I have completed my third week of the sabbatical at this point. I'm not feeling as rested as I would like, I guess because there have been so many weeks where I had to get up so early. My body just doesn't understand what it means to sleep past 6:15. But I have continued my reading, and I'm learning a lot about the Founding Fathers and the Christian church. Some books are starting to get a little repetitive, but I'm still fascinated by what I am reading and learning.

The books I've finished this week are Washington's God and Founding Faith, by Stephen Waldman. There is a little blurb about Waldman's book by Joseph Ellis (a noted historian who has written several books I've read, including His Excellency, a book on George Washington), that says, "There is a fierce custody battle going on out there for ownership of the Founding Fathers. Founding Faith strikes me as a major contribution to that debate, a sensible and sophisticated argument that the Founders' religious convictions defy our current categories." It's a very good book.

I mentioned in my last post that sometimes people want to rewrite history in order to fit their current thinking. Waldman mentions that one well-known contemporary Christian writer totally discounts Thomas Jefferson's comments on Christian faith by simply saying that Jefferson was not a Founding Father, as he was in France during the time of the Constitutional Convention. If that is the case, then one also has to disregard John Adams, John Witherspoon, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and many others who were in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 but not in the summer of 1787. Jefferson was in France during the Constitutional Convention, but he still had a lot of influence in the thinking of that time, and James Madison, who was not all that interested in a Bill of Rights, was told by Jefferson that there had to be a Bill of Rights in order for the constitution to be ratified. But, according to this contemporary Christian writer, we don't want to include Jefferson because we don't like his ideas, so we'll just bump him off the list. That is similar to Jefferson going through the Bible and cutting out the parts of the New Testament that he didn't like. He has the right to do that, but you then cannot claim that what you end up with is authentic or true.

I'm finding that all of this is a very complex study. It involves looking at what Waldman calls the "Planting Fathers" (Puritans, Jamestown), as well as the Founding Fathers. And I'll tell you, I'm glad I didn't live under the Puritan system. They were so concerned about people going to church that there were significant penalties if you did not go to church. Three months without going to church meant you could be executed. Now think about some of the Founding Fathers and their emphasis on liberty and individual rights. It wasn't just political.

One of the books I just got in this week is by Frank Lambert, a history professor at Purdue University. The book is titled, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America. I just started it this morning, and already have lots of highlighting in it, and several pages flagged for important thoughts. It looks like another good book.

I also finished James Lee Burke's novel called Rain Gods, and tonight I will finish Tami Hoag's Deeper than the Dead. I'll return them to the library tomorrow, then go back to the library at the end of the week to get some more novels. Two trips, because we leave Saturday for our history trip, starting in Washington D.C. I'm looking forward to being there.

This past Thursday night we were at Tropicana Field to see the Rays beat the Indians. Carl Crawford hit two bombs to right field - about the longest home runs I've seen to right field. We had great seats, too, in the press level. No foul balls came our way, though a couple went above us into the upper deck.

Hope you are well.