Way off topic here, SG, so I’ll keep this short. Slavery is one of the top 3 issues that can take apart the Church’s claim to infallibility. The three are: usury, geocentrism, and slavery. Frankly, SG, I’m not sure in my heart of hearts, if the Church, pushed into a corner, has ‘changed’ her opinion on slavery. She’s simply mute on the subject.

The Catholic Church, until Vatican II, held that slavery was not against the Natural Law, else how do we reconcile St. Paul.

StraightGrandmother= Is this true? I mean I know you write it, and I take you to be a credible person, ergo this must be true. I am in absolute shock! Shock!

so it is not incorrect to argue that christianity influenced british common law, just to argue that Jefferson claimed christianity influenced british common law.

It is so funny that you would write this article today as just within the last two days I read up quite a bit on Jefferson and slavery. It all started when I bought that new John Shore Book

Wings on a Pig: Why the “Christian” View of Gays Doesn’t Work

as a Kindle Book for $9.95 even though I don’t have a Kindle. Amazon has a free app and you can read Kindle Books on your computer. Kindle has many free books so I downloaded and read a really good one

“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself – Jacobs, Harriet Ann, 1813-1897.

The book written by a slave girl left me unquiet so I went on the internet to read more articles about slavery and then about Jefferson and slavery. Many times in the book and this article in particular had me crying,

Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave,

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/runaway/runaway.html

I read quite a few papers, yes even scholarly papers on Jefferson and slavery. What I took away was that Jefferson considered Africans human beings, however he did not think they were as smart as or equal to whites except for morally. He felt that they had the same morals.

After finishing the book and reading many articles what I take away is shame. I am so ashamed at our forefathers. How many times have we said, “Our Founding fathers” like they are demi-gods or something, I know I have. But there is that gaping hole, that absence of morality that they codified into law, the idea and practice of slavery. We truly are not there yet as a country, sexual minorities are really our last group of people to have specific laws enacted to keep them un-equal to everybody else.

We are not a perfect country, our Forefathers were not perfect, even Jefferson. They were not very good Christians were they? Even Jefferson he had to sell slaves to raise capital to pay off debts and he separated slave families. Keeping some members of the slave family and selling off others. Jefferson was no Saint. He kind of reminds me of NOM, he was good for the people who were white (except apparently for Irish who were brought over as slaves) just like NOM is good for Heterosexuals only. But neither one of them really were/are good for ALL the people. Both of them harbored/harbors Discrimination in their thoughts and actions.

Certainly, I agree with you about the issue of slavery, as well as women’s individual personhood and rights. But, the groundwork was set to allow the ‘peculiar institution’ to die; unfortunately, not without the WBTS. The foundation was set to amend, when necessary, our Constitution to accommodate our greater understanding of social and economic rights.

I thank God I live in this country, as tattered and torn as it is, today. I’m grateful that a good portion of our Founding Fathers kept religion out of basic documents; and, left the way open for our Freedoms, as indicated in the Bill of Rights.

I would not want to live under a Catholic or Protestant Theocracy, Islamic Theocracy, Jewish Theocracy, etc. How I live my spiritual life is my basic freedom.

David Barton is selling a fictitious past to enslave us all to a future theocracy.

It should be noted, while Jefferson may not have believed British common law was not based on christianity, it doesn’t mean it was not.

Ken, I think the point is that Jefferson just didn’t ‘believe’ British common law was not based on Christianity. Jefferson did not operate on ‘belief’; but, rather fact. He studied the point. He researched it. Such as Warren has shown.

It’s rather much like science. Basically, Jefferson is saying to others, I’ve looked at the evidence, seen shallow research by others … here’s the result. Prove me wrong.

This is much like what Warren, et. al., are saying about the infrequency of change in orientation. It’s not a belief. It’s not a claim. It’s fact. NARTH is about belief rather than fact.

Jefferson, as were others of the Founding Fathers, were dedicated scientists, pre-rationalists.

If Christians want to maintain British Common Law is based on Christianity, it’s up to them to prove it. Just saying so, doesn’t make it so.

This is much like what Warren, et. al., are saying about the infrequency of change in orientation. It’s not a belief. It’s not a claim. It’s fact. NARTH is about belief rather than fact.

When Warren goes to the sources a statement or a research paper is based on, and one by one validates or discredits the source (as he does here /2011/11/28/narth-rewards-what-it-does/ ) he is doing in medicine what Jefferson did in law.

Teresa you said,

The foundation was set to amend, when necessary, our Constitution to accommodate our greater understanding of social and economic rights.

StraightGrandmother= Oh Teresa they knew what they were doing, they did not need “greater understanding” they knew but they did it anyway because they could, and because they benefited. I am not inclined to give them a free pass based on “well those were the times.” They knew then, just as Christians know now that the love between two sexual minorities is no different than the love between two heterosexuals. They know, but they DISCRIMINATE anyway because they can and it makes them feel superior.

Bringing this somewhat back on topic .. the efforts of (some) Christians to revise history in the past to justify their present view is somewhat like what I said above in reverse. First .. they are rewriting 200 year old history to make it match up with what they believe for today .. Second .. even if what they said about Jefferson were true .. their argument(s) show a failure to realize the progress of history .. that ideals and principles are not static and trapped .. they evolve and expand over time. For example .. even if we were culturally a Christian nation (and Christianity certainly was dominant in that time) the constitution and laws they wrote left ample room for freedom of all religions in this country .. not just the most popular view of the day. This is what true freedom is ..this is how the principle of freedom progresses .. not the narrow “Christianity only” view.

Dave

Way off topic here, SG, so I’ll keep this short. Slavery is one of the top 3 issues that can take apart the Church’s claim to infallibility. The three are: usury, geocentrism, and slavery. Frankly, SG, I’m not sure in my heart of hearts, if the Church, pushed into a corner, has ‘changed’ her opinion on slavery. She’s simply mute on the subject.