Honoring an American Revolutionary on July 4th

As the nation celebrates July 4th with a President directly descended from the Pilgrims, let us honor an American revolutionary who died on this date. He has been airbrushed from our history books by the Texas schoolboard and replaced with John Calvin. A sharpshooter, a wine collector, a bibliophile, architect, agronomist,inventor and a writer, he and his pint-sized neighbor James Madison brought us the concept of the separation of church and state. He died proudest of having written the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. An enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, he was the lover of Sally Hemmings and an owner of slaves. When the British burned down Washington during the War of 1812, his library formed the replacement for the Library of Congress. Without him,it's doubtful whether the idea of America would have reached the pinnacle it has. His name was Thomas Hussein Jefferson. And let's read his words that have inspired a nation throughout its history.

"When in the Course of human events,it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hod these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights,Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,-That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence ,indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world...

The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united states of America, July 4, 1776.

Ammo for the Fight against Theocrats

As the Sunday New York Times article on the Texas textbook debates suggested, we are in for a full scale assault on our history by Christian revisionists and their right-wing supporters. A close examination of original texts shouldn't give them any comfort as our founding fathers and mothers are very clear about their intentions for our new Republic. But we have learned in the past year that the ability to spin out lie after lie seems to find some resonance in our land.

In case, you are forced to argue with friend, foe, student or professor, books are ammunition, especially those containing some of the writings done by early Americans devoted to the whole issue of the separation of church and state. I received today a very short book edited by Forrest Church called The Separation of Church and State: Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by America's Founders.(Beacon Press, 2004,$16.00) This 160-page book provides the essential writings of everyone from Patrick Henry to Thomas Jefferson on the subject. Since the new theocrats include the Declaration of Independence in their argument about the "Christian" nation, Forrest Church also penned The American Creed:A Biography of the Declaration of Independence ( St. Martin's, 2002). I decided on a liberal theologian as the source for the argument rather than the host of very secular historians because he is sensitive to issues of religion and is inclined to the religious. There are several very substantive books by historians that demolish the Christian revisionist project but I believe Forrest is one of the more effective advocates for the separation of church and state.

In the meantime, while you are carrying on the fight, I'll be reading one of my favorite Nordic writer's Henning Mankell and his new The Man from Beijing.(Knopf, 2010) The author of the Kurt Wallander series, Mankell wrote a wonderful novel about aging and family reconciliation called Italian Shoes, which I urge people to read for its beautiful prose.