And i certainly felt that way. Q a a sunday night on cspan. A panel of historians answered audience questions about the bibles influence on the american founders. They talked about the founders views on religious liberty, democracy and the nation as a republic. This discussion was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington. Its an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time at lunch and at the museum. If youll please take a moment to silence your cell phone or device you might have with you. Please join me in giving our speakers a round of applause. They have done an outstanding job. Today has been an interesting look at how the bible influenced the people and our nations founding. So im going to thank you to those that have submitted questions. Im just going to randomly go through these and for our speakers. Well start with dr. Kid. Franklin quoted, god helps those who help themselves. Could you put that in the context of your remarks about franklins believes. It was full of afterrisms that sounded like proverbs. Sometimes they were proverbs. I think that that type of philosophy is god helps those who helps themselves is an excellent example of this type of emphasis on virtue and morality and industry and frugality that were the hal marks of franklins philosophy about religion and morality. And so theres a way in which i mean, that statement in particular, i think, sort of decenters god in a way that his fore bearers would not have wanted to do. The point for his parents would be you dont just need god to help you. You need god to change your life. And what needs to happen is convert ed by conspiracy of gods grace transforming power and then were enabled to live a godly moral life. Where i think that that type of philosophy of god helps those who helps themselves is more of a supplement that if you follow gods principles and work hard and youre honest, that things will go well for you. Which is a kind of classic american creed, but maybe that its somewhat uncomfortable with the counsel of scripture. Yeah, i would say that it has a dee yos flavor to it in the sense that god maybe being active, but also somewhat you need to take responsibility for yourself. That gods work, gods power is not the first thing that you need. The first thing you need is your own initiative. So again, god is being decentered a little bit. Seems, to me, just knowing what i know about franklin that its a sense of god is being a little secondary or distant. Thank you. Another question tr our audience. I understand our government is a republic. So many people say its a democracy. Can it be both . Or is it both . Well the constitution explicitty makes reference to republican form of government. But i dont think these are inconsistent in some ways in which can they manifest themselves. I mean, if you take the words and look at it in its purest definition, there might be some restrictions. Let me just remind you of the core of what republicanism would have meant to century americans, which is government by consent of the governed as exercised through representatives. And that second aspect could perhaps come into tension with democracy in its purest form. As these words might have been used at this time in history, they would not have seen such a sharp clash between the two. They certainly did not view that some expressions of manifestations of the peoples voice as being intentioned with republicanism as they understood it. The founders view of pure democracy which they would have thought was a really bad idea is as if every single question that any level of government doles with than the people have to vote on say a popular referendum on every question. So do they have the expertise to make these sorts of decisions . Probably not if its an issue about complex Foreign Policy is issue or financial issue, banking issue or Something Like that. So the ideal is that you elect people who do have sufficient expertise in these kind of areas who the founders would have hoped that these people would be virtualis virtualists. Knowledgeable, independent people who then on behalf of the people can make informed decisions about these various kind of policy issues. So thats why i think we have definitely become more democratic since 1776, 1787 because number one, we have a lot more kinds of people voting. Women, lets just start with women. Lots of ethnic minorities participate where they couldnt have at the time of the finding. But i still think its fundamentally a democratic republic that we have opposed to a pure democracy that the founders would have considered to be ill considered and chaotic. Republicanism is another way of putting a check on the exercise of power. Again, that comes back to the biblical anthropology that we are falling creatures and we need as many checks and restraints as we e can possibly manage in the way we frame our government. Thank you. Dr. Byrd, this one is for you. Could you please expound more on Thomas Jeffersons religious views. Thomas jeffersons religious views . Yes. I didnt mention Thomas Jefferson. We can jump in. I mean, my basic understand of Thomas Jefferson is that he was a little more purely dee yisic in what he had to say. He famously tr lly trimmed the f certain text because e he wanted to concentrate on the life of jesus and jesus is this example for morality, which was the key theme for him. And other than that, i dont know much else about jefferson religious views. I sometimes use the term he was adherent of a natural religion. Where he saw human reason as the final arbiter at the end of the day. Which gave him pause when he had had claims that he read in the bible. If he couldnt understand or explain it through reason, then he had reason to doubt