Posted on 08/16/2004 3:15:24 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The use of Christian religious references in the recent Presidential Inauguration prayers has served to reopen the debate over religion in America's public life. Professor Alan Dershowitz led off with an article strongly objecting that America wasn't a Christian nation; Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby replied that it certainly was. Who is right? Is America a Christian nation? The answer is both yes and no, depending on what one means by the phrase.
When President Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII in 1947 that "This is a Christian nation.", he certainly did not mean that the United States has an official or legally-preferred religion or church. Nor did he mean to slight adherents of non-Christian religions. But he certainly did mean to recognize that this nation, its institutions and laws, was founded on Biblical principles basic to Christianity and to Judaism from which it flowed. As he told an Attorney General's Conference in 1950, "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and Saint Matthew, from Isaiah and Saint Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State."
Woodrow Wilson, in his election campaign for President, made the same point: "A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.... America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."
The crucial role of Christianity in this nation's formation is not without dispute, although as Revolutionary leader Patrick Henry said: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship."
John Ashcroft was roundly criticized for his "No King but Jesus" speech at Bob Jones University, but he was only reminding us of our colonial and Revolutionary War heritage. In a 1774 report to King George, the Governor of Boston noted: "If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ." The pre-war Colonial Committees of Correspondence soon made this the American motto: "No King but King Jesus." And this sentiment was carried over into the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain ending that war, which begins "In the name of the most Holy and Undivided Trinity... ."
Samuel Adams, who has been called 'The Father of the American Revolution' wrote The Rights of the Colonists in 1772, which stated: "The rights of the colonists as Christians...may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."
It is frequently asserted by those seeking to minimize Christianity's central role in our nation's founding and history, that the founders themselves were not practicing Christians, but rather were Deists or Agnostics. In a 1962
speech to Congress, Senator Robert Byrd noted that of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 29 were Anglicans, 16-18 were Calvinists, and among the rest were 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 lapsed Quaker-sometimes Anglican, and only 1 open Deist — Benjamin Franklin who attended all Christian worships and called for public prayer.
Samuel Chase was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, and, as Chief Justice of the State of Maryland, wrote in 1799 ( Runkel v Winemiller): "By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion... ." (Maryland was one of nine States having established churches supported by taxpayers at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; these churches were gradually disestablished, the last in 1833. The Maryland constitution, typical of many of the States, restricted public office to Christians until, in 1851, it was changed to allow Jews who believed in a future state of rewards and punishments to also serve).
Christianity pervaded the laws and the legal system of the States and the federal government. For example, Judge Nathaniel Freeman in 1802 charged Massachusetts Grand Juries as follows: "The laws of the Christian system, as embraced by the Bible, must be respected as of high authority in all our courts... . [Our government] originating in the voluntary compact of a people who in that very instrument profess the Christian religion, it may be considered, not as republic Rome was, a Pagan, but a Christian republic." In 1811 ( People v Ruggles), New York Chief Justice James Kent held: "'...whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government... .' We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity... . Christianity in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is part and parcel of the law of the land... ." In 1824, the Pennsylvania Supreme court held ( Updegraph v The Commonwealth): Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men... ."
Our sixth President, John Quincy Adams said "From the day of the Declaration...they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct"
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court said: "Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." This was said despite the explicit provision in the federal Constitution forbidding any religious test for federal public office.
Justice Joseph Story, who was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Madison, said in an 1829 speech at Harvard: "There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation." Story wrote several respected treatises or Commentaries on Constitutional Law, in which are found the following: "Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the [First] Amendment...the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."
"The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government".
Justice Story wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1844 ( Vidal v Girard's Executors): "It is also said, and truly that the Christian religion is a part of the common law... ."
In 1854, The United States House of Congress passed a resolution: "The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
During the Civil War, The Senate passed a resolution in 1863: "...devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God...encouraged ...to seek Him for succor according to His appointed way, through Jesus Christ, the Senate ...does hereby request the President ...to set aside a day for national prayer and humiliation." President Lincoln promptly issued a Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, stating "...in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the view of the Senate... ."
