The "Christian Nation" Trope: A Mix of Fact and Fantasy
Dean
America was neither founded as a "Christian nation" nor founded by a group of secular humanists or deists. Not a single one of our first five Presidents was even a devout Christian, let alone a Biblical Fundamentalist. The real truth is handled pretty well in this excellent book review. Looks like something more people should read to me, on both left and right. Facts have an inconvenient way of getting in the way of far left AND far right ideology.
Given the numerous citations of Bible and saints in their work, it's probably fair to say their work was informed by Christian-derived values and philosophy -- but not by Christian dogma.
It was the pact of the "Haudenosaunee" (People of the Longhouse) also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, or the League of Peace and Power, and made up of the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and the Seneca, and later the Tuscarora tribes. The Haudenosaunee's Great Law of Peace brought to a halt decades of warfare between the the tribes and probably created the world's first democratic government.
Under this "Great Law of Peace" the Iroquois enjoyed peace, freedom, woman's rights and suffrage under a representative government known as the Grand Council. Each tribe sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole nation. The number of chiefs to this day has never changed. From the beginning this system of Iroquois government has had a Judicial, Executive and legislative elements.
To those who say that we "Americanized" the Indians I say that the opposite is just as true, and maybe more so.
Ryan
the Haudenosaunee are very interesting to me (grew up in seneca territory), and the great peacemaker and great law of peace in general. There is a stub about it in wikipedia, but that's about it. However, even using the revised date of ~1100s for the formation of the confederacy, I think the greeks still have them beat.
But since their traditional history is probably 98% oral, it’s hard for me to accept it as anything more than a convenient myth. Maybe I just lost the faith…..
About 80-100 years before the founding of the US, Pennsylvania was founded with the express, written intent of creating a colony where diversity of religion wasn’t just an acceptable mode of thought, but was an overriding, guiding principle. Differing religious philosophies weren’t just tolerated; they were actively sought out and encouraged. Now, it might be debatable whether that was “goal number one”, but it is clear it was a stated objective.
I’m only a casual student of history, but I can’t think of an example of a government before or since who put such emphasis on the desirability of religious diversity.
The US founders had the benefit of observing the outcome of a few generations of such religious freedom and diversity.
The encouragement of religious diversity, (or not)isn’t specifically spelled out in the US Constitution. But as a firm believer in the idea that “those rights not specifically granted to the government remain with the people”, I suspect the founders saw no need to even bother discussing such things.
I couldn't find any jewish signers, so they must be listed in the question marks. See the link
There were a couple of real Catholics in the bunch. Charles Carroll of Carrolton was the last of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence to die after Adams and Jefferson. And his cousin, Daniel Carroll was signatory to the US Constitution. Daniel's brother, John Carroll became the first archbishop of the first Catholic diocese in USA. (Baltimore).
Elisha: Yes, that would be a fair statement. An even fairer statement would be that they were an outgrowth of what could be called Christendom, with strong influence from broad Christian values (much of it not particularly Fundamentalist), and also on classical thinking of antiquity, paganism to a considerable degree, and many other ideas common to Freemasonry and other not particularly "Christian" sources per se.
In the late 1700s the Senate ratified a treaty that stated in no uncertain terms that the United States was emphatically *NOT* a Christian nation. The populist flimflam that the entire United States system was based deeply on fundamentalist Christian ideas is simply false on its face; not only were very few of the well-known Founders that sort of person theologically, but many were practically the opposite.
"Christianity" is one of the most diverse religions in the world anyway; the difference between, say, an Anglican, an Orthodox, a Baptist, and Methodist are quite huge.
Government repression of religion was a major impetus for populating the "new world" with Europeans. It wasn't the only reason for immigration, but it was major. After the rebellion and before the U.S. Constitution, Shay's rebellion forced people to see a need for a central government with real -- and limited -- power. The Bill of Rights was a compromise designed specifically and explicitly to protect people from government, with government restricted from preventing (amoong other items) religous expression. Freedom to express an individual's choice in religon and religous activities was important since long before the war of separation, and has been really warped since the 1950's to the point where government restricts religous expression in the name of not restricting religous expression.
