Is America A Christian Nation?

The following article is largely the product of the Freedom From Religion Foundation and is taken and edited from their web site.  My additions to its text are displayed in italics.

The article as amended argues from a legal perspective. No one doubts that the cultural influence of Christianity has helped shape our society from its colonial beginnings to the present day. So too have Israel, ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, English common law and the Enlightenment thought of John Locke and others.

The U.S. Constitution is a secular document. It begins, We the people, and contains no mention of God or Christianity. Its only references to religion are exclusionary, such as, no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust (Article VI), and Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (First Amendment). The presidential oath of office, the only oath detailed in the Constitution, does not contain the phrase "so help me God" or any requirement to swear on a bible (Art. II, Sec. 1, Clause 8).  These added bits of ritual are the inventions of politicians more wily than thoughtful.

In 1797 America made a treaty with Tripoli, declaring that the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion. This reassurance to Islam was written under Washington's presidency, and approved by the Senate under his successor, John Adams. The Constitution explicitly declares that treaties, so submitted and ratified, are the supreme law of the land.  This treaty is so unremarkable that few histories even bother to mention it.

What about the Declaration of Independence?

We are not governed by the Declaration, nor is it a law. Its purpose was to dissolve the political bonds with the British monarchy, not to set up a religious nation. It . . . was based on the idea that governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, which is contrary to the biblical concept of rule by divine authority. It deals with laws, taxation, representation, war, immigration, and so on, never discussing religion at all.

The references to Nature's God, Creator, and Divine Providence in the Declaration do not endorse Christianity. Thomas Jefferson, its author, was a Deist, opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural. He even edited his own copy of the New Testament to delete references to Jesus’ so called miracles from the virgin birth to the resurrection, and to excise references to Jesus’ divinity. Copies of “The Jefferson Bible” (Beacon Press) can be found for sale online using www.bookfind.com.

What about the Pilgrims and Puritans?

The first colony of English-speaking Europeans was Jamestown, settled in 1609 for trade, not religious freedom. Fewer than half of the 102 Mayflower passengers in 1620 were Pilgrims seeking religious freedom. The secular United States of America was formed more than a century and a half later. If tradition requires us to return to the views of a few early settlers, why not adopt the polytheistic and natural beliefs of the Native Americans, the true founders of the continent at least 12,000 years earlier?

Roger Williams, a Puritan preacher and a separatist from the Church of England, arrived in Boston in 1631, resolved to follow his own conscience in matters of faith. He left in the dead of winter, one step ahead of the colonial authorities, and with a few disciples founded Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636, the first place in modern history where citizenship and religion were separated. Well before Jefferson, “Williams was the first to use the phrase ‘wall of separation’ to describe the relationship of church and state” (Wikipedia). In time his growing congregation became the first in the country to term itself “Baptist.”

Others soon joined him, notably Ann Hutchinson and her followers.  In 1658 15 Jewish families founded a congregation near by and so prospered that, a century later, they built the Turo synagogue in Newport, where it still stands and continues as a place of worship (See Historic Preservation Magazine, Nov/Dec 2011). 

Most of the religious colonial governments excluded and persecuted those of the wrong faith. The framers of our Constitution in 1787 wanting no part of religious intolerance and bloodshed, wisely establishing the first government in history to separate church and state.

Do the words separation of church and state appear in the Constitution?

The phrase, a wall of separation between church and state, was used again by President Thomas Jefferson in a carefully crafted letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, when they had asked him to explain the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, and lower courts, have used Jefferson's phrase repeatedly in major decisions upholding neutrality in matters of religion. The exact words separation of church and state do not appear in the Constitution; neither do separation of powers, interstate commerce, right to privacy, and other phrases describing well-established constitutional principles, derived from court decisions on the common law principle of stare decisis.

What does separation of church and state mean?

