Blasphemy

Alan Dershowitz

Description

In Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence, author Alan Dershowitz proves that no relation exists between the Declaration of Independence’s “Creator" and “Nature’s God,” on the one hand, and the Judeo-Christian God of the Old and New Testaments, on the other hand. Learn about the religious right’s goal to Christianize America by using the Declaration of Independence and arguing that this document proves that the United States was founded on Biblical law. Understand everything from the argument to the documentation that Dershowitz uses to disprove this historical distortion.

Sujets

• Political Ideologies
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• State
• Blasphemy
• Politics of the United States
• Politics
• Religion
• Alan Dershowitz
• Thomas Jefferson

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620458655
• Langue: English

Extrait

Blasphemy
BOOKS BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways
What Israel Means to Me
Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of
the Origins of Rights
America on Trial
The Case for Israel
The Case for Peace
America Declares Independence
Why Terrorism Works
Shouting Fire
Letters to a Young Lawyer
Supreme Injustice
Genesis of Injustice
Just Revenge
Sexual McCarthyism
The Vanishing American Jew
Reasonable Doubts
The Abuse Excuse
The Advocate s Devil
Contrary to Popular Opinion
Chutzpah
Taking Liberties
Reversal of Fortune
Best Defense
Criminal Law: Theory and Process
Psychoanalysis: Psychiatry and Law
Blasphemy
How the Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence
Alan Dershowitz
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2007 by Alan Dershowitz. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
Parts of the present work appeared in a slightly different version in America Declares Independence 2003 by Alan Dershowitz. Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico
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ISBN 978-0-470-08455-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my great nephew Mars Question with boldness.
-Thomas Jefferson to his nephew
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Is the United States a Christian Nation?

1. The God of the Declaration: Is He the God of Today s Christian Right?

2. The Christian Right s Strategy to Turn the Declaration into a Baptismal Certificate

3. What Are the Laws of Nature and of Nature s God ?

Conclusion

Appendix: The Declaration of Independence

Notes

Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Skepticism and open-mindedness are what I value most in my student research assistants. Those who helped me on this book combine those Jeffersonian traits with intelligence, creativity, and responsibility. Thanks, therefore, go to Alex Blenkinsopp, Charles Johnson, and Chaim Kagedan. Thanks as well to Eric Citron, who helped me with the historical research for America Declares Independence, from which some of the material in this volume is adapted. Thanks also to Nichele McClendon for typing the manuscript, and to friends and family members who critiqued it. My appreciation also goes to the folks at Wiley, especially my editor, Hana Lane, and to my literary agent, Helen Rees. Any blasphemous statements contained in this book are, however, my responsibility alone.
INTRODUCTION
Is the United States a Christian Nation?
The Religious Right is engaged in a crusade to convert the United States into a Christian theocracy based on the Bible and, more specifically, on the divine authority of Jesus Christ. This is not the first time in history that religious fundamentalism has sought to declare our heterogeneous country to be a Christian nation, but all previous efforts in this direction have been rejected. This time a new tactic is being used, and it promises-or threatens-a greater potential for success. In an appeal to the founding fathers, the Religious Right is employing as their primary weapon the Declaration of Independence, which they claim is America s baptismal certificate. They point to the words of the Declaration-its invocation of Nature s God, Creator, Supreme Judge of the World, and Divine Providence -as proof that our nation was founded on the principles of Christianity, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Bible. They also seek to elevate the Declaration of Independence to equal legal status with the Constitution, which contains no references to God and prohibits any religious test for federal office and any law respecting an establishment of religion. As David Barton, an advocate of a Christianized America, has put it: Many people erroneously consider the Constitution to be a higher document than the Declaration. However, under our form of government, the Constitution is not superior to the Declaration of Independence; a violation of the Declaration is just as serious as a breach of the Constitution (emphasis in original). 1 Barton further argues that [t]he Constitution cannot be properly interpreted or applied apart from the natural law principles presented in the Declaration. The two documents must be used together to understand either one individually. 2 This view of the legal status of the Declaration has never been accepted by the courts, but it is regarded as gospel by many on the Religious Right.
Invoking the beliefs of the founders, and especially the Declaration of Independence, is a powerful weapon indeed. As Jon Meacham, the author of American Gospel, has written:

The intensity with which the Religious Right attempts to conscript the Founders into their cause indicates the importance the movement ascribes to historical benediction by association with the origins of the Republic. If [they] convince enough people that America was a Christian nation that has lost its way, the more legitimate their efforts in the political arena seem. 3
The Washington Post columnist George F. Will has put it more bluntly:

Not since the medieval church baptized, as it were, Aristotle, as some sort of early-very early-church father has there been an intellectual hijacking as audacious as the attempt to present America s principal founders as devout Christians. Such an attempt is now in high gear among people who argue that the founders were kindred spirits with today s evangelicals, and that they founded a Christian nation. 4
Many on the Religious Right are sincere and decent people who deeply believe they are doing God s work. And maybe they are, but they are not doing Jefferson s work, or the work of our other founders who strongly believed in the separation of church and state. The good people who are using the Declaration of Independence to Christianize our nation have a very different conception of governance from that of the founding generation, and it is wrong for these historical revisionists to rewrite our past in an effort to change our future.
In this book I will revisit the history of our Declaration and the philosophy of its drafters in an effort to reclaim this foundational document for all Americans, not just those who adhere to one particular belief system.
American independence from Great Britain was achieved on the battlefield, but the establishment of a new republic, conceived in liberty, was as much a product of the pen as the sword. As Thomas Paine, whose own pen contributed to the willingness of colonial Americans to take up the sword-and who, in January 1776, called for a declaration of Independence -wrote several years after the American Revolution: [T]he independence of America, considered merely as a separation from England, would have been a matter of but little importance. It became an event worthy of celebration because it was accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments. 5
This book is about the revolution in principles wrought by the pens of American statesmen, rather than the revolution won by the swords and flintlocks of American patriots. Although it is difficult, as a historical matter, to separate words from deeds, my focus will be on the words and ideas used to justify the revolution, and their enduring impact on the Course of human Events, most particularly the rights of men and women throughout the world.
I have always been intrigued by the Declaration of Independence. Though an important document of liberty, it is a hodgepodge of political, religious, and historical theories. It invokes the laws of nature, as if nature speaks with a single moral voice, and the law of nature s silent God, rather than Christianity s God of revelation. It describes rights as unalienable and declares that all Men are created equal, and yet it presupposes the continued enslavement of men, women, and children who were certainly being denied the unalienable right to liberty endowed to them by their Creator. From these natural and God-given rights, the Declaration shifts effortlessly to social contract theory, declaring that governments derive their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed rather tha