Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author Debate On The Influence Of Chr

Gentlemen. I am a scholar here at the university of louisville and its an honor to welcome you this evening. In celebration of Constitution Day we thank you for joining us for a debate. It is my pleasure to introduce the moderator for this evenings debate. A 24 theme for the Brandeis School of law at the university of louisville. Prior to coming to brandeis, Dean Crawford served as a professor of environmental law at Tulane University law school in new orleans louisiana. Dean crawford was a member of the faculty at Georgia State University College of law in atlanta where he founded and codirector of the study for metropolitan growth which developed new models for fieldbased education and competitive and environmental landuse. A degree from Harvard Law School and degrees in history from cambridge and columbia universities. He was admitted into the state of new york please join me in welcoming tonights moderator Dean Crawford. [applause] thank you very much. Good evening to all of you it is a pleasure to be back here for the second year in a row at the Mcconnell Center. If i have one skill it is being a very strict timekeepers of this evening im going to hold the speakers to the time limits that i have been instructed to give them. Let me run over that format very quickly. Each of the speakers will have 15 minutes for their opening statements. When they have two minutes left, i welled up two minutes and utter the word and say please afterwards tha but i will ask tt you both respect that so that we have time for a robust discussion. And then i will not abuse the te moderators privileging ask a question that each of them as a way to try to incentivize discussions. For that, they will have five minutes each and then we will start to take questions from the invite will repeat this later but i will make this clear now. We all know that experience of being in the audience is where the audience member raises and makes a statement and i would encourage you to ask the speakers question so we can hear what they have to say and then take back home our points to discuss so then we will have audience discussion. Let me quickly introduce both of them in that order Mark David Hall who is immediately or is on far to my right will speak first. Professor hall is a professor of politics at the university in oregon and the author editor of over a dozen books. He has a phd from the university of virginia in government where he wrote on one of the founders and i just learned the Supreme Court Justice James wilson. Hes also the author of the forthcoming book coming out in october if you have it you can show them what it looks like. Did america have a christian founding and she asked me to emphasize it is a book intended foh a general readership. Its not unlike his other word is directed towards academic audiences, so it should be accessible for all of us, myself included. To my immediate right is andrew, a constitutional attorney and the director of strategic the foundation from, im getting this wrong. Freedom of Religion Foundation. He has a jd from a school close to my heart a place i taught for eight years at Tulane University in new orleans and was a graduate from tulane and also has from my Hometown University the university of denver and he is the author and i only have a copy because the book was published in may the author of the founding myth, which as he pointed out to me and i took note has blurbs from two prominent professors, irwin and geoffrey stone pitc which as i d this came out and may, 2019. So once again im going to hold them strictly to the time. Without further ado, please begin. [applause] thank you very much and thanks to the Mcconnell Center for hosting the event and for inviting us to participate. It is an honor to be here. So, there are two common answers given to the question did america have a christian founding. You have those that say of course the data. Not only them but virtually all e founders of ou or godly men tg to create a christian nation and these offers often times black academic credentials, sometimes misuse quotations and sometimes they cannot be verified and at the worst they make up stories in the graves account of George Washington is just made up. This is a grave concern to me it is very common for academics and popular scholars to insert in the opposite direction to say no if it not have a christian founding. They desired to separate church and state. I believe these assertions were simply false and i will begin to show that some in my talk tonight and i wont go into further detail in my book. So, what i want to do is contend that we have to answer the question did america have a christian founding with a yes or no, this gas is definitely the best answer that we need to be careful defining our terms, so over a littloverall the public y christian founding how would we know it if we saw it in if i had more time i would have explored different poundings from the early colonies to the war for independence to the Constitutional Convention. For the creation of the Constitutional Order without said lets begin to explore what we mean by the christian founding. One possibility would be they identifieidentify themselves asn and if that is what we mean an indisputably the christian founding. A 22 were roman catholics and about 2,000 jews in the american cities. That isnt really interesting in my mind. Orthodox christians now let me say and i devoted a chapter to this in min my book but theres absolutely no good reason to believe that most or many of americas founders were. Its certainly the case of jefferson and adams and franklin were not Orthodox Christians but that isnt the same as being atheist. There are great reasons to believe many of them although in many cases the have to be careful about making that sort