That is proverbs, and sometimes they were proverbs. Of philosophyype of thiscellent example type of emphasis on virtue and in industry and frugality that were the of franklins philosophy about religion and morality. Thatere is a way in which statement in particular in a way hisd calvinist forbearers would not have wanted to do. The point for his parents would be do not just need god to help you. You need god to change her life. What needs to happen is we are converted by experience of gods transforming power, we were able to live a godly and and i think that type is more of god is a type of supplement. If you work hard and are honest, that things will go well for you. It is a classic american creed but it may sit uncomfortably with the council of scripture. Would you say that is a deist statement . Yes. It has a deist flavor to it. Youbeing active but also need to take responsibility for yourself, that gods work and power is not the first thing that you need. The first thing you need is your own initiative. I think it seems to me, knowing what i know about franklin, there is a sense that god is being secondary or distant. Thank you. , i understandon the government is a republic pyramid people say it is a democracy. Can it be both or is it both . I assume he not think these in inconsistent in some ways which they manifest themselves. If we take awards and look at it there purest definition, might be restrictions. Of the core ofou what republicanism would have which isant, government by consent of the government and exercise through representatives, and the second aspect could perhaps come into contention with democracy and its purest form. As the words might have been used in this time in history, they would not have seen such a two andash between the did not view that some expressions of america take manifestations of peoples voice with republicanism as they understood it. When i explain this to my students, the founders view of democracy, which they thought as ifreally bad idea, every single question any level of government deals with, then the people will have to vote on a popular referendum on every they have theo expertise to make these sorts of decisions come probably not. A foreignpolicy issue, the banking issue, or Something Like that. The ideal is you elect people who do have sufficient expertise in these kind of area the founders would have hoped that these people would be virtuous, knowledgeable, independent people and on behalf of those people, can make informed decisions about various policy issues. We have definitely become more democratic since 1776 and 1787, because, number one, we have a of people voting, so women, lets just start with women. A lot of ethnic minorities participate where they couldnt have at the time of the founding. Still think it is fundamentally a democratic republic that we have, as opposed to a pure democracy the founders would have considered. O be oh considered and chaotic republicanism is another way to put a check on the exercise of power. Biblicalback to a anthropology that we are fallen creatures and need as many checks and restraints as we could possibly manage in the way we frame our government. Thank you. This one is for you. Lets see. Expound more on Thomas Jeffersons religious views . Ok. Well, i didnt mention Thomas Jefferson but my basic understanding of Thomas Jefferson is that he was a little more purely did d a stick and what he had to say. He famously trimmed the bible of certain texts that were miraculous because he mainly want to cause trade on the life and morals of jesus, keyng jesus as morality, a theme for him. Not known that, i do much else about jeffersons religious views. I sometimes use the term, he was inherent of a natural humanon where he saw a reason as the arbiter of the day, which gave him pause when he encountered transcending and miraculous claims that he read in the bible, if he could not explain it through reason, then he had questioned reason to doubt it. Having said that, he thought jesus of nazareth was the greatest moral teachers ever was and there was great value in studying that. The kind of religion he would have warmed to would have been. Ondogmatic and nonhierarchical he was suspicious of governments hierarchical or oriented around bishops, for example. I think he had an affinity, even though he may not have embraced specifics with more covered deck congregational type expressions. Baptists and their church governments. He likes Church Governance quite a part of the belief system. Talking about a very nondogmatic religion that could be explained in rational terms. He famously got along with baptists. Because they shared religious views. They agreed on the separation of church and state. He had a fascinating relationship with baptists. John welland, one of the major baptist figures of the era, who was both southern and new england, he moved around and preach, he loved thomasjefferson. He actually talked about Thomas Jefferson. And he was a very fervent, biblebelieving baptist but he left jefferson. He but jefferson was a gift of god. And he knew about jefferson to an extent, but jeffersons theology, that he disagreed with , but he thought jefferson was just such a gift to the nation because of jeffersons politicsgod. And he knew aboutjefferson to. And he spoke about him like he was a biblicalfigure or something, so he had religious meaning and value evenfor baptists who disagreed with him. And he valued the baptiststake on politics because they read so well with what he thought of, as you were saying describing his view of religion asbasically about morality and freedom for individuals. If you look in his account books, he was very generous in givingmoney to ministers. He maintained friendships with manyministers, including ministers that he would not have agreed with on theological matters. I think this was of some importance to him. When you look at jeffersons views,especially some of the anticlerical statements that he makes, and he makes some very harsh ones. 