America as a Christian nation
.Christians in the United States of America often claim that America is a Christian nation as a way of justifying overt government support of Christianity. This claim is in opposition to the separation of church and state which is clearly laid out in the United States Constitution.
"Listen, this is God's nation and nobody is going to take it away from him.[...] I'm telling you right now God Almighty is head of this nation, not people."
- "Yes, I believe that the United States was founded based on Christianity. In the United States, people had been escaping the restrictive Roman Catholic church who had caused many outrages in the name of religion.[2]"
- "America was founded on three documents: The Declaration of Independence; The Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, and the Constitution. These documents give conclusive proof that America is a Christian nation.[3]"
Apologetics[edit]
Apologists claim that America is Christian for the following reasons:
- Many of the founding fathers were Christians.
- The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, asserts that men are endowed with inalienable rights "by their Creator".
- The Puritans, who came here seeking the freedom to practice their religion, founded biblical law settlements that established a Christian colonial culture.
- The first official act of the First Continental Congress was a call to prayer.
- The Pledge of Allegiance contains the words "under God".
- America's national motto is In God We Trust, which also appears on the currency.
- The majority of people who live in America are Christians.
- The religious federal and state holidays America has are based on Christianity.
- Sunday is mentioned in Constitution. Years are mentioned along with the phrase "in the Year of our Lord".[3]
- The Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, which ended the revolutionary war begins "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity"[3]
There are also some ironic apologetic arguments:
- "The only people who can justifiably believe America was founded on 'Christian values,' are Indians and Africans. Who else experienced genocide and slavery of Biblical proportions?"[4]
Counter-apologetics[edit]
Relying on an entity's origins to demonstrate its present attributes commits the genetic fallacy. This applies to any claim along the lines of "the United States was founded as a Christian nation".
Founding fathers[edit]
Many of the founding fathers were Christians, but many were Deists. Several were Freemasons.
Regardless of their personal religious affiliations, they deliberately set up a secular Constitution.
Declaration of Independence[edit]
The Declaration of Independence did not establish US law. The Constitution, a deliberately secular document, did.
Also, Creator is not a uniquely Christian term. Many religions believe in a single creator including Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism. If America were specifically a Christian nation, one would expect to see a mention of Jesus Christ among the founding documents.
Puritans wanted a Christian nation[edit]
The Puritans did not found America. They preceded the founding of the nation by more than 100 years.
First Continental Congress[edit]
The Continental Congress convened in 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence and fifteen years before the Constitution. Obviously this Congress was not bound by the First Amendment, which had not been written yet.
Pledge of Allegiance[edit]
The original pledge was written by Francis Bellamy on September 7, 1892. It is not a founding document. Nevertheless, when the pledge was written it did not contain the words "under God". The reference to deity was added in 1954.
In God We Trust[edit]
"In God We Trust" was established as the national motto in 1956. A reaction to "godless communism", this McCarthy-era action may violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Majority of Americans are Christian[edit]
The majority of Americans are also white. Are we a "white nation"?
The number of people who identify as Christian drops slightly every year. A Pew poll found that between 2007 and 2014, the number of Americans who identify as Christian dropped from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent. The amount of non-believers is also gradually rising. [5] It seems likely that Christianity will become a minority religion in the future.
Religious holidays[edit]
Christmas Day is a federal and state holiday. Good Friday is a holiday in 11 states and Easter Sunday is also a flag day. America has both secular and Christian holidays.
Scriptural[edit]
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."
Famous quotes[edit]
Any amount of historical research will prove that America was not founded on religion, but rather on freedom from oppression by religion. Take the following quotes:
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."
- — Thomas Paine, 'The Age of Reason'
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
- — Benjamin Franklin
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
- — Thomas Jefferson
"What has been [Christianity's] fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
- — James Madison
"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness."
- — George Washington
Separation of church and state[edit]
Main article Separation of church and state
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.
Our founders created a secular government based on freethinking political philosophies. Our founders' Constitution is a stunning rejection of "government under god", or theocracy. Only the Constitution establishes our government, not any other piously-worded document (such as the Declaration of Independence, Mayflower Act etc.). The Constitution makes no reference to god, except for the date, which is indicated by use of the convention, "In the year of our Lord." "We the People," not god, are the authority for our government. The Constitution prohibits any religious test for national office. The Constitution's first amendment prohibits Congress from passing any laws even "respecting an establishment of religion." During many Constitution ratification sessions in the states, Christians attempted to insert references to God and Jesus into the Preamble and sought to remove the "no religious test for office" provision. The fact that these religiously-motivated efforts failed demonstrates that even though the Constitution was a heated public issue and subject to controversy as a result of its secular nature, it was ratified as written. Our founders and the public knowingly chose a godless Constitution.
Conservative Christians argue that the First Amendment language, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," means our founders only meant to prohibit one denomination from becoming the official national religion. The evidence refutes this narrowest of interpretations, aside from the fact that the Constitution must give government such a power, and there is no power to do anything religious in the Constitution. 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 London school master James Burgh, one of England's leading enlightenment political writers. Burgh's Crito (1767) included the phrase, "build an impenetrable wall of separation between things sacred and civil." Along with numerous other documents, Jefferson's message clarifies the intention of the amendment.
The proverbial "nail in the coffin" for the "Christian nation" argument is located in the Treaty of Tripoli. This treaty was unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate on June 10, 1797 and was signed into law by President John Adams. Article 11 of this document states, "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..."
The Constitution and amendments only mention religion three times, and only as prohibitions against government doing things religious. One cannot pervert express prohibitions against government doing religious things into powers for government to do religious things. Many public officials have a long history of violating their oath of office by mixing religion into government or by supporting religious groups. A tradition of violating the Constitution does not, however, change the Constitution.
The United States is chosen by God[edit]
Many Christians believe that the US has a special relationship with God, or even that the US is chosen by God as a preferred group.[6]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
- Young Americans shifting US towards becoming less religious nation, The Guardian, 3rd Nov 2015
- America Is A Christian Nation, Counter Arguments, 24 Sep 2015
- Americans know Big Macs better than Ten Commandments, Fri Oct 12, 2007
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