Letters to the Editor: Don’t give the Bible all the credit for the American Revolution

To the editor: Stunningly, I find myself in agreement with contributing writer Josh Hammer (“The American Revolution sprang not from individualism, but from the Bible,” July 3). I have been a card-carrying atheist since the age of 17, but readily admit that my morals and values are almost entirely based on the Judeo-Christian religion.

This does not mean, however, that I must celebrate the Bible on the Fourth of July. Hammer acknowledges that the founders were “intellectually heterodox” without pointing out that it was one of the deists among them, Thomas Jefferson, who insisted on the separation of church and state as a foundational doctrine. Similarly, he castigates Third World dictators and the Chinese government for their moral indiscretions without acknowledging our own support of slavery, the destruction of Native American culture, the incarceration of Japanese American citizens during World War II or the apparent desire of our current administration to deport any nonwhite immigrants.

With all of that said, it is precisely because I do not have to celebrate the Bible that I am a proud American.

Maurice Smith, Carpinteria

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To the editor: Hammer ignores the established fact that our Founding Fathers abhorred the way in which biblical religionists in Europe for centuries distorted the Bible’s message and wrought havoc, wars and cruelty upon those with differing interpretations. It is this history that compelled them and even an Anglican minister, Roger Williams, to strongly advocate for establishing and maintaining a wall of separation between church and state. Paradoxically, without secularism, diversity of religious beliefs cannot survive.

To the extent that there would have been biblical influences on our country’s founders, it is more likely to be located in the humanistic citations such as Leviticus 19:34, Exodus 23:9, Matthew 25:35 and 1 Peter 4:9 than in Hammer’s referring to Genesis 1:27.

Sheldon H. Kardener, Santa Monica

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To the editor: It’s a poor historian who cannot distinguish between correlation and causation, which is the case with Hammer’s recent column. Thomas Jefferson, and John Locke before him, did not think human equality and rights were axiomatic because of Genesis and the overarching milieu of biblical inheritance, but because 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers had analyzed man in his natural state and found the common denominator of human dignity and liberty. Jews and Christians can celebrate that the Bible’s anthropology aligns with those conclusions, but it did not cause them.

Let’s not rewrite history. The American Revolution and republic are based on reason, not revelation. It’s math, not mysticism.

Bruce Dickey, Costa Mesa

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To the editor: While Hammer insists that the moral underpinning of our Declaration of Independence is derived from the Bible, he seems to forget that, among other flagrant incongruities, the Bible evidently had no problem with slavery. While the same could be said for the Founding Fathers, in time our nation did have a problem with it.

William P. Bekkala, West Hollywood