Boller, Lillback, George Washington & Religion:

Boller, Lillback, George Washington & Religion:
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007/01/boller-lillback-george-washington-that.html
[excerpt]

Boller, Lillback, George Washington & Religion:

Paul Boller's magnificent work of scholarship "George Washington &
Religion" can be accessed here. This is not a free site. But if you are
associated with a college or a research institution, you may have
privileges. Boller's book is out of print and the cheapest you can find it
on Amazon is $75.

A couple things about the book. Boller concludes that Washington was not a
Christian, but some kind of Deist. His money quote is:

[I]f to believe in the divinity and resurrection of Christ and his
atonement for the sins of man and to participate in the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper are requisites for the Christian faith, then Washington, on
the evidence which we have examined, can hardly be considered a Christian,
except in the most nominal sense.



Though, Boller explicitly notes that Washington was not a Deist in the
sense of believing in a cold distant watchmaker God; rather Washington's
God intervened. A problem though, with categorizing Washington as a "Deist"
is that too many folks define Deism as belief in a non-intervening God and
such a categorization, without immediate caveat, likely misleads. So the
religious conservatives who don't want to believe that Washington's
Providence was non-interventionist have a valid complaint.

Enter Peter A. Lillback. Like Michael and Jana Novak, he too has authored a
recent book which attempts to show that Washington was Christian not Deist.
But Lillback explicitly makes Boller an enemy (the Novaks don't), the one
responsible for what he considers the error that Washington was Deist and
not Christian.

In fact, most modern works which explain Washington's religion do in some
way trace back to Boller. But this isn't because of anything nefarious;
it's just Boller's work is damn good. And it's not just secularists or
liberals. Conservatives like Richard Brookhiser, James Hutson, Gregg
Frazer, and others rely on Boller's work, which meticulously examines the
primary sources.
[end excerpt]

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You are invited to check out the following:

The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm

American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm

The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]

HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/

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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote

"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"

That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.

It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.

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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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