of claim. I think the organizers of the debate have it just right. Scholars have spent years and killed many trees to identify whether they were influenced by liberalism or classical republicanism or the world sends such a look at the major influences upon americas founders, and i think you could make an excellent case of christianity that it was a very aninfluence and that would save the most important. Christianity proper where it was developed in the tradition of political reflection. The war for american independence because on the surface this seems to be a profound act. Im sure you know they were not 13, one and two and if you keep going others are in the beginning that every soul be subject to the governing authority for there is no authority except from god and the authorities that exist are appointed by god is the one cannot make the case that the patriots by rebelling against this duly constituted authority are not engaged in this act. On the surface it does seem to be a problem, however, some scholars begin to work on this problem and ask things but what would happen if a weather became a tyrant, might that ruler ceased to be the sort of governing authority that it speaks about him romans 13, this idea was taken by the protestant reformers especially john calvin and those who followed him. And they developed this robust resistance ideology having the authority to resist but even as he is doing that, they have the same sort of authority so its a very important position in the tradition this is very important the american context for those of european descent in this area or actively identified this sort of connection was noticed by the other side of the loyalist railed against the clergy who took an active part in the rebellion by dissenting daymond congregationals and others. King george himself reported to the independence as the rebellion. The most important document to come out of congress the declaration of independence rests on the claim we hold these truths to be selfevident that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You may object. Wait a minute we know that hes not an Orthodox Christian and he would be absolutely correct that we need to understand that there was a committee of five changed in ways he didnt like and more importantly they went to the entire Continental Congress that changed it again and it has authority only because it comes from this congress and when they were signing off on displa theye thinking about those who certainly intervene in human affairs. Let me press on to another hard case the constitution is this a godless document if you are familiar with state constitution it definitely is different. Many have ultimate references specifically. The constitution is basically silent on this reference to god is datelined there are some notions they are populated by christian. The pocket veto occurs after Congress Passes a piece of legislation. Theres an assumption that they wouldnt b be done on sunday. The Constitutional Convention every day of the week except for sunday in 1789 the house met once on a sunday. Generally people did to legislative business. So, lets move to what kind of argument if i have, god is basically not fair it says we are not going to have this for federal office. Whats going on. I want to suggest we cannot determine whether america is a godless constitution by counting references. We have to look a little bit deeper. I want to look at the literature that was referenced. They are people of the book and if the book was important to them you would expect to see references to the bible everywhere and in fact it is exactly whathat isexactly what e political scientist. They did a wonderful analysis of a whole bunch of articles that eventually published in the american Political Science review and what he found is that looking simply at political literature and citations within the political literature roughly in the founding we are talking about 35 of them looked at the bible alone and this is as compared to 22 to all combined. A 22 , the bible alone, 34 . Its important to know the references to the bible he excludes political but dont also add references to the secular thinkers and there is another important reason i voted to. Let me jump to a more substantive argument. Okay, how were the founders influenced by these ideas and bible points to the main things we can explore them a little bit later. They believe they had fallen short of the glory of god and even christians continue to struggle and this led them to develop a Constitutional Order characterized by federalism, separation of powers, checks and balance, booboo of law, they were very suspicious of concentrated power. Some by the way of contrast were very interested in the centralized government with no checks and balances run by experts and it only makes sense if the reason is to be your guide. Let me jump to another one. They were convinced that there were moral standards that apply to all people in all times and places. If you need someone like james wilson and early justice there are two types of law into four types eternal, natural, physical, moral. Human law must be based on moral and so forth. Every Supreme Court justice prior to John Marshall with exception is on the record saying the Supreme Court could strike down an act of the legislature for violating a natural law which is really quite an extraordinary claim if you think about it. Third, the founders understanding of liberty. For them, liberty is the freedom to do what is right. They distinguish between one founders were at liberty must be used on the balance of the rights and the duty. He doesnt put in the reference is clearly referencing and goes on in the lecture to say this with the consistency in human life from its commencement and contemplation of the law that begins with the infamous its protected not only from the immediate