It breaks her heart. Its like listening to a phone conversation where you only hear the one side. Been writes back to her later and says im sorry we fought. And sends her a gift to say she was sorry for being harsh. They were fighting about whether you need god to be moral. She was saying to him, you need to have god change your heart or you can never be truly moral. He said i dont think you do and they fought about that. The point is, franklin throughout his life, his response to styles, i have never been asked about this before, it is exasperating because the truth is, people have been asking about this his whole life. It was a constant theme for him. Thank you. Dr. Dreisbach, since america and her constitution were established with the knowledge and reference to the bible, how long can we maintain these establishments if we continue to move away from Biblical Foundation . That is a hard question. I would start by saying i think its important we understand where these ideas came from. I also think you understand why they were perceived important in their own time and then we can ask the hard question, are those reasons still pertinent to us today . I think my own view of politics generally are things like the constitution cannot be divorced from the political culture or the culture at large. You can take a well conceived constitution like the american constitution, and you can put it into a different cultural context and it will not work. This is not just true for our own constitution but attempts to import other constitutions around the world. I think its always useful to understand a context in which a constitution is written and in which it is designed to work. My own view is the founders generally viewed religion as indispensable to their projects. Washington himself speaks to this in his farewell address. Of all the habits in this position which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. He does not flush out what that expression of religion looks like. He is telling us that religion and morality are indispensable to the political contract. He is not thinking in terms of a religious establishment, the kind of formal Institution Establishment that has been here since the time of constantine. He sees an informal role for religion in maintaining this political order. I think they underscore how important this is. I think he is expressing something common of his age. They go on to say, religious morality and they need a man who supports patriotism and leads this. He said religion is indispensable. You can see them undermine. I think his role in the field was essential to survival for self government. I think i agree. There are cautionary notes. The American Culture of 1787. They have different issues. They would agree that virtue is essential. This issue comes up today. People on the secular left will hear, you need abortion, gay marriage, these are hot button issues. I explained to my students, i think almost everybody in america believes we would be better off if we had a Virtuous Society on some things. The financial crisis, if i may, if we have incredibly complex things going on in the financial realm. This helps with these kinds of things. People have trouble understanding this. If everybody is involved in the financial spectrum, we need to be working our best in the industry. Left, right, middle, however, we probably would have done better if we had more pervasive virtue and public spiritedness. That is what the founders meant. I cannot act selfishly because i have to be responsible to the publics interest. We had a financial meltdown which is part of pervasive spirit of greed and selfishness. We are connected to it in america. As a republic, we would have done better if we had more virtue. Thats an example and i like to go to that kind of example because most people can say we can have more virtue in an area like that. We will not agree every day like we see in the news. There are issues of abortion and gay marriage. I have my own opinions about that. Anyone who says virtue and morality, that is passi, people should be able to do what they want and be free to do that. The founders would have said thats a formula for chaos and social breakdown. That is a breakdown which is at war with the concept of liberty. We started this session off talking about the constitution and the influence of the bible on that. You had an opportunity to go down to the second floor and see the bible. How would you describe that on the mayflower compact . You start with who these people were who crafted this document. They were pious people. Not everyone on that ship were pilgrims. It was a mix of people which prompted the crafting of the documents. We start from the proposition that these were people who were on a godly mission, as they understood it. I think they saw themselves in a unique position of human history. You had an opportunity to wipe the plates lien plate clean for human history. They wanted to build a new political system that would avoid some mistakes. We begin to see reflections of that, even in a document like the mayflower compact. It is a brief documents. It does not tell us a lot. It is compact in the sense they are promising to Work Together in a righteous way for something in the future, for some kind of structure. I dont know that we get a lot of insight into constitutionalism through the mayflower compact itself. The seeds of ideas are there for a constitution. These seeds replicate themselves throughout american constitutional history. For example, allamerican constitutions began with, for whom this document is created. We see that in the mayflower compact and the United States constitution, we the people. We see a statement of purpose. We see that in the preamble to the United States constitution. There are three clear and distinct statements and purposes in the mayflower compact. The order is interesting. It is for the gospel and we get around to the king. They affirm their allegiance to the king, that is remarkable in itself. They are fleeing the persecution of the king. It goes back to the healthy respect for authority, they would have read in romans 13 and first peter 12, professor byrd was talking about in his discussion. That reflects a biblical understanding of authority and how you begin to structure a government. Another thing to add to that, regarding all of these agreements in the mayflower contract to our puritan separatists, is the concept of covenant. Sometimes we miss the four indications of what that meant to them. The full ramifications of what that meant to them. God is sovereign and does what god wants, god is omnipotent and omniscient. God makes covenants with humans which is a remarkable statement of love that god puts forth. They read the bible as a series of interlocking covenants. All of their lives are based on covenants with churches, marriage, family, etc. This concept of covenant which is influential overall, they take from scripture, it is in the back of their minds and at the front of their thoughts as they enter these concepts into deals or understandings and negotiations of who they are in