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 Richard Frisbie Author, advertising and publishing consultant, former editor of Chicago and other magazines, former creative director of Campbell-Ewald and other advertising agencies. For more information, click here. Or see Who's Who in America or www.midlandauthors.com, Margery Frisbie Consulting editor, historian, poet and author of several books. For more information, click here or see www.midlandauthors.com. The Uncommentator BLOGS and GLOBS: I have been writing a blog since 1966, only I didn't know it. In those days, it came out in the form of a newsletter on paper. Remember paper? It never got lost in cyberspace, although if it got wet enough blog turned into glob. I called it The Uncommentator, and tried to make it amusing. To read some of my favorites, see contents. Recent Books by the Frisbies. |
New Meaning to "Lend an Ear" May 11, 2011–This feature is not supposed to be political, but sometimes events in the news push me over the edge into controversy. On television, I saw a man named David Barton promoting the idea that America has forgotten the Christian heritage of the Founding Fathers, thereby misunderstanding the idea of separation of church and state. He has been criticized for delighting right-wing politicians by selectively quoting from his huge collection of documents from early times. I’m not sure how far he wants to go in turning back the clock, but he seems to think the Supreme Court should have continued to allow prayer in public schools. I take a special interest in the nation’s early days because my Pilgrim and Puritan relatives were involved. According to the family tree of my grandmother, Grace Edith Weeks, we are descended from both a Mayflower passenger (Edward Fuller) and the Weeks/Clapp family who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1630. One of Fuller’s great-granddaughter married a Weeks in 1674-75. Although it is Thomas Jefferson who is remembered for referring to a "wall of separation between church and state," almost the same words were used by Roger Williams more than a century and a half earlier. Williams complained of the "gap in the hedge or wall of separation" when secular authority enforced religious precepts. He called it "rape of the soul." This and other unpopular sentiments got him banished from Massachusetts Bay in 1635. That’s how he became founder of Rhode Island, the first colony to declare independence from Britain and the last to ratify the Constitution, holding out for the Bill of Rights and its First Amendment provision of freedom of religion. A brief memoir left by Roger Clapp, whose sister Jane Weeks was my direct ancestor, recalls that "One (Philip) Ratcliff spoke boldly and wickedly against the government and Governors here, using some words as some judged deserving death. He was for his wickedness whipped, and had both his ears cut off in Boston, AD 1631. I saw it done." Uncle Roger seemed to think this was OK. Is this the Christian heritage David Barton wants to restore? I pray not. Richard Frisbie |
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