http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/14/christian_nation/print.html

  

America is not a Christian nation

America is a Christian nation
Religious conservatives argue the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Judeo-Christian country. But President Obama is right when he says it isn't. Or at least it was.
By Michael Lind  
Apr. 14, 2009 |  
Is America a Christian nation, as many conservatives claim it is? One American doesn't think so. In his press conference on April 6 in Turkey, President Obama explained: "One of the great strengths of the United States is … we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." Obviously Obama is lying. The subtitle of this article says, "Religious conservatives argue the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Judeo-Christian country." Not just conservatives, but probably a majority of all Americans believe that America is a Christian nation.

So by what right does Obama announce that "we" do not consider ourselves a Christian nation?

What is the source of American ideals and values, according to America's Founders?
Predictably, Obama's remarks have enraged conservative talking heads. But Obama's observations have ample precedent in American diplomacy and constitutional thought. The most striking is the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1797. Article 11 states: "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility [sic], of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never have entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." "Ample precedent" means "lots of" precedents.
This Treaty is not a "precedent."
The Dred Scott decision is no longer a "precedent." It was overturned.
So was this provision of the Treaty of Tripoli. It never was in all copies of the Treaty, and the very next time Congress reviewed the treaty, this line was removed. Here's a parallel comparison. Read more about the history of this odd statement.
Conservatives who claim that the U.S. is a "Christian nation" sometimes dismiss the Treaty of Tripoli because it was authored by the U.S. diplomat Joel Barlow, an Enlightenment freethinker. Well, then, how about the tenth president, John Tyler, in an 1843 letter: "The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent -- that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgment. The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. The Mohammedan, if he will to come among us would have the privilege guaranteed to him by the constitution to worship according to the Koran; and the East Indian might erect a shrine to Brahma, if it so pleased him. Such is the spirit of toleration inculcated by our political Institutions." A "religious establishment" meant a national church or denomination. It meant everyone would be required -- as in England -- to be a member of the Church of England. It meant that one denomination would receive taxes, even from members of other denominations. But in this Christian nation, Baptists can build their churches, Jews can build synagogues, and Muslims can build their mosques. That's the way things are done in a Christian nation. Christians don't impose religion by the barrel of a government gun.

President Tyler believed that America was a Christian nation:

When a Christian people feel themselves to be overtaken by a great public calamity, it becomes them to humble themselves under the dispensation of Divine Providence, to recognize His righteous government over the children of men, to acknowledge His goodness in time past, as well as their own unworthiness, and to supplicate His merciful protection for the future.
       The death of William Henry Harrison, late President of the United States, so soon after his elevation to that high office, is a bereavement peculiarly calculated to be regarded as a heavy affliction and to impress all minds with a sense of the uncertainty of human things and of the dependence of nations, as well as individuals, upon our Heavenly Parent.
       I have thought, therefore, that I should be acting in conformity with the general expectation and feelings of the community in recommending, as I now do, to the people of the United States of every religious denomination that, according to their several modes and forms of worship, they observe a day of fasting and prayer by such religious services as may be suitable on the occasion; and I recommend Friday, the 14th day of May next, for that purpose, to the end that on that day we may all with one accord join in humble and reverential approach to Him in whose hands we are, invoking Him to inspire us with a proper spirit and temper of heart and mind under these frowns of His providence and still to bestow His gracious benedictions upon our Government and our country.
JOHN TYLER.
Proclamation, April 13, 1841

President Tyler began his Second Annual Message, December 6, 1842 with these words:

We have continued reason to express our profound gratitude to the Great Creator of All Things for numberless benefits conferred upon us as a people.
The health of the country, with partial exceptions, has for the past year been well preserved, and under their free and wise institutions the United States are rapidly advancing toward the consummation of the high destiny which an overruling Providence seems to have marked out for them.
Such are the circumstances under which you now assemble in your respective chambers and which should lead us to unite in praise and thanksgiving to that great Being who made us and who preserves us as a nation.