destruction of every degree of natural violence and in some cases every degree of danger. Let me give a quotation with respect to the religious liberty and turned to the state relations leader. We owe this to the creator and the manner of discharging can be governed only by the reasonable conviction therefore the toleration and exercise of religion this is pretty good. No healthy argument is grounded in a proposition and the duty that we owe. James madison wasnt satisfied, he didnt like this were toleration, he proposed the amendment to make it clear that we have a natural right to freely exercise and with that, i think that i will stop. Those words or poetic and so much more. That was revolutionary. It was indeed revolutionary. All the states followed suit and banning the office and cutting the churches of from the Taxpayer Fund through the 1830s. Secular Government Works because there was no such thing of the freedom of Religion Without the government that is free from religion. The idea was in the nytimes and when it was first implemented in the american expert on it and im proud of this fact. I wish every american were proud of this invention. The principles that are central to christianity that can be found in the bible are fundamentally opposed to the principles on which this nation was built. I will get into that in a mome moment. These are ideas that are unique to his religion claiming the credit for ideas that are out there. For instance the golden rule as did the chinese and the millennia before christianity the golden rules o golden rulese christian principle is a universal human principle john adams called it the great principle of the law. My opponent likes to mention this christian tradition of political reflection in any kind of defined as the discussions of these universal human principles, things like liberty and the life and acting in selfinterest which he labeled sinful. Hes sticking a flag and a universal human ideas and to claim life and liberty even if we were to focus on that which we should say they have a bigger problem because historically it gets dragged into modernity by secular ideas and thinkers. Theyve done excellent work in this area with the tail wagging the dog. I know that this is counterintuitive because it comes along later to claim credit for the progress. Think about the historical opposition to divorce the theological and biblical argument on the side of all of those debates is on the wrong side of history. Some groups were absolutely on the right side of the better biblical and religious arguments are on the wrong side. And less orthodox religion is liberal for instant secularism drove them to their conscience and Frederick Douglass wrote that revivals of religion and of the slave trade go handinhand because you recognize it. They are standing on the sideline with the business is fighting for civil rights. This is only counterintuitive because the religious responsible for the progress that it didnt accomplish. The opposition is exclusively religious and mark my words it is going to be trying to claim credit for the victory. Not simply claim that its responsible for life, liberty and dignity. Talking about the constitution and the era of course we are talking about that and not this yesterday from a time when they were an outpost of a question came when there was no constitution let alone the First Amendment to the constitution. Everything is owed to us so we dont know how far apart those are. The declaration of independence is an amazing document love it and encourage everyone to think about it. I have been in the founding. As a justification, it was an announcement that severed our political connection to do two things in terms of laying out political philosophy. Its headfirst, cover comes from the people. And second that the declaration says that we have the right to rebel. Of those authorities that exist have been instituted and whoever resists authority resists what god has appointed. They rely on that idea and its not enough to show that they were all christian. The conversation i would love to have especially if you want to buy a glass of kentucky bourbon i would talk about that for hours he would still hav still o shows of religious belief influences the choice is for instance the Constitutional Convention. Those religious beliefs must be examined compared against those in the constitutional design, and its actually hard given that almost never cited when they were writing the founding documents you may want to show them positively influencing the power showing the negative influences kind of easy. It is recognized twice. Hes freeo claim that influence and more on that later. Show us that influence and incidentally it is the question that i asked. To ask the question did the principles positively influenced the founding of the United States of america and no, they didnt. The principles are fundamentally opposed to the principles upon which this nation was built. He has the burden of proof here. To meet the burden not only can he not see that burden i could talk about the constitution into rejection and how they followed it would be difficult to write a sentence that conflicts more with the First Amendment. Even though the commandment goes on and that means we use it to edit a to punish innocent children and grandchildren or greatgrandchildren now if demands proof of guilt to avoid punishing the innocent and it is intentionally harmed to punish the guilty. While the personal responsibility like this punishing or even serious redemption are a biblical constant jesus dying for our sins is the most prominent example. He was innocent but somehow his punishment absolves others of their wrongdoing. This is the central idea of christianity that jesus died for your sin, and it is a complete abrogation of personal responsibility that is fundamentally at odds with our enti