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Some Christians today argue
that America was founded as a Christian nation. While it is true
that some of the colonies were theocracies, the American nation was
founded as a secular state, not a Christian state. The only
reference to religion or God in the U.S. Constitution notes that
political service shall not be predicated upon religion. The
First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, added at the insistence of
Baptists who were heavily persecuted by colonial theocratic
governments, delineates a separation of Church and State (a
phraseology
borrowed from Roger Williams by Thomas Jefferson in describing the
First Amendment Jefferson helped author) in that government is
forbidden from being involved in promoting religion (Establishment Clause) or prohibiting religious
expressions (Free Exercise Clause). Europeans, in light of
America's refusal to recognize God in her constitution, criticized the
new nation as being atheistic.
Despite claims by the
religious right that America's founding fathers were overwhelming
evangelical Christians, virtually all held Deistic views of God or
were otherwise
non-evangelicals. For some reason, the Religious Right has
created a myth about America's beginnings, and is bent on using the
myth to transform modern America into, seemingly, a theocracy of some
type. Strangely, the Religious Right holds up the colonial
theocracies of the New England Puritan colonies–the
governments that beat, whipped, jailed, and exiled Baptists–as
their model for what government should be. The extent of the
Religious Right's fascination with colonial theocratic governments has
been further evidenced in recent years as more and more Christian
schools in America have adopted colonial Puritan curriculum as the
basis of their educational systems.
An Overview of the Debate Over America as a
Christian Nation
The truth about America's Christian roots
-- a brief essay
Fact of Myth? The Separation of Church and State -- a brief essay
Baptist Persecution in Colonial America -- a timeline
Test Your Knowledge of America's Religious Foundations -- an
online quiz
Baptists and Religious Liberty -- George W. Truett
Baptists on Religious Liberty & the Separation of Church & State
--Walter B. Shurden
Source Documents Pertaing to America's Secular Foundations --
Early Amer. Achives
America's "Forsaken Roots": The Use and Abuse of Founders Quotations
-- Journal of
Church and State
Notes: The Founding Fathers and Separation of Church and State
-- R.P.
Nettlehorst
Original Sources: Church and State in
Colonial America & Early America
The Bloody Tenet of Persecution (Roger Williams, 1644)
A Letter Concerning Toleration (John Locke, 1689)
Declaration of Independence (1776)
Memorial and Remonstrance (James Madison, 1785)
The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia
(1786)
United States Constitution (1789)
Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution (1791)
Letter from Danbury Baptist Association to President Thomas Jefferson
(1801)
Jefferson's Response to Danbury Association, "Separation of Church and
State" (1802)
An Introduction to Dominion Theology /
Reconstructionism
Who is Trying to Turn America into a Theocracy? - You may be
surprised
The Christian America Movement in Our Public
Schools
The Bible as History and Literature
-- a "Christian textbook" constructed on myths
Roger Williams and the Historical Roots of the Phrase "Separation
of Church and State"
"When they [the Church] have
opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of
the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down
the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a
wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He will ever
please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity
be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be
saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of
the World."
"Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed,
Examined and Answered," in The Complete Writings of Roger Williams,
Volume 1, page 108, 1644.
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