Is
America A Christian Nation?
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Religion,
Government and Religious Freedom
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christian-nation-pdf.pdf
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"Americans United" (AU) is an organization that seeks to impose atheism on America. |
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Is the United States a "Christian nation"? Some Americans think so. Religious Right activists and right-wing television preachers often claim that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation. Even some politicians agree. If the people who make this assertion are merely saying that most
Americans are Christians, they might have a point. But those who argue that America is a Christian nation usually mean something more, insisting that the country should be officially Christian. The very character of our country is at stake in the outcome of this debate. |
The U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged -- even proudly boasted -- that America is a Christian nation. Officially, legally, technically, constitutionally and organically. That should settle this debate. In fact, there shouldn't even be
a debate. America's Founders would say this question is not debatable.
The last sentence in that paragraph is unquestionably true.
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| Religious Right groups and their allies insist that the United States was designed to be officially Christian and that our laws should enforce the doctrines of (their version of) Christianity. Is this viewpoint
accurate? Is there anything in the Constitution that gives special treatment or preference to Christianity? Did the founders of our government believe this or intend to create a government that gave special recognition to Christianity? |
- What does the word "doctrines" mean? Whether infants should be baptized or not?
America's Founders believed America should be a generically Christian nation, not a sectarian nation.
The public mind in that province, especially in Boston, was earnestly inquiring into the active powers of man, to deduce from them the right to uncontrolled inquiry, as the only security against religious and civil bondage. Of that cause the champion was Jonathan
Mayhew, offspring of purest ancestors, "sanctified" from childhood, a pupil of New England's Cambridge. "Instructed in youth," thus he spoke of himself, "in the doctrines of civil liberty, as they were taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and others, among the ancients; and
such as Sidney and Milton, Locke and Hoadly, among the moderns, I liked them; and having learned from the holy scriptures that wise, brave, and virtuous men were always friends to liberty, that God gave the Israelites a king in
his anger, because they had not sense and virtue enough to like a free commonwealth, and that where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty, this made me conclude that freedom is a great blessing." From
early life, Mayhew took to his heart the right of private judgment, clinging to it as to his religion; truth and justice he revered as realities which every human being had capacity to discern; the duty of each individual to inquire and judge
he deduced from the constitution of man, and held to be as universal as reason itself. At once becoming revolutionary, he scoffed at receiving opinions because his forefathers had embraced them; and, pushing the principle of Protestantism to its universal expression, he sent forth the American mind to do its work,
disburdened of prejudices. The ocean which it had crossed had broken the trail of tradition, and it was now to find paths of its own.
George Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol.2, p.353-54 |
Asking the question, "Is there anything in the Constitution that gives special treatment or preference to Christianity? is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the America system. In the 1780's the states jealously guarded their rights against the federal
government. Some states had established churches (even though Christians today oppose state establishments of particular Christian denominations), and the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights protected those state establishments from Federal interference or replacement on the federal level. All of the States, without
exception, gave special treatment or preference to Christianity, especially compared with atheism. America's Founders opposed a powerful federal government almost as much as they opposed atheistic government. The federal
constitution was not the place to determine the Christian character of the united States.
It is a matter of plentiful historical evidence that America's Founders did in fact, repeatedly, consistently, give "special recognition to Christianity." See the links below.
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| The answer to all of these questions is no. The U.S. Constitution is a wholly secular document. It contains no mention of Christianity or Jesus Christ. In fact, the Constitution refers to religion only twice in the First Amendment, which bars laws "respecting an establishment
of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," and in Article VI, which prohibits "religious tests" for public office. Both of these provisions are evidence that the country was not founded as officially Christian. |
Suppose you wake up one morning and look out the front window and see your neighbor across the street has built a stone altar in his front yard and is preparing to sacrifice his virgin daughter, ripping her beating heart out of her body, now chained to the
altar, and offer the heart to the "sun god." If you call 911, will the government rescue the girl, or respect your neighbor's "freedom of religion?" The U.S. Supreme Court answered questions like this, and said that in a Christian nation like ours, some "religions" are not recognized as
legitimate "religions."
There is another reference to Christianity in the Constitution. Article I, Section 7, says that after a bill is sent from Congress to the president, he has 10 days to return it. “If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it
shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law.”
Why "Sundays excepted?"
Why not "Saturdays" for the Jews?
Why not "Fridays" for the Muslims?
