Todd Littleton

Megan, sorry for the delayed response. Just bothered to look. I think this response of yours is embarrassingly insipid. Sorry. First, as many have noted, you seem to know nothing about Jefferson’s writings on this, or Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, or the debates around the establishment clause, the meaning of the Declaration, not to mention the role of deism and similar ideas. You also seem to think “they were 99% Christian” is some kind of novel insight and silver bullet argument. Disagreements between Christian denominations were quite meaningful to the Founders at the time, and to American culture generally. There were these people called “the Puritans” who, in no small part because these disagreements, fled England for America. It’s true that states could have established churches, but that practice evaporated very early in the new republic, in part because of this preference for theological diversity (if you prefer “theological pluralism” that’s fine with me). Indeed Madison and others argued that theological competition was actually good. But the really annoying thing about your response is that you are buying into the idea that the low brow rank bigotry that started this conversation can be salvaged with your shallow historical and theological musings. You are coming to the rescue of a mob of bigots, and you’re carrying a nerf bat into the fight.