U.S. Not a Christian Nation

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted August 2, 2024

It is said that everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Entertaining diverse opinions encourages creative solutions to complex challenges. Dangers arise, however, when stated opinions are based on false data. In today’s political climate careful fact checking is essential in choosing the information on which one bases one’s opinions.

One false, and increasingly pernicious, claim made in far too many opinion pieces is that our country was founded as and intended to be a Christian nation. This is simply not true. The First Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” but for some theocratic advocates this is not enough.

The simplest fact check of this claim is to cite Article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, which was negotiated under President George Washington, ratified by the U.S. Senate, and signed by President John Adams. It begins “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion …”

To state otherwise endangers the civil liberties of any who do not share the particular kind of Christian belief being imposed. But the claim also threatens the Christian faith itself by depicting it to the public as bigoted, abusive, and authoritarian. More and more Americans, especially youth, are rejecting all Christianity because they see it as hateful and oppressive. For the sake of both our Constitutional Democracy and the Gospel of Jesus, the falsehoods about both must stop.

Freedom of Religion in the U.S.

Religion is mentioned twice in the U.S. Constitution.  The final provision of Article VI states, “…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”  The First Amendment, which lists basic rights of the people, begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”  And the Fourteenth Amendment, enacted in 1868 after the end of the Civil War, extended the protections granted under the Constitution to the states.  “… [N]or shall any state … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Like every other right guaranteed in the Constitution, freedom of religion is not absolute.  Over the years courts have been called on to mediate between conflicting claims, and Congress and state legislators have seen the need to define and amplify or restrict the way freedom of religion is applied in specific instances.  In some cases accommodation is made in favor of religion, such as the granting of conscientious objector status to those who do not believe in participating in armed conflict and the exemption of the Amish from the requirement that young people receive formal education to age 16.  In other cases such accommodations have been denied.  Some examples of the latter are the requirement imposed on the Mormons of Utah to abandon the practice of polygamy before Utah was granted statehood, and the jailing of Schwartzentruber Amish elders for failure to comply with septic system ordinances.