Reply to Atheists at the Cathedral on Good Friday

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My God, who cares? Bizarre thing to be thinking or posting about.[/quote].

So it seems weird to care if people in church believe in god?[/quote]

Why would you care?[/quote]

People go to church to praise God, right?
[/quote]

It’s a National Cathedral. It was specifically intended—back to L’Enfant’s original plan for the city—to draw visitors to DC closer to Christianity, and a lot of those visitors are not Christian. Atheists visiting is a feature, not a bug.[/quote]

I seriously doubt that L'Enfant's plan to build a national cathedral was done in the hope that atheists and non-christians (people of other religions) would convert to Christianity.  Never heard that one before. Besides, it's un-American. [/quote]

I did not say that it was intended to create converts. But it was intended to showcase what was then the normative religious behavior of the American political class—which was Episcopalianism—when Congress chartered it in 1893. (It opened in my lifetime, but it took a VERY long time to build; cathedrals always do.)[/quote]

So it was intended to "draw visitors to DC closer to Christianity", but not to create converts.  Got it[/quote]

I don’t know what you find so contradictory about this. The people who conceived of and created this cathedral thought of mainstream institutional Protestant Christianity as the national civil religion. When they thought about showing off the country to visitors, this was one of the things they wanted to show off.[/quote]

OK to build a national cathedral;  Not OK to imply L'Enfant wanted to draw visitors closer to Christianity.[/quote]

If you have evidence to the contrary, by all means present it. In his time, that goal would have been regarded as absolutely legitimate, and L’Enfant would have had to be something of a renegade to have openly rejected it. But perhaps he was, IDK. What have you got?[/quote]

If you have actual evidence that L'Enfant was trying to draw people to Christ, please present it.  Otherwise, please desist.[/quote]

Respectfully, I think you may be looking for a fight I am not having. I did not say that L'Enfant was "trying to draw people to Christ." The modern evangelical way of thinking about Christianity as a direct emotional relationship with Jesus was not available to him.

However, Christianity as a civil religion was, and that is why he thought of a national Cathedral as being as necessary as all of the other elements of his plan for this city, which would--quite predictably--welcome many international, non-Christian, guests. [/quote]

My Apologies, assuming you are not the pp above who said the purpose of LEnfant building the cathedral "to draw visitors to DC closer to Christianity."[/quote]

How else would you describe the treatment of Christianity as a civic religion that merited government investment on this scale? 
[/quote]

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