America: Christian Nation?

My friend Paul pointed out to me that my blog has a “grumpy old man” feel to it and dammit, he’s right. I attribute this mostly to laziness. It’s far easier to craft a response to something you see or read than it is to come up with something original. And so, most of what I write ends up being polemic.

For example, I’d intended to write today about a front page article in today’s Tri-Valley Herald under the headline Ex-official says Cheney blocked climate data. Apparently, our current administration has decided that when information arrives in their e-mail box that runs counter to the view of reality that they’ve constructed (of faith, gum and wood shavings, seemingly) the best course of action is to simply reject the message by refusing to open it. Seriously. Then tell the person that sent it to say publicly that it was sent in error even if it wasn’t. This is how EPAs report on global warming was received. Crickets chirping. Nope, never got that. Haven’t read it. Wasn’t received. One can only sigh… Makes me think of Lewis Black’s bit on a cat that gets run over by a car and the republicans all say it committed suicide. We’re entitled to our opinion but not our own facts.

So rather than rant about a truly rantable topic, I’ll offer a perspective on the founding of our country which is not to say the first settling of our country. The first Europeans to create permanent settlements in America were unquestionably deeply religious and came for a variety of reasons among which were escaping persecution from other religious people, treasure seeking and economic opportunities. No argument here that for 300 years almost everyone coming here was some variety of Christian. And during all that time we were fought over by various hereditary monarchies.

But something happened in the evolution of human thought. There was a change in the way people thought about heredity and titles and the churches and taxes and power. That something was The Enlightenment. Descartes, Newton, Thomas Paine and David Hume and Baruch Spinoza. And with the ideas of these men, a new kind of American was born, the men that would become our founders. This group of wealthy and well connected men, by and large deists, could have done quite well in the old order but they looked to create something new. It is inarguable that they did.

What was new? Popular sovereignty, balance of powers and most importantly, the separation of church and state. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence directed three achievements be listed on his monument. It reads as follows:

HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

And what was the Statute? Nothing less than the linguistic foundation of the First Amendment establishment clause, a tiny bit of language which has so far, and under determined attack served as a wall of separation between church and state.

It is flat out wrong, a disservice to the constitution and unforgivably unpatriotic when the religious right rail on about our “Christian founding”. The founders understood that a state religion would bring ceaseless strife as it had in Europe. They also respected people’s beliefs, even if they largely didn’t share them. The wall of separation protects both sides. I leave you with a few choice quotes:

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

“They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.”
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?
-John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?
-John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
-John Adams, letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816