it. Having said that, he thought jesus of nazareth was the greatest moral teacher that there ever was. And there was great value in studying that. The kind of religion that he would have warmed to would have been nondogmatic. It would have been nonhigh ar call. He was distressful of churches in which their government was high high ar call even though he may not have embraced the specifics with more congregational type. The ba he liked that kind of governance, quite apart from the belief system. But i think were talking here about a very nondogmatic religion that could be explained in rational terms. Famously, he got along well with. Baptists because they agreed on plolitical views. They agreed on separation of church and state. E he had sort of a fascinating relationship with baptists. John whealen, who was one of the major baptist figures in the period who was both kind of southern and new england. He moved around and preached, loved Thomas Jefferson. He actually was a fervent bible believing baptist. And he loved jefferson. He thought jefferson was a gift of god. He knew about jefferson theology and that he disagreed with. But he thought jefferson was such a gift to the nation because of jeffersons politics. And he spoke about him like he was a biblical figure or something. So he had religious meaning and value even for baptists who day disagreed with him. He valued the baptists take on politics because they read so well with what he thought of as his view of religion as basically about morality and freedom for individuals. If you look at his account book. S, he was very generous in giving money to ministers. He maintained friendships with many ministers, include iing th he would not have fwraeed with on theological matters. This was of some importance to him. When you look at jeffersons views, especially some of the an tee clerical statements he makes, i think its always useful to look at the context in which he makes them. For example, some of the harsh anticlerical statements he makes is in the midst of the war where he sees so many especially aningly call ministers are siding with the loyalists. But hes expressing great friendship and admiration with other minister who is sided with the patriot clause. The same comes up in the election of 1800. Hes harshly attacked by the congregational ministers in new england. And so again, i think hes deeply and personally wounded by some of the things they say about him. So again, i think you have to look at the context in which he makes some of the harsh statements against clergymen around the election of 180. If we jump ahead another decade and a half, he runs into conflicts with presbyterians who is going to be the professors at his university. There was some ministers in his own community that were not keen on some of the people he wanted to hire. And again, he kind of lashes out in some harsh statements. So i think its always useful to look at the political context in which he makes some of these statements to understand where hes come iing from with that particular kind of expression from jefferson. Thank you. This next question is for dr. Kid. Did franklins knowledgeable but nondoctrinal faith make him a better Bridge Builder between various groups and did a similar thing work for lincoln . Yeah, i think it did. He was on friendly terms with different kinds of churches and ministers. When he was in philadelphia, he most exxon commonly would atten church of england. His wife was more devout and she was an an angle aningly can. So he would have a Congress People for his experiment. But i think he thought the church was a good thing. And he even gave money to help build a synagogue in philadelphia. So it wasnt just charity of benevolence extended to christian denominations, but even to jews too. So i mean, i think that thats an upside to me of franklins kind of nondogmatic approach. He was very he definitely thought that in a way that jefferson didnt, he thought institutional religion even is a good thing. And so he was keen to help a lot of different kinds of churches. If you were here for my talk this morning, you remember john adams saying that every Christian Group thought he was part of them and the reason for that is because he was so friendly to a lot of groups in a very harsh time of interdenominational conflict. Especially between catholics and protestan protestants. But when franklin had the opportunity to visit the continent of europe, he was very complimentary towards kcatholic and catholic churches. Never quite got over some of his deep anticatholic sentiments he grew up with. So other times would make some nasty statements about catholics. He was definitely a Bridge Builder between a lot of different kinds of denominations and religions. And i think that reflected the fact that he basically had a positive view of religion and church going and that sort of thing just as long as you didnt use it to beat people over the head with doctrine. And did you did a similar thing work for lincoln . Right. I dont know as much about lincoln. Maybe professor byrd can Say Something about this. I think that lincoln definitely has, especially as a leader, washington was like this too, of making sure to reach out to different leaders of different denominations to say you know, we need your support. Youre valued here. This sort of thing. I think in washington, lincolns case that you see that kind of principled outreach to different kinds of denominations. I think thats true. With lincoln, theres so much consistency, i think, in that comparison. Thats why its helpful. The only distinction we might make with lincoln is that he had as strong a sense as anyone. Clearly believed in providence. However, he had a very pessimistic kind of