I am disgusted!

[ChristisKing]

Theonomy means "God's Laws" rule, and what is wrong with that?

Theonomy means "God's Laws" rule, and what is wrong with that?

Ok, I'm going to give it a shot, CIK, but this is off the cuff...

I have no problem accepting the fact that the people of the early Unitde States governed themselves upon the guidlines of the Bible and Biblical Law. That much is obvious. Where I get hazy is how this makes it a working theocracy. Or so I don't use the wrong term, a working model of biblical government. It seems to me that all your examples were justifications of limited, representative government. Which, again, I have no trouble agreeing with. Indeed, the economic success of the early United States can be attributed to the limited authority granted to them by their various constitutions and the US Constitution as a whole. While they may have derived part of their government model from the "hebrew Republic", they did not adopt the Books of Moses as their codified law. They adopted a principle of individual liberty and self government, and wrote constitutions to ensure that the government would always be our servant, not our master. Maybe, this does satisfy your definition of a theocracy (or a republic governed by God's word). To me, I see a republic limited in it's authority, which allowed people to govern themselves as they pleased, as long as they did not infringe on the equal rights of others. But the Law of God, as it was codified in the books of Moses, was never applied as the law of the United States.

When I originally got tangled up in this debate I was trying to make the point that in order to consistently apply God's law we would be forced to cut off women's hands, burn priests daughters alive, and stone incorrigible children to death in the town square. And if these things no longer apply, then who gets to decide which law to apply and which laws do not to apply? Man does. Maybe a representative in Congress, maybe a general, maybe some maniac with his finger on a button.

God revealed to the world that the best form of government was a Republic. Israel was originally est'd as a Republic. It had a constitution, a senate, a house of representatives, (both of which were elected by the people) and separation of church (Aaron and Levites) and state (Moses and Elders).

The Law's given by God were judicial and ceremonial and the ceremonial laws were done away with Christ. The literal judicial laws were also done away with the Israeli nation but not the "underlying principles and concepts" of the judicial laws. For instance, there is a Mosaic Law requiring a fence to be built on top of homes. Well of course the literalness of this law is no longer applicable, but the underlying moral law is still very much applicable. The Israeli's used to entertain on their roofs and the fence was to prevent someone from falling off. This law protects life and is still applicable today for our elevated backyard decks. This can be and should be applied to all the judicial biblical laws. They all came from God and He's not a tyrant!

Pls consider these few verses our founders used to establish our form of government. There are literally hundreds more I could provide you that our founders and all of western civilization used throughout history to establish their governments.

A Senate is formed from the elders of each tribe

NUM 11:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.

NUM 11:24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.

Each tribe had it’s head, elders, judges i.e., it’s own (colony or state) government

NUM 1:4 And with you there shall be a man of every tribe; every one head of the house of his fathers.
NUM 1:16 These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel.

DEU 1:15 "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.

This is very similar to the original thirteen colonies.

Representative governmental officials are elected

DEU 1:13 'Choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.'
DEU 1:15 "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.

Theonomy means "God's Laws" rule, and what is wrong with that? As long as they are God's Laws and not man's twist on God's Law's and of course not literally applied.

 

[Agape4Robin]

God revealed to the world that the best form of government was a Republic. Israel was originally est'd as a Republic. It had a constitution, a senate, a house of representatives, (both of which were elected by the people) and separation of church (Aaron and Levites) and state (Moses and Elders).

The Law's given by God were judicial and ceremonial and the ceremonial laws were done away with Christ. The literal judicial laws were also done away with the Israeli nation but not the "underlying principles and concepts" of the judicial laws. For instance, there is a Mosaic Law requiring a fence to be built on top of homes. Well of course the literalness of this law is no longer applicable, but the underlying moral law is still very much applicable. The Israeli's used to entertain on their roofs and the fence was to prevent someone from falling off. This law protects life and is still applicable today for our elevated backyard decks. This can be and should be applied to all the judicial biblical laws. They all came from God and He's not a tyrant!