When I (and MANY others) say the nation was founded on Christian principles, we do not mean modern fundamentalism. We are saying that the government actions related to religion not only would not be recognized by the framers of the Constitution, but actually go directly against the design of the Constitution.
I'm not an expert on the subject, but there is significantly more than oral tradition in the iroquois confederacy. wampum belts are a form of written record (not currency as is commonly believed), but i don't know how far back those stretch.
I followed the wampum thing for a while, but I’m a little out of date. I agree that it is possible, and even likely, that wampum belts are a form of written communication. But as far as I know, no “key” has ever been found that would allow accurate interpretation.
Current interpretation is basically based on statements like “My grandfather told me that his grandfather told him this line means this, and that line means that….”
In other words, no one knows for sure what they really say, if anything. Maybe someday we’ll crack the code, but till then, I don’t consider them evidence of anything “real”. Again, I won’t knock other’s beliefs, especially if they consider them to be sacred. But it’s not significant evidence, IMO.
zach,
I followed the wampum thing for a while, but I’m a little out of date. I agree that it is possible, and even likely, that wampum belts are a form of written communication. But as far as I know, no “key” has ever been found that would allow accurate interpretation.
Current interpretation is basically based on statements like “My grandfather told me that his grandfather told him this line means this, and that line means that….”
In other words, no one knows for sure what they really say, if anything. Maybe someday we’ll crack the code, but till then, I don’t consider them evidence of anything “real”. Again, I won’t knock other’s beliefs, especially if they consider them to be sacred. But it’s not significant evidence, IMO.
Compared to wampum, the provenance of the Christian Bible is several orders of magnitude greater. And the Bible’s accuracy and meaning is far from certain, and open to debate.
As I’m sure you would agree.....
Ryan
Jaymaster,
Actually it may have been 100% oral, however it doesn't matter whether it had been passed down for generations, or was produced by that generation. The point I am making is that the Iroquois Confederacy had a constitution of sorts at the time, and that it had a profound influence on the forefathers of our country. You can see in their writings.
The Iroquois leaders during that time strongly urged the colonists to form a federation similar to theirs. In fact an Onondaga chief told the governors that their colonies "would never amount to much" if they did not unite as the Haudenosaunee had done.
Through the influence of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other framers many of those traditions were incorporated into the Articles of Confederation. Quite possibly even our separations of powers which the six Iroquois Nations had at the time.
BTW, before the revolution the term "Americans" actually meant "Indians." Most European settlers of the colonies considered themselves subjects of the British Crown.
That's doubtful. Paine was a radical and his views on religion were probably more radical than those of his contemporaries. What we actually know of the Founding Fathers is limited to what they wrote and what was written about them. We'll never know what they believed privately and speculating about it is a fanciful exercise. The idea that the most radical strain of thought was the prevalent one sounds wrong to me.
Dean wrote:
If Dean would amend that to “classical thinking of antiquity as dragged through Christianity and Islam”, I'd agree with it. Virtually every single thing that we know about classical antiquity and the paganism of Greece and Rome we know because the writings were preserved by Christian and Muslim scholars. We know with a fair degree of certitude that lots of stuff existed that hasn't come down to us because a) we don't have it and b) early Christian fathers described and quoted it disapprovingly. It's obvious to me that the information was filtered. Not everything was preserved—only the things that Christians and Muslims liked. approved of, and found useful. The same is true of Hebrew Bible and New Testament stuff, BTW. What's come down to us is just the tip of the iceberg i.e. the canonical works. But never forget that there was an iceberg and you can't take the pulse of pagan or Christian thought without having some idea of what the iceberg itself was like.
That's probably exactly right. I think the Founding Fathers thought of government as a thoroughly secular institution and the country as having a lot of very highly religious people in it. So, for example, Thomas Jefferson (who was clearly not religious in a conventional way) had lots of religious books in his library as well as a translation of the Qur'an and probably took Christianity for granted. That's what I think the prevailing position of the Founding Fathers was.