providence. And part of this was his time. Part of it was probably the war. But you can see this even in his famous speeches. Where he talks about we need to be on gods side. He talks about maybe god is not really in favor of what were doing. Maybe we are going down the wrong road in various ways. So he had a strong sense of gods judgment on the nation. And that, i think, pay have been somewhat unique. And probably, again, its easy to think of these figures as just kind of isolated intellects reflecting out of body. But they were living people and situations as the professor talks about specific situations with jefferson. You have to think about the context. And the same is true of lincoln. His context was very his entire presidency, hes the only president who can say this. His entire presidency was bound by war. And thats what he dealt with. I notice when i read the biography of john adams he was attending wherever he was Different Church services, different denominations, and i found that to be unusual compared to how we attend church today. It seems like we go to our denomination. Do you feel like that visiting various churches, we mentioned that was bridge building with our earlier founders. Is that something that could help today . I think that youre right. In the 1700s, theres such intense conflict between especially catholic and protestant, but also between baptists and congregationalists and arguing about the difference between presbyterian and congress nationalist policy. And it speaks to a time when people were, number one, a lot more theological conversant than we are today. But they also took these things so seriously. I think in retrospect, especially in our day and time when you cant take christian commitment for granted in the culture. So it doesnt seem like you want to be fighting about those kind of issues anymore. But i think one of the real breakthroughs came with the new evangelical movement of the 1730s and 40s. If youve been to the museums bible in america exhibit you have seen about George Whitfield and the great awakening theater they have here. One of the things that was so distinctive about whitfield, who is the greatest evangelist of that era is even though he was a church of england minister, especially in america, he cooperated very avidly with nonaningly cans, anybody who was supportive of his message of the bit of salvation, being born again, this is the experience that all people need to have. He was quite willing to preach in their churches and to preach alongside them and he was upgraded by authorities about saying why are you cooperating so much with the decenterists. Because i see born again people among all denominations. So thats a unity thats born to me out of a specific kind of religious principle, which is the belief and the need for conversion and being born again. Theres a way in which these two trends towards religious unity are are happening at the same time. One is the jeevangelical unity around the new birth of salvation. One is the enlightenment kind of trend of saying we need to stop fight iing about differences in theology. We need to. Stop having wars and murdering people over the differences in theology. These are both surging at the same time. So you end up getting people like jefferson and john leeland that he mentioned before, who had very different personal views about theology, who have identity call views about the role of religion in American Public life, which is that we need to have full religious liberty, that the government shouldnt persecute people because of their religious believes, you should let people meet in their own churches and freedom, that you shouldnt force them to pay religious taxes to support a church they dont attend, which is what most people had to do. So i think this is why that tradition of religious liberty is is so important. It doesnt mean we all only have so much time. E we dont have time to be attending everybodys churches, and i understand that. But we should at least follow their example and say religious liberty is for everybody. I think theres a couple interesting things going on when you look at some of the communication that the founders and particular early president s had with religious society. Washington especially around the time of his inauguration communicated with two or three dozen religious societies. Across the spectrum. These were main religious groups, but also religious groups from the minority communities. And i think theres several things going on here. One is he wants to reassure them that they are part of this american experiment. Hements to bring them into the fold and ensure that they are full the fold and ensure they are full participants in the american experience. I think he also is using this opportunity to communicate to the American Public at large. This is a time when there are limited ways in which a political figure can speak to the American Public atlarge and writing letters to religion yus societies and groups was one of the ways to communicate to a broad audience. All of our early president s used letter writing as a way to communicate some pretty important ideas. Washington is talking very succinctly about conceptions of religious liberty. Lets not forget that Thomas Jefferson used a letter to a Baptist Association to express that famous metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state. A few later, at the closing days of his presidency, he writes to a Methodist Society in which he says the dearest part of our constitution is that part that protects liberty of conscience. So they are using these communications to really express, i think, some heartfelt issues, some important issues. But i also think it is important to focus on these