Pls consider these few verses our founders used to establish our form of government. There are literally hundreds more I could provide you that our founders and all of western civilization used throughout history to establish their governments.

A Senate is formed from the elders of each tribe

NUM 11:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.

NUM 11:24 And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the LORD, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.

Each tribe had it’s head, elders, judges i.e., it’s own (colony or state) government

NUM 1:4 And with you there shall be a man of every tribe; every one head of the house of his fathers.
NUM 1:16 These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel.

DEU 1:15 "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.

This is very similar to the original thirteen colonies.

Representative governmental officials are elected

DEU 1:13 'Choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.'
DEU 1:15 "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.

Theonomy means "God's Laws" rule, and what is wrong with that? As long as they are God's Laws and not man's twist on God's Law's and of course not literally applied.

Well said!! :thumb:

 

[Caledvwlch]

CIK, unfortunately, what we have eventaully come down to is a difference in presuppostions. It's tough to argue any further, when I don't believe that Moses' law is necessarily the word of God. I'm not trying to say that it's not full of profound, timeless principles, just that it may not be the ONLY source of wisdom in this world.

And while I do agree with you that the Bible was certainly an influence on the Founding Fathers, I also believe that they intentionally left it out of the Constitution for the sake of never allowing one group, Christian or otherwise, to become a bully majority. The reason our government was a success was because it was limited. If nobody has the power, then nobody can be a tyrant.

 

[ChristisKing]

You must believe in the Word of God

You must believe in the Word of God

CIK, unfortunately, what we have eventaully come down to is a difference in presuppostions. It's tough to argue any further, when I don't believe that Moses' law is necessarily the word of God. I'm not trying to say that it's not full of profound, timeless principles, just that it may not be the ONLY source of wisdom in this world.

And while I do agree with you that the Bible was certainly an influence on the Founding Fathers, I also believe that they intentionally left it out of the Constitution for the sake of never allowing one group, Christian or otherwise, to become a bully majority. The reason our government was a success was because it was limited. If nobody has the power, then nobody can be a tyrant.

Your absolutely right, you must believe in the Word of God.

But you are wrong about our founders excluding Christianity, they only wanted to prevent a denomination within Christianity to rule the nation, like the Church of England being the official denomination of England, even to this day.

 

[ChristisKing]

The Declaration of Independence is a Religious Document

The Declaration of Independence is a Religious Document

The reasons that the United States of America was formed as a nation are spelled out clear as day in the Declaration of Independance. That's why they wrote it. And there is not ONE word in the Declaration of Independace about a desire or a need to establish a religious nation. The fact that many of the founders were Christian does not mean they intended to found a "Christian nation". They wrote down for all the world to read, exactly why they decided to declare themselves a new nation, and the suppression of their religion was not among any of the 27 or so reasons that they listed. And in fact, if we read the Declaration of Independance carefully, the theme of individual rights and freedoms predominate. And being that religious theocracies are NOT known for their support of individual rights and freedoms, I find it extremely unlikely that this declaration was in any possible way referring to a theocracy.

The "revisionists" here are not liberal democrats fighting to maintain their individual rights and freedom. The revisionists are the people trying to claim that the United States of America was somehow intended to be a Christian theocracy.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

You are mistaken.

The DOI was written to "spell out clearly as day" that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..." Of course this is very religious! It says that these our rights come from God, not England or America or The State. Therefore since God gave us these rights only God could take them away not England or America or The State! This is Christian to the core.

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 34 were Anglican, thirteen were Congregationalists, and there were six Presbyterians, one Baptist, one Catholic, and a single Quaker. Therefore a substantial majority were Calvinists.

The Declaration of Independence illustrates at least five themes classified as Calvinistic contributions.

