DEBUNKING THE MYTH OF A "CHRISTIAN" UNITED STATES
By Howard Thompson
Editor: The Texas Atheist.
Copyright (c) 1999 by Howard Thompson
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Conservative Christians are hijacking our national heritage by convincing everyone that our nation is based on Christianity. The best way to debunk this myth is with facts that expose the lie. The best way to oppose public officials who degrade the separation of state and church is to expose their disrespect for the Constitution and their oath of office.
This article summarizes some research into our godless Constitution in the form of 25 facts and arguments you can use to debunk the myth of a Christian United States. I was surprised at much of what I found.
THE MYTH OF A CHRISTIAN UNITED STATES
The myth of a Christian United States goes like this:
Christians seeking religious freedom founded our nation as a place where
they could properly obey god's law. The Puritans and others founded biblical
law settlements that established a Christian colonial culture. Christian
leaders and ideals thus generated the American Revolution, our Constitutional
democracy
of personal freedom, and everything else that made our nation great. Bad
things now happen because we have fallen away from our founder's Christian
values. America now needs religion in government and laws promoting religion
so we can restore our lost Golden Age of Christian Faith.
Like most religious traditions, the evidence fails to support this Golden Age myth.
PURITAN HERITAGE
Puritan heritage is nothing anyone should be proud of or wish to restore. The Puritans came to the colonies to establish a religious tyranny. As a state church, Puritans oppressed other religions like they had been oppressed in England. They wanted religious freedom only in the sense that they wanted the freedom to practice their Puritanism and to punish or banish all other religious beliefs.
1. Only Congregationalist churches were allowed. Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians and others were banished, often with a death sentence if they returned.
2. Only Congregationalist church members were allowed to vote. To be a church member, church elders had to unanimously certify that you were a "saint" destined for heaven.
3. Puritans punished even minor "impious" behavior. Failure to attend church earned a public whipping. A man was put into the stocks for kissing his wife in public on Sunday upon returning from three years at sea.
4. Puritans killed 25 people as witches. They persecuted Quakers by cutting off ears, burning holes through women's tongues with hot irons, floggings with whips, and hangings.
CHRISTIANITY IN THE EARLY U.S.
America's colonial Christians were an undemocratic minority that opposed freedom of conscience and denied political rights based on religious beliefs. Restoring this "Golden Age" means losing many of our freedoms and civil rights.
5. When the Constitution was ratified, eleven of the thirteen states had in their Constitutions religious tests for public office. Many states denied the vote based on a religious test. Catholics, Jews, Deists and unbelievers were among those denied equal rights.
6. At the time of the Constitution, at least five states made all citizens provide for the financial support for the churches and clergy of that state's one official religion. Other denominations were often hampered, harassed, or prohibited.
7. Estimates are that 10% - 20% of the people were church members circa 1790. The best estimate I found that used actual data was 17%. With only one in six going to church, it is ludicrous to claim that the nation was "Christian" at that time.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
The actions of the Constitution's authors at the 1787 Convention best reveal their thoughts and intent regarding religion. They avoided attempts to insert worship into their deliberations, keeping religious activities separate from the process of creating our government. If no religion at the Constitutional Convention was good enough for our founders, it should be good enough for all public officials in the execution of their duties.
8. The founders never prayed during Constitutional Convention sessions.
9. On June 28, 1787, Franklin and Randall offered motions to begin sessions with prayers. Both motions were allowed to die by adjournment. Franklin noted that only "three or four" supported prayer, the rest thought it "unnecessary."
10. Some cite the lack of funds for a clergyman as an excuse for no prayers. Randall's motion, however, called for "reading prayers," which would have cost nothing.
11. There is a tradition that Hamilton opposed convention prayers because he thought they did not need the help of a "foreign power." I have found no additional information on this.
OUR SECULAR CONSTITUTION
Our founders created a secular government based on freethinking enlightenment political philosophies that were angrily opposed by many Christians. Our founder's Constitution is a stunning rejection of government under god.
12. Only the Constitution establishes our government, not any other document with pious words, such as the Declaration of Independence, Mayflower Act, etc.
13. The Constitution ignores god, except for the date, "in the year of our Lord."
14. "We the People," not god, are the authority for our government.
15. Our government was the first to radically NOT claim authority from god.
16. The Constitution prohibits any religious test for national office.
17. The Constitution's presidential oath does not end with "so help me god."
18. During many state Constitution ratification sessions, Christians tried to add references to God and Jesus into the Preamble and to remove the "no religious test for office" provision. Their attempt and failure demonstrates that even though the Constitution was a heated public issue, its was ratified as written. Our founders and the public knowingly chose a godless Constitution.