communications, because these societies are communicating with them too. They are communicating their concerns and their fears and whether their liberty in matters of religion is going to be respected and helps them understand the fears and concerns of religious minorities and begin to labor for an understanding of religious liberty that would include them. Thank you. Dr. Burke, this next question is for you and it is a long one. You referenced david as a model for war, a man after gods own heart and yet a man of war. But god said to david that because he was a man of war and shed much blood on the earth, david would not be the one to build god a house but rather his son, solomon, a man of peace. So god shows his displeasure. Please reconcile these two as you can. Okay. I think that its fascinating that opponents of war did not use that text, that reference. I think part of the reason could be that there were other texts that were just less obscure, more sort of to the moment in terms of Something Like the sermon on the mount. Obvious pli, someo obviously, someone who is a pis patriot and arguing for squomeo to go to war, thats a valid point. God in some ways, when david was going to war and defeating goliath and sleiaying philistin, scripture speaks and says he was doing gods work in doing that. I didnt see, at least in the research that i did, i didnt see anyone pointing that out. I didnt see anyone who is calling david a warrior, you might want to think about this. It wasnt one of the texts that they drew on. However, it is an interesting point. It would have helped to reinforce the argument for not only pa sipasafists but those t didnt support the war for one reason or another. Do you suppose ezra sent a followup letter to ben franklin to consider christ before his death . I dont know that he did. He didnt have much time left. He was going to be dead five weeks after franklin responded. It is true that there were people all through franklins life that were directly imploring franklin to accept fri christ as his savior. I dont see franklin as a traditional christian, because the traditional christians around franklin didnt think he was a christian. The best example is George Whitfield. Whitfield and franklin were friends and Business Associates for 30 years. They had a very transparent relationship about understanding that they were not on the same page spiritually and whitfield thought franklin needed to do something about that. Whitfield would just pull no punches and say you need to put your faith in christ for salvation. Franklin would sort of say im all set. They would have these conversations and my favorite is in the 1750s, whitfield wrote a letter to franklin. They are business partners. Franklin publishes a lot of whitfields stuff. So whitfield is saying, i need you to take care of this publication and so forth. Now, by the way, ive noticed so much success you have had in electrical experiments and you have made so much progress in understanding the mysteries of electricity, he said to him. Now, i implore you to consider the mysteries of the new birth in christ. You can just imagine franklin kind of rolling his eyes and so forth. Whitfield was constantly talking to him. I just wonder what their private conversations that were unrecorded i wish i could have been there for some of those conversations. Franklin and his sister, jane mecom, had conversations like that. There was one time when frank plifranklin after he had made it big in publishing went back to boston from philadelphia to visit his family. It is clear that jane mecom and ben franklin fought. This is one of the struggles you have writing a biography of almost any 18th century figure. Almost all the letters that jane m mecom wrote to ben franklin were lost. Some person in the past thought, who cares about this 18th century woman. Lets just throw this in the trash, this priceless stuff. It breaks your heart, really. It is sort of pllike listening a phone conversation where you only hear the one side. Ben writes back to her later and, in effect, says, im sorry we fought. He sends her some cloth as a gift to sort of say, im sorry i was harsh towards you. It is clear that they were fighting about whether you need god to be moral. She clearly was saying, you need to have god change your heart or you can never be truly moral. He was saying, i dont think you do. They fought about that. The point being that franklin, throughout his life, this is the point that i see the styles. I have never been asked about this before. I find it kind of ex as per rating. People have been asking him about this his whole life. It was a constant theme for him. Thank you. Dr. Driesbeck, since america and her constitution were established with reference to the bible, how long can we maintain this if we keep moving away from biblical foundations . I would start by saying that i think it is important that we understand where these ideas came from. I also think you understand why they were perceived as important in their own time and then we can ask the hard question, are those reasons still pertinent to us today . I do think my own view is of politics generally that things like constitutions cant be divorced from a political culture or from a culture atlarge. So you can take a constitution, a wellconceived constitution like the american constitution, and i believe it is a wellconceived one. You can put it in a very different cultural context and it wont work. I think this is true not just of our own constitution but as we have seen attempts to import other constitutions around the world. So i think it is always useful, always useful to understand context in which a constitution is written and in which it is designed to work. I think, my own