William P. Murchison

This entry in the "Lives of the Founders" aka Forgotten Founders series is less forgotten than some of the others, but as the author repeatedly protests, Dickinson is popularly remembered chifly for his opposition to the Declaration of Independence, as dramatized in the musical "1776" and the TV series on John Adams. Murchison argues rather heatedly that Dickinson (unlike his sometime Pennsylvania political rival Joseph Galloway) was not against independence --he simply felt July 2, 1776 was not the right time for declaring it, given that the colonies were not yet well organized to fight and France was not yet willig to help tem (as the agonizing wait of the next 2 years proved).
Serious scholars know him better as author of the "Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer" which played a major role in making the American case against British tax policy before the revolution and creating the climate which led to the revolution.
After the crisis over the declaration, Dickinson served briefly in the American army in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, then was governor of both Delaware and Pennsylvania (briefly simultaneously, though mostly earlier for Delaware an later for Pennsylvania), took a role in the Constitutional Convention (chiefly defending the power of the states in selecting the US Senate), but was lss active then and thereafter due to declining health, though he lived long enough to become, rather oddly for on who had supported the wealthier side in Pennsylvania politics, a strong partisan of France and an enthusiastic Jeffersonian Democratic Republican, enthusiastically hailing Jefferson's election as president. In this he was quite different from most of the others in this series who tended to be Federalists.… (more)

I want to preface this by saying that I was raised as a Methodist but I am now an atheist; the reader may make of that what he/she wishes.

I am in full agreement with Murchison that the most basic duty of a church is in devotion to god and the spiritual nurturing of the congregants as they seek salvation and a relationship with, in the case of Christians, God and Jesus. While Christians are to love their neighbors as themselves while they are in the world (which I will return to later), seeking the Kingdom of God is also their central duty.

Still, I have serious problems with this book. I think Murchison would have done better to have stuck to principles and avoided some of the specific issues. There is a distinction between issues that are appropriate for the church to act on as a whole, issues which are appropriate for individual Christians, and issues which are worthy of neither. There is also a need to separate the issue of how much the church should involve itself with secular affairs and the worth of the issue in a secular context. His discussion of the Civil Rights movement and the Feminist movement are so chilly as to make me seriously question his compassion and empathy. "[I]f I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (I Cor, 13:2)" Would Murchison approve of the church taking up a case of civil rights if it involved his rights? He would have been better to have explained why some some secular effort that he favors is not appropriate for the Church to take a position on.

I think Murchison would have more credibility if he had discussed how the church should go about the good deeds that its faith also requires. Article XII of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith tells us that although good works cannot confer salvation, "yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith." Christians are called upon to feed and clothe the poor, tend the sick, and visit prisoners. (Matt, 25:34 ff.) Given that private efforts are inadequate, should a Christian consider supporting universal health care as part of his or her responsibility to help the sick? Support Social Security to care for widows and orphans?

Murchison also complains that the church is adapting to modern secular culture, but it has always done that, as he admits himself when he talks about how the church used to segregate African Americans in the church, or even to another, all-Black church. It wasn't the church meddling in secular affairs, but imposing secular standards upon itself, just as Murchison complains the church is doing with women priests. But he seems to accept that, even though Paul tells us: "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free. (I Cor, 12:13)" I have read in The First Emancipator by Andrew Levy, that the early Baptists, while accepting the existence of slavery, none the less required all believers regarding of race and status to act as spiritual equals. Baptist convert Robert Carter III decided to free his more than 450 slaves.

I would also be more impressed if Murchison backed up his assertions with statistics. It is widely understood that the mainline churches are failing, and surely there must be some figures that would suggest just how the congregants have reacted to the issues that he names. Briefly checking the Episcopal churches website, there are statistics available back to at least the 1990's.… (more)