The Myth of the Christian Nation

One of the myths that the religious right continually promotes is that the US was, from birth, a Christian Nation. This belief is promoted as a solution for a number of societal ills, as a method to condemn political positions, and as a means to try to make illegal or continue the illegality of certain behaviors. There are several assumptions made by adherents of this myth with varying degrees of factual backing, but typically based on weak logic. This myth, as well as its individual components, is easily countered.

A major component of this myth, regardless of the argument's purpose, is the assumption that those in the past were more religious than those in the present. This argument is that society decays over time and is used to explain increases in crime rates and other social ills, and to claim, as many religions do, that a return to earlier morals and ideals will solve all societal problems. Several issues weaken this argument considerably. First, would be the difficulty in showing any difference in the religiosity of the American people during the Revolutionary period and now. Even if one assumes nearly all of those considered Americans, the Natives and slaves would not be counted, claimed Christianity as their religion, no serious records of crimes or behaviors considered sins exist making it impossible to discover if those claiming the religion were actually adherents or rather making a claim to ease social acceptance. As there is no definitive way to make a comparison of per capita crime, it is difficult to make an assertion that there is any positive or negative trend in regards to religiousness or social behaviors.

A similar component of the myth is that the Founders themselves were primarily Christian, and therefore founded the nation with Christianity as a model. This makes the bad assumption that there was a uniform view of religion at the time. This is clearly not true. Robert Sanders, in his article "Idolatry, the Killing Machine, and the Cross," makes the point of many of the Founders being Deist and did not believe in particular Christian doctrines. Essentially, Deists, according to the "European Enlightenment Glossary," felt that natural law was God's law, that man could understand the world and God through reason alone. Deism, according to Dr. Terry Matthews class "Religion in the South," still required one to worship God, repent from sins, and be judged in the end, which is likely confused by many modern Christians as belief. While understandable, it is untrue. They did not believe in the personal God of Christianity, the divinity of Jesus, or in the trinity, only that many the Christian morals were based on reason and, therefore, should be followed. Also according to Matthews, Deists often considered themselves Christian, even though they did not believe in the foundations required by many other sects, it further confuses the issue of how Christian the leadership of the day was.

While the degree to which the people and leadership of the United States was Christian during the post-Revolutionary period, Christianity in the documentation upon which the government was founded is more clear. There are few places in the early documents that mention a clearly Christian God. The Declaration of Independence, for instance, is a document based on the Deist belief that none are designated by God to rule over others, that reason demands that the people decide for themselves how they should be ruled. The use of "Nature's God" and "Creator" are often mistaken as Christian references, but these also frame the Declaration as a Deist document. God, as deists saw it, created the world, and they often believed God would judge it, but they primarily believed that there was no interference between those two points. As with the Declaration, there is near no mention of the Christian God in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. As typical of the papers of the Founders, the only mentions of religion, are to limit government's role in it. In the more controversial Treaty of Tripoli, we see text indicating that the United States' government "is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." This document is frequently used as a basis in arguing against the Religious Right's myth and is often refuted by them as not relevant to the discussion. As James Patrick Holding described it, it only discussed the government in particular, not the principles used in creating the nation or the belief's of the people.

If the United States' government were based in Christianity, one would not only expect the Founding Fathers to explicitly state this basis in founding documents, but also that the concepts of the government to be solidly Christian. While this might be the case if one, as many of the Founders did, consider Deist sensibilities Christian, it is a little more difficult, if not impossible, if one considers Christianity to be strictly based on the Bible. There is no biblical passage that describes any of the basic foundations of the representative democracy laid out in the United States' Constitution. Those forms of government laid out by the Bible are based on the divine appointment, both through clerics such as the Judges, the Israelite kings, and their appointed councils. This form of government is contrary to that described in the Declaration of Independence, instituted by those governed, and the three branches of government detailed in the Constitution. No biblical passage even alludes to the system designed by the Founding Fathers.

The point of separation of church and state is not to completely isolate religion and politics. It is a difficult thing to divide one's beliefs from one's decisions, whether one is simply a citizen or an elected member of the federal government. The problem that arises is that government officials decide that their position allows them to force their views onto others, to implicitly establish their religion by using government funds and land to promote their beliefs, displays of the ten commandments in courthouses, for example. Christianity promotes the idea of free will, God grants each man, woman, and child the ability to accept His teachings or to deny them. Why is it that Christians so often think they know better than God and demand that others bow down and accept through coercion what God would have them do of free will.

James Patrick Holding. "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Flub: What About Article 11 in the Treaty of Tripoli." Tektonics

Richard Hooker. "The European Enlightenment Glossary: Deism." Washington State University: World Civilizations, an Internet Classroom and Anthology.

Terry Matthews. "Religion in the South: Lecture Four." Wake Forest University.

Robert J. Sanders. "Idolatry, the Killing Machine, and the Cross." VirtueOnline.

"The United States Bill of Rights." National Archives

"The United States Constitution." National Archives

"The Declaration of Independence." National Archives

"The Barbary Treaties: Treaty of Friendship and Peace, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796." The Avalon Project at Yale Law School