view is, that the founders generally viewed religion as indispensable to their project. Washingt washington, himself, speaks of this in his farewell address. Of all the habits and dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. He doesnt flush out what that expression of religion looks like. He is telling us that religion and morality are indispensable to this political project. But i think we are also fairly clear in he is not thinking here in terms of a religious establishment. The kind of formal institutional establishment that had been part of europe since the time of constantine. Rather, he sees a vital role, an informal role for religion in maintaining this political order thats been created. I think to simply underscore how important this is to washington. By the way, washington is not an outlier. I think he is expressing a common place of his age. This is something where there is virtually no dissent on this point. He goes on to say in the very next sentence, having said that religion and morality are indispensable to political prosperity, in vain with that man claimed the tribute of trait tr patriotism who should labor to subvert this mu man prop of human happiness. Having said that religion and morality are indispensable supports, he goes on to say, if you are seeking to undermine those pillars of religion and morality, you cant call yourself a patriot. For washington, as a representative of his own time, he would have seen this role of religion in the culture as absolutely essential to the survival of an experiment in republican selfgovernment. I think i agree and the founders would have just taken that as a given, that virtue. There are some cautionary notes we need to have, because we tend to think critics of what American Culture has become today might sometimes take a little too rosy view of what American Culture was in 1787. There were some notable problems back then, slavery, hello. They have got their own issues. I think that even though you cant see your own blind spots in most cases, but they would have at least agreed that virtue is essential. When this issue comes up today, people on the secular left will hear, oh, you mean abortion or gay marriage, these hot buttonibutton issues. I actually think that almost everybody in america believes we will be better off if we have a virtuous society, at least on some things. I give an example of the financial crisis of 2007 2008. We have incredibly complex and, i think most of us would say, greedy and selfish things going on in the financial industry. Credit default swaps and these kind of things. Nobody understands. It is all about trying to make money for me. Would we have done better as a republic if everybody involved in the Financial Sector had all agreed that we need to be working in the best interest of the public at all times while also making money, which you can do that. I think left, right, whoever, would say we probably would have done better if we had more pervasive virtue and public spiritedness. Thats what the founders meant. I am responsible to my fellow person. I cant act selfishly. I have to be responsible to the public interest. So we had a financial meltdown that was partly a result of pervasive spirit of greed and selfishness. We all kind of are connected to it in america, right so aright . So as a republic, we would have done better if we had had more virtue. I like to go to that kind of example. It is more apolitical. Most people can say, yeah, we probably could have stood to have more virtue in an area plik tha pliklike that. We are not going to agree about abortion and marriage and these kind of things. I have my own opinions about that. Anyone that would say, virtue and morality, thats passe, people should be able to do what they want and be free to do that, the founders certainly would have said thats a formula for chaos and social breakdown. Thats an expression of lie senciousness which is at the war with the very concept of liberty. We started this question off talking about the constitution and the influence of the bible on that. Another three of you had an opportunity to go down to the second floor and see the bible in america exhibit. How could you describe the influence of the bible on the m mayflower compact . I think you start with who these people were that crafted this document. They were pious people. Not everyone on that ship were pilgrims. It was a mix of people, which is what prompted the crafting of the document. We start from the proposition that these were people who were on a godly mission as they understood it. They want to i think they saw themselves in a rather unique position in Human History. They had an opportunity in a way to wipe clean the slate of Human History and undo some of the bad mistakes of the past and to try to build a new political system that would avoid some of those mistakes. I think we begin to see reflexes reflections of that, even in a document like the mayflower compact. They are promising to Work Together in a righteous way for something in the future, some kind of structure. I dont know that we get a lot of insight into constitutionalism through the mayflower compact itself. There are certainly the seeds of ideas of a constitution and these are seeds that are going to replicate themselves throughout american constitutional history. For example, virtually all american constitutions began with a statement of, for whom this document is created. We see that in the mayflower compact. We see that in the United States constitution, we, the people. We also see a statement of purpose. We see that in the preamble to the United States constitution. There are three very distinct statements of purposes in the mayflower compact. It is for god and