Hello everyone and welcome back. Our second session is the bible during the american founding era, more accessible or authoritative in the bible. It is featured prominently in political culture, saving the founderss political thoughts and rhetoric. The presentation will expand in scripture to answer fundamental political questions and form an emerging constitutional tradition. The professor and school of Public Affairs and American University here at washington dc where he earned the highest faculty award scholars teacher of the year. Religion in American Public life. His most recent book to reading Founding Fathers. I have it myself. I encourage you to get it in and enjoy. Please welcome me. Please join me in welcoming him. Thank you. It is a pleasure and a joy to be here in this magnificent facility. Inremendous resource we have the nation of the capital. It is a real joy for me to share from scholars whom ive learned a great deal over the years. I thank the team for organizing the d
18thcentury political culture. This presentation will examine the founding generations appeal to scripture to answer fundamental political questions, and to form an emerging constitutional tradition. Daniel dries deck is with american university, where he earned american universities highest faculty award. His Research Interests include constitutional law and the intersection of politics, law, and religion in American Life. Book, i encourage you to get it and enjoy it. Dreisdech. Come dr. [applause] prof. Dreisbach thank you very much. It is a real pleasure and a joy to be here today in this magnificent facility in this tremendous resource that we have here in the nations capital. Let me also say it is a real joy for me to share the platform with two scholars from whom i have learned a great deal over the years. I think kay and the team for organizing todays event. This morning, i have going to be drawing on my book, reading bible with the founding fine fathers, andng to the founding o
Republic. During the american founding era, no book was more accessible or authoritative than the bible. It featured prominently in 18th century political culture, shaping the founders political thought and rhetoric. This presentation will examine the founding generations appeal to scripture to answer fundamental political questions, and form an emerging constitutional. He earned american universitys highest faculty award, scholar teacher of the year. His Research Interests include constitutional law and the intersection of politics, law, and religion in American Public life. His most recent book is reading the bible with the Founding Fathers. I have that one myself, and its full of sticky tabs. I encourage you to get that and enjoy it. Please welcome join me in welco. Well, thank you, very much. As it real pleasure and joy to be here in this magnificent facility in this tremendous resource that we have here now in the nations capital. Let me also say its a real joy to share the platfo
Simply counting and documenting the founders many references to the bible, i think tells us little except that the bible was a useful resource for this generation of americans. In the book, i try to move beyond the sufimple observation that they frequently cited the bible. That all most goes without saying. I want to move on and examine how the founders used the bible and thousand mhow it may have i their founding project. Which biblical texts appealed to them and why do they think these texts spoke to them in their own time and situation . A study of the founding generations uses of the sacred text must be attentive, must be attentive to the purposes for which the bible was invoked. And, again, not merely to the fact that they read and frequently referenced it. The founders uses of the bible, they use the bible for a variety of reasons and for diverse reasons ranging from the primarily literary to the fro foundly theological. They use the bible as we sometimes they use the bible as we
Think americas most common code of spirituality. And for franklin when you go back to the 18th century, doctrineless moralized christianity was serious intellectual business. It was very serious. Born out of contemporary religious debates and dissatisfaction with his familys puritanism, like many skeptics in the 18th century, franklin was weary of 300 years of fighting over the legacy of the ref reformation. Franklin grew up in a world of intractable conflict between catholics and protestants. But also within and between protestant denominations themselves. What good was christianity, he wondered, if it precipitated pettiness, persecution and violence. Unlike some selfhelp celebrities today, franklin and his cohort of european and american deists reckoned in promoting a ethicsfocused christianity, they were redeeming christianity itself. How successful that redemptive effort was, you all are going to have to decide for yourselves. Could you really have a nonexclusive doctrinely minimal