Responding to those like Mark Brennan and Paul Gottfried who argue that America is defined by its Anglo-Protestant culture, I have asked: What kind of Protestant culture defines America? Is it the illiberal Protestant theocracy first established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by John Winthrop? Or is it the liberal Protestantism of religious liberty and toleration first established in Rhode Island by Roger Williams? Was Winthrop the First Founding Father? Or was Williams?
I have written two long essays arguing that after a 200-year-long debate (1630-1833) between these two Protestant traditions, the tradition of Williams prevailed over Winthrop's. At the national level, the turning point came with the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which affirmed Williams' principles of "no religious test" for office, a "wall of separation" between church and state, and the religious liberty of all individuals. At the state level, the turning point came as the states revoked their religious establishments and affirmed the individual right to religious liberty. The last state to do this was Massachusetts in 1833, when people heard Winthrop rolling over in his grave and Williams cheering.
Gottfried has just written a second reply to my argument. But it's hard to understand what he is saying because he continues to employ the rhetorical strategy of silence by ignoring most of what I have argued.
And yet, after three readings of his essay, I finally realized that he was engaging in the kind of esoteric writing that was once so well explained by Leo Strauss. When an author wants to say something that he knows will anger many of his readers, he might cautiously choose to hide his true teaching from his many careless readers, while allowing his few careful readers to decipher his secret teaching. As Editor-in-Chief of the paleoconservative magazine Chronicles, Gottfried knows that most of his readers would be angry if he openly said that Williams was right in arguing for religious liberty and toleration, and Winthrop was wrong in arguing for Protestant theocracy. So, to avoid that provocation, he chose to write in such a way that only his very careful readers would see his agreement with Williams' liberal Protestantism.
The key to this secret teaching is a paragraph near the center of his essay:
Arnhart, in one of his commentaries, says he can't imagine how JD Vance could wish to restrict immigration to those who were culturally homogeneous when his wife is a Hindu. Allow me to suggest some answers. Our once-dominant Anglo-Protestant culture grew weaker over time, and what Vance wants to preserve are some of its residual characteristics: respect for constitutional law, a sense of individual responsibility, and the Protestant work ethic, but not necessarily the original religious doctrines.
Notice that he begins by directing his reader's attention to my "commentaries," which suggests to the careful reader that he needs to read my essays in order to understand what Gottfried is saying here. The careful reader will then see that I frame the debate as a choice between Winthrop and Williams, and that America eventually moved to the side of Williams. So now the reader is primed to ask, which side is Gottried taking? Gottfried says nothing explicitly about either Winthrop or Williams. But is he implicitly taking a position in this debate?
"Our once-dominant Anglo-Protestant culture grew weaker over time." What is he implying here? I argue that Winthrop's theocratic Protestant culture grew weaker over time as Williams' liberal Protestant culture grew stronger. Is Gottfried agreeing with this?
What does he mean by "respect for constitutional law"? Anyone who has read my "commentaries" will know that I show how the Constitution rejects the theocratic government of Winthrop and endorses the religious liberty and separation of church and state advocated by Williams. Does "respect for constitutional law" require that we accept this?
What does Gottfried mean by "a sense of individual responsibility"? Williams argued that the "individual responsibility" of every person in matters of faith required religious liberty and toleration of religious diversity. Winthrop argued that the established church must coercively compel all individuals to believe the doctrines of the church.
So when Gottfried says that we should respect America's Protestant culture "but not necessarily the original religious doctrines," is he implying that we can rightly reject Winthrop's original theocratic doctrines? That does seem to be what he is implying when he writes: "Since Vance is himself a convert to Catholicism and his wife is a Hindu, I don't think that either would argue that only those who are strictly Protestant should be allowed to reside here."
Winthrop's theocratic Protestantism would have persecuted Vance for his Catholicism and Usha for her Hinduism. But since America has long ago adopted Williams' liberal principles of religious liberty and toleration as part of the American Creed, Vance and his wife can enjoy the freedom that comes from living in an American Creedal Nation.
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