The United States Was NOT Founded On Christianity

I keep hearing the argument made that the United States was founded on Christian principles. And every time I hear it I get as infuriated as I would by any other statement purporting to be fact that is absolutely ignorant, misleading, or just plain wrong. The frustration is compounded by how easily its fact checked, and the fact no one bothers. I have no problem with ignorance, but laziness is not something we should tolerate when it comes to making sure what people believe is based in reality.

Also, the United States is not a “democracy”. The official system of government in the United States is a federal constitutional republic, where power is divided between a national (federal) government and individual states, and officials are elected to represent the people within a framework defined by the U.S. Constitution.

Who Are The Founding Fathers

When people refer to the Founding Fathers of the United States, they generally mean the key figures who were instrumental in the American Revolution, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and the creation of the U.S. Constitution. Here’s a list of the most commonly recognized Founding Fathers:

1. George Washington – Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and the first President of the United States.
2. Thomas Jefferson – Primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States.
3. John Adams – Advocate for independence, a key diplomat in Europe during the Revolution, and the second President of the United States.
4. Benjamin Franklin – Influential diplomat, inventor, and writer who helped secure French support during the American Revolution.
5. James Madison – “Father of the Constitution” for his pivotal role in its drafting, and the fourth President of the United States.
6. Alexander Hamilton – First Secretary of the Treasury, founder of the nation’s financial system, and co-author of the Federalist Papers.
7. John Jay – First Chief Justice of the United States, co-author of the Federalist Papers, and diplomat who helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris.
8. Samuel Adams – Leader in the push for independence and a key organizer of the Boston Tea Party.
9. Patrick Henry – Prominent advocate for liberty and independence, famous for his “Give me liberty, or give me death!” speech.
10. Thomas Paine – Influential writer and pamphleteer, author of “Common Sense,” which advocated for independence from Britain.

What Did They Say

The Founding Fathers intended for the United States to be a secular nation with a clear separation between church and state.

James Madison:

• “The civil government … functions with complete success … by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
  — Letter to Robert Walsh (1819)
• “Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
  — Letter to Edward Livingston (1822)

John Adams:

• “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?”
  — Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kamp (1816)

Thomas Jefferson:

• “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
  — Letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)
• “I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
  — Letter to Elbridge Gerry (1799)
• “Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”
  — “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1785)

George Washington:

• “Every man who conducts himself as a good citizen, is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
  — Letter to the United Baptist Churches in Virginia (1789)

The Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11 (not a quote from any individual founder, but a ratified U.S. government document worth citing on its own):

“As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”

The treaty was negotiated in Tripoli in 1796, during the final months of George Washington’s presidency, then unanimously ratified by the Senate and signed into law by President John Adams on June 10, 1797. Read the ratified text at the Avalon Project (Yale Law School).

Benjamin Franklin:

• “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
  — Letter to Richard Price (1780)

Thomas Paine:

• “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
  — “The Age of Reason” (1794)

Of the 10 founding fathers listed the majority were clearly in favor of the separation of Church and State. However, Patrick Henry, advocated for a closer relationship between government and Christian teaching but was clearly overruled by the others. Henry pushed hard for Christian values to be forcibly impressed upon citizens and integrated into the government, which caused enough pushback to eventually be enshrined as the First Amendment.

Patrick Henry’s Proposal: A General Assessment

In 1784, Patrick Henry proposed a bill called the “Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,” commonly known as the general assessment bill. The bill aimed to impose a tax on Virginians to support Christian ministers, allowing taxpayers to designate which denomination their money would support. If no preference was expressed, the funds would be distributed by the state.

Henry and his supporters believed this would help promote morality and religious instruction, which they saw as vital to the new republic’s success. However, this proposal was seen by many as a violation of religious freedom and an effort to maintain a connection between church and state.

James Madison’s Opposition

James Madison strongly opposed Henry’s general assessment bill. He believed that religious faith should be a matter of individual conscience, free from government interference. In 1785, Madison anonymously published his famous work, “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” a powerful document arguing against the bill. Madison’s arguments were based on the following points:

1. Religious Freedom as a Natural Right: Madison asserted that religion must be left to the conviction and conscience of every individual, not compelled by government authority.
2. Dangers of Governmental Involvement in Religion: He warned that any government support of religion would lead to corruption of both government and religion.
3. The Importance of Secular Government: Madison argued that a government that interferes in religious matters oversteps its bounds and infringes upon individual liberty.

Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance” gained significant support and helped galvanize public opinion against the general assessment bill.

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Following the defeat of Henry’s proposal, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was introduced in the Virginia General Assembly in 1786. Jefferson had drafted the statute in 1777, but it had not been enacted until this time. The statute declared that:

• Religious freedom is a natural right: The statute stated that no person should be compelled to support any religious worship, place, or ministry, and that all people should be free to profess and argue their religious beliefs without suffering discrimination.
• Separation of church and state: The statute established the principle that government should not be involved in religious matters, which later influenced the development of the First Amendment.

The passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was a landmark moment in American history, ensuring that Virginia would have no established church and that religion would be entirely a matter of personal belief.

Influence on the First Amendment

The principles enshrined in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom had a profound impact on the drafting of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. When the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791, the First Amendment included the establishment clause, which states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

This clause reflected the commitment to the separation of church and state that Madison, Jefferson, and others had championed in Virginia. It ensured that the federal government would not establish a national religion or interfere with individuals’ religious practices, securing the religious liberty of all Americans.

The Constitution Purposefully Didn’t Mention Religion

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the delegates did not discuss basing the government on a religion. The only mention of religion in the body of the U.S. Constitution is to ban religious tests for national office in Article 6, Section 3. Federal employees and elected officials did not have to belong to a specific church or even be religious. This provision passed without debate.

Conclusion

Not only did the founders of the country specifically not create a government intertwined with the Christian religion, they ensured that religion and government would be 100% separated. And even the earliest known attempt to circumvent that intention was squashed definitively and enshrined in a constitutional amendment to make the issue absolutely clear.

So the next time you hear someone saying that the “Founders established America as a Christian nation…”, please slap the shit out of whoever said that for me! Or at least, explain that although most were God fearing men, they absolutely didn’t want that interfering with government.