(1) It refers to the transcendent basis for government in its two opening sections. As is well known, the Declaration roots itself not only in the providence of human events, but it grounds the powers of government in transcultural and universal notions as provided by the "laws of Nature and of Nature’s God." That the Declaration is more than mere Deism, which might be thought if it contained only "the laws of Nature" phraseology, is seen with the addition of the phrase "and of Nature’s God." The authors could have, and many moderns likely would have, simply omitted any reference to theological notions. However, they thought such transcendent notions were essential for intelligibility by their countrymen and also necessary for providing the best defense possible for armed resistance. A document this powerful, if it hoped to achieve widespread approval, simply could not fail to reference the dominant theology of the day.

Moreover, the second paragraph refers to self-evident truths. These, the authors believed, were unquestionable. Further, they confessed that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable rights that were endowed by their Creator. God was not only transcendent, he was also the Creator and Donor of human rights. God, not blind nature, was the Guarantor of civil conditions, and as the universal Creator, he gave certain liberties that transcend geographical barriers. That "Governments are instituted among Men" was also close enough in substance to remind the reader of earlier language in the Westminster Confession of Faith and other Puritan treatises on civil government. The penultimate paragraph of the Declaration refers to God as "the Supreme Judge of the World," who at the time had been frequently invoked in those terms by various American Calvinistic theologians and sermons. Certainly other denominations could embrace similar language—one basis for its wide acceptance—but much of the theological phraseology (see ** previous chapter) in these civic documents is derived from Calvin’s Reformation.

(2) The Declaration then moves to discuss derived powers, which stem from the consent of the governed. Many scholars now recognize that the "consent" motif arose and was supported by Reformation advances that overthrew monopolistic powers. In this context, the Declaration refers to "the right of the People to alter or abolish" an existing government. It should be recalled that prior to the age of the Reformation, no such right was admitted. Despite the contributions of Aquinas and select medieval advances, a full justification of the right to revolt did not arise until the writings of Calvin’s disciples—Beza, Ponet, Goodman, and the Vindiciae. Three times the Declaration referred to "tyrant" or "tyranny," leaving fingerprint smudges of the Vindication Against the Tyrants. It is safe to say that such biblical support for revolution did not emanate primarily from Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, or Baptists at the time of composition.

(3) Another post-Reformation treatise was likely in mind when the Declaration condemned "absolute Despotism" and called citizens to their "duty" to overthrow a king who would not submit to the law of the land. Echoes of Rutherford’s Lex Rex are heard in the call for King George III to reside under the Law. Rutherford had earlier written that the king must be circumscribed by constitutions and other legal limits. Moreover, even the Reformation maxim that "any government is better than no government at all" is witnessed in the apologia for the American Revolution, to wit: "Mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable." The reiteration of the principle that the king is under the law, not over it, was widely accepted in early American culture because of the spread of that idea through the likes of Rutherford and Buchanan.

(4) Separated powers and checks and balances were other political signatures of the Declaration. One of the condemnations of British rule was the litany of items whereby the King had abused his power. According to the Declaration (and numerous sermons a generation before it), he made judges dependent on his own will (including for their pay); he created new offices which became "Swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance; and he imposed Standing armies." These and other abuses are instances of non-separation of powers. When totalitarian power is lodged in a single individual, checks and balances are minimized. With a functioning tripartite government in Geneva as a model, aided by the popularization of Montesquieu’s theory (and typical preaching like that of Francis Alison), Americans in 1776 wanted governors limited and their powers divvied up. The reason for this rested in man’s untrustworthiness. Had Americans believed in the innate goodness of man, the Declaration would have looked substantially different than it did growing in a Calvinistic garden.

(5) Minimal governments were alluded to in the last paragraph of the Declaration. The Continental Congress based its action on the "Authority of the good People of these Colonies," and lodged other responsibility with independent states. These decentralized ruling units, the independent states (a phrase used three times in this closing paragraph), had "full Power to Levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do." And three theological ideas are stressed in this final paragraph as the moral basis for these independent states: the "supreme Judge of the world," "divine providence," and "sacred" honor. God was not absent from the Declaration, and the understanding of God at the time (although it would change afterwards) was altered little from the theology of the Swiss Reformation.

