This is an article worth reading by Steven Waldman in the Washington Monthly, “The Framers and the Faithful: How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history.” The article examines the attitudes of many 18th century evangelicals toward government, and specifically with respect to a number of the founding fathers, including Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry.

While the provacative subtitle may be true, it shouldn’t really be all that surprising. After all, Waldman does a good job throughout noting that “each side of our modern culture wars has attempted to appropriate the Founding Fathers for their own purposes,” and that convenient facts are omitted by each group. The article does a good job getting at some of plexities and diversity of voices in the 1700s, and shows that there isn’t just a single univocal view of the proper relation between church and state. Check it out.