THEY REALLY MEANT TO SEPARATE STATE AND CHURCH
Conservative Christians argue that the First Amendment language, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," says our founders only meant to prohibit the United States from establishing one denomination as the official national religion. The evidence refutes this narrowest of interpretations.
19. From John Adams' writings we find the following: a) The United States described as, "the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature." b) That the developers of our government never, "had interviews with the gods or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven." c) "[G]overnments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind." It would be hard to describe a more materialistic approach to government.
20. During the 1789 Congress Madison proposed an amendment he regarded as the most important one for the Bill of Rights. The amendment's text: "No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases." It passed the House but failed in the Senate. Not only did Madison believe in a godless Constitution that separated church and state, he believed it did not go far enough in protecting equal freedom of conscience.
21. In his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (1/01/1802), Thomas Jefferson cited "a wall of separation between Church and State" as his reason for denying their request for a national day of fasting. Jefferson's metaphor came from James Burgh, one of England's leading, now forgotten, enlightenment political writers. Burgh's "Crito" (1767) had the phrase, "build an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil."
22. President James Madison vetoed an 1811 Congressional Bill that gave a charter to an Episcopal church in the District of Columbia. Also in 1811, he vetoed another Bill that gave federal land to a Baptist church in the Mississippi territory.
23. In 1812, Congress requested a national fast day. Madison issued a non-sectarian, voluntary proclamation for people "so disposed" who wished to appeal to god for success in the War of 1812. Madison later regretted his decision. In 1819, he talked about, "a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters," and in 1832, "an entire abstinence of government from interference in any way whatever," in matters of separating church and state. LOGICAL ARGUMENTS
24. Instead of Christian, Agrarian, Capitalist, English, Aristocratic, Slave-holding, Theocratic, Intolerant, Genocidal or Frontier Spirit would be equally good descriptors for our heritage. Since our secular form of government was radically unique and for all of us, the principles of our Constitution are a more meaningful way to characterize our nation than picking one from among many cultural traits to describe us. 25. The Constitution, not the bible, is the law of our land. What the Constitution means is determined by the Supreme Court. Public officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Officials who insert religion into government or who use government to support religion disrespect the Constitution and should be removed from office for breaking their oath.
END NOTE
Propaganda wars are slow going. Christianity has a huge head start on burying our founders uniquely godless concept of government under their myth of a Christian United States. I think we can, however, recover for the minds of the nation our founders' original philosophy of government and freedom of conscience if we are willing to continually identify and correct Christian misinformation.
We have an invaluable ally in our uphill struggle to preserve the truth. We have the words of our founders which directly contradict the myth of a Christian United States.
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SOURCES "The Churching of America: 1776-1990," by Roger Finke & Rodney Stark, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1992. "The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness," by Isaac Kramnick & R. Laurence Moore, W.W. Norton & co., New York, paperback edition, 1997. "The First Freedoms: Church and State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment," by Thomas J.Curry, Oxford University Press, New York, paperback edition, 1986. "The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson," Ed. Adrienne Koch & William Peden, Random House, New York, paperback edition, 1993. "The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop," by Edmond S. Morgan, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, paperback edition, 1958. "Myths about Public School Prayer," by John M. Swomley, Americans for Religious Liberty, Silver Springs, Maryland, 1996. "To Secure These Blessings," Saul K. Padover, Washington Square Press/Ridge Press, New York, 1962. [ Padover drew much of his information from: "Debates ... of the Congress of the Confederation," and "Debates in the Several State Conventions," both by Johnathan Elliot, 1861.] "The Framing of the Constitution of the United States," Max Farrand, Yale University Press, 1916. [Farrand also edited, "The records of the Federal Convention of 1787," rev. ed. Max Farrand, 4 vols, New Haven, 1937.] "Miracle at Philadelphia," by Catherine Drinker Bowen, Little Brown & Co., Boston, 1986 edition. "Benjamin Franklin," Carl Van Dorn (1885-1950), Penguin Books, 1991. Originally by Viking Press, New York, 1938. "Taking the Constitution Seriously," Walter Berns, Madison Books, 1987. [Burns quotes Madison's failed amendment from, "28. Annals of Congress, Vol 1, p. 784 (August 17, 1789), p. 434 (June 8, 1789).]
Howard Thompson is editor of The Texas Atheist newsletter. You may contact him at gofreemind@aol.com.