The following is in response to Mr. Tom Scarborough’s letter published Monday. Mr. Scarborough, your rebuttal to Mr. Derden proves that everyone is entitled to their opinion, regardless of how wrong it might be.

Your response to him was no more accurate nor less misleading than you accuse his comments to be. To claim that the founding fathers were not evangelical Christians goes contradictory to their own statements and writings.

The term evangelical Christian is almost redundant and is not exclusive to Protestants or post-modern America. The use of the term “evangelical” stems back as far as the 1600s, and implies belief and acceptance that scriptures are the inerrant, inspired Word of God and agreement with New Testament gospel which states that salvation comes only by grace through faith by way of the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and not by good works or adherence to ritual.

Without question, it is fair to say that all of the founding fathers were opposed to the establishment of any form of compulsory religion. However, it is clear to even the most serious skeptic, that they all believed in one creator God and adhered to Christian principles. In no way were they proposing the suppression of religion.

In a letter to W.T. Barry (August 1822) James Madison wrote, “The belief in a God all powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote In a letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (October 1815), “I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigm of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” He also said, “The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man: That there is one only God, and he all perfect. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.”

As far as George Washington, I’ll leave it at this, “Make me to know what is acceptable in Thy sight, and therein to delight, open the eyes of my understanding, and help me thoroughly to examine myself concerning my knowledge, faith and repentance, increase my faith, and direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ the Way, the Truth and the Life, . . .”(April 1752)

These guys sound pretty evangelical to me. Even so, you can rest easy, Mr. Scarborough. Although you may be exposed to it, you are not at risk of having salvation imposed on you against your will.

Roger Davis

Natchez resident