Some thoughts on Robert King’s Once without a prayer, faith agenda emerging.
First, the specific proposals mentioned in the article:
“I think every child should be exposed to the Bible and have an opportunity. If you do it from the historic or literary standpoint, it makes it legal,” Denbo said. “And I’ll be truthful. I have other motives: I feel like it’s good for children.”
Had this passed, I think Rep. Denbo would be faced with some unintended consequences. First, I can only imagine the squawking from hard core Christians if their kids ended up bringing home the Koran when they signed up for a Bible study course. Secondly, it has been my experience that scholarly exposure to the Bible (as opposed to religious exposure) makes people less inclined toward belief, particularly when it is read in conjunction with other religious works. In such a setting, the Bible becomes *a* book, rather than The Book.
Now, to expound upon something a bit more general. The assertion that “America was founded as a Christian Nation.” Bull. I found hints of this in Rep. Woody Burton’s explanation for the “In God We Trust” license plate.
Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenwood, has long been concerned that judges are chipping away at the Judeo-Christian foundations of America. And he thought his “In God We Trust” license plate idea would give drivers a chance to express that concern, too, by paying an extra $3.90 to cover the cost of making the special plates.
While it’s heroic of Woody to try to save us from the Heathens with a license plate, Woody seems a bit ignorant of the Founding Father’s peculiar relationship to Christianity.
The United States was founded, first and foremost, on principles of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was very much a break from the religious traditions that had dominated Europe prior to the 17th Century. Enlightenment thinkers looked to find truth through objective observation of the world around them rather than through revelation from a higher power. To be sure, many of the Founding Fathers and most American citizens would have called themselves Christians. And, in fact, the Puritans were one Christian sect that fled Europe to get out from under the control of other Christian sects. But, it’s hard to believe that the Founding Fathers intended their government to owe any particular fidelity to Christianity. They were well aware of the way wars conducted by government in the name of religion had ravaged Europe in the centuries immediately prior to the writing of the Constitution. A number of them were Deists, which is to say that they believed in a Creator, but not in the absolute truth of the Bible or in the Trinity. They simply believed that a clockmaker God had created the rules of nature, wound up the Universe and let it run.
Consider the following quotes from some of the Founders and see if they sound like the words of individuals striving to create a Christian Nation:
As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,–as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Messelmen, –and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mohammedan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever interupt the harmony existing betweenthe two countries”–Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 (Ratified unanimously by the U.S. Seante)
When a religion is good, I conceive 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 help of the civil power, ’tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one. — Benjamin Franklin
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are serviley crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith. — Thomas Jefferson.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 and State. — Thomas Jefferson
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. — Thomas Jefferson
Our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry. –Thomas Jefferson
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 political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. — James Madison
I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)– Thomas Paine
One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian.–The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1968, p. 420
A good debunking of the Christian Nation myth can be found here.
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