The Swiss Articles of Confederacy predate the Constitution, too, (my twelve-times great-grandfather was the primary author) as well as Magna Carta, the Peace of Westphalia, and a Dutch constitution that's no longer in force as well as all sorts of other treaties and constitutions. The Founding Fathers were aware of these and they all probably influenced our Constitution (along with heavy doses of Locke, Hume, and Hobbs).
Another source of thought was the writings of the Italian humanists. They, along with Burkean conservatism, are the real source of what we think of as classical liberalism. Since they were, by and large, Catholics, the present prevailing narrative tends to understate their influence.
Radicalism, as exemplified by Rousseau, on the other hand, is the source material for socialism and communism.
The people who wrote the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were not silent on this subject. They were very clear that their fundamental goal is creating a secular government was to make it as difficult as possible for the United States to adopt the English system of a "state religion." When King Henry the Eighth decided he wanted a divorce and the Pope warned him that there would be sanctions levied on England from the Catholic Church, Henry simply said "fine, we'll just secede from the Catholic Church then" and set up the "Church of England" for that purpose. Over time the fact that England had designated a particular church as a "state religion" allowed for a growing pattern of discrimination and persecution of other religions. Many of the early settlers in the U.S. came here to avoid such persecution. This was well documented in their writings.
There was also a philosophical reason for the religious underpinnings of the Constitution. The founding fathers had a deep conviction that human rights were not determined arbitrarily by fallible kings. The desire to get away from the traditional government where kings had absolute rule was a major impetus for the U.S. Revolution. In attempting to find a way to replace that arbitrary ability of kings with a higher authority, they turned to the concept of a divine source for the designation of the rights of human beings. This is codified in the Declaration of Independence when Jefferson justifies the rebellion against the King by saying it is the RESPONSIBILITY of human governments to protect the DIVINELY ENDOWED rights of human beings.
This is no small thing. It fundamentally puts the divine endowment of rights to human beings as the FUNDAMENTAL MORAL AUTHORITY of the U.S. Government.
So when people say that our founding fathers intended to put a "wall of separation" between church and state and interpret that to mean that they intended for no connection between religious belief and government policy they are not just wrong, they are contradicting the fundamental argument that was put forth for the U.S. to revolt and form a new government.
But the historical, practical and semantic obviousness of this argument is lost on those with an agenda to remove all taint of religion from the government. They will continue to cherry-pick quotes and mis-interpret portions of the Constitution to support their perspective.
The argument Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Washington made to form a new country founded on human liberty was made from a fundamentally Christian perspective, using the basic concept of a single divine supreme being endowing human beings with basic rights as their argument that rights could not be assigned (and therefore taken away) by any government or king. Anyone who does not understand this is not worth arguing with.
Now, they lived in a different time. If someone wants to argue that basing human rights on divine endowment is not appropriate in 2007, that's fine. I might even agree with them. But stop trying to do that by engaging in historical revisionism. Craft your argument which describes where those rights come from, and then propose an amendment or a rewriting of the constitution to codify it.
But stop this nonsense of rewriting history. It's downright asinine.
Paine may have been more openly radical than others in regards to religion (and other ideas as well), but keep in mind the rabble-rousing pamphleteer is arguably the man most responsible for inciting the American Revolution; his was no unserious fringe movement. And it was a cadre of such liberal radicals that founded this nation; it was a revolution after all.
We'll never know what they believed privately and speculating about it is a fanciful exercise.
We can infer from their actions, and the exercise is useful in understanding the motivations of our constitutional forebears. You can tell from their writing that even those Founders who did not openly embrace Deism did generally embrace its definitive precept: the untenability of mystically received wisdom, which they rejected as the basis for a system of government. And as Dean points out, they eventually said explicitly America was not a Christian nation.