the prop po ga propagation of the gospel, the fact that they still affirm their allegiance to the king is remarkable. They are fleeing the persecution of the king. It goes back to the healthy respect for authority they would have read in the bible. That reflects a biblical understanding of authority and how you begin to structure a government. Another thing to add to that is undergirding all of these agreements who are puritan separatists is the concept of covenant. I think sometimes we miss the full ramifications of what that meant to them. From a reformed point of view, god is absolutely sovereign. God does what god wants and is omnipotent and omnicient. He makes statements with humans and they read the bible as a series of interlocking covenants. All of their lives are based on covenants, for lives, churches, marriage, family. This concept of kofrn ncovenant take from scripture is at the back of their minds and sometimes the forefront of their thoughts as they enter into threes deals of juunderstanding and negotiations for who they are in the new world. Thank you. Dr. Burke, members pof our audience would like more details about the database and what you are gathering and cataloging in that database. This is really interesting. The database for the revolutionary war project i basically designed using a program called microsoft access, which is just in the microsoft office. I just went in to different primary sources and just entered verse by verse by verse everything that i found. Then, at the end after i had read about as much as i could find i just kind of ran it and printed out the text and then i could find where they were and all of that. Its a very cumbersome kind of thing. For the civil war project, its a much more streamlined process. I have been helped by lincoln mullen, a professor of history. He is also an incredible coder. He is our programming to sweep through an albeau algorithm that can sweep through and text match. It is so much larger than the revolutionary period database, because you can do so much more with the texts in the mid 19th century. Part, because you can scan them and an ocr can understand them. Fry that with something written in 1776. Something written by ben franklin to his sister is going to look like a recipe for chocolate cake or something. You wont have any clue what was there. Thats basically what it is. It was kind of a timeconsuming process of assembling data. I hope you have some graduate students helping you with that too. I have graduate students helping with some things. I dont want to persecute a graduate student by saying thats just too much punishment. Dr. Driesbeck, this is for you, another long question. When the bible is used in political setting and debates, there is often the concern that biblical texts will be used without regard to their biblical context in order to serve a partisan, political agenda. Do you see evidence of this in the time period you have been discussing today, and are there examples of the bible being taken out of context for immediate Political Goals . So this is one of the concerns i really wanted to focus on when i wrote this book on the bible and the founders. I was not only interested in what kind of texts they were drawn to. I was very interested in whether they were using these texts in ways that were consistent with the biblical context in which we find them. I think the record is somewhat mixed. There are some examples where i think that you see founders using biblical texts in ways that are perhaps more faithful to its biblical context than we oftentimes use it. For example, you see quite a few references in the founding literature to the use of micah 6 8. What does the lord require of thee but to do justice and to walk humbly with thy god . It is always focused on my individual virtue. This is what god requires of me individually. Quite often when you see this in the literature of the american founders, they understood this is what theologians understand as a covenant law text. This was gods grievance against the nation israel. The children of israel having been convinced that they have broken the covenant with god say, what must we do to make things right . This is when god, through the prophet micah, says, you must do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with thy god. If you understand this is about a grievance that god has with his people, rather than it is simply gods instruction to me as an individual. Now, having said that, there are other texts where i think that they are misappropriating one might say a biblical text. I made a reference to this in my talk this morning. Take, for example, uses of new testament language on liberty. Americans of this period loved new testament text. It simply used the word liberty. I mentioned galatians 5 1, stand fast in the Liberty Christ has made you free. The son shall set you free. They love to quote this. In my reading, these are more about christian or spiritual liberty than political liberty. It is very interesting that this debate over whether, in fact, the use of these texts was appropriate arrives in the midst of their use. There would be those that would say, not so fast. Thats not about political liberty. We often heard this from loyalist ministers who were calling out these patriots for their misuse or misappropriation of liberty. There would have been a back and forth about it. Is it appropriate to use this language of liberty, which is more about spiritual matters than about political matters in these political pamphlets and the like . Quite often, the response that you hear from the patriots is, i think gods understanding of liberty is sufficiently capacious, we will incorporate within it political liberty even though we