The Secular Foundations of American Democracy
To the editor:
Contrary to the claims of certain groups of Christians with ultra-conservative political agendas, the United States was not founded as a Christian nation. The assertion that America is a Christian nation is historically false. This claim is not supported by the Constitution, by the writings of the Founders, or by the political philosophy that shaped theAmerican Revolution.
America was founded as a secular constitutional republic rooted in the principles of the Enlightenment, not as a religious state governed by Christian doctrine.
The American Founders were deeply influenced by the Enlightenment (Age Of Reason) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Philosophers such as Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau argued that legitimate government derives its authority from the consent of the governed, not from divine mandate. Government should have systems of checks and balances.
Scientists such as Newton, Kepler, and Copernicus demonstrated that reason and observation- not religious dogma-could offer better explanations for the workings of the natural world. The Enlightenment elevated rational inquiry, individual liberty, scientific thought, and skepticism toward inherited autocracy fused with religious authority.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” James Madison argued repeatedly against religious establishments and defended freedom of conscience as a fundamental right.
The Founders understood that Europe had been devastated for centuries by religious conflict. They understood the dangers created when church and state become intertwined. Governments sharing power with religious authorities have persecuted dissenters, censored criticism, imprisoned heretics, and executed opponents.
The Founders had no intention of recreating that dystopian system in America. That understanding is plainly visible in the Constitution itself.
The Constitution was deliberately designed as a secular framework for a new and radical experiment in democratic government. That seminal document contains no declaration that America is a Christian nation. It does not establish Christianity as the national faith. It does not mention biblical law as the basis of government. Instead, the Constitution is built on secular principles: representative government, checks and balances, elections, free speech, and protection of individual liberty.
The Founders went even further. They prohibited religious tests for public office. Citizenship and political rights would not depend upon religious belief. The clearest statement of this principle appears in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
That idea was revolutionary in the eighteenth century. Government could neither establish an official religion nor interfere with the private beliefs of citizens. Americans would be free to worship as they chose-or not worship at all.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, later described this arrangement as a “wall of separation between church and state.” James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution, argued that religion flourished best when government stayed out of it. Their goal was not hostility toward religion. Their goal was the protection of religious freedom.
Americans are sometimes surprised to read about the unconventional beliefs held by some of the Founders themselves. Jefferson famously edited the New Testament to remove miracles and supernatural claims. His tattered copy of the Bible is in the Library of Congress. Franklin admired Jesus’ moral teachings but doubted the literal truth of many biblical stories. Paine openly criticized organized religion and placed reason above dogma.
Some Founders were Deists who believed in a Creator who designed a universe to operate on natural law but did not intervene in its working out through time. Deists believed that so-called miracles, or divine interventions, would be violations of natural law. In fact, the philosopher Spinoza describedGodasthesumof natural laws. Once when Einstein was asked if he believed in God, he responded that he believed in the God of Spinoza.
These men of the Age Of Reason aggressively rejected the establishment of a Christian based theocracy. They wanted to build a democratic republic based on liberty, pluralism, and self-government. That distinction matters enormously today.
Christian Nationalists argue that what they describe as America’s moral decline results from abandoning its “Christian foundation.” They do not understand that the Founding fathers did not create a government based on religious ideology. The Christian Nationalists seek a closer union between government power and conservative Christianity as an antidote for what they claim is America’s moral decay.
They need to take another look at history to understand how wrong they are.
History repeatedly shows the dismal consequences of churchstate alliances. Governments claiming divine authority will punish and torture dissenters, hangandburnopponents,anddestroy personal freedom. America rejected that ancient and flawed model from the beginning.
America’s strength has never come from religious conformity. It comes from liberty. Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, nonbelievers, and countless others, possess equal rights under the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson, a powerful advocate for the separation of church and state, vigorously supported a system of broad public, secular education because he believed an educated population was necessary to protect democracy. He believed that public school education would protect democracy. He was a powerful advocate for government supported education. He wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.”
The Constitutional separation of church and state set forth in the First Amendment is not hostility toward religion. Just the opposite is true. This is the principle that insures that any one of us can choose to believe or not believe as conscience requires. It is imperative that our public schools be nonsectarian institutions with curricula that do not mandate the indoctrination of students into any religiously based belief system. Such intentions are pernicious and undemocratic- and unconstitutional.
However, the secular study of the Christian religion is an essential part of anyone’s general education for the understanding of its enormous impact on the history of western civilization. It is worth noting that other religious traditions like Judaism and Islam have also profoundly impacted the complex unfolding of European and American history. They too should be part of the curriculum.
It is important to preserve the constitutional protections that allow citizens of all beliefs to live together as equals. We must vote next November for the candidates who have the integrity and courage to stand firm against those who would use religion to subvert the purposes of the Founding Fathers who were deeply committed to establishing a secular and democratic government that ensures freedom for all.