In reading Kramnick and Moore, you might also wish to read Scott C.
Idleman, Liberty in the Balance: Religion, Politics, and American Constitutionalism,
71 Notre Dame L. Rev. 991 (1996),
which offers some critical commentary on the claims that they advance.
Dan Conkle
From:
It seems to me that the absence of a
specific reference to God in the Constitution has more to do with the nature of
the document than the nature of the founding generation. In the
Declaration of Independence, a product of the same founding
generation,reference to God was central. The
However, references to God in the Dec. of I were mostly diestic rather
than to the Christian God or God of the Bible. It was to nature's
God and the creator.
Friedman, Howard M. wrote:
It seems to me that the absence of a specific reference to God in the
Constitution has more to do with the
As we discussed not long ago, the references also included an
appeal[] to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions, and a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence. Some suggested that in the 1770s this would have been seen
as Deism, and I can't speak