Buttressing the Declaration, according to Douglas Kelly, are certain "underlying Calvinist themes [which] permeate the founding documents." Among these are "the two-powers theory of church and state and the covenantal-conciliar thesis of limitation of governmental powers in terms of divine law. Throughout the carefully ordered separation of powers with checks and balances, deliberately restraining a more unified operation of government, we see a reflection of the Calvinist doctrine of the fallenness of human nature, with its inevitable tendency of an ascendant arm of government to abuse power in a tyrannical direction."

When George Washington spoke of "providence," the precise theological history for this term could not be simply ignored. "Providence" had been a major theme of the theological tracts and preaching by predominantly Calvinistic ministers in America for over 150 years. Washington declared that no one had a stronger reliance on God as an "all-wise and powerful dispenser" of providence than he did. To those under his command, in 1777, he practically preached: "A superintending Providence is ordering everything for the best. . . . . in due time all will end well." The next year, he ascribed credit for success thus far to "Providence," and in 1779, he wrote to his fellow compatriots, "I look upon every dispensation of Providence as designed to answer some valuable purpose, and I," sounding almost as Calvinist as Calvin, "hope I shall always possess a sufficient degree of fortitude to bear without murmuring any stroke which may happen." This was the same Washington who was infamous for the sentiment that America could not be or remain a blessed nation if she jettisoned her piety. If one interprets these documents within their contexts, the influence of the Reformation clearly continued to impact the ideas of America’s founding.

 

[PureX]

You are mistaken.

The DOI was written to "spell out clearly as day" that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..." Of course this is very religious! It says that these our rights come from God, not England or America or The State. Therefore since God gave us these rights only God could take them away not England or America or The State!

Well, if only God could take them away from us, then why were we fighting to become independant from England? If we felt our rights had been denied us, then our fight would have been with God, not England.

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 34 were Anglican, thirteen were Congregationalists, and there were six Presbyterians, one Baptist, one Catholic, and a single Quaker. Therefore a substantial majority were Calvinists.

That means nothing. Your argument is complete nonsense, and I'm astonished that you would actually propose it. I'm even more astonished that you actually believe it.

 

[ChristisKing]

Well, if only God could take them away from us, then why were we fighting to become independant from England? If we felt our rights had been denied us, then our fight would have been with God, not England.

You really don't understand that we fought to prevent someone from taking our God given rights away?

That means nothing. Your argument is complete nonsense, and I'm astonished that you would actually propose it. I'm even more astonished that you actually believe it.

So if you can't refute, you attack? Now that's astonishing!

 

[Mr. 5020]

ChristIsKing,

As a warning from someone who's been here a few years, try shortening your posts. As I told you before, it's a rule around here, and it's only a matter of time before you tick off a moderator.

-Mr. 5020

 

[PureX]

You really don't understand that we fought to prevent someone from taking our God given rights away?

You aren't even making sense. Why would we fight each other to protect something you claim only God can take away?

 

[ChristisKing]

What God Gives Only God Can Take Away; Anyone Else Who Tries Is A Tyrant

What God Gives Only God Can Take Away; Anyone Else Who Tries Is A Tyrant

You aren't even making sense. Why would we fight each other to protect something you claim only God can take away?

Christianity and the Scriptures teach that God has given human beings certain rights and that He set up governments with the sole purpose of ensuring those rights were protected. Well, the Roman Empire abused their responsibility of protecting these rights and trampled on those rights, and so did many European kings between that time and up until the 1700's.

The Reformation broke that tyranny and monarchies began to fall. Our founding fathers learned from all this and they ensured that in their opportunity to form a new nation and government that they would carefully inscribe in our founding documents (DOI) that all our basic rights came from God only! Therefore any state, king or parliment who attempted to take these rights away was illegal and should be resisted.