Not quite. Here's the actual language of the Treaty of Tripoli (which is what is being referred to):
Note: government not country. I continue to believe that my formulation is the correct one: while the government was to be strictly secular the country had quite a few religious people in it. That at the time of the founding the country was predominantly Christian is simply a matter of fact.
George Mason, Sam Adams, John Carroll, and John Hancock were religious in quite a conventional manner for the time. Many of the Founding Fathers were. And I think that all of the Founders assumed that the country would continue to be informed by Christian values.
Whether or not some of the founding fathers felt that it was untenable for a system of government to be based on "mystically received wisdom", they could not come up with a better alternative than to base it on "divine endowment" of human rights. Which, to us, is not that far removed from "mystically received wisdom" but to them was probably a major break from paradigms that they lived within.
Jefferson and his peers were no fools. The words they wrote were not casually chosen, and were not "marketing fluff." They were dead serious when they said that they were pledging their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor." When people ignore the most famous and obvious writings of our founders in order to advance their own agenda by claiming that it is the same agenda that the founders had, it bugs the heck out of me.
They needed to base the moral authority of the government on something. They chose the divine endowment of human rights by a single divine being as that "something." They were so sure of this that they called it "self-evident". To now argue that the men who wrote and signed this document, knowing they were betting their lives on it (and many lost those lives for it) did not really "mean" what it said is asinine. Of course they meant it.
This is why I try to tell people that to claim the U.S. Government is completely divorced from religion is a profoundly ignorant statement.
If we want to completely divorce government and religion, we need some other mechanism to provide the moral authority of the U.S. Government. Of course we can just say "because we say so" but that is exactly the argument that was used to justify the government of kings and despots.
So if divine endowment of rights to human beings is NOT the fundamental basis for the authority of the U.S. Government, what IS that basis?
And if you can define it, then get it into an amendment or rewrite the Constitution to include it, and then we can say the Constitution is a truly secular document with no connection to religion. Well, so long as all OTHER vestiges of religious inspiration are also hunted for and rooted out. This is just the most obvious one.
What that says is that the government of the united states does was not founded on the Christian religion. It does NOT say that the government of the united sates was not founded on divine precepts. In other words, this treaty does not revoke the statement in the Declaration of Independence that the Government gains its authority by virtue of protecting divinely endowed rights.
In other words, it does not divorce the U.S. Government from "religion" it simply says that the government is not a "Christian" one.
I've got a bit more recent blood than you [Mohawk] and maybe therefore better recollection in my family line.
The wampum thing: Of course it's a form of communication. In the same way the Bayeux Tapestry commemorated the invasion of England in 1066, wampum records events or agreements, or is sent as a notice in some cases.
A lot of it is culture-bound. A white wampum string on a short rod sent to you via messenger, for example, can serve a similar function to a church bell pealing for a particularly important mass. If you were at war, carrying a wampum to your enemies might signal a parley [of course, you still might be killed, but thats another thing entirely].
So there is a code of sorts, only some of it isn't consistent from tribe to tribe.
We've a prejudice against oral traditions, considering them to be inaccurate, mainly through unfamiliarity with them and familiarity with our own failings to remember speech accurately. It might behoove one to consider that oral traditions aren't inherently less reliable, just different. Ask Ron or naftali about that, maybe, as Jewish traditions also have a large oral component.
while the government was to be strictly secular the country had quite a few religious people in it. That at the time of the founding the country was predominantly Christian is simply a matter of fact....And I think that all of the Founders assumed that the country would continue to be informed by Christian values.
I agree on all counts. I'm just arguing that they probably suspected the Bible was not literal truth, but weren't as uncouth as Paine in making the point.
Sean,
"mystically received wisdom", they could not come up with a better alternative than to base it on "divine endowment" of human rights.
Nor did they need to in order to be consistent with Deism. Deism's principal argument is not that divinity does not exist (though some deists believed this), it's that received wisdom should not be trusted.
They don't claim to have been told by God that we are endowed these rights by our Creator, they say "we hold these truths to be self-evident" -- as opposed to divinely revealed.