The US Supreme Court forbade polygamy in 1890 (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v United States): "It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western world." Two years later, the Court, by Justice Brewer, approvingly cited many of the earlier cases cited above, discussed the history and prominent role of religion in laws, business, customs, and society, and held (Church of the Holy Trinity v United States): "...this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation... . 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... .we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth."
Congress in essence summarized all this preceding history when it passed a Joint Resolution designating 1983 as The Year of the Bible, stating: "Whereas the Bible, the Word of God, has made a unique contribution in shaping the United States as a distinctive and blessed nation and people; ...deeply held religious convictions springing from the Holy scriptures led to the early settlement of our Nation; ...Biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States....designate 1983 as a national 'Year of the Bible in recognition of both the formative influence the Bible has been for our Nation, and our national need to study and apply the teachings of the Holy Scriptures". In 1988, a Joint Resolution of Congress declared that the first Thursday in May of each year is to be a National Day of Prayer.
The historical record from the foregoing quotes from past Presidents, leaders, Congressmen, Jurists and court decisions, seems firmly on the side of those claiming that America was born and maintained as a Christian nation whose laws, morals, and customs derive from Christian (and Jewish) scriptures. The opponents of this view, however, point to the first sentence of Article 11 of the obscure Tripoli Treaty of 1797 as seeming conclusive proof that America was never a Christian nation. Before discussing that critical sentence, the treaty itself should be read in context with all of the Barbary treaties.
The Barbary States on the coast of North Africa, comprising the Moslem States of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, attacked ships in their coastal waters which would not pay tribute, and held captives for ransom. The European nations had treaties with those states, under which, in exchange for tribute, shipping was protected. After the Revolutionary War, our new nation followed the lead of those European nations and entered into similar treaties. Breach of those treaties by the Barbary nations led to the Barbary wars in 1801.
The first treaty was with Morocco in 1786, negotiated by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin. It was written in Arabic with an English translation. The treaty language assumes that the world was divided between Christians and Moors (Moslems), e.g. "If we shall be at war with any Christian Power ... .", "... no Vessel whatever belonging either to Moorish or Christian Powers with whom the United States may be at War ... .", "...be their enemies Moors or Christians." These along with numerous references to God, e.g., "In the name of Almighty God,", "... trusting in God ...", "Grace to the only God", "...the servant of God ...", "... whom God preserve ...". are the only references to religion in this treaty of Peace and Friendship.
The next was the Treaty of Peace and Amity with Algiers in 1795,written in Turkish. The only reference to religion was in Article 17 which gave the Consul of the United States "... Liberty to Exercise his Religion in his own House [and] all Slaves of the Same Religion shall not be impeded in going to Said Consul's house at hours of prayer... ." The Consul's house was to function in lieu of a Christian church.
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation with Tunis in 1797 was in Turkish with a French translation. It begins "God is infinite.", and refers to the Ottoman Emperor "whose realm may God prosper", and to the President of the United States "... the most distinguished among those who profess the religion of the Messiah, ...." Other than a reference to "the Christian year", there is no further mention of religion.
The Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Tripoli was signed in 1796 in Arabic, and was later translated into English by Joel Barlow, United States Consul General at Algiers. Except for the typical phrases "Praise be to God" and "whom God Exalt", there is no reference to religion other than the aforesaid remarkable Article 11, which reads,
"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 of Musselmen, — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan (sic) 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."
The treaty, with this language, was submitted to the Senate by President Adams, and was ratified. Thus, opponents of the 'Christian nation' concept point to this seemingly official repudiation of the very idea. Yet the language is less a repudiation of the role of Christianity in the nation's heritage than a reminder that there was no national established church in the United States as there was in the European states with which Tripoli had previously dealt. This provided reassurance to the Moslem Bey and his religious establishment that religion, in of itself, would not be a basis of hostility between the two nations. None of the other similar treaties with the Barbary states, before or after this treaty, including the replacement treaties signed in 1804 after the Barbary Wars, have any language remotely similar.
