Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? “Martin Luther King Jr., Civil Rights, and Christian America”

John Fea’s Virtual Office Hours: Fall 2015 Season – Episode 12

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greetings everyone and welcome to the
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virtual office hours this is episode 12
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of our fall 2015 season my name is John
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fee I’m your host here I teach American
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history at messiah college Abby Blakeney
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our producer as usual behind the camera
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she’s back from Thanksgiving break which
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basically means after today we only have
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two more office hours to do here in our
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fall season and as you really recall we
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are thinking about the place of America
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as the role of America should say as a
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Christian nation and how people
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perceived of America throughout much of
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American history how people perceive
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themselves as living in a Christian
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nation some of you remember that July
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hopefully in July sometimes in the
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summer the second edition of my book was
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America founded as a Christian nation
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will be out so we will be revisiting
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we’re here revisiting that things are
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getting ready for that release now again
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just a caveat I’ve been making this
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caveat before when we talked about the
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idea that Americans believed that they
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were living in a Christian nation we of
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course are stating that historically
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that’s a historical statement it’s not
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an ethical statement it’s not a moral
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statement so again if you want to argue
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with my premise here that America it has
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always seen itself as living in a
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Christian nation what you would need to
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do is you would need to look at the
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evidence I’ve mounted both in the book
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and over the course of the last 11
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episodes and try to suggest that no
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Americans didn’t think that they were
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living in a nation that was Christian
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that would be a historical critique of
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what I’m doing as opposed to it so the
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ethical or political critique to say
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people are wrong for believing that that
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they lived in a Christian nation this is
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again the difference between historical
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thinking and other kinds of thinking my
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point is historically whether they were
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right or wrong whether they were
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following what the founders truly
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believed America has always understood
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themselves as living in a Christian
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nation at least up until the 1970s as
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we’ll see you next week or maybe the
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week
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after today I want to focus on civil
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rights movement now religion and
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christianity has been a dominant theme
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recently in among scholars who were
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writing about the civil rights movement
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and the way they’re writing methyl
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Christianity and forms are had informed
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the civil rights movement thinking here
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especially of David Chappelle’s book
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stone of hope in which he points to an
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Old Testament prophetic tradition that
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that really defined the vision of the
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civil rights movement what I want to
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focus on quickly with you today’s I want
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to think about one particular episode in
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the civil rights movement and that is
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Martin Luther King Junior’s visit to the
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city of Birmingham in April set of 1963
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it’s in that year that King come South
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comes to Alabama to fight against
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segregation in that city many of you
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know the story he is eventually put into
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prison by the public safety commissioner
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of the city Eugene Bull Connor and while
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he is in prison he writes what becomes
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known one of it as one of his most
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famous pieces of writing the letter from
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a Birmingham jail now that letter is
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written from prison obviously and it’s
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addressed to the white clergy in the
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city of Birmingham and most of these
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white clergy that he’s writing to
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believe that segregation should be
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handled locally they don’t like king
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they think he’s an outside agitator
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who’s coming in and disrupting the good
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order of the city which is pretty much
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based upon racial segregation so King
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writes this letter it’s published it’s
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put out in the pamphlet form so it gets
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a kind of national ventually gets a kind
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of national audience and it’s a
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fascinating argument because on one hand
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King is arguing for a a nationalist
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vision right where there is if there’s
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injustice anywhere or injustice anywhere
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i should say is a threat to justice
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everywhere in other words he’s a
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challenging localism he’s challenging
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the idea that local governments local
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clergy get to decide what is right and
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what is wrong on this
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question of race and thus challenging
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segregation in the process so he appeals
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to people like Abraham Lincoln and
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others these great figures of American
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nationalism to say you know we you know
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we have to we have to stop the kind of
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localism that’s going on we have to stop
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these local prejudices and local ideas
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especially if they’re challenging what
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he believes is justice and king secondly
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sort of defines justice through his
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vision of what it means to be a
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Christian so he’s making constant
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appeals in the in letter from a
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Birmingham jail about just laws and
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unjust laws right he’s referencing
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people like everybody from Agustin to
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Aquinas to Paul Tillich the modern
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theologian to he’s going back to the
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Bible and showing how Shadrach Meshach
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and Abednego in the Old Testament
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challenged King Nebuchadnezzar who is
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putting an unjust law upon them so this
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idea of civil disobedience is rooted in
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the Bible it’s rooted in theology at the
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same time then King is bringing these
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two ideas together this idea of
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nationalism vers / localism and this
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Christian idea of justice to suggest a
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new vision for the nation which is going
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to be defined by the idea that we are
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indeed a judeo-christian country and we
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must live up to the principal’s not only
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of our founding fathers but the
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principles as well of God I think he
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summarizes this very very well in
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towards the end of the letter and if I
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can just find it here I want to make
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sure i get the wording right where he
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says he basically says he reminds the
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birmingham clergy here that he’s
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standing up for quote what is best in
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the American dream and for the most
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sacred values in our judeo-christian
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heritage thereby bringing our nation
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back to those great wells of democracy
which were dug deep by the founding
fathers in their formulation of the
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constant
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tution and the Declaration of
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Independence again it’s a powerful
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convergence here of American values
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national values and Christian values and
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King is calling us to a sort of
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different kind of Christian nation a
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sort of beloved community in which
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people are not judged by race or by the
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color of their skin so clearly here even
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Martin Luther King a man of the left a
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man of the civil rights movement makes
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his case based upon many of these
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Christian nationalists kind of
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sentiments that we’ve seen all the way
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in American history all the way from all
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the way back in the early 19th century
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we have two more episodes to go will
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hopefully get to the end of the
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twentieth and twenty-first century here
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in the meantime thanks for watching and
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we’ll see you next time