In America in the late 1700's,
Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” was serious stuff, often strictly enforced by local and state laws. The idea of the “secular Sunday” didn’t arise in America for another 100 years. (Clifford Goldstein)
America was a Christian nation. The Constitution was written by Christians for a Christian nation. But it wasn't written for Big-Government Liberals who want the federal government to secularize the States.
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| The Founding Fathers did not create a secular government because they disliked religion. Many were believers themselves. Yet they were well aware of the dangers of church-state union. They
had studied and even seen first-hand the difficulties that church-state partnerships spawned in Europe. During the American colonial period, alliances between religion and government produced oppression and tyranny on our own shores. |
"Many" were believers. Name one who was not.
"Church-state" union is not the same thing as a nation "under God." America was not created as an atheistic ("secular") nation that would pretend that God does not exist.
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| Many colonies, for example, had provisions limiting public office to "Trinitarian Protestants" and other types of laws designed to prop up the religious sentiments of the politically powerful. Some colonies had officially established churches and taxed all citizens to
support them, whether they were members or not. Dissenters faced imprisonment, torture and even death. |
The Bible does not prescribe taxes, imprisonment, torture, or death for "dissenters." Any colony that did this was not following the Bible, and not following Jesus. |
| These arrangements led to bitterness and sectarian division. Many people began agitating for an end to "religious tests" for public office, tax subsidies for churches and other forms of state endorsement of religion. Those who led this charge were not anti-religion.
Indeed, many were members of the clergy and people of deep piety. They argued that true faith did not need or want the support of government. |
This is generally true. It was Christians, not atheists, who worked to abolish tax-funded church denominations. But they did not create a God-denying federal government. |
| Respect for religious pluralism gradually became the norm. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, for example, he spoke of "unalienable rights endowed by our Creator." He used generic religious language that all
religious groups of the day would respond to, not narrowly Christian language traditionally employed by nations with state churches. |
"Pluralism" has limits, as we've seen above in the case of your Aztec neighbor.
What does the phrase "all religious groups of the day" mean? It can only mean "all Christian denominations."
Note the sinister hypocrisy of "Americans United." They admit that Jefferson used "generic religious language" (which was understood to be Christian, not Aztec, by everyone in America), and yet "separationists" like AU have lobbied the federal government to prevent local public schools
from teaching even the generic Christian language of Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. |
| While some of the country's founders believed that the government should espouse Christianity, that viewpoint soon became a losing proposition. In Virginia, Patrick Henry argued in favor of tax support for Christian churches. But Henry and his cohorts were in the minority and lost
that battle. Jefferson, James Madison and their allies among the state's religious groups ended Virginia's established church and helped pass the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty, a 1786 law guaranteeing religious freedom to all. |
Notice why Madison opposed the bill (as I do, opposing all taxation):
| Because, the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift, ought
to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen
the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of (revelation) from coming into the Region of it; and countenances, by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those
who might convey it to them. Instead of levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of truth, the Bill with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error. |
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| Jefferson and Madison's viewpoint also carried the day when the Constitution, and later, the Bill of Rights, were written. Had an officially Christian nation been the goal of the founders, that concept would appear in the Constitution.
It does not. Instead, our nation's governing document ensures religious freedom for everyone. |
Again, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Constitution and the American system to expect the federal constitution to dictate religion for the states. The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, requires the federal government to defer to the states on religion
-- which it does not do today, as it imposes the Religion of Secular Humanism on the States, thanks to the atheistic lobbying of groups like AU. |
| Maryland representative Luther Martin said that a handful of delegates to the Constitutional Convention argued for formal recognition of Christianity in the Constitution, insisting that such language was necessary in order to "hold out some distinction between the professors
of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." But that view was not adopted, and the Constitution gave government no authority over religion. Article VI, which allows persons of all religious viewpoints to hold public office, was adopted by a unanimous vote. Through ratification of the First Amendment, observed
Jefferson, the American people built a "wall of separation between church and state." |
Not a single state in the union understood Article VI to require allowing atheists, Aztecs, and other superstitious non-Christian people to hold office. It was not until 1961 that the U.S. Supreme Court "discovered" the right of the federal government to override state