the new world. Thank you. Doctor byrd, members of our audience would like to hear more details about the database and what you are gathering and cataloging in that database. Okay. This is interesting. The database for the revolutionaries and projects, i do find it using a program called microsoft access which is part of microsoft office. I went into different primary sources and entered verse by verse everything i found. At the end, after i read as much as i could find, i ran it and printed out the most cited text and i could find where they were. It was a cumbersome thing. For the work project, it is a more streamlined process. I was helped by lincoln mullen, a professor of history. He is an incredible coder, he has our programmer with an algorithm who can sweep through 2000 source texts or more and picks out text string matching. That database is so much larger than the revolutionary period database because you can do more with the text in the mid 19th century. You can scan them and ocr can pick out and understand them. Try that was something written in 1776. Computers will get garbled. Something written by ben franklin to his sister will look like a recipe for chocolate cake or something. It will not have a clue. That is basically what it is. It was a timeconsuming process of assembling data. I hope you have graduate students helping you with that. I have graduate students helping with somethings. I do not want to persecute a graduate student by saying thats too much punishment. Dr. Dreisbach, this is for you, another long question. When the bible is used in political debate, biblical texts will be used without regard to their biblical context in order to serve a partisan political agenda. Do you see evidence of this in the time period of today and are there examples of the bible being taken out of context for immediate Political Goals . Yes, this is one of the concerns i wanted to focus on when i wrote this book on the bible and the founders. I was not only interested in what kinds of texts they were drawn to, i was interested in whether they were using these texts in ways that were consistent with the biblical context in which we find them. The record is mixed. There are examples where i think you see founders using biblical texts in ways that are more faithful to the biblical context. For example, you see references in the founding literature to micah 6 8. Walk humbly with your god. In my adult life, i heard a dozen sermons on that. It is focused on my individual virtue. That is what god requires of me individually. Quite often when you see this in the literature of the american foundation, they properly understood this is what theologians called covenant text. This was gods grievance against the nation of israel. At the end of that text, the children of israel had been convinced they had broken the covenant with god, what must we do to make things right . This is when god, through the prophet micah, you must have justice and mercy. Theres a richer understanding of this biblical context if you understand this is about a grievance god has with his people. Its not just gods instruction to me as an individual. Having said that, there are other texts where they are misappropriating biblical texts. I made a reference to this in my talk this morning. For example, uses of new testament language on liberty. Americans at this period loved new testament texts that used the word liberty. I mentioned galatians 5 1, stand fast and the crisis will make you free. There are other similar texts. They love to quote this. In my readings, these are more about Christian Liberty or spiritual liberty than political liberty. It is interesting this debate over if the use of this text was appropriate in the 18th century. There are those that say not so fast, that is not about clinical liberty. Disking from loyalist ministers who called out these patriots for their misuse or misappropriation of the language of liberty. There would have been a back andforth, is it appropriate to use this language of liberty which is more about spiritual matters than about political matters in these political pamphlets. The response to hear from patriots is i think gods understanding of liberty is that it will incorporate political liberty even though we might appreciate it more about the spiritual. This is an ongoing debate even at that time. I think a more consequential debate is the one dr. Byrd mentioned. How do we deal with romance 28 romans. They favor independence. Each will call the other side out. You are misinterpreting this text. You think it will help your political cause. There was a lively debate between loyalists and patriots over what exactly does romans 13, what does that mean . You can understand why that is a lively debate because it goes to the legitimacy of those suggesting we should repel against england rebel against england. It is a heated conversation we find. It is over the proper interpretation of scripture. We could be misappropriating to advance a political objective of the moment. Thank you. What either of you care to elaborate on that . I perk up, were talking about the sounding period here, when someone loses something because of their commitment to follow what the bible says. You have someone in your hands committed to the scripture. My favorite example is a presbyterian pastor in savannah, called john struble who was a delegate to the First Continental Congress from georgia. He was is bothered is anybody about the taxes in terms about his authority in the colonies. In 1775 and 76, when he saw the trend was heading towards independence and revolution, rather than just resistance, he said we cant do that as christians. We cannot rise up against the government because of these reasons. I do not think that argument is a lock. I do not know what my position would have been, if i would have been a patriot or a loyalist. He resigned from the Continental Congress and became a loyalist. He opposed violent revolution and lost everything he had. He had to live in a swamp in South Carolina for a while. He lost his church and property and everything. Why . Because he was acting in accordance with his conscience and what he saw going on in 1 peter and romans. He is right about that interpretation. That is a good time. You see instances like that where people act according to their conscience, even to the point of great personal loss. I find those examples inspiring. Its like today, a lot of times, at the time of the founding, you have people using the scripture as window dressing. They are not being insincere but they are not paying a price of conscience to fight the bible for this or that purpose. What that tells us is the bible is the coin of the realm. It is the language everybody knew how to speak. Part of what is fascinating about this to me, the history of interpretation of scripture, if you think about it, various people across time in various places and positions, over time , read this text so people who do not have much in common meet together across time over romans 13 or some other text. It is fascinating to see how people read it. How they interpret it