Let us be perfectly clear: We are not now, nor have we ever been, a Christian nation. Our founding fathers explicitly and clearly excluded any reference to "God" or "the Almighty" or any euphemism for a higher power in the Constitution. Not one time is the word "god" mentioned in our founding document. Not one time. The facts of our history are easy enough to verify. Anybody who ignorantly insists that our nation is founded on Christian ideals need only look at the four most important documents from our early history -- the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution -- to disprove that ridiculous religious bias.
All four documents unambiguously prove our secular origins. The most important assertion in this document is that "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Note that the power of government is derived not from any god but from the people. No appeal is made in this document to a god for authority of any kind. In no case are any powers given to religion in the affairs of man.
Remember, too, that this document was not written to form or found a government but was stating intent in a way that was meant to appeal to an audience with European sensibilities. Only four times is there any reference at all to higher powers -- "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," "Supreme Judge of the world," "their Creator," and "divine Providence" -- and in all four cases the references to a higher power appeal to the idea of inherent human dignity, never implying a role for a god in government.
Throughout the entire document, in all 13 articles, the only reference to anything remotely relating to a god is a term used one time, "Great Governor of the World," and even then only in the context of general introduction, like "Ladies and gentlemen, members of the court The authors gave no power or authority to religion. And this document is our first glimpse into the separation of church and state, because just as the Articles of Confederation give no authority to religion in civil matters, so too does the document deny any authority of government in matters of faith.
This one is easy, because the Constitution of the United States of America makes zero reference to a god or Christianity. The only reference to religion, found in Article VI, is a negative one: "29617o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
While Thomas Jefferson was the genius behind the Declaration of Independence, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison publishing under the pseudonym "Publius" were the brains providing the intellectual foundation of our Constitution. And what brilliance they brought to the task. The first time I picked up the Federalist Papers, I intended to scan the book briefly and then move on to more interesting pursuits.
This matters today because: 1 as purveyors of truth, Christians damage their witness by promoting historical inaccuracies. Many conflate what is truly biblical with American tradition. It directs efforts toward correcting the political system rather than redeeming lost people. Proper use and interpretation of the Bible is viewed as less important than how many times it is quoted. On the other hand, they were not rank secularists who intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state.
They were religious men who wanted religion — but not necessarily Christianity — to have significant influence in the public square. The Faith of the Founding Fathers. This belief in reason over dogma helped guide the founders toward a system of government that respected faiths like Christianity, while purposely isolating both from encroaching on one another so as not to dilute the overall purpose and objectives of either. James Madison, for instance, was vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs.
In his first term as president, Thomas Jefferson declared his firm belief in the separation of church and state in a letter to the Danbury, Conn.
Washington read it and approved it, although it was not ratified by the senate until John Adams had become president. Finally, and most obviously, if the founding fathers intended to include Jesus, the Bible, or other particular aspects of the Christian faith in the founding of our nation, they would have expressly done so.
However, the two references to religion that are in the Constitution contain exclusionary language. According to this Orwellian revision, the Founding Fathers were devout Christians who envisioned a Christian nation. Not true. The early presidents and patriots were generally deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the relevance of the Bible. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
Although he often referred to Providence as an impersonal force, remote and abstract, he never declared himself to be a Christian, either in contemporary reports or his voluminous correspondence.
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