religious views and impose atheism, and the Court expressly said it was not doing so based on Article VI, but on the First Amendment as that Amendment had been distorted by atheistic un-American understandings of that Amendment as well as the 14th Amendment. |
| Some pastors who favored church-state union were outraged and delivered sermons asserting that the United States would not be a successful nation because its Constitution did not give special treatment to Christianity. But many others welcomed the new dawn of freedom and praised
the Constitution and the First Amendment as true protectors of liberty. |
Church-state union is not Biblical. Being a nation "under God" is Biblical and Constitutional. |
| Early national leaders understood that separation of church and state would be good for all faiths including Christianity. Jefferson rejoiced that Virginia had passed his religious freedom law, noting that it would ensure religious freedom for "the Jew and the Gentile, the
Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, the infidel of every denomination." |
Jefferson was an extremist. He was wrong. Nobody else understood the Constitution to protect the rights of cannibals, thugs, and human sacrifice. Americans today are coming to understand that there are false religions and false theocracies. Nobody in the 1700's wanted Shariah Law
imposed on America. |
| Other early U.S. leaders echoed that view. President George Washington, in a famous 1790 letter to a Jewish congregation in Newport, R.I., celebrated the fact that Jews had full freedom of worship in America. Noted Washington, "All possess alike liberty of conscience and
immunities of citizenship." |
In a Christian nation like America, Jews have freedom to "worship" (whatever that means), but not freedom to wage war against Gentiles: |
| Washington's administration even negotiated a treaty with the Muslim rulers of north Africa that stated explicitly that the United States was not founded on Christianity. The pact, known as the Treaty with Tripoli, was approved unanimously by the Senate in 1797, under the
administration of John Adams. Article 11 of the treaty states, "[T]he government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…." |
That treaty is the most obscure treaty in American history, according to the editor of the government's collectio of treaties, and that language about "not in any sense founded" is utterly implausible and was quickly removed by Congress the next time that treaty came up
for re-negotiation. Get the facts here: |
| Admittedly, the U.S. government has not always lived up to its constitutional principles. In the late 19th century especially, officials often promoted a de facto form of Protestantism. Even the U.S. Supreme Court fell victim to this mentality in 1892, with Justice David
Brewer declaring in Holy Trinity v. United States that America is "a Christian nation." |
Brewer's opinion is based on an avalanche of "organic utterances" -- that is, the most foundational legal charters in American history. Read the history lesson in the unanimous Supreme Court opinion: |
| It should be noted, however, that the Holy Trinity decision is a legal anomaly. It has rarely been cited by other courts, and the "Christian nation" declaration appeared in dicta a legal term meaning writing that reflects a judge's personal opinion, not a mandate
of the law. Also, it is unclear exactly what Brewer meant. In a book he wrote in 1905, Brewer pointed out that the United States is Christian in a cultural sense, not a legal one. |
The Holy Trinity case is not an "anomaly." The Supreme Court routinely acknowledged throughout the first 100 years under the Constituiton that America was a Christian nation, such as the celebrated "front-page news" case in 1844 in which the Court said
the Bible must be taught in public schools.
The line in Holy Trinity is not "dicta." Any first-year law student should know this.
Separationists are either ignorant or liars. If America's founders could see America and Washington D.C. today, they would be horrified, and if they could read the "legal reasoning" of atheists like these, they would be furious.
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| A more accurate judicial view of the relationship between religion and government is described by Justice John Paul Stevens in his 1985 Wallace v. Jaffree ruling. Commenting on the constitutional right of all Americans to choose their own religious belief, Stevens wrote,
"At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Mohammedism or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined
in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all." |
1985 is an alternate universe compared with 1785. Read the dissenting opinions in Jaffree:
This is not a question about government imposing Christianity by the sword, but government imposing atheism by the sword.
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| A determined faction of Christians has fought against this wise and time-tested policy throughout our history. In the mid 19th century, several efforts were made to add specific references to Christianity to the Constitution. One group, the National Reform Association (NRA), pushed
a "Christian nation" amendment in Congress in 1864. NRA members believed that the Civil War was divine punishment for failing to mention God in the Constitution and saw the amendment as a way to atone for that omission. |
Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson believed the Civil War was "divine punishment" for tolerating slavery.
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I
tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by
supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.
Jefferson, QUERY XVIII, Notes on Virginia
This proves that Jefferson was not a "clockmaker god" deist.
Separationists have made sure that children in public school cannot be taught that liberty is a gift of God. Public school students cannot be taught that a nation can be brought down by "supernatural interference"
because God's justice cannot sleep forever. Public school students cannot be told that if we obey "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" -- which Blackstone said could be found only in the Bible -- we can have a
"firm reliance on the protection of divine providence."