And there is a deeper mystery: As noted in a footnote at page 1070 of the authoritative treatise by Bevans, Treaties and other International Agreements of the United States of America, citing treaty scholar Hunter Miller.
"While the Barlow translation quoted above has been printed in all official and unofficial treaty collections since 1797, most extraordinary (and wholly unexplained) is the fact that Article 11 of the Barlow translation, with its famous phrase 'the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.' does not exist at all. There is no Article 11. The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point" (Emphasis added)
In sum, the phrase was no doubt an invention of Mr. Barlow, who inserted it on his own for his own, unknown, purposes. It was duly ratified without question by the United States Senate, which would no doubt be hesitant to object to any phraseology which was represented as desired by the Bey of Tripoli, with whom the United States wanted peaceful relations. It remains a mystery.
Can America still be called a Christian nation? It is certainly a more religiously pluralistic and diverse society than it was during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. There are increasing numbers of non-Christians immigrating to this country, and there has been a rapid rise in adherents to Islam among our population. There are millions of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists, Unitarians, Hindus, Wiccans, Naturists, Agnostics, and Atheists, but Christians comprise roughly 84% of the population. Our constitutional legal system is still based on the Jewish/Christian Bible, not the Koran or other holy book. We still observe Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, as an official holiday. Easter and Christmas still have a special place in the holiday lexicon. The Ten Commandments are still on the wall behind the Supreme Court Justices when they take the bench. Our coins still display the motto "In God We Trust." The US is still firmly part of a Western Civilization fashioned by a Judeo-Christian religious ethic and heritage. Alexis de Tocqueville observed more than a century and a half ago, "There is no country in the world, where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America." That is still true today. We live, not under a Christian government, but in a nation where all are free to practice their particular religion, in accommodation with other religions, and in accordance with the basic principles of the nation, which are Christian in origin. It is in that sense that America may properly be referred to as a Christian nation.
Ah, so the guide should be what a judge BELIEVES,instead of what the document actually SAYS (as long as we agree). I get it now...
You are being hypocritical because what you believe is also what judges say. Of course, if I am wrong, then you would believe that only the Congress is prohibited from passing laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and that states and local communities can pass any law they please regarding religion; which, or course, they did until the corrupt 1947 Hugo Black supreme court usurped that power from them.
Thomas Jefferson understood the original intent of the religious clause, as he explained in this 1808 letter:
"I consider the government of the U S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority."
We are a Christian Nation and we're nothing like the Taliban.
>>There may have been a social expectation of Christianity as normal, but we never had religious police in this country as in an Islamic nation
Of course we do. The religious police are called the Supreme Court which, beginning in 1947, usurped power from the states and the people and made it a crime to practice religion in traditional manners. Until that time the states and the people had control of religion.
I stated my position quite clearly at the start of the thread.
I don't believe the U.S. Constitution imposes a Christian religion, therefore the U.S. is not a Christian nation.
If you want to believe it is a Christian nation because it is based on a Protestant understanding of humanity, perhaps that is a valid position. I don't think that constitutes a Christian nation.
Is this unclear?
Long Cut, you really do need to read the constitution carefully before pretending to be an authority. The 1st Amendment reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". It does not prohibit the establishment of religion; it only prohibits the Congress from respecting the establishment of religion.
Oliver Ellsworth, a Connecticut delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, explained one of the restrictions this way: "A test in favor of any one denomination of Christians would be to the last degree absurd in the United States. If it were in favor of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Quakers, it would incapacitate more than three-fourths of the American citizens for any public office and thus degrade them from the rank of free men."
Justice Joseph Story understood the 1st Amendment exactly the same way, as follows: "The real object of the [first] amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government . . ."
