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Posted by Jeff Leatherwood on October 22, 19101 at 11:25:29:
In Reply to: Re: Aaron Burr: Villain or Victim? posted by anne shurtliff on February 25, 19101 at 13:17:33:
Dear Madam,
I find it strange that you would castigate Aaron Burr for his duel with Alexander Hamilton, without first examining Hamilton's own curious stance toward Christianity. After all, Hamilton said it was his "religious duty" to oppose Burr's political career.
However, a Christian is supposed to act Christ-like, and I cannot see the founder of Christianity espousing the examples set by Burr for challenging, and Hamilton for accepting. A true Christian would not have made the insults Hamilton made over 15 years, let alone lifting a gun to shoot their neighbor.
By your logic, most of our Founding Fathers, from Benjamin Franklin to Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, would probably burn in perdition. Most of these distinguished men were not Christians, but Deists -- believers in religious tolerance and reasoned argument. They did not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ, although many of them subscribed to his examples of charity and forgiveness -- Jefferson and Adams, for instance.
Aaron Burr himself never publicly stated his religious views, but he attended Episcopal church on occasion, and seems to have believed in a God. However, like many men of the Enlightenment (Hamilton included) Burr was unwilling to accept an unreasonable book such as
the Holy Bible.
Hamilton's own "conversion" to Jesus Christ came late in life, around 1802 , and largely was political in its motivation. Hamilton was the man, who in 1787, chose to disagree with Franklin's motion for a prayer during the Constitutional Convention, because it was like asking for "Foreign Aid." In 1800, Thomas Jefferson, not Aaron Burr, was the man feared by Christians as an atheist. People actually buried Bibles so Jefferson could not confiscate them. So you cannot judge Burr without reviewing his contemporaries.
If evangelical Christians were to re-write American history, our national identity would be doomed.
Jeffrey M. Leatherwood