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| The NRA amendment called for "humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the source of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Ruler among the nations, [and] His revealed will as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute a Christian
government." Ten years later, the House Judiciary Committee voted against its adoption. The committee noted "the dangers which the union between church and state had imposed upon so many nations of the Old World" and said in light of that it was felt "inexpedient to put anything into the Constitution which
might be construed to be a reference to any religious creed or doctrine." |
There's that word "doctrine" again. Remember it from the first paragraph above? Nobody wants the "doctrines" of one particular church denomination to be elevated above doctrines of other churches.
But when the NRA offered its amendment, Abraham Lincoln was proclaiming that America was a Christian nation. Read the last half of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Read many other official proclamations, such as his Proclamation
For a Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer in 1863:
And whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truths announced in the Holy
Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;
Abraham Lincoln and the Bible: A Complete Compendium: Gordon Leidner - Southern Illinois University Press on BibliOpen
While in some sense America has been a Christian nation, it has not been consistently Christian. But atheists and "separationists" are misleading us, and not helping us be a more consistently Christian nation.
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| Similar theocratic proposals resurfaced in Congress sporadically over the years. As late as 1950, a proposal was introduced in the Senate that would have added language to the Constitution that "devoutly recognizes the
Authority and Law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of nations, through whom are bestowed the blessings of liberty." This amendment was never voted out of committee. Efforts to revive it in the early 1960s were unsuccessful. |
"Theocratic" -- the word is a boogey-man. The word comes from two Greek words meaning "God governs." Lincoln said our nation's God must be the God of the Bible. That's "Theocracy." Another way of saying that God is over the nation as
Governor is to say the nation is "under God." America, a nation "under God," has always been a "Theocracy." Don't confuse "Theocracy" -- government by God -- with "ecclesiocracy" -- government by
clergymen (from the Greek word "ecclesia," usually translated "church").
Thomas Jefferson mocked those who held the Constitution as some kind of sacred writing. He said we should have a new Constitution every 20 years. But politics is messy, and sometimes ignorance prevails.
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| Today, America's religious demographics are changing, and diversity has greatly expanded since our nation's founding. The number of Jews has increased, and more Muslims are living in America than ever before. Other religions now represented in America include Hinduism, Buddhism and
a myriad others. In addition, many Americans say they have no religious faith or identify themselves as atheists, agnostics or Humanists. According to some scholars, over 2,000 distinct religious groups and denominations exist in the United States. |
Christianity allows Buddhists to live next door, but as Lincoln said, in order for a nation to prosper, it must "recognize the sublime truths announced in the Holy Scriptures, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
"Atheists United" wants an atheistic nation, but in all probability, a majority of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims might be OK living in a Christian Theocracy, because a Christian Theocracy is better than a Muslim theocracy, or a Hindu theocracy, and all these other religions know it. |
| Also, even though most Americans identify as Christian, this does not mean they would back official government recognition of the Christian faith. Christian denominations disagree on points of
doctrine, church structure and stands on social issues. Many Christians take a moderate or liberal perspective on church-state relations and oppose efforts to impose religion by government action. |
Another reference to "doctrines." America's Founding Fathers had not the slightest reservation about "official government recognition of the Christian faith." That's not the same thing as official government
recognition of the Presbyterian view of baptism. |
| Americans should be proud that we live in a democracy that welcomes persons of many faiths and none. Around the globe, millions of people still dwell under oppressive regimes where religion and government are harshly commingled. (Iran and the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan
are just two examples.) Many residents of those countries look to the United States as beacon of hope and a model for what their own nations might someday become. |
Millions of Iranians and Afghans would love to live in a Christian nation. |
| Only the principle of church-state separation can protect America's incredible degree of religious freedom. The individual rights and diversity we enjoy cannot be maintained if the government promotes Christianity or if our government takes on the trappings of a
"faith-based" state. |
Those people don't care if the government "promotes Christianity," as it did for over 150 years before the Supreme Court invented "separation of church and state." |
| The United States, in short, was not founded to be an officially Christian nation or to espouse any official religion. Our government is neutral on religious matters, leaving such decisions to individuals. This democratic and pluralistic system has allowed a broad array of
religious groups to grow and flourish and guarantees every individual American the right to determine his or her own spiritual path or to reject religion entirely. As a result of this policy, Americans enjoy more religious freedom than any people in world history. We should be proud of this accomplishment and work to preserve
the constitutional principle that made it possible separation of church and state. |
Government power to inflict violence on people should be radically limited. But every human being -- including politicians and legislators -- has a duty to be Christian.
Liberty Under God
Anarcho-Theocracy
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Evidence that America is a Christian nation is abundant, overwhelming, and suppressed. Read the history you didn't get in your atheistic public school education.