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 are right in the midst of the war, where he sees so many, especially anglican ministers, leaving. They are siding with the loyalists. But at the same time hes expression great admiration with other anglican ministers who have sided with the patriot cause. The same comes up in the election of 1800. Hes harshly attacked by the congregationalist ministers in new england, so again, i think he is deeply and personally wounded by some of the things he say some of the things they say about him. I think you need to lookat the context in which he makes some of the harsh statements around harsh statements about clergymen around the election of 1800. And he runs into conflicts with clergymen in Central Virginia over who are going to be professors at his new university in virginia. And there were presbyterian ministers inhis own community that were not keen on some of the people he wanted to hire. And again, he kind of lashes out in some veryharsh, anticlerical 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 coming from with that kind of expression from jefferson. Thank you. This next question is for dr. Kidd. Did franklins knowledgeable but not doctrinal phase make him a better Bridge Builder between religious groups . And did a similar thing work for lincoln . I think it did. He was a very friendly terms with lots of differentkinds of churches and ministers. When he was in philadelphia, the most commonly would attend the cities Anglican Church, or the church of england the citys Anglican Church, or the church of england. His wife was more devout. And she was ananglican and he would go with her to church and he gavemoney for the Anglican Church to be expanded. Some peoplesaid it was because he wanted a steeple for his electrical forhis electoral experiment, what i think he got the church was a good thing. He even gave money to help build a synagogue in philadelphia. So it wasnt just charity and benevolenceextended to different types of christian denominations, but even to jews, too. So i thinks that i think thats an upside to franklins nondogmatic approach. And he definitely thought, in a way that jefferson didnt, i think, he thought institutional religion even is a good thing, so he was keen to help a lot of different kinds of churches. And if your member from my talkthis morning, your member john adams sang every Christian Group thought he was probably 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 conflicts, especially between catholics and protestants. But when franklin had theopportunity to visit the continent of europe, he was very complimentary towards catholics and catholic churches. He never quite got over some of his deep bread anticatholic deepbred, anticatholic sentiments that he grew up with. But he was definitely a Bridge Builder that and that reflected the fact that he basically had a positive view of religion and churchgoing and that sort of thing, just as long as you didntuse it to beat people over the head with doctrine. And it is similar thing work for lincoln . I dont know as much about lincoln. Maybe professor bird can Say Something about this. I think that lincoln definitely,especially as a leader, washington was like this too, of making sure to reach out to different, to leaders of differentdenominations to say, we need your support and you are valuedhere, this sort of thing. So i think in washington and lincolns case, that you see the kind of principled outreach to different kinds of denominations. I think thats true and would lincoln, there is so much consistency in that comparison. And thats why i think it is helpful. The only distinction that we might make would lincoln is that he had as strong a sense of providential is him as anyone. He 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, and you can see this even in his famous speeches, where he talked about, we need to be on godsside, he talks about, maybe god is not really favor really in favor of what we are 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 may have been something somewhat unique. And again, its easy to think of these figures as just kind of hyper intellectual worldreflecting hyper intellects who were reflecting out of body. And with specific instances with jefferson you have to thinkabout the context, and the same is true of lincoln. His entire presidency, and hes the only president you could say this, his entire presidency was bounded by war. From the time he took office, it was a conflict, and that is what he dealt with. I noticed when i read david mccullochs biography of john adams, that john adams, wherever he was, different churchservices, different to nominations, and i found that to be unusual compared to how we intend church today. It seems like we go to our denomination. You feel like visiting variouschurches, as we mentioned, that was bridge building with our earlier founders. Is that something that could help us with that today . I think that youre right, in the 1700s there is such intenseconflict between, i think that youre right, in especially catholic and protestant but alsobaptists and congregationalists, arguing about the differencebetween presbyterian and congregationalists policy, and thats like an issue that you shed blood over. And it speaks to a time when people were number one come on let more theologically conversant than we are today. But they also take these thingsso seriously. And i think in retrospect he think, especially in our day and time, when you cant take christian commitment for granted in the culture, it doesnt seem like you want to be fighting about those kinds of issues anymore, but i think one