First, you suggest I am off on claiming religious liberty being codified into law in some colonial charters before the Enlightenment and refer to a wikapedia article.
Uh, I didn't suggest you were off claiming religious liberty was codified in some colonial charters. In fact I said quite the opposite, read again...
There were certainly local concepts and practices of separating church and state functions before the US constitution.
Was that not clear enough?
Note the reference to the 18th century, which is 1700s.
I really hate it when a person acts as if they are pointing out something, that I not only understand but I explained within my own post. There are narrow and broad definitions of the age of enlightenment. The narrow version which is the quote you mined out of the wiki article,(just had to leave off everything after that comma), is 1700s. I told you straight out that my use is broad and includes the age of reason.
This is valid, from Wiki...
The boundaries of the Enlightenment cover much of the 17th century as well, though others term the previous era "The Age of Reason." For the present purposes, these two eras are split; however, it is equally acceptable to think of them conjoined as one long period.
Got it?
So if you are including the Age of Reason as the Enlightenment, that still did not begin until 1600 or a little later, and the demand for "separation of Church and State", that exact phrase, had been raging for over 100 years all over Europe as Anabaptists were put to death and tortured for daring to call for it.
If you want to push everything back to the Rennaissance that's fine by me. We've been over this ground before rand. There were bits and pieces of all the things used within our constitution mentioned or tried somewhere before our founding fathers wrote it. How many times do I have to say that to you?
If you want it gathering momentum within the general population, enactment of such things does not begin until the ENLIGHTENMENT. That is when such heretical notions are given a greater than passing glances by others.
You just don't seem to get what my criticism is here. The very baptist denominations you are discussing were thriving within the environment of the enlightenment. If not for its success those same people would be as successful as they had been all along up to that point... Right? I mean they had been around and getting repressed for how many centuries (even before the 1500s)?
There was an intellectual/political movement which allowed it to grow.
Furthermore, as late as 1681, all of respectable soceity laughed at William Penn for thinking religious liberty would work in Penn. Whatever secular thinkers, or those in the Age of Reason type of thinking, all pretty much scoffed at the idea in a major way. So the idea these thinkers originated the idea or even promoted it back then is quite absurd.
Really? All? Oh wait, of respectable society. Whatever that means. Give me some examples of secular thinkers or "age of reason" type thinkers scoffing at Penn. And you know I can point out just as easily... and more so... how devout (fundamentalist type) Xians almost en masse rejected such ideas. Which brings us to the point I keep trying to make to you... it was not a Xian issue but a specific political concept.
Intriguingly, why didn't many other anabaptist concepts end up in govt? Indeed how about the fact that some anabaptists believed in never serving in any civil govt and only kingdoms of their religion? I've seen you arguing and making fun of concepts that Penn argued.
but the founding of the idea of religious liberty, and it's just a matter of record that the concept in Western history stems from the Evangelical wing of Christianity, dating from the Anabaptists all the way back through various medeival sects to groups like the Donatists and other Christians prior to the 5th century and finally back to Jesus Himself who said His kingdom was not an earthly one and to render to Ceaser what is Ceaser's and to God what is God's.
But you are twisting this. The FOUNDATION of the idea? No one else was ever saying this? Xians, including many in the evangelical wing of Xianity did not denounce it as well?
I love how you guys huff and puff a small item in a sect you'd dismiss today anyway into some gargantuan entity as if to prove Xianity and evangelism was the source of all great ideas, and most certainly the ideas within the Constitution... in order to argue that everything is based on or should give thanks to Xianity and thus we should REJECT the very great ideas we are in fact discussing.
The first successfully surviving strains of those for such separation were within the anabaptist community. They were persecuted by others including evangelical types.
The process of society breaking free of religious dogma all over, which began in the rennaissance through the age of reason/enlightenment, allowed the possibility for that to get tested.
Deists and atheists ultimately picked it up and placed it firmly in a national govt.
the scripture is so unequivocal in this matter, and even within Catholicism, I think a large portion has now been swayed over to this basic tenet of Jesus Christ.
No, no it is not. Even within the anabaptist movement you have different interpretations of what that meant. Some involved complete disengagement except into a holy kingdom of god.
The fact that evangelicals are swarmed throughout our modern govt, attempting to say US laws should reflect god's laws patently refutes everything you have just said.
Not separation of Church and State. The ancient documents were the gospels of Jesus Christ. Note the following comment in the wikapedia, which in this instance is correct despite the whole article being incomplete in many respects.
Horseshit. You think there are no written documents before late 100 AD that conjectured such things? Or records of people that practiced such things.