Thomas Jefferson, explaining the phrase to the Danbury Baptists, said, the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions. Personal religious views are just that: personal. Our government has no right to promulgate religion or to interfere with private beliefs.

The Supreme Court has forged a three-part Lemon test (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971) to determine if a law is permissible under the First-Amendment religion clauses.

       A law must have a secular purpose.

       It must have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits religion.

.      It must avoid excessive entanglement of church and state.

The separation of church and state is a wonderful American principle supported not only by minorities, such as Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and unbelievers, but applauded by most Protestant churches that recognize that it has allowed religion to flourish in this nation. It keeps the majority from pressuring the minority. It has kept government from ever establishing one form of Christianity as the Church of the United States, as in England and, once again, in Russia.

What about majority rule?

America is one nation under a Constitution. Although the Constitution sets up a representative democracy, it specifically was amended with the Bill of Rights in 1791 to uphold individual and minority rights. On constitutional matters we do not have majority rule. For example, when the majority in certain localities voted to segregate blacks, this was declared illegal. The majority has no right to tyrannize the minority on matters such as race, gender, or religion.

Not only is it un American for the government to promote religion, it is rude. Whenever a public official uses the office to advance religion, someone is offended. The wisest policy is one of neutrality.

Isn't removing religion from public places hostile to religion?

No one is deprived of worship in America. Tax-exempt churches, temples and mosques abound. The state has no say about private religious beliefs and practices, unless they endanger health or life. Our government represents all of the people, supported by dollars from a plurality of religious and non-religious taxpayers.

Some countries, such as the former USSR., expressed hostility to religion. Others, such as Iran ( one nation under God ), have welded church and state. America wisely has taken the middle course--neither for nor against religion. Neutrality offends no one, and protects everyone.

The First Amendment deals with Congress. Can't states make their own religious policies?

The Supreme Court has ruled that, under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868), the entire Bill of Rights applies to the states. No governor, mayor, sheriff, public school employee, or other public official may violate the human rights embodied in the Constitution. The government at all levels must respect the separation of church and state. Most state constitutions, in fact, contain language that is even stricter than the First Amendment, prohibiting the state from setting up a ministry, using tax dollars to promote religion, or interfering with freedom of conscience.

In deciding the pivotal case of  Marbury vs Madison,  John Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote "It is emphatically the province of the court to say what the law is."  From that day forward the Supremes have ruled on the constitutionality of  the laws cited in cases accepted for review and the other two branches of government  and the several states have abided by their rulings.  Once several states decided not to remain in the Union.  War resulted and those states did not win.

What about One nation under God and In God We Trust?

The words, under God, did not appear in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954, when Congress, under McCarthyism, inserted them. Likewise, In God We Trust was absent from paper currency before 1956. It appeared on some coins earlier, as did other sundry phrases, such as Mind Your Business. The original U.S. motto, chosen by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, is E Pluribus Unum ( Of Many, One ), celebrating plurality, not theocracy.

Isn't American law based on the Ten Commandments?

Not at all  The first four Commandments are religious edicts having nothing to do with law or ethical behavior. Only three (homicide, theft, and perjury) are relevant to current American law, and have existed in cultures long before Moses. . . The Supreme Court has ruled that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is unconstitutional.

Our secular laws, based on the human principle of justice for all, provide protection against crimes, and our civil government enforces them through a secular criminal justice system.

Why be concerned about the separation of church and state?

Ignoring history, law, and fairness, many fanatics are working vigorously to turn America into a Christian nation. Fundamentalist Protestants and right-wing Catholics would impose their narrow morality on the rest of us, resisting women's rights, freedom for religious minorities and unbelievers, gay and lesbian rights, and civil rights for all. History shows us that only harm comes of uniting church and state.

America has never been a Christian nation. We are a free nation. Anne Gaylor, president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, points out: There can be no religious freedom without the freedom to dissent.


Nontract No. 6. © 2007 Published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., PO Box 750, Madison WI 53701, is the basis for this post.