Letters to the editor

By Northwest Arkansas Times

Posted: July 27, 2009 at 7:25 a.m.

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Briefly, about Garland Avenue

FAYETTEVILLE — Do the right thing. Keep the median. Pay the price. Stick to the plan.

Scott Lunsford / Fayetteville

The facts about God's country

Brad Bailey's letter of July 10 asserts "right-wing revisionists have yet to prove that our nation was founded specifically on the Christian religion"; that Thomas Jefferson was a deist who made "a conscious decision to leave the word God out of the Declaration of Independence" and that this is why the "document states that our rights as American citizens are "selfevident" as opposed to "God-given." I refer Brad to the book "America's God and Country" by William Federer, an encyclopedia of quotes from Founding Fathers, organic documents, and other sources on this topic.

The information in this book provides overwhelming evidence that should persuade any intellectually honest person that our nation was indeed founded as a Christian nation, although citizens had the right to hold other views regarding God, or believethat there is no deity at all.

Although Jefferson played a primary role, there were 55 writers and signers of the Constitution. Most were members of Christian denominations, including 29 Anglicans, 16-18 Calvinists, two Methodists, two Lutherans, two Roman Catholics, one Deist, and one who lapsed Quaker and sometime Anglican. Franklin attended every kind of Christian worship and contributed to all denominations. When the signers of the Declaration use such words as "God" (it's in there) "Divine Providence" and "Creator," it is logical to assume their understanding and perspective of "God" emanates from their personal experience.

Consider Jefferson's own words in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, also a signer of the Declaration: "My views ... are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from the anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines inpreference to all others."

In another statement: "No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advance toward rationale Christianity, and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed from his lips, the whole world would at this day been Christian ... I have little doubt that the whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator, and, I hope to the pure doctrines of Jesus also." Sounds like a Christian to me.

Regarding our rights being "selfevident" rather than "God-given," the actual sentence in the Declaration reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." What the writers clearly note to be "self-evident" is that our Rights are endowed by our Creator, not the government.

The historical record, and the true source of revision, is clear if one chooses to look at it.

Randy Alexander / Springdale

Opinion, Pages 4 on 07/27/2009

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