This ingenious understanding of the role of government as only a protector of rights given by God and not a grantor of these rights put England in a very precarious situation. England was put in the light of having taken these basic rights away from the people of the 13 colonies and that they had no right to do so under God's Laws. As a consequence, England was now considered a tyrant under God's Laws and therefore could be legally resisted by lessor magestrates according to Scripture. The Scriptures teach, and the political theorists of that day and for the past 2 centuries had adopted, that when a government intervenes between what God has given humanity then that government was unlawful and could and should be resisted by the lessor magistrates. Of course the lessor magestrates at that time were the governments of the 13 colonies.

Today it is the Judge Roy Moores!

 

[PureX]

So according to you .... God's pretty much useless, then. God gives us life, but other men can kill us. God gives us freedom, but other men can enslave us. God gives us "rights", but other men can deny them to us. God sanctions governments, but governments can abuse their sanction. Looks to me like man's free will trumps God every time. So, when we're designing a nation, what we really need is a way to protect ourselves from each other, since it's we who will decide who lives and who dies, we who will decide who is free and who is not, we who will decide who can have rights and who can't, and we who will hold the reigns of power. Now I can see why the founders pretty much ignored God and religion as they were designing our nation. They're both pretty much useless, anyway.

 

[ChristisKing]

So according to you .... God's pretty much useless, then. God gives us life, but other men can kill us. God gives us freedom, but other men can enslave us. God gives us "rights", but other men can deny them to us. God sanctions governments, but governments can abuse their sanction. Looks to me like man's free will trumps God every time. So, when we're designing a nation, what we really need is a way to protect ourselves from each other, since it's we who will decide who lives and who dies, we who will decide who is free and who is not, we who will decide who can have rights and who can't, and we who will hold the reigns of power. Now I can see why the founders pretty much ignored God and religion as they were designing our nation. They're both pretty much useless, anyway.

Yeah, and God gave us His Son and we killed Him! That sure put an end to that, didn't it? :chuckle:

 

[PureX]

Yeah, and God gave us His Son and we killed Him! That sure put an end to that, didn't it? :chuckle:

Keep in mind that it was the "believers" that killed him.

 

[ChristisKing]

Keep in mind that it was the "believers" that killed him.

The Jews and Romans killed Him, I wouldn't necessarily call them Christians, would you?

 

[PureX]

I didn't call them Christians. I called them "believers", as in the believers of religious orthodoxy.

 

[Morpheus]

Let's be real. The founders weren't fighting for those inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. King George didn't deny them any of those. They were ticked off about taxes. As for "all men are created equal", that only applied if only whites were considered human. Blacks were only considered 3/5 of a man in the census; the natives weren't counted; women weren't allowed to vote and as far as white men were concerned only property owners were. How's that equal? When it came to their faith I guess that Franklin's constant womanizing probably would be considered no worse than Jefferson's Dusky Sally. Most of the early leaders kept homes in Virginia because slavery was illegal in DC, and they couldn't be expected to pay servants, could they? Beside that, by the time of the signing of the DOI most of the colonists had not come here to find any particular freedom; they were exiles or slaves. We were in fact a nation made up primarily of rejects who kidnapped others who would not have chosen to come here of their own free will. If that's an example of a Christian nation someone has a warped sense of Christianity.

 

[ChristisKing]

Let's be real. The founders weren't fighting for those inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. King George didn't deny them any of those. They were ticked off about taxes. As for "all men are created equal", that only applied if only whites were considered human. Blacks were only considered 3/5 of a man in the census; the natives weren't counted; women weren't allowed to vote and as far as white men were concerned only property owners were. How's that equal? When it came to their faith I guess that Franklin's constant womanizing probably would be considered no worse than Jefferson's Dusky Sally. Most of the early leaders kept homes in Virginia because slavery was illegal in DC, and they couldn't be expected to pay servants, could they? Beside that, by the time of the signing of the DOI most of the colonists had not come here to find any particular freedom; they were exiles or slaves. We were in fact a nation made up primarily of rejects who kidnapped others who would not have chosen to come here of their own free will. If that's an example of a Christian nation someone has a warped sense of Christianity.