In a Special Message to the House of Representatives on February 27, 1843, President Tyler spoke of the United States as one of the "Christian powers."

He began his Fourth Annual Message of December 3, 1844 by saying,

"We have continued cause for expressing our gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for the benefits and blessings which our country, under His kind providence, has enjoyed during the past year.
"Thus it is that in the progress of time the inestimable principles of civil liberty will be enjoyed by millions yet unborn and the great benefits of our system of government be extended to now distant and uninhabited regions. In view of the vast wilderness yet to be reclaimed, we may well invite the lover of freedom of every land to take up his abode among us and assist us in the great work of advancing the standard of civilization and giving a wider spread to the arts and refinements of cultivated life. Our prayers should evermore be offered up to the Father of the Universe for His wisdom to direct us in the path of our duty so as to enable us to consummate these high purposes."

He continued this message:

Since your last session Mexico has threatened to renew the war, and has either made or proposes to make formidable preparations for invading Texas. She has issued decrees and proclamations, preparatory to the commencement of hostilities, full of threats revolting to humanity, and which if carried into effect would arouse the attention of all Christendom.

and continued, saying,

The question of peace or war between the United States and Great Britain is a question of the deepest interest, not only to themselves, but to the civilized world, since it is scarcely possible that a war could exist between them without endangering the peace of Christendom.

In proof that he was no deist, Tyler spoke on numerous occasions of God's supernatural intervention and alteration of the natural course of events:

April 9, 1841 Address Upon Assuming the Office of President of the United States
April 13, 1841 Proclamation
July 1, 1841 Special Message
August 16, 1841 Veto Message
December 7, 1841 First Annual Message
January 19, 1842 Special Message
August 30, 1842 Message to the House of Representatives
December 6, 1842 Second Annual Message
December 29, 1842 Special Message
December 0, 1843 Third Annual Message
April 9, 1844 Special Message
December 3, 1844 Fourth Annual Message

Any objective, unbiased, unprejudiced, neutral observer of the Tyler Administration would conclude that Tyler believed that America is a Christian nation.
Was Tyler too minor a president to be considered an authority on whether the U.S. is a Christian republic or not? Here's George Washington in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island in 1790: "The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy -- a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support ... May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants -- while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." More of George Washington on Micah's Vine & Fig Tree prophecy. A few months after the fateful winter at Valley Forge, Washington commended his troops for their courage and patriotism and then reminded them:

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian. The signal instances of providential goodness which we have experienced, and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good
(The Writings of George Washington, JC Fitzpatrick, ed., Wash. DC: US Govt Printing Office, 1932) XI:342-343, General Orders of 5/2/1778)

In vol. 15, p.55 we read Washington telling the Delaware Indian Chiefs,

You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention."
(from speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs on May 12, 1779.

Christians don't pass laws against Jews building synagogues. George Washington believed that America was a Christian nation.
Eloquent as he is, Barack Obama could not have put it better.  
Contrast this with John McCain's interview with Beliefnet during the 2008 presidential campaign: "But I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'" Asked whether this would rule out a Muslim candidate for the presidency, McCain answered, "But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles ... personally, I prefer someone who I know has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is a Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would -- I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead." I see no contrast.

In his Farewell Address, Washington reminded the nation:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports.—In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. —The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.—A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.—Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion.—Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure—reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.—

