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Madison – The Original Anti-Christian Nationalist – Interview with Gordon Dakota Arnold
On this program, Madison – The Original Anti-Christian Nationalist, be ready
to have your idealisms of Madison crushed. My interview with author, Phd candidate and Assistant Professor of Politics, Gordon Dakota (Koty) Arnold will bring to light facts about Madison that set me afire.
If you really are interested in why secular politics is as it is in our present, then you must examine Madison the same way that Koty does. Not only did I learn from the article that Koty wrote (see reference #1) about Madison being more dangerous to religious liberty than Jefferson but I researched his research on my own. Koty is absolutely correct in his conclusions that Madison –
‘James Madison did not envision that America was or ever could be in any sense a Christian nation, but he instead believed that it was a fundamentally secular republic. He saw the nation as a composite of individuals of distinct religious traditions, and he believed, as a devoted student of John Locke, that the aims of the state were concerned only with the preservation of property rights. “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort,” Madison avowed, “as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals… This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”53 At best, Madison sees Christianity as a religion that perhaps provides a useful moral and ethical system for individuals to order their private lives around, but he does not believe that it provides any meaningful guidance about politics or society. If Madison is to be believed in his “Memorial” and his “Detached Memoranda,” God does not concern himself with the actions of political communities because, if He exists at all, He is only interested in the individual’s inner spiritual life…’
But before I continue down the path of Madison’s intent to destroy Christian involvement in all spheres of public life, let me share this from Madison’s professor at Princeton, Rev. John Witherspoon:
‘There is not a greater evidence either of the reality or the power of religion, than a firm belief of God’s universal presence, and a constant attention to the influence and operation of his providence. It is by this means that the Christian may be said, in the emphatical scripture language, “to walk with God, and to endure as seeing him who is invisible.”’ – 1776 Sermon, Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men
And when you get to the last segment of the program, Koty and I finalize that Madison was intent on the secularization of politics and education. With that, he want what we have in our present regarding the condition of Christianity –
‘…Madison preferred that the church be characterized by disarray, discord, and faction. Only then would Christianity fail to mobilize itself as a political force, and only then would the natural rights of individuals be safe from a majority faction…’
In my words, Madison was against any form of Christian Nationalism.
Was Madison the ‘Father of the Constitution?’
As we discuss Madison – The Original Anti-Christian Nationalist, we dive into the Convention of ‘87. In that we find that in all truth, Madison would have preferred a ‘consolidated’ federal government with all the ‘energy (power)’ in the realm of the national entity. He was not a States rights champion at all.
In our discussion, Koty will reminded you that it was Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth that introduced and fought for a Senate chosen by State Legislatures. These were the Fathers of Federalism, Not Madison.
What about the Senate?
Here I want to introduce another essay that Koty wrote regarding a hot topic in our day, The Filibuster. Hold on… Koty wrote this essay two years ago (see References #2). More interesting, the defender of the Senate and the procedure of ‘filibuster’ was a strong historical Federalist, Massachusetts Senator a century ago—Henry Cabot Lodge, circa 1890 – 1919.
Read the complete essay but take this paragraph as one key point:
‘Lodge did not regard the Senate filibuster as a tool to entrench minority rule but instead maintained that it was a method of improving and refining majority rule. The filibuster ensured that the “majority in this Senate” would be “something more than a numerical majority at any given moment.” By providing a “full opportunity for deliberation and discussion” on legislation, the filibuster would prevent legislation from being signed into law by the President with the support of only flimsy congressional majorities. Lodge recognized that the Senate’s protections for debate provided minorities and majorities alike with the potential to refine the public mind on proposed legislation…’
Sam Adams Wisdom
Deferring to John Witherspoon’s Sermon of 1776:
Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men
Source: Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols, Foreword by Ellis Sandoz (2nd ed. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998). Vol. 1.
The doctrine of divine providence is very full and complete in the sacred oracles. It extends not only to things which we may think of great moment, and therefore worthy of notice, but to things the most indifferent and inconsiderable; “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing,” says our Lord, “and one of them falleth not to the ground without your heavenly Father”; nay, “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.[”] It extends not only to things beneficial and salutary, or to the direction and assistance of those who are the servants of the living God; but to things seemingly most hurtful and destructive, and to persons the most refractory and disobedient. He overrules all his creatures, and all their actions. Thus we are told, that “fire, hail, snow, vapour, and stormy wind, fulfil his word,” in the course of nature; and even so the most impetuous and disorderly passions of men, that are under no restraint from themselves, are yet perfectly subject to the dominion of Jehovah. They carry his commission, they obey his orders, they are limited and restrained by his authority, and they conspire with every thing else in promoting his glory. There is the greater need to take notice of this, that men are not generally sufficiently aware of the distinction between the law of God and his purpose; they are apt to suppose, that as the temper of the sinner is contrary to the one, so the outrages of the sinner are able to defeat the other; than which nothing can be more false. The truth is plainly asserted, and nobly expressed by the psalmist in the text, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.”
Read the rest at: Home / Essays / Key Documents of Liberty / 1776: Witherspoon, Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men (Sermon)
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References:
1. Madison – The Original Anti-Christian Nationalist:
James Madison’s Radical Aversion to Christian Politics in America By Gordon Dakota Arnold, September 13, 2022
2. Massachusetts Values and the Filibuster: A Short History
Henry Cabot Lodge saw that the filibuster was a practice that followed naturally from the structural philosophy of the Senate. By Gordon Dakota Arnold, APRIL 7, 2021
3. Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth, and the Formation of America’s Constitutional Order (Chapter Five of Great Christian Jurists in American History) By Mark David Hall
4. Oliver Ellsworth: A Young Puritan in the New Republic By Mark David Hall
5. The Practical Wisdom of Chief Justice Ellsworth: Reconsidering the Separation of Church and State By Anthony Esolen, June 26, 2015
6. Amendment I (Religion) – Founders Constitution sixty-nine plus references including Madison letters discussed on the program