>>Since the document's wording is quite clear, it must be that they were either misinformed, ignorant of the implications of the First, or just hadn't read it.
Long Cut, please read the damn thing.
Such a declaration is in no way a violation of the First Amendment. Also, in no way was the Texas Republican Party advocating a Church of the USA or any other "state religion."
Yes. Next "difficult" question?
I am the only one of us two citing its words. As an example, you wrote:
"It does not prohibit the establishment of religion; it only prohibits the Congress from respecting the establishment of religion."
Emphasis yours. You left out an entire phrase: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Emphasis mine. That means they cannot make a law establishing a religion as a state religion of the US. To deny that is to deny the plain meaning of the words.
Are you now ignoring entire parts of actual Amendments to support your case, in addition to ignoring the document itself?
You cited this:""A test in favor of any one denomination of Christians would be to the last degree absurd in the United States. If it were in favor of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, or Quakers, it would incapacitate more than three-fourths of the American citizens for any public office and thus degrade them from the rank of free men."
Finally, somthing we agree on. If you read this closely, the man is speaking AGAINST a religious establishment, and for the reasons I bolded. It is what I have been saying...establishing any ONE religion as a government-blessed faith degrades those not of that belief system.
As for Justice Story, it is interesting that you have found just ONE justice who agrees with you, and cite him constantly, as if there were never any other learned jurists who disagreed with him. Pretty weak.
Oh, where to begin? First, I do NOT believe that, due to the 14th Amendment, which you can look up. It prohibits the states from violating the Constitution in their own constitutions and laws. It was ratified in 1868, far earlier than your 1947 bugaboo you so love to scapegoat. Prior to that time, any states wishing to join the union had to conform to the Constitution as a condition of entry. See Article IV, section 2. Because of communication, and of plain resistance, some states took their time (decades in some cases), but all eventually conformed.
It seems we have both read the Constitution. The difference is, I see what IS there, and you see what you WISH was there. As for Thomas Jefferson's quote, it quite nicely puts another nail in America as a "Christian Nation", as he quite clearly speaks AGAINST an establishment. His reference to the states was trumped by the 14th Amendment.
You are into the realm of spinning.
Superseded by the Constitution. Interesting historically, but irrelevant to law.
"Say what you will....but if the framers of the constitution had wanted a separation of Christian principals from government, it would have been enforced from July 4th 1776. Not 1962."
Say what you will, but if the framers of the Constitution had wanted a "Christian Nation", they would have written it into the document.
They specifically prohibited it.
Were they too communists?
Perhaps not. However, it gives pause to those of other religions who might otherwise support the Party, and incidentally gives fresh ammunition to our Leftist adversaries in their drive to paint us all as "religious extremists" and "theocrats". In any case, it is reckless demagoguery, and arrogant besides.
Ditto that. I am a Christian but these guys are insulting to me also. All for the 'sin' of not agreeing exactly with their opinion. It's very ugly.
Emphasis mine.
I was unaware that the nine Justices were, on their off-time, kicking the doors down at churches and synagogues and clapping their congregations in irons. I was likewise unaware that people of faith were being cast into prison for practicing their beliefs peacefully. WOW! the media is better at coverupt than I thought!
You learn something new every day.
Phil, you need to get a grip.