might appreciate it is more about the spiritual side. There was an on goigoing debaten at that time. A richer and much more consequential debate is the one professor burke mentioned, how do we interpret a text like romans 13 . Here is where you see a very different interpretation of roman romans 13 by the loyalist than those favoring independence. Each will say, you are misinterpreting this text and you think it is going to help your political cause. There was a genuinely lively debate between loyalists and patriots over what does romans 13, this idea of being in submission, what does that mean . You can understand why this is such a lively debate, because it goes to the very legitimacy of those that are suggesting that we should resist or rebel against england. It is a very heated conversation that we find. It is over the proper interpretation of scripture, whether we are misappropriating simply to advance a political objective of the moment. Would either of you care to elaborate on that or contribute . I always perk up when i see someone talking about the founding period here. When someone loses something because of their commitment to follow what the bible says, thats when you have got somebody on your hand who is really committed to the scripture. My favorite example of this is a presbyterian pastor in savannah called john zugly, who was a delegate to the First Continental Congress from georgia. He was as bothered as anybody about the taxes and concerns about british authorities in the colonies. In 1775 and 76, when he saw that the trend was heading towards independence and revolution, rather than resistance, he said, we cant do that as christians. We cant rise up against the government because of these kind of romans 13 reasons. I dont think that argument is necessarily a lock. I dont know what my position would have been, whether i would have been a patriot or loyalist. He resigned from the Continental Congress and became a loyalist opposed to violent revolution for sure and he lost everything he had. He ended up having to live in a swamp in South Carolina for a while. He lost his church. He lost all of his property. He lost everything. Why . Because he was acting in accord with his conscience and what he saw going on in i peter and in romans. It is debatable whether he is absolutely right about that interpretation but thats a good sign. You do see instances like that where people will act according to their conscience, even to the point of great personal loss. I find those kind of examples really inspiring and i think in a lot of cases it is like today. A lot of times, i think that in the time of the founding, you do have people using the scripture as window dressing. They are not being insincere but it is not as if they are paying any kind of price of conscience to site the bible for this or that purpose. Probably, what that tells us most often is just bible is the coin of the realm, the language that everybody knew how to speak. Part of whats so fascinating about this, to me, the history of interpretation of scripture is, if you think about it, various people across time in various places with various presuppositions over time reading this text so that people who dont have very much in common at all meet together across time over romans 13 or some particular text. I just think that it is just fascinating to see how people read it, to see how people interpret it based on their context, their situation and, in part, it is easy for us to say, well, of course, the loyalists are going to interpret romans 13 to enforce their position. They are being selfish. They are just trying to find ammunition to support their position. Perhaps we all read from our position in a certain situation. So they look to scripture for insight and look to scripture for guidance. They meditate on scripture, not everyone. A lot of people did. They look to find where they were in the story and i think it was only natural in some cases for people to see their side. So i think it is ease yes for us to condemn that reading. I think we have to do it as we do any other situation in history. We have to kind of look at it from their point of view and try to think about it from their point of view. It is also fascinating to see the other side on the same text and how others can read that same text. Sometimes both arguments seem pretty good. So i think this is where the bibles history, as well as the history and interpretation of the bible, gives so much to us. In part, it gives us insight into the people that we are studying. I dont know how many times i would be reading, because i know a little bit about the bible, i would be reading a primary or secondary sorts, a historians take on something. There were biblical references in the primary text that the historian doesnt recognize. They are just thinking, this is an interesting insight. Maybe it was just genesis. So i think it gives us insight into the people that we are studying, because it was so much a part of their lives. It gives us insight into just scripture and how deep the text can be and how multifaceted. Very interesting. This question is addressed to all speakers. So please reflect on religion in masonry and the founders, including franklin, George Washington and other founders. I get asked this a lot. So ben franklin was a free mason. A lot of the major founders were free masons. That has remained a controversial subject through present day. I think for franklin, his membership in the masons was significant but he doesnt talk about it a lot. Now, some people would say, well, it is because it is a secret society. You are not supposed to talk about it. I dont get the sense that it was for most of his life a really central issue for him. I dont