Worldtraveller
09 Apr 2009, 01:54 PM
While our government is secular, the heritage of Americans IS predominantly Christian. That is part of the American heritage whether people today are believers or not. Our government paid for missionaries to go to the Indians. Our government paid to bring Bibles from Scotland during the Revolutionary war. The Thanksgiving holiday began as a national day of prayer as directed by Congress and the President.
There are several factual claims being made here.
1) Our government paid for missionaries to go to the Indians.
2) Our government paid to bring Bibles from Scotland during the Revolutionary war.
3) The Thanksgiving holiday began as a national day of prayer as directed by Congress and the President.
If my memory serves, the first two are factually incorrect. I think the third is a stretch of the real history as well.
Starting with the first, from here (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/4/24725/53989).
The revisionist version of American history is full of tales about government efforts to promote Christianity to the Indians, and these tales, which contain little truth to begin with, are often turned into vague statements, such as that in Mr. Forbes's proposed resolution, used to imply that our early Congresses funded religious education for the American people. The reason for the use of legislation regarding Indians to create these lies is simply the availability of material that can be turned into lies. There were no actual instances, for example, of the early Congresses passing legislation that aided sectarian schools for children who were American citizens. There was, however, cooperation between the government and the Indian mission schools of the 1800s. Although the government's reasons for this were always secular, such as in an 1819 bill that appropriated a small amount of money for Indian mission schools to add agriculture education to their curriculums, the fact that this cooperation existed means there are actual acts, reports, etc., that can be misrepresented or misquoted, turning them into vague claims, like that of Mr. Forbes, that the government funded religious education. The same is true of Indian treaties. Congress never provided funding for any religious purpose for the American people. It did, however, appropriate funds to fulfill treaty provisions, which occasionally included things such as the building of a church, but even these cases were rare.
Of the hundreds of Indian treaties made during the first fifty years following the ratification of the First Amendment, only nine contained provisions related in any way whatsoever to religion, and only four of the nine contained an explicit provision for the building of a church or the salary of a religious teacher. Several of these were nothing more than provisions compensating missionaries for the churches and other buildings they lost when Indian land was ceded and/or relocating the missionaries to the land reserved to the Indians in the treaty. Another example, the 1794 treaty with the Oneida and other tribes, included a provision to build a church to replace a church that the British had burnt down when these tribes sided with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. In this same fifty year period, only one treaty provided direct funding to schools run by a religious organization. This was an 1827 treaty with the Creeks, which provided funding for the tribe's three existing schools, which had been established by missionaries.
As for the second claim, from the same link:
Congress did not import any Bibles.
In 1777, three ministers from Philadelphia, Francis Alison, John Ewing, and William Marshall, came up with a plan to alleviate the Bible shortage caused by the inability to import books from England during the Revolutionary War. The ministers' request for help from Congress, and Congress's consideration of the ministers' petition had to do with the problem of price gouging during the war.
The ministers' idea was to import the necessary type and paper, and print an edition of the Bible in Philadelphia. The problem with this plan, however, was that, if the project was financed and controlled by private companies, the Bibles would most likely be bought up and resold at prices that the average American couldn't afford. What the ministers wanted Congress to do was to import the materials and finance the printing, as a loan to be repaid by the sale of the Bibles. As Rev. Alison explained in the petition, if Congress imported the type and paper, and Congress contracted the printer, then Congress could regulate the selling price of the Bibles.(4)
The petition was referred to a committee, which concluded that it would be too costly to import the type and paper, and too risky to import them into Philadelphia, a city likely to be invaded by the British, and proposed the less risky alternative of importing already printed Bibles into different ports from a country other than England. If Congress did this, they would still be able to regulate the selling price and be reimbursed by the sales.
What appears in the Journals of the Continental Congress after the committee's report is the following motion.
"Whereupon, the Congress was moved, to order the Committee of Commerce to import twenty thousand copies of the Bible."(5)
The problem for those who claim or imply ... that the Bibles were imported is that, although this motion passed, it was not a final vote to import the Bibles. It was a vote to replace the original plan of importing the type and paper with the committee's new proposal of importing already printed Bibles. The vote on this motion was close -- seven states voted yes; six voted no. A second motion was then made to pass an actual resolution to import the Bibles, but this was postponed and never brought up again. No Bibles were imported. This little problem is solved in the religious right history books by either misquoting the motion to turn it into a resolution, or omitting the motion altogether and ending the story with some statement implying that the Bibles were imported.