The wiki entry is a bit vague and I think misreadable. There was no set separation, but then in some cultures there were not always religions that were so important to be a part of govt. Certainly within most of the larger civilizations both were mixed, and that includes 100% of the first Xian civilization. But there were pagan cultures where animism and basic personal rites were about all there was and did not take precedent over what we would call govt matters.
What I think is really funny is that you miss entirely the fact that religious persecution began in earnest with the monotheists, making themselves the prime creator of the need to have such separations in order for there to be religious freedom.
There were few pagan societies, even where it was part of the government, where you could not worship as you would as long as you accepted the ruling pantheon.
You think I am taking the short view... and then cite how it was before then? What the heck are you talking about?
As long as you are looking only at the anabaptists as the only source for the founding fathers you are taking the short view. It doesn't matter if you then go on to show where the anabaptists got their influences. We were discussing the govt remember?
They compromised so Massuchusetts could be part of the USA.
They compromised not demanding all states change their documents before ratification for the national gov't. That leaves open whether those state govts could be affected afterward by things within the Bill of Rights. Or, even more important, whether they believed more rights would be recognized and so further limitations placed on govt.
I am still confused where you get this image of them being so tight and not wanting to restrain govts from doing things. They were seeking to limit power as much as possible. They discussed the hope for growth of more rights and greater limits on the govt.
Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world. So His vision was one of separation.
Come on, how can you feel good about yourself with that? Separation from temporal kingdoms to join his kingdom. That does not change anything except for allegiences. The model is still NOT a democracy and IS a theocracy.
Yes it meant that many wanted to drop out of temporal kingdoms or WHATEVER govt. They didn't want to participate at all in such things. Right? You can admit this was the type of separation we are discussing?
Roman Catholicism emerged as a hybrid of Christianity and the Roman Empire and began killing other Christians and anyone else they felt was heretical.
Ah yes the old, "Those SS are totally different than us Nazi prison guards" routine. The BIBLE, that thing you guys claim is so frickin' inerrant, came from that "hybrid". Without that "hybrid" it would not be as around the world famous as it is right now, and indeed maybe Xianity would be belly up. Catholicism IS Xian.
Protestants, even evangelical types, persecuted fellow baptists when it was their turn in power.
I can still turn on the TV today and watch evangelicals calling other protestants and other evangelicals false Xians.
You are either all hybrid pagans, or you are all Xians following different denominational interpretations. That's about what your choice boils down to.
There was only one group pioneering this idea, and they paid for it with their blood. Too bad you cannot acknowledge your debt to their heroism.
Huh? I acknowledge whoever fought for such ideas, no matter where they came from. I have even acknowledged that most of the people involved throughout the process of political developments through creation of the US were from some strain of Xianity.
I even acknowledge (which some her don't) that Deism is still relatively a Xian offshoot, even if it is alien to evangelical versions of Xianity.
What I have been making clear, or should I say refusing to allow the waters to be muddie on, is that regardless of religion, it was the political idea which was important. It neither required Xian dogma to be created, nor did it require Xian dogma to survive.
One can of course argue its merits within the theological context... but if one is discussing this idea and govt, then that is besides the point.
Indeed it is to betray these very concepts to then suggest it is only through god or jesus' words that we could conceive or work such a notion.
Maybe you should explain why it could not have come from anyone else.
Where do you think Roger Williams, a minister of the gospel got those ideas, in 1636? Clue: It did not come from secular rationalists.
Actually I cannot speak for where that one guy got his ideas. I have not studied him much. What I can say is that if not for others of other beliefs his specific attempts would not have had a chance of being enacted. That others could draw from other sources and indeed did.
I am not disputing that the founding fathers would have used HIS example, especially its success when formulating their plans. As such it can certainly be said that there was a Xian person and a Xian community who did do this and were an example they took from. Coocoo for cocoa puffs. They also had Xian counterexamples.
For god's sake why don't you just read the writings of the founding fathers? You can read right in some of their works how they compare religious effects within govt.
Like I said it was ALLLLLLLLL XIAN. The semantic hairsplitting you are engaging in is revisionism. They would have almost all have claimed Xian heritage at that time regardless of political idea being fronted. The religion was used to justify, not as the primary building block of political reason.
That is ESPECIALLY true during the AGE of REASON which people like Williams and Penn were a part of. They could judge effects and reason which had better outcomes, and if not them (if for some reason that is true), then those who ended up accepting what they said.
I will note that you did not acknowledge at all in your post that your use of theocracy was challenged.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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