The United States of
America is Not Christian by Design
November 23, 2006
Currently, political conservatives and the Christian
right insist our nation was and is a Christian nation from its inception.
They offer as “proof” the references to the "Creator" and "Divine
Providence" in the Declaration of Independence and that most Americans now
claim be Christians.
Certainly, the Declaration of Independence references God
and the Creator but it does not reference Christ. So the idea that our
country is based on Christianity is clearly false.
The Creator or God in the Declaration of Independence are
two things.
The first is the universal God or Creator which people
recognized then and now through various religions. The Declaration’s writers
probably followed or believed in a God but whether any were Christians is
unknown. It doesn’t matter.
The second God was the King and the head of the Church of
England, analogous to the Pope and the Catholic church. As King, he owned
and controlled everything including the religion. America’s founders refused
to believe in this type of government and used God references to set the
United States of America apart from England and its false god called the
King of England.
The Declaration of Independence was a declaration of war
and not a declaration of faith or loyalty to a religion. The document
clearly states they were going in a different direction with a new ‘System
of Government” and it was not a theocracy.
The Christian based country argument has no weight and it
is also illogical. After all, Muslims could equally argue, like them, that
our country was based on Islam since it too is based on God like theirs.
Finally and most importantly, the United States
Constitution has no references to God or a specific religion and it affirms
the right to believe in any religion in the First Amendment in the Bill of
Rights. The Constitution setup a formal republican government and
concurrently protected all faiths by first protecting the rights of
individual.
The fact that Christian concepts have crept into our
society in the past two centuries does not validate Christian control or
claim to our nation.
References:
Declaration of
Independence
United
States Constitution
Bill of
Rights