And to address the last item, see here (http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/11/washingtons-thanksgiving-proclamation.html). The basic gist is that the thankgiving holiday was a proclamation by Washington, but it was not specifically meant to be xian in nature. Many of the founders at the time (with a few notable exceptions) were more deist or pantheist in nature, a product of the widespread thinking of the enlightenment era in which they lived.
There are several factual claims being made here.
1) Our government paid for missionaries to go to the Indians.
2) Our government paid to bring Bibles from Scotland during the Revolutionary war.
3) The Thanksgiving holiday began as a national day of prayer as directed by Congress and the President.
If my memory serves, the first two are factually incorrect. I think the third is a stretch of the real history as well.
Starting with the first, from here (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/1/4/24725/53989).
The revisionist version of American history is full of tales about government efforts to promote Christianity to the Indians, and these tales, which contain little truth to begin with, are often turned into vague statements, such as that in Mr. Forbes's proposed resolution, used to imply that our early Congresses funded religious education for the American people. The reason for the use of legislation regarding Indians to create these lies is simply the availability of material that can be turned into lies. There were no actual instances, for example, of the early Congresses passing legislation that aided sectarian schools for children who were American citizens. There was, however, cooperation between the government and the Indian mission schools of the 1800s. Although the government's reasons for this were always secular, such as in an 1819 bill that appropriated a small amount of money for Indian mission schools to add agriculture education to their curriculums, the fact that this cooperation existed means there are actual acts, reports, etc., that can be misrepresented or misquoted, turning them into vague claims, like that of Mr. Forbes, that the government funded religious education. The same is true of Indian treaties. Congress never provided funding for any religious purpose for the American people. It did, however, appropriate funds to fulfill treaty provisions, which occasionally included things such as the building of a church, but even these cases were rare.
Of the hundreds of Indian treaties made during the first fifty years following the ratification of the First Amendment, only nine contained provisions related in any way whatsoever to religion, and only four of the nine contained an explicit provision for the building of a church or the salary of a religious teacher. Several of these were nothing more than provisions compensating missionaries for the churches and other buildings they lost when Indian land was ceded and/or relocating the missionaries to the land reserved to the Indians in the treaty. Another example, the 1794 treaty with the Oneida and other tribes, included a provision to build a church to replace a church that the British had burnt down when these tribes sided with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. In this same fifty year period, only one treaty provided direct funding to schools run by a religious organization. This was an 1827 treaty with the Creeks, which provided funding for the tribe's three existing schools, which had been established by missionaries.
As for the second claim, from the same link:
Congress did not import any Bibles.
In 1777, three ministers from Philadelphia, Francis Alison, John Ewing, and William Marshall, came up with a plan to alleviate the Bible shortage caused by the inability to import books from England during the Revolutionary War. The ministers' request for help from Congress, and Congress's consideration of the ministers' petition had to do with the problem of price gouging during the war.
The ministers' idea was to import the necessary type and paper, and print an edition of the Bible in Philadelphia. The problem with this plan, however, was that, if the project was financed and controlled by private companies, the Bibles would most likely be bought up and resold at prices that the average American couldn't afford. What the ministers wanted Congress to do was to import the materials and finance the printing, as a loan to be repaid by the sale of the Bibles. As Rev. Alison explained in the petition, if Congress imported the type and paper, and Congress contracted the printer, then Congress could regulate the selling price of the Bibles.(4)
The petition was referred to a committee, which concluded that it would be too costly to import the type and paper, and too risky to import them into Philadelphia, a city likely to be invaded by the British, and proposed the less risky alternative of importing already printed Bibles into different ports from a country other than England. If Congress did this, they would still be able to regulate the selling price and be reimbursed by the sales.
What appears in the Journals of the Continental Congress after the committee's report is the following motion.
"Whereupon, the Congress was moved, to order the Committee of Commerce to import twenty thousand copies of the Bible."(5)
The problem for those who claim or imply ... that the Bibles were imported is that, although this motion passed, it was not a final vote to import the Bibles. It was a vote to replace the original plan of importing the type and paper with the committee's new proposal of importing already printed Bibles. The vote on this motion was close -- seven states voted yes; six voted no. A second motion was then made to pass an actual resolution to import the Bibles, but this was postponed and never brought up again. No Bibles were imported. This little problem is solved in the religious right history books by either misquoting the motion to turn it into a resolution, or omitting the motion altogether and ending the story with some statement implying that the Bibles were imported.
And to address the last item, see here (http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/11/washingtons-thanksgiving-proclamation.html). The basic gist is that the thankgiving holiday was a proclamation by Washington, but it was not specifically meant to be xian in nature. Many of the founders at the time (with a few notable exceptions) were more deist or pantheist in nature, a product of the widespread thinking of the enlightenment era in which they lived.