Here is reality, they were absolutely fighting for God given rights, king George and Parliment denied them all their rights which is the main reason they left England.

The "holy" Supreme Court which we worship today as "our absolute lawgiver" :chuckle: is the one who ruled on 3/5's of a man....that was the Dred Scott decision...it's call Judicual Tyranny....we are experiencing it today in the form of 0/0's of a person that we legally allow to be aborted and killed in our legalized infantcide. So much for the right to life! Oh yeah, and Christians are fighting for the right to life of our babies today, not taxes. (Just want to put it on the record.)

The vast majority of our founders were against slavery and wanted a law pased to illegalize it.

We were a nation made out of religious immigrants who sought a place were they could worship God freely...the only question is where do we immigrant to now?!?

 

[PureX]

Let's be real. The founders weren't fighting for those inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. King George didn't deny them any of those. They were ticked off about taxes. As for "all men are created equal", that only applied if only whites were considered human. Blacks were only considered 3/5 of a man in the census; the natives weren't counted; women weren't allowed to vote and as far as white men were concerned only property owners were. How's that equal? When it came to their faith I guess that Franklin's constant womanizing probably would be considered no worse than Jefferson's Dusky Sally. Most of the early leaders kept homes in Virginia because slavery was illegal in DC, and they couldn't be expected to pay servants, could they? Beside that, by the time of the signing of the DOI most of the colonists had not come here to find any particular freedom; they were exiles or slaves. We were in fact a nation made up primarily of rejects who kidnapped others who would not have chosen to come here of their own free will. If that's an example of a Christian nation someone has a warped sense of Christianity.

Yes, the founders were bigots, as are many Americans, today. And so they were not able to recognize their own oppression of others and correct it. But over the years, this nation has steadily struggled to face and to overcome this poison of bigotry, and it's subsequent hypocrisy and oppression of others, and to set these things right.

If you read the Declaration of Independence, you will see written there exactly why the founders fought to break away from their previous government and to establish this one. And in that declaration they stated both their general ideological reasons, and some of their specific reasons, and the desire to create a religious state was not among any of their stated reasons. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", however, were declared FIRST AND FORMOST, and then elaborated on with twenty seven specific complaints. Though these men were sadly blind to their own oppression of the same rights and freedoms of others, they were both clear and adamant regarding these abuses against themselves, and that these were in fact the reasons that they were willing to fight and to die to establish their own government.

 

[PureX]

Here is reality, they were absolutely fighting for God given rights, king George and Parliament denied them all their rights which is the main reason they left England.

You need to understand that people had been coming to America for 200 years before they decided to declare their independence from England. And in that time, the reasons that people came here varied widely. Some came for the freedom to practice their religion as they wished, but many were sent here simply because they were poor, or that they were convicted of some petty crime (Usually also because they were poor). And many came just for the opportunity for a new and better life. Religion was not the only reason people came here, and was probably not even the main reason. And by the time of the revolution, it was not a factor at all - which is why it was not even mentioned in the Declaration of Independence

The vast majority of our founders were against slavery and wanted a law passed to illegalize it.

Being that many of the founders owned slaves, themselves, and continued to do so throughout their lives, and the fact that it took another hundred years before any American leader finally addressed the issue of slavery, would lead me to suspect that your assertions here are patently untrue.

We were a nation made out of religious immigrants who sought a place were they could worship God freely...the only question is where do we immigrant to now?!?

Well, no, we weren't really this at all. The very first colonies were, but by the revolution (200 years later), religious freedom was no longer an issue.