I. Introduction

The title of this paper may be more ambitious than realistic. It is: "The Concept of America as a Christian Nation and Other Infelicitous Correlative Ideas." I feel a bit as if I could probably spend the rest of my days (which I do not want to do) exploring the implications of this idea-its sources, where it has gone wrong, what is right about it, and its implications. Then there are all the other unhappy ideas that are connected to this notion, in one way or another. For me, these ideas are more than infelicitous: many of them are terrifying in their fascism. I will try to touch on a few of these connected streams of thought and political action, including briefly the relationship of the "hang 10" movement with this idea; the frightening Christian Reconstructionism movement of R.J. Rushdoony and company; and tangentially, Christians for Israel.

Before I begin, let me remind you of some of my biases: First, I am a Christian, and I am evangelical about my kind of Christianity which might be called "progressive Christianity" rather than "liberal". I have recently affiliated as an individual supporter of the Center for Progressive Christianity, whose web-site is www.tcpc.org, for those of you who might be interested in exploring what characterizes Progressive Christianity. At least one trait might be explained this way: I believe that the Bible reveals the Word of God, a distinctly different nuance than saying that I believe the Bible IS the word of God. For me, Jesus is the logos, the Word made flesh. I do not worship the Bible; nor frankly, do I worship Jesus. Rather, I seek to follow Jesus.

Secondly, I believe in the American form of government, and I diligently work the system to effect the changes that I believe are needed for my beloved country to be the kind of just and civil society that is our ideal.

Third, just as I believe the Bible is a living, ever- revelatory Word, I believe the Constitution is a living, ever- adaptable framework for the common life of the citizens of the United States of America. As a secondary note on this conviction, I also want to assert that I do not believe that a democratic republic is necessarily the appropriate form of government for every culture and every people.

II. One Nation, Under God

In June of this year, specifically June 26, 2002, the a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the phrase "under God" as currently codified in the nation's "Pledge of Allegiance" was impermissible and unconstitutional. They said that the insertion of that phrase in 1954 was made "to recognize a Supreme Being" and to advance religion at a time "when the government was publicly inveighing against atheistic communism." [CNN.com/LAWCenter, "Lawmakers blast Pledge Ruling", June 27, 2002] Despite the fact that one of the judges immediately issued a stay against the ruling, pending appeals that he knew would be sure to come, the judges threw a log on the long-burning fire of controversies about religion in America and whether this nation is a religious nation, and, more specifically, a Christian nation.

To be fair, many people other than those who want the United States of America to be a "Christian nation", were also disturbed by the ruling. There were also, of course, some of us who felt from the very beginning of the insertion of the phrase "under God" that, not only was the grammar awkward if not incorrect, but also that it was inappropriate constitutionally. I count myself among those who never liked the change to the "new pledge". I remember when the phrase was added. I was old enough that we were able to discuss it in a social studies class. Nonetheless, it has been the fundamentalist and evangelical branches of Christianity within the United States who found the 9th Circuit Court's ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance most appalling and upsetting.

One could go back to the era of the Warren Supreme Court (remember the signs all across the South: "Impeach Earl Warren"?) to find the beginnings of this firestorm and controversy, or perhaps back even to the anti-Catholic, anti-foreign nativist movement that erupted in the first half of the nineteenth century, and re-igniting again in the late nineteenth century in waves of anti-Semitism, opposition to immigration, and the rise of the KKK.

Freedom of religion has long been a cherished American ideal, but the truth is that we have never practiced it very well. As Oliver Thomas, now Counsel to the Knoxville Legal Aid Society and the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, and also a Baptist minister, has written:

Religious persecution has plagued this nation throughout much of its history, from the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century to the persecution of Jews in the eighteenth century to the "Bible Wars" inflicted on Roman Catholics in the nineteenth century to the persecution of Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses in more recent times. As late as the 1960s, Jews and Catholics were still the objects of widespread discrimination. [Thomas, Oliver. "Reclaiming a National Treaasure: Religious Liberty in the 21st Century", in Church & Society, May/June 2000, Vol. 90, No. 5, p. 15]

Given the enormous surge of patriotism since the September 11th attacks on the United States by terrorists, who were members of a religion whom Christians once called infidels, it is not surprising that the agenda of many Christian fundamentalists has become a determination to restore this nation's values and morality. For them that means a return to its supposed "Christian foundations and roots".