Not meaning to pick on too small a point, but I think the distinction is between revealed only to the elect (prophets) and revealed to all (and thus self-evident to all). It still requires revelation of sorts. It is actually not too far a diversion from the Christian tradition, which taught the moral law was graven on everyone's heart, but that, except for the pure (i.e. saints), hearts had been were dirtied by original sin. Once the doctrine of original sin is taken away, then we are back to the point at which the moral law is not only written on the heart but self-evident.
By which I mean it's full of flowery language meant to placate the other side, who happened to be worried, a lot, about Christian powers opposing them for religious reasons, no?
All that that language tells us is that the Senate and President were willing to sign on to telling the Barbary Pirates whatever they wanted to hear, and hand over some money, to keep them from attacking American shipping.
It provides zero dispositive information about their actual feelings about religion and government for any other purpose.
(In plain language, treaties, especially treaties with a hostile power that nothing could, at the time, be done to thwart by other means, are full of damned lies, and everyone knows it.
I have no position on the personal beliefs of the founders, as I haven't the time to check all the original sources, and I trust neither side to be scrupulously honest about presenting disconfirming evidence.
I do know that Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli doesn't answer the question, for the stated reasons.)
Treaties may contain outright lies (and they may not), but, unlike the private reflections of the framers and other polititians, they are treated as binding law of the land.
I can't speak for the entire Christian tradition but I think I can state definitively that Roman Catholic teaching has it that all human beings with the exception of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus of Nazareth were “dirtied by original sin”.
There's some evidence that the Eastern Church may once have held that John the Baptist, too, was conceived without sin but I don't think that's the teaching now.
Even if the charge is true – which it is not – the founders were shaping and governing a Christian nation. Ben Franklyn was but a step away from Jonathan Edwards, the New England divine who was called by the foremost English critic of the day, Charles Lamb, the greatest metaphysician of his day. Edwards adopted John Locke as his guide and mentor.
Even if the charge is true – which it is not – the founders were shaping and governing a Christian nation. Ben Franklyn was but a step away from Jonathan Edwards, the New England divine who was called by the foremost English critic of the day, Charles Lamb, the greatest metaphysician of his day. Edwards adopted John Locke as his guide and mentor.
You are of course correct. I should have been more careful in my wording -- it is more a matter of degree -- the hearts of the holy are less perverted by sin than others. Here is Aquinas (from his Summa Theologica:
Why is this debate so full of equivocation like this. The nation was primarily made up of Christians, yes, and it was part of the Christian world as opposed to, say, the Ottoman. But the founders made it pretty plain that they were NOT making a "Christian" nation, but rather a free one in which people of all faiths were welcome and in which the federal government would not have a say in religion.
Sigivald:"and I trust neither side to be scrupulously honest about presenting disconfirming evidence."
Really? Seems to me that pretty much one side is lying through its teeth, inventing phony quotes that never existed, while the other side is not only more scholarly, but defending a far more moderate and tolerant view in the first place.
DanielH:"It is actually not too far a diversion from the Christian tradition, which taught the moral law was graven on everyone's heart,"
This is the wonderful power of Christianity to constantly reinvent itself, much like Madonna (the singer, not the holy mother). For most of the history of Christianity, the view you describe would have been consider gnosticy heresy, and yet now we discover that it was quite plainly a central teaching after all, just in time to conform to our modern values!
Sean Golden: "Of course we can just say "because we say so" but that is exactly the argument that was used to justify the government of kings and despots. "
Wow, that's pretty amazingly backwards. It was the kings and despots who claimed divine authority. It was the American revolution to say that, no, man using reason could figure out what was right and just. The fact that everyone assumed that the current state of affairs had been created by some being is a philosophical and irrelevant afterthought. That's what "self-evident" means, after all.
You are right, of course. One of the ways in which reforms are made palatable is by presenting them as an interpretation (though often actually a misreading) of tradition. I have little problem with this sort of creative dishonesty, if it actually leads to real progress in the world.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.