III. We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those Parts, to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet Government; DO, by these our Letters Patents, graciously accept of, and agree to, their humble and well-intended Desires;
The Cambridge Agreement - 1629
UPON due consideration of the state of the Plantation now in hand for New England, wherein we, whose names are hereunto subscribed, have engaged ourselves, and having weighed the greatness of the work in regard of the consequence, God's glory and the Church's good; as also in regard of the difficulties and discouragements which in all probabilities must be forecast upon the prosecution of this business; considering withal that this whole adventure grows upon the joint confidence we have in each other's fidelity and resolution herein, so as no man of us would have adventured it without assurance of the rest; now, for the better encouragement of ourselves and others that shall join with us in this action, and to the end that every man may without scruple dispose of his estate and affairs as may best fit his preparation for this voyage; it is fully and faithfully AGREED amongst us, and every one of us doth hereby freely and sincerely promise and bind himself, in the word of a Christian, and in the presence of God, who is the searcher of all hearts, that we will so really endeavour the prosecution of this work, as by God's assistance, we will be ready in our persons, and with such of our several families as are to go with us, and such provision as we are able conveniently to furnish ourselves withal, to embark for the said Plantation by the first of March next, at such port or ports of this land as shall be agreed upon by the Company, to the end to pass the Seas (under God's protection) to inhabit and continue in New England : Provided always, that before the last of September next, the whole Government, together with the patent for the said Plantation, be first, by an order of Court, legally transferred and established to remain with us and others which shall inhabit upon the said Plantation; and provided also, that if any shall be hindered by such just and inevitable let or other cause, to be allowed by three parts of four of these whose names are hereunto subscribed, then such persons, for such times and during such lets, to be discharged of this bond. And we do further promise, every one for himself, that shall fail to be ready through his own default by the day appointed, to pay for every day's default the sum of £3, to the use of the rest of the Company who shall be ready by the same day and time.
New England Confederation - 1643
Whereas we all came into these parts of America, with one and the same end and ayme, namely, to advance the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel, in purity with peace; and whereas in our settling (by a wise providence of God) we are further dispersed upon the Sea Coasts, and Rivers, then was at first intended, so that we cannot (according to our desire) with convenience communicate in one Government, and Jurisdiction; and whereas we live encompassed with people of severall Nations, and strange languages, which hereafter may prove injurious to us, and our posterity: And forasmuch as the Natives have formerly committed sundry insolencies and outrages upon severall Plantations of the English, and have of late combined against us. And seeing by reason of the sad distractions in England, which they have heard of, and by which they know we are hinged both from that humble way of seeking advice, and reaping those comfortable fruits of protection which, at other times, we might well expect; we therefore doe conceive it our bounden duty, without delay, to enter into a present Consotiation amongst our selves, for mutuall help and strength in all our future concernments, that, as in Nation, and Religion, so, in other respects, we be, and continue, One, according to the tenour and true meaning of the ensuing Articles.
An Act for Freedom of Conscience - 1682
Almighty God, being only Lord of conscience, father of lights and spirits, and the author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, who can only enlighten the mind and persuade and convince the understandings of people. In due reverence to his sovereignty over the souls of mankind;
Be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that no person now or at any time hereafter living in this province, who shall confess and acknowledge one almighty God to be the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world, and who professes him or herself obliged in conscience to live peaceably and quietly under the civil government, shall in any case be molested or prejudiced for his or her conscientious persuasion or practice. Nor shall he or she at any time be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry whatever contrary to his or her mind, but shall freely and fully enjoy his, or her, christian liberty in that respect, without any interruption or reflection. And if any person shall abuse or deride any other for his or her different persuasion and practice in matters of religion, such person shall be looked upon as a disturber of the peace and be punished accordingly.
But to the end that looseness, irreligion, and atheism may not creep in under pretense of conscience in this province, be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that, according to the example of the primitive Christians and for the ease of the creation, every first day of the week, called the Lord’s day, people shall abstain from their usual and common toil and labor that, whether masters, parents, children, or servants, they may the better dispose themselves to read the scriptures of truth at home or frequent such meetings of religious worship abroad as may best suit their respective persuasions.
Wrong.
He lost the debate the moment he had to resort to insult and invective to answer arguments.
Congress established no religion in the founding documents. They recognized a generic Creator, but no specific sect/creed or flavor was established as compulsory to being a citizen.
No religious test is now or ever was established as a pretext to being a citizen or becoming naturalized.
I therefore don't see the point in claiming the nation is Christian.
No one stops me from practising a traditionalist religion. Matter of fact last time I was in church, I used the 1928 Episcopal Prayer Book, which has been around since SHOCK: 1928.
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