Mark Small

A “founder” is “a person who founds or establishes.” Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed., 2001, p. 756. The “founders” includes everyone who was here who toiled and died to build this country. 10/24

“Founders” includes people held in involuntary servitude (a/k/a slaves), indigenous peoples (mistakenly called “Indians” by European settlers) and women (who had hardly any rights). 11/24

4) when Rev Beckwith refers to the “faith of our Founding Fathers” & implies there was an intent this country should be a theocracy, at best he misleads. The religions being practiced in this country in 1787 were many and varied. 12/24

Indigenous peoples & people held involuntarily in servitude had many ways to view themselves & the universe & what they viewed as a god or gods. The Framers were hardly all of the same beliefs as Rev Beckwith. 13/24

Amongst The Framers - the 55 delegates who, at one time or another, attended the 1787 Convention - a dominant belief was deism, a philosophy not so easily explained as Rev Beckwith might prefer. 14/24

A clergyman wrote: “Deism is what is left of Christianity after casting off everything that is peculiar to it. The Deist is one who denies the Divinity, the Incarnation ... 15/24

and the Atonement of Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost; who denies the God of Israel, and believes in the God of nature.” David Holmes, “The Faiths of the Founding Fathers,” 2006 ed., pp. 39-40, citing. 16/24

A discussion of deism necessarily includes reference to the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the 100 Years War, & notions of spiritual equality & reason. Rev Beckwith seems > comfortable w/simply alleging all the “founders” believed just like he does. 17/24