Many Americans think and claim that the United States is a "Christian Nation" or at least founded on Christian theology. Evidence against this claim includes the fact that the simple term "God" is not found in any of the foundational documents which include the Declaration, the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights.  The term "Creator" has a deist connotation and was not in the original draft. "Nature's God" also is deist in meaning; the writers could have used "God, Father, God Almighty, Heavenly Father, Jesus", or any number of  specific theistic terms. They chose their deist terms with great purpose, to create a secular government not affiliated with any particular religion or faith.

 

In addition, "In God We Trust" was first placed on coins during the Civil War in 1863 and on paper money during the Cold War in 1956 when it was thought the patriotic thing to do. "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance also only during the Cold War, in 1954. Our Founding Fathers would never have approved this change from the previous and original 1782 Act of Congress motto "From many, one" (E Pluribus Unum).

 

The Religious Test Clause bans any religious requirement for office or appointment. The Oath and Affirmation Clause requires all officers at the federal and state levels to take a vow of support of the Cosnstitution, not scripture or God and it permits one to swear a religious oath OR a secular pledge of affirmation and loyalty. The very first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights is freedom of religion and later the Supreme Court extended the principle to states, and then it was appropriately applied to all government offices; the separation of church and state is a cornerstone of our democracy - and a reason for our success as a country. Our Founding Fathers, whatever their personal beliefs, created a government that was to be secular and not founded on any particular religious belief system.

 

Is America a Christian nation? What Both Left and Right Get It Wrong

 

Is America a "Christian" Nation?

 

America is not a Christian Nation

 

The Government of the United States is not... founded on the Christian Religion

 

No, America is NOT a Christian Nation

 

This is NOT a Christian nation!

 

America is not a Christian Nation

 

Our Founding Fathers were not Christians

 

Why U.S. is not a Christian Nation

 

Is America A Christian Nation? (2011)

 

Understanding the "Christian Nation" Myth

Steven Green, Cardozo Law Review (2010)

 

First Penny 1792 had "Liberty Parent of Science & Industry"  Link

 

Not a Christian Nation: The Religious were upset with the founders:  Link

 

 

~  ~  ~

 

 

John Adams (1735-1826)

2nd President of the United States

 

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion ...."Article 11, Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and theBey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary. Signed in 1796 under George Washington’s second term, ratified by unanimous Senate vote, and signed into law by Adams June 10, 1797

 

Thomas Jefferson's report after meeting with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, Tripoli's envoy to London in 1786. >> Diplomatic Correspondance of the United States of America, Archile  LINK

 

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that has ever existed?"

Letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

 

"Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents, wave succeeding wave in the Catholic church, from the Council of Nice, and long before, to this day."

To Jefferson, Dec. 3, 1813

 

George Washington

1st President of the United States

 

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy".

 

"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of society."

 

Ethan Allen (1737-1789)

American Officer in the Revolutionary War

 

"I have generally been dominated a Deist, the reality of which I neverdisputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptismmakes me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not strictly speaking, whether I am one or not."

Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, 1784, Bennington, Vt. ; Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, N.Y.C.

 

"There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world a law whichmakes it blasphemy to deny or doubt inspiration of all the books of the Old and New testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries in Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself, it is punished by boring through the tongue with a hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most states, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all blasphemers of any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free

inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books."

Ethan Allen to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825

 

"In those parts of the world where learning and science has prevailed, miracles ceased; but in those parts that are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue."

Ibid., p. 265

 

"That tradition has had a powerful influence on the human mind is universally admitted, even by those are governed by it in the articles of discipline of their faith; for though they are blind to their own superstition, yet they can perceive and despise it in others. Protestants readily discern and expose the weak side of Popery, and papists are as ready and acute in discovering the errors of heretics."

Ibid., p 337

 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

American scientist, diplomat, writer

 

"The way to see by Faith, is to shut the eye of Reason."

Poor Richard, 1758

 

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."

Ibid.

 

"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon hearing ... of making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing Deity."

Works, Vol. VII p.75.

 

"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects of Christianity, we shall find few that have not in turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish church, but practiced it on the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice both here (England) and in New England."

Ibid.

 

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

~Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

 

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

American poet, essayist, novelist

 

"The Pope put his foot on the neck of kings, but Calvin and his cohorts crushed the whole human race under their heels in the name of the Lord of Hosts.

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (Jr.) (1841-1935)

U.S. Supreme Court Justice

 

"I can't help an occasional semi-shudder as I remember that millions of intelligent men think that I am barred from the face of God unless I change. But how can one pretend to believe what seems childish and devoid alike of historical and rational foundations."

Memorial Day Address, 1884

 

 

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