think that the masons in the mid 1700s were quite as controversial as they became later on in American History. They were very much a kind of minimal it fits right along with what franklins overall rule was. Minimally doctrinal, very focused on service and b benevolence and these kind of things. It is sort of the epitome of the religion of the enlightenment. Men fellowshipping over issues of how can we do the most good in society and these kind of issues. It was also a social club for them. This is the great era of the social clubs and coffeehouses and taverns and sociability and so forth. There were International Connections that were involved with it. I just see it as being representative of the time of a fairly elite sort of social club that has these kind of religious overtones but they dont argue about any kind of doctrine. I think it is wellstated. I dont have anything to add to it. It was very wellstated. Dr. Kidd, this question is for you. Can you give us examples of the ways in which the bible, itself, influenced franklins writings . In my talk, i mainly cited episodes where it would show up as builder of basketbable and t ways it would come up. You were talking about the bible showing up and not knowing it was there. That happened to me with franklin because it was so omnipresent that i would just not notice or even though i fry to read the bible every day as a believer. There were just things that were going over my head. One of my favorite examples is a passage that franklin cited in his pamphlet, plain truth, which was one of the very First Political pamphlets in American History. It is about the pennsylvania militia and the quakers are opposed to the militia. It is not important to get into the details. He is pushing for raciising a pennsylvania militia. One was the expedition of the danits in judges 18. Anybody remember this very well . I didnt remember this very well. I had to bring this up and remind myself about the exposition of the danits. The basic point was not being prepared and being deceived and some of these kind of themes. He thought it was like pain and common sense. Just like if pain and common sense is citing i samuel 8, because people will know this, franklin is thinking the people in philadelphia will instantly see the relevance of judges 18 because they know it and they understand the point that he is trying to make. I thought, this is a lost world to Biblical Literacy that i dont inhabit as someone that tries to go to church and stay up with the bible and so forth. They are so deeply biblically literate it just goes over your head sometimes. That tells you how literate franklin and the culture is. Thats true in philadelphia and boston and parts of the south. Well, we have just a few second left. Would anyone like to make a closing remark or comment about today . Well, i would just add to what was just said, which is, lets not forget that this was a literate culture, quite apart from Biblical Literacy. One of the reasons it was such a literate culture is because they read the bible. The bible was an ideal tool for teaching literacy. It was a profoundly useful tool in literacy education. This is a generation that would have been raised learning how to read with a bible in front of them. Thats why they would have known so much about these stories from scripture. Thank you so much. Outstanding job. Please join me in thanking dr. Kidd and dr. Driesback. We would like to release our speakers to go sit back at their table for their book signing. Thank you, gentlemen. We do have their books for sale in the back of the room. Right now, i would like to introduce you to rob copeland who would like to say a few words on behalf of museum of the bible. Here is whats ahead today on cspan3s American History tv. Next, it is an event on Benjamin Franklins faith. Then, how the bible influenced the writing of the u. S. Constitution. Later, more about the bible with a look at how it affected americas revolution. Joining us tonight when American History tv is in prime time our focus will be the museum of the bible in washington, d. C. , which held a symposium on the bible and the founding of america. We will also hear from Baylor University professor, thomas kidd on Benjamin Franklins faith. Thats on American History tv beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Taking a look at some of our Live Programming today across the cspan networks. Later today, the Hudson Institute will host a Panel Discussion on the future of iraq and the middle east. You can watch live coverage starting at 12 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Later today, the commission on security and cooperation in europe looks at the doping of russian lights and t russian athletes. Our live coverage begins at 3 30 p. M. Eastern also on cspan2. Monday, on cspans landmark cases, we will look at the Supreme Court case, mccullough versus maryland, a case that solidified the governments ability to take action, not explicitly mentioned in the constitution and restricted state action. Explore this case and the high courts ruling with university of virginia associate law professor, Farrah Peterson and mark killenbeck. Watch landmark cases live monday at 9 00 eastern on cspan, cspan. Org or listen with the radio app. Order a copy of the landmark companions book. It is available for 8. 95 at cspan. Org landmark cases. For an additional source, there is a link on our website to the National Centers interactive constitution. Next, thomas kidd on Benjamin Franklins faith. He argued that franklins exposure to skeptical writings undermined his confidence in christianity but did not erase his puritanical core. It was part of a symposium hosted by the museum of the bible in washington. It i