Judeo-Christian doctrines played an important role in shaping our Founders’ thinking insofar as they embraced the ancients commitment to justice, truth, and virtue and added a coherent sense of morality. Early American writings like the Federalist Papers further contain prescient insights into the Founders’ beliefs about human nature, good governance and the need for society to be moral to be capable of self-governing.
George Washington acknowledged the latter point in his Farewell Address when he observed:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.*
As the Constitution (upon which those values are based) turned out, it successfully provided for the requisite institutions to check and channel local forces so they might flow harmoniously in the national interest; and, made possible the ability to build diverse social and political arrangements that have evolved over the last two hundred years.
LFAV and its founders expressly oppose any forms of racism, bigotry or hatred.
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