[Jeff Higgins]

Save for your first sentence, your first paragraph is the gist of what I said. I have not heard of this re-written Bible, however. Who wrote it and where would I find one? And would this somewhat unusual action necessarily reflect the widespread feelings of the time? Was it done as a statement concerning the seperation of church and state, or did he have other motives? I'm having a hard time jumping from this writing to a general statement about the politics/religion of the founding fathers. It does sound quite interesting, however. Must be a pretty thin tome.

I have to dissagree with your assesment of the religious climate in Europe during the founding years of our nation. It simply was not as easy as changing locale to one that better suited your religious preferences; the Catholic church's tentacles stretched all accross Europe.

Anyone who crossed the Atlantic in those days was certainly everything you say, and more. I can't imagine a bolder move than to cross an ocean to a new world. It seems so easy to us today that I think the gravity of that is lost on us. I would expand your "vast majority" to "every last one of them", save for the slaves and indentured servants. That does not, however, preclude religious freedom as one of the key issues deciding it for many of them. I dare say the majority; that theme is a constant in accounts of early colonial times. Not the only factor, certainly, but one of the top few. It was important enough to most of them to become indelibly imbedded in what was forming as our national psyche; important enough to make sure it got included in the foundation of our law. It was not trivial to them. Their experiences back home were with governments bullying the churches, not the other way around. That is what they were guarding against. The vast majority, not all, were Christians, and used that moral base to build our country upon. No matter how badly the revisionists would like to cloud that fact.