On July 2, a patriotic rally was held here in Lexington at Applebee's Park, with its Jewish patron Alan Stein and his wife, State Rep. Kathy Stein, and their family present and unknowing what was to come. The program included numerous politicians and patriotic speakers, a fly-over by Black-Hawk helicopters from the Kentucky National Guard, a color guard from the four branches of the Armed Forces. I doubt few people present noted the irony in the singing of "My Country 'Tis of Thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing."

Near the end of the rally, the pastor of the Clays Mill Road Baptist Church which sponsored the event, Jeffrey Fugate announced that non-Christian immigrants "should leave their religions, their bibles [sic], and all the other things back where [they] came from. [Lexington Herald-Leader, July 14, 2002, page A1, "The Truth As He Sees It, by Frank E. Lockwood]. Blasting what he called "politically correct" Americans, Fugate, who has no college degree, and was educated in a church-based school from the 6th grade onwards, said: "You're a thief and a liar if you change American history and leave God out of it…You cannot separate God from America without forming another nation." [Lexington Herald-Leader, July 3, 2002, page B1, "Faith in America", by Frank E. Lockwood]

Fugate's blending of patriotism with his evangelical fervor to save people for Christ, and his deep conviction about the inerrancy of Scripture are not unusual. All across the United States, people who share his theological beliefs were outraged by the 9th Circuit Court's ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance, largely because they believe also that America was founded to be a Christian nation. Just this past Sunday, in surfing cable TV, I came across Pastor Fugate again, preaching to his congregation and saying that his "patriotism was not founded on pluralism, or cultural diversity," but on truth; not tradition, but on the very "Word of God." His patriotism, he said, was based on the fact that the founders of this great nation came here to propagate the gospel.

In one respect, he is not wrong: many of the early settlers from Europe who came to America, from Christopher Columbus on, did so seeking an opportunity and space to propagate the gospel as they understood it and wanted to practice it, in addition to a desire to free themselves from the shackles of European economic and political constraints of the time, and to find new ways to generate wealth for themselves and their benefactors.

Fugate's mistake comes in his logic: just because many of the early immigrants to these shores were Christian, and came to practice their religion free from state religion of Europe, just because the leaders and educated among them frequently quoted the one book they were likely to possess-the Bible, one cannot make the inference that they decided to make the nation constitutionally Christian, once they got around to that task. It is a non sequitur.

III. The Godless Constitution

European settlers had been on these shores for well over 150 years before the Declaration of Independence was written and before first the Articles of Confederation emerged as a trial form of government, to be replaced by the Constitutional Convention with the Constitution under which this nation has been governed for over 200 years. In various localities, they tried a variety of forms of government, including theocracy, none of which lasted more than several decades. By 1700, the religious make-up of the new Americans was already becoming pluralistic. Sidney Ahlstrom, in his great National Book Award tome, A Religious History of the American People, writes:

A traveler in 1700 making his way from Boston to the Carolinas would encounter Congregationalists of varying intensity, Baptists of several varieties, Presbyterians, Quakers, and several other forms of Puritan radicalism; Dutch, German, and French Reformed; Swedish, Finnish, and German Lutherans; Mennonites, and radical pietists, Anglicans, Roman Catholics; here and there a Jewish congregation, a few Rosicrucians; and, of course, a vast number of the unchurched-some of them powerfully alienated from any form of institutional religion. [Ahlstrom, Sidney. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972, p. 4]

As a product of public schools of Kentucky during the 1950s, I was taught that the earliest immigrants to this continent were Christians. They came from Christian cultures. They were products of their time. Their primary learning was grounded in the Bible. Yet, I was never taught that they had established this country to be a Christian nation. Quite the contrary, my teachers insisted that the freedom of religion-both from religious persecution and prejudice and for religious expression according to conscience,-was integral to all that this nation stood for. The phrase "separation of church and state" was used, but I also knew that neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution contained those explicit words, that they were Thomas Jefferson's way to explain what the First Amendment, regarding religion, means.

Our U.S. Constitution is, essentially, godless. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution says: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The preamble to Kentucky's Constitution, on the other hand, as is true with most state constitutions, does mention God, viz., "We, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberties we enjoy, and invoking the continuance of these blessings, do ordain and establish this Constitution."