of the real breakthroughs came with the new evangelicalmovement of the 1730s and 1740s. If you have been to the museums bygone america exhibit, you have seen George Whitfield and the great awakening theater they have here. And one of the things that was a so distinctive about whitfield, who was thegreatest evangelist of that era, was that even though he was an anglican minister, a church of england minister, especially in america, he cooperated very avidly with nonanglicans, anybody who was supportive of his message of the new birth 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 upbraided by anglicanauthorities who said, why are you cooperating so much with thedissenters, the baptists, the presbyterians, the congregationalists, the quakers . And he said, because i see bornagain people among all denominations. So thats a unity thats borne, to me, out of a specific kind of religious principle,which is a belief in the need for conversion and being born again. So there is a way in which i think these two trends toward religious unity are happening at the same time. One is the evangelical unity around the new birth of salvation. One is the enlightenment kind of trend, saying, we need to stop fightingabout differences in theology. We need to stop having wars and murdering people over small, apparently differences in the elegy. But these of a surging at the same time so you end up getting people like jefferson and john leland, as you mentioned before, who have very different personal views about theology, who have identical views about the role of religion in americanpublic life, which is that we need to have full religious liberty, that the government sudden the government shouldnt persecute people because of their religious leaders, that you should let people meet in their own churches in freedom, that they shouldnt pay religious taxes to support a church theydont attend mo which is what most people in the colonial era had to do. So i think this is why that tradition of religiousliberty is so important. And it doesnt mean, we dont have time toattend everybodys churches zendaya stand that, but we shouldleast follow their example and say, religious liberty is foreverybody. I think there is a couple of interesting things going on when you look at some of the communication that the founders and in 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 sort of the minority communities. And i think there is several things going on here. What is he was to reassure them that they are part of this american experiment. Hewants to bring them into the fold and ensure that they are full participants in the american experience. I think he also is usingthis as an opportunity to communicate to the American Public atlarge. Lets her member, 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 religious societies and groups was one of those ways to communicate to a broad audience. And allof our early president s used letter writing to religioussocieties as a way to communicate some pretty important ideas. Washington is talking very systematically about conceptions of religious liberty. Let us not forget, Thomas Jefferson used a letter to a Baptist Association to express that famous metaphor of a wall of separation of church and state. A few years later at the closing days of his presidency, he raised to a Methodist Society in which he says, 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 communicationsbecause these societies are communicating with them too. And they are communicating what their concerns, what their fears are. There are concerns about their liberty and whether matters of liberty and religious freedom are going to be respected. A liberty that would include them. Thank you. This next question is a long one. Take notes. You reference david as a model for war, m f are gods own heart and yet a man of war. But god said today that because he was a man of war and shed much blood on the europe, david would not be the one to build god ehouse, a rather his sonsolomon, a man of peace. So god showed his displeasure. Please reconcile these two as you can. . Ok. I think its fascinating that opponents of war did not use that text, that reference. And i think part of the reason couldbe that there were other texts that were less of your, more sort of to the moment in terms of Something Like sermon on the mount. Obviously, someone who is a patriot who tried to argue for people to go to war isnt going to mention that. It is a valid point in many ways. It doesnt, though, undercut the point, the larger point that god in some ways when david was going to war, when he was selling goliath, scripture when he wasslaying goliath, scripture tells us that he was doing gods work when he was doing that. So its a complicated question but i didnt see it, at least in the research i did come i didnt see anyone pointing that out, i didnt see anyone saying, those of you calling david a warrior might want to think about this. It just wasnt one of the text that they drawn. However, it is an interesting point and again, it would have helped to reinforcethe argument for not only pacifists, but those who werentpacifists technically, but didnt exactly support the war for one reason or another. Thank you. Dr. Kidd, do you suppose ezra stiles sent a followup letter to Benjamin Franklin about christ before his death . I dont know that he did. He didnt have much time left because he was can do be dead because he was going to be dead five weeks after franklin responded. But it is true that there were people all through franklins life who were very directly imploringfranklin to accept christ as his savior. This is one of thereasons why i dont see franklin as a traditional christian, is the traditional christians around franklin didnt think he was a christian. And so i think the best example is George Whitfield, w