on their context and situation. In part, it is easy for us to say, of course the loyalists will interpret romans 13 to enforce their position because they are being selfish because they are trying to find ammunition to support the position. Perhaps, we all read from our position in a certain situation. They look at scripture for guidance and they meditate on scripture, not everyone, but a lot of people did. They looked to find where they were in the story. I think it was natural in some cases for people to see their side. Its easy for us to condemn that reading. I think we have to do it as we do any other situation in history, we have to look at it from their point of view and think about it. It is fascinating to see the other side of the same text and how others can read the same text. Sometimes both arguments seem pretty good. I think this is where the bibles history and the history of the interpretation of the bible gives so much to us. In part, it gives us insight into the people we are studying. I dont know how many times i would be reading, i knew a little bit about the bible, i would read a primary or secondary source, a historians take on something, there were biblically biblical references that historians did not recognize. This is an interesting insight. Maybe it was genesis. I think it gives us insight into the people we are studying because it was important and a part of their lives. It gives us insight into just the scripture and how deep the text can be and how multifaceted. Very interesting. This question is addressed to all speakers. Please reflect on religion and masonry and of the founders including franklin, george washington, and other founders. I get asked this a lot. Ben franklin was a freemason. Many of the major founders were freemasons. That has remained a controversial subject through present day. I think for franklin, his membership in the masons was significant. He does not talk about it a lot. Some people would say it is because it was a secret society and you are not supposed to talk about it. I dont get the sense that for most of his life, it was not a central issue for him. I dont think that masons in the mid1700s were quite as controversial. It became later on in American History. They were minimal. It fits along with franklins overall support. They were minimally doctrinal and focused on service and benevolence. It is the epitome of the religion of the enlightenment. Its men fellow shipping over issues of how to do the most good in society. It was also a social plug for them. This is the great era of the social clubs. And coffeehouses and taverns and sociability. When franklin went to france, he connected with masons there. For a short time, he and voltaire were the same members of the lodge. They had the same connections. I see it as being representative of a time of fairly elite and social clubs that had religious overtones. They dont argue about doctrine. I think that is well stated. I dont have anything to add. Dr. Kidd, this question is for you, can you give examples of how the bible influenced franklins writing . I mainly cited episodes where it would show up, filters the bible. You were talking about the bible showing up and not even knowing. I have to admit that happened to me a few times with franklin. It was omnipresent, i would either not notice even though i tried to read the bible every day as a believer. There were things going over my head. One of my favorite examples is a passage that franklin cited in his pamphlet, plain truth which is one of the very First Political pamphlets in American History. I think it was 1750s. Its about the pennsylvania militia and the quakers. Its not important to get into the details, he is pushing for raising a pennsylvania militia. One of the arguments he makes is based on, the expedition of the daanites in judges 15. I had to remind myself of this. Without going into the details, it was the basic point of not being prepared and being deceived. Some of these themes. He thought it was like thomas paine payne and common sense. Franklin was thinking the people in philadelphia will instantly see the relevance of judges 18 because they know it and understand the point he is trying to make. I thought this is a lost world of Biblical Literacy that i dont even have. Even as someone who tries to go to church and stay up with the bible and so forth. They are so biblically literate, it goes over your head sometimes. That only tells you again how literate franklin is in the stricture scripture. It also shows more importantly, how literate the culture is. It is true in philadelphia and boston and parts of the south. We have a few seconds left, would anyone like to make a closing remark or comment about today . I will add to what was just said. Lets not forget this was a literate culture quite apart from Biblical Literacy. One of the reasons why it was such a literate culture was because they read the bible. It was an ideal tool for teaching literacy. It was profoundly useful in literacy education. This would be a generation raised learning how to read with a bible in front of them. Thats why they would have known so much about these stories from scripture. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking dr. Kidd , dr. Kidd, and dr. Dreisbach. Outstanding job. Thank you. We have a few remarks. We will release our speakers to go sit at their table for book signings. Thank you, gentlemen. We have there books for sale at the back of the room if you would like to purchase them. Right now i would like to introduce you to rob copeland who would like to say a few words on behalf of museum of the bible. Thank you. Cspan, history unfolds. It was released by American Cable Television companies. Today, we continue to bring unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events in washington dc and around the country. Cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. Coming up on cspan3, American History tv, we continue our look at the bible and the founding of america. Up next, Baylor University professor thomas kidd talks about Benjamin Franklins faith and the role it played in his life. Cspans washington journal live every day with policy issues that affect you. Coming up friday morning, Carly Coleman discusses the right to try medication that would allow terminally ill patients to obtain drugs not approved by the fda. The Heartland Institute president and ceo talks about tax reform, climate, and Energy Policy and drug availability. The Vice President of the National Education association, Becky Pringle on the recent School Shooting and president s trump president trumps proposal to arm teachers. Be sure to watch the washington journal live at 7. Joined the discussion. Next, a conversation about Benjamin Franklins faith. Baylor university professor, trenton one argued franklins writings undermined his confidence in christianity but did not erase the influence of his devout. Nist calvinist upbringing. This event was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington dc. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the museum of the bible. I am dr. Kidd,