WWJS?

What would Jefferson say, I mean, about this?

Pastor Luke Emrich prepared his sermon this week knowing his remarks could invite an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. But that was the whole point, so Emrich forged ahead with his message: Thou shalt vote according to the Scriptures.

"I'm telling you straight up, I would choose life," Emrich told about 100 worshippers Sunday at New Life Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation about 40 miles from Milwaukee.

"I would cast a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin," he said. "But friends, it's your choice to make, it's not my choice. I won't be in the voting booth with you."

All told, 33 pastors in 22 states were to make pointed recommendations about political candidates Sunday, an effort orchestrated by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

The conservative legal group plans to send copies of the pastors' sermons to the IRS with hope of setting off a legal fight and abolishing restrictions on church involvement in politics. Critics call it unnecessary, divisive and unlikely to succeed.

Congress amended the tax code in 1954 to state that certain nonprofit groups, including secular charities and places of worship, can lose their tax-exempt status for intervening in a campaign involving candidates.

Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said hundreds of churches volunteered to take part in "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." Thirty-three were chosen, in part for "strategic criteria related to litigation" Stanley wouldn't discuss.

Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Ga., said in an interview Sunday that his sermon compared Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on abortion and gay marriage and concluded that McCain "holds more to a biblical world view."

He said he urged the Southern Baptist congregation to vote for McCain.

"The basic thrust was this was not a matter of endorsing, it's a First Amendment issue," Hice said. "To say the church can't deal with moral and societal issues if it enters into the political arena is just wrong, it's unconstitutional."

There's more here.

In answering this, don't jump to conclusions. Think about Jefferson's writings on religion and politics and the Constitution from your reading so far, and supplement them with this 1798 letter to John Taylor and his famous reply to the Danbury Baptist Association.

Are you enlightened?

My apologies for forgetting to post this last week. Here are a couple of questions to consider and answer as you finish going through the Enlightenment Reader: The Enlightenment is considered a cornerstone of modern thought. What Enlightenment principles do we still live by? Do any seem to have been abandoned?

Gentility, Lobbying, and Corruption

We need to move on in the course, so I think I will not be addressing in lecture one of the important political practices that gentility helped foster. I explain it much better in print anyway, and we can discuss it here. So, just to make sure everyone gets the point, please read the assigned article on lobbying in the Early Republic and answer these questions: How did the culture of gentility pave the way for the beginnings of lobbying in the United States? Do the activities of men like the Rev. Manasseh Cutler and William Duer right in their midst indicate that the Founders had a bit of a corruption problem? The first question has a definite answer, the second leaves more room for your own interpretation.

"Deference" in the news

Just wanted to alert my students to a post on my other blog about a concept we discussed last week, "deference." Apparently the "natural aristocracy" is alive and well, at least in their own minds.

Duelling for Fun and Friendship

Linked here is the one version of the "code duello," or the rules that American duellists used in the era of the Founders. While the most famous duels were between politicians and military officers, the code could also be used to deal with minor or major verbal disputes of any kind among gentlemen, including college students. Please read it and consider: Was this a brutal and unreasonable system? What would be the impact in your social circle if people knew they might have to stand and be shot at from 30 feet away across an open field, for treating someone inconsiderately or criticizing them to others?

OTHER RESOURCES: PBS has a good brief history of dueling in American here. A site called How Stuff Works has a surprisingly good explanation on how duelling operated, including but also going beyond early America. A brief history of the Burr-Hamilton duel, and images of the site and the letters leading up the encounter, appear in "Interview at Weehawken."

Any particular duel would make a great paper topic, though if Burr and Hamilton is your interest I would probably make you pick some aspect of their lives or relationship rather than the duel itself.