Note: Washington is not speaking of "private" morality and religion. He says "the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice" are based on the true religion.
Conservatives who, like McCain, assert that the U.S. is in some sense a Christian or Judeo-Christian nation tend to make one of four arguments. The first is anthropological: The majority of Americans describe themselves as Christians, even though the number of voters who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated has grown from 5.3 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008. But the ratio of Christians to non-Christians in American society as a whole is irrelevant to the question of whether American government is Christian. I can't think of a single person who says "America is a Christian nation" BECAUSE most people are Christian. I think this is just a lie, and the author of this article knows this. Typical "straw man" argument. Pretend to refute a claim by giving the worst possible reason for the claim, even if nobody gives that reason in support of the claim. This is an unethical debate tactic. Justice David Brewer, author of the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion declaring that America is a Christian nation, wrote:
We classify nations in various ways as, for instance, by their form of government. One is a kingdom, another an empire, and still another a republic. Also by race. Great Britain is an Anglo-Saxon nation, France a Gallic, Germany a Teutonic, Russia a Slav. And still again by Religion. One is a Mohammedan nation, others are heathen, and still others are Christian nations.

This republic is classified among the Christian nations of the world. It was formally declared by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of Holy Trinity Church vs. United States, 143 U.S. 471, that court, after mentioning various circumstances, added "these and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."

But in what sense can it be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or that people are in any matter compelled to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all of its citizens are either in fact or name Christian. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within our borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all.

"Organic utterances" refers to provisions of constitutions and other founding charters that make America legally, officially, publicly, a Christian nation.
The second argument is that the constitution itself is somehow Christian in character. On that point, candidate McCain said: "I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation." Is McCain right? Is the U.S. a Christian republic in the sense that according to their constitutions Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are all now officially Islamic republics? Yes. Compare the two legal foundations here.
What does the Constitution say? Article VI states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in the United States." A "religious test" means loyalty to a particular religious denomination. Loyalty to the King of England also meant loyalty to the head of the Church of England. Baptists demanded no federal religious test, so that they would not be required to be loyal to the Presbyterian church. This is a Christian provision, as can be seen by comparing similar provisions in the various state constitutions written at about the same time.
Then there is the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... " It was Christians who demanded the First Amendment as a guarantee that the newly-created federal government would not interfere with the 13 original Christian Theocracies.
True, over the years since the founding, Christian nationalists have won a few victories -- inserting "In God We Trust" on our money during the Civil War in 1863, adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance during the Cold War in 1954. And there are legislative and military chaplains and ceremonial days of thanksgiving. But these are pretty feeble foundations on which to claim that the U.S. is a Christian republic. "In God We Trust"

A Nation "Under God"

America's Founders proclaim a day of Thanksgiving for the creation of a Christian nation.

These are strong, not feeble, foundations. The claim that the U.S. is a Christian Republic has a heck of a lot more foundation than the claim that the U.S. was intended by her Founders to be an atheistic democracy, which is what the author of the article at left claims.
("Judeo-Christian" is a weaselly term used by Christian nationalists to avoid offending Jews; it should be translated as "Christian.") True enough. Jews have freedom in a Christian nation, but America owes little if anything to Judaism.
The third argument holds that while the U.S. government itself may not be formally Christian, the Lockean natural rights theory on which American republicanism rests is supported, in its turn, by Christian theology. Jefferson summarized Lockean natural rights liberalism in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights … that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …" Many conservatives assert that to be a good Lockean natural nights liberal, one must believe that the Creator who is endowing these rights is the personal God of the Abrahamic religions. Find out more about John Locke, Christian statesman.
This conflation of Christianity and natural rights liberalism helps to explain one of John McCain's more muddled answers in his Beliefnet interview: "[The] United States of America was founded on the values of Judeo-Christian values [sic], which were translated by our founding fathers which is basically the rights of human dignity and human rights." The same idea lies behind then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's statement to religious broadcasters: "Civilized individuals, Christians, Jews and Muslims" -- sorry, Hindus and Buddhists! -- "all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator." Buddhism is a non-theistic religion. No "Creator" endowed human beings with rights in the religion of Buddhism. Or Hinduism. So, yes, sorry, Hindus and Buddhists, but America's Founding Documents "discriminate" against your religions.
In reality, neither Jewish nor Christian traditions know anything of the ideas of natural rights and social contract found in Hobbes, Gassendi and Locke. That's because those ideas were inspired by themes found in non-Christian Greek and Roman philosophy. Ideas of the social contract were anticipated in the fourth and fifth centuries BC by the sophists Glaucon and Lycophron, according to Plato and Aristotle, and by Epicurus, who banished divine activity from a universe explained by natural forces and taught that justice is an agreement among people neither to harm nor be harmed. The idea that all human beings are equal by nature also comes from the Greek sophists and was planted by the Roman jurist Ulpian in Roman law: "quod ad ius naturale attinet, omnes homines aequales sunt" -- according to the law of nature, all human beings are equal. "Consent of the Governed" is a Christian idea. It may be possible that the author of the Salon article at left did not misread the secondary sources he relies upon, and some Greeks actually had ideas about natural law and "consent of the governed that were shadows of what Christianity and the Founding Fathers taught. But America's Founders didn't base America on what the Greeks taught. Our ideals did not come from Athens or Rome.
Desperate to obscure the actual intellectual roots of the Declaration of Independence in Greek philosophy and Roman law, Christian apologists have sought to identify the "Creator" who endows everyone with unalienable rights with the revealed, personal God of Moses and Jesus. But a few sentences earlier, the Declaration refers to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Adherents of natural rights liberalism often have dropped "Nature's God" and relied solely on "Nature" as the source of natural rights.