Even the President's oath of office in Article II, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution, does not contain the phrase, "so help me God," nor does it require that the oath be taken with a hand laid upon the Holy Bible. Article VI, Section [3] states that Senators and Representatives, and the members of the state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers shall be bound by oath to support the Constitution, and then it goes on to declare, "…but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Other than the first Amendment, this is all that our U.S. Constitution has to say about religion.

The specific language of the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights is crucial and every single word matters, because this amendment is the source of all the controversy. Ratified effective December 15, 1791, the amendment that comes at the head of the list of the rights of the citizens of these United States, sets forth five essential freedoms:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The point is well made, I think, that had the Founders so desired, they could have invoked God in the preamble, and they could have been more specific about their intent with regard to the meaning of the First Amendment. Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, professors of government and of history, respectively, at Cornell University, and co-authors of The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness [W.W. Norton & Company, 1996], report on the content of the debates in 1787 and 1788 across the states about the clause in Article VI of the Constitution regarding "no religious test" for public office. Information about this debate has only been available for the past couple of decades, since the nation's bicentennial produced a large number of new publications of original source materials. Kramnick and Moore write, and I quote at length because I find it so interesting and enlightening:

In the debates over Article VI, many delegates to the state conventions angrily denounced the proposed new Constitution as ungodly, because nowhere did it mention either God or Christianity, and because Article VI prohibited religious tests for officeholders. One Massachusetts delegate was upset that the Constitution did not require men in power to be religious. He said that while he wanted to see "Christians" in office, under the Constitution, "a papist, or an infidel was as eligible as they." The Rev. David Caldwell, a Presbyterian minister and a delegate at North Carolina's convention, worried that the Constitution's failure to require a religious test of officeholders was an invitation to "Jews and pagans of every kind" to govern the country. Disputants around America complained of the framers' "silence" and "indifference about religion".
The epithet given to the document by these opponents, "the godless Constitution," correctly recognized that the framers acted deliberately. Opponents offered a spate of proposals in 1787 and 1788 to remedy the perceived defect. In Connecticut, a delegate formally moved that the Constitution's one-sentence preamble be enlarged to include a Christian conception of politics. After the words [remember these words for later in this paper, please] "We the people of the United States," he proposed inserting "in a firm belief of the being and perfection of the one living God, the creator and supreme governor of the World, in His universal providence and the authority of His laws." All such proposals were rejected….["Is The U.S. Constitution Godless?", by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 29, 1996, p. A68. (Emphasis that of NJK) ]

Likewise, with regard to the First Amendment, some people argue, especially those affiliated with the Christian coalition and the religious right, that the phrase "establishment of religion" referred only to the designation of a particular single denomination or church, thus retaining a Christian orientation for the nation. Here the argument could be said to rest on that lowly part of speech, an article. The Amendment is not: "…make no law respecting THE establishment of religion, but "…make no law respecting AN establishment of religion..."

Again, as with the preamble, and the debate over Article VI (the prohibition of a religious test), Constitutional scholars point to the debate that occurred in the first Congress concerning the First Amendment. As Oliver "Buzz" Thomas says,

When presented with amendments that would have allowed for the very sort of nonpreferential aid suggested by many evangelicals, the Senate rejected them out of hand. One such proposal stated: 'Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of conscience be infringed.' Both chambers of Congress ultimately agreed upon the much broader prohibition contained in the First Amendment. [Op. Cit., p. 17]

IV. "The Separation of Church and State Is A Lie"

We have already noted how a local preacher has called for the restoration of "America's moral values". Let me cite a couple of more national figures:

Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue: "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." [The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, IN, August 16, 1993]

Pat Robertson: "There is no such thing as separation of church and state. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it any more." [from a speech given in November, 1993, given to the American Center for Law and Justice]

From whence cometh the fervent belief among these folks that America was meant to be a "Christian nation"? As we have seen, there has been debate about this from our earliest days as a nation. At the same time, we note that the constitutional principles set forth in the First Amendment have given Americans more religious liberty than any people in the history of the world. We have more religious diversity than any nation in the world. According to Harvard professor Diana Eck, in her book A New Religious America, as reported on "Beliefnet" by journalist Gregg Easterbrook: "Not only is there more variety of spiritual beliefs in the United States today than in any other nation, there's more religion than in any nation at any time in history. The Founders dreamed of freedom of religion, and Americans are now exercising that freedom to an unprecedented degree." [Easterbrook, Gregg. "Still A Christian Nation". www.beliefