The Right Books

‘Everyone knows,” Edmund Burke Estated in his “Speech on Conciliation with America,” delivered in the House of Commons on March 22, 1775, “that the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support from authority. The Church of England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world; and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitting assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion.” That, succinctly stated, is the thesis of Benjamin Hart’s Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty (Lewis and Stanley Publishers, P.O. Box 790609, Dallas, Tex. 75379-0609; $18.95), a gracefully written, skillfully developed, and strongly argued attack on the contemporary wisdom, which holds that America (meaning the United States) was “invented,” to use Garry Wills’s phrase, according to specifications derived from the rationalist principles of the Enlightenment. Replying to the purveyors of this wisdom, who believe that this country fulfills its true promise to the degree that it succeeds in becoming a militantly secularist society, Hart argues that the men who founded this country were “firmly convinced that liberty was essential to happiness and prosperity in this world; that constitutional government was essential to liberty; that the preservation of both was contingent on Christian morality informing both voters and leaders; and that Christian morality could not long stand without firm faith in Christ.”

“Separation of church and state,” Mr. Hart reminds us, “was not a reaction against religion, but a reaction against the state.” The seeds of that idea, he believes, are discoverable in apostolic Christianity, where no basis is given (in his opinion) for any kind of institutional church: “That Christ intended to establish a formal universal church structure seems at best doubtful … Obviously, Christ, as God, had the power to compel belief if He had so desired. The fact that He chose preaching as the means of spreading faith, and implored His followers to do the same, suggests the nature of the church He had in mind.”

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

‘Everyone knows,” Edmund Burke Estated in his “Speech on Conciliation with America,” delivered in the House of Commons on March 22, 1775, “that the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support from authority. The Church of England too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world; and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitting assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion.” That, succinctly stated, is the thesis of Benjamin Hart’s Faith & Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty (Lewis and Stanley Publishers, P.O. Box 790609, Dallas, Tex. 75379-0609; $18.95), a gracefully written, skillfully developed, and strongly argued attack on the contemporary wisdom, which holds that America (meaning the United States) was “invented,” to use Garry Wills’s phrase, according to specifications derived from the rationalist principles of the Enlightenment. Replying to the purveyors of this wisdom, who believe that this country fulfills its true promise to the degree that it succeeds in becoming a militantly secularist society, Hart argues that the men who founded this country were “firmly convinced that liberty was essential to happiness and prosperity in this world; that constitutional government was essential to liberty; that the preservation of both was contingent on Christian morality informing both voters and leaders; and that Christian morality could not long stand without firm faith in Christ.”

“Separation of church and state,” Mr. Hart reminds us, “was not a reaction against religion, but a reaction against the state.” The seeds of that idea, he believes, are discoverable in apostolic Christianity, where no basis is given (in his opinion) for any kind of institutional church: “That Christ intended to establish a formal universal church structure seems at best doubtful … Obviously, Christ, as God, had the power to compel belief if He had so desired. The fact that He chose preaching as the means of spreading faith, and implored His followers to do the same, suggests the nature of the church He had in mind.”