"The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" means the Christian Scriptures.
In any event, in order to be a good American citizen one need not subscribe to Lockean liberalism. Jefferson, a Lockean liberal himself, did not impose any philosophical or religious test on good citizenship. In his "Notes on the State of Virginia," he wrote: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Jefferson was wrong, and the vast majority of America's Founders did not agree with him on this point. In the long run, the claim that there are 20 gods or no God does hurt us. Atheist and polytheist societies have crumbled. Western Civilization is Christian Civilization. Remove Christianity and you ultimately remove civilization. The Poverty and mass death that characterize atheist and pagan nations does more than just pick our pockets.
The fourth and final argument made in favor of a "Christian America" by religious conservatives is the best-grounded in history but also the weakest. They point out that American leaders from the founders to the present have seen a role for otherwise privatized and personal religion in turning out moral, law-abiding citizens. As George Washington wrote in his 1796 Farewell Address:  
"Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them." As we saw above, Washington was talking about our public institutions, not "privatized" sentiments. This is either an ignorant or an unethical distortion of what Washington said.
In Washington's day, it may have been reasonable for the elite to worry that only fear of hellfire kept the masses from running amok, but in the 21st century it is clear that democracy as a form of government does not require citizens who believe in supernatural religion. Most of the world's stable democracies are in Europe, where the population is largely post-Christian and secular, and in East Asian countries like Japan where the "Judeo-Christian tradition" has never been part of the majority culture. America is not a democracy.

 

So-called "stable" European democracies are going to be Islamic Theocracies in 30 years. See if that "picks your pocket."
The idea that religion is important because it educates democratic citizens in morality is actually quite demeaning to religion. It imposes a political test on religion, as it were -- religions are not true or false, but merely useful or dangerous, when it comes to encouraging the civic virtues that are desirable in citizens of a constitutional, democratic republic. Washington's instrumental view of religion as a kind of prop was agreeable to another two-term American president more than a century and a half later. "[O]ur form of government has no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith," said Dwight Eisenhower, "and I don't care what it is." And it's indistinguishable from Edward Gibbon's description of Roman religion in his famous multi-volume "Decline and Fall": "The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord." It doesn't demean my religion for some secular politician to recognize the pragmatic advantages of the true religion over false religions. It's too bad they don't have true faith in the true religion, but their cynical faithlessness does not demean true religion.
President Obama, then, is right. The American republic, as distinct from the American population, is not post-Christian because it was never Christian. In the president's words: "We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." And for that we should thank the gods. All 20 of them. Obama is wrong, and the author of that article doesn't know what he's talking about. For further refutation of Obama's claim that America is not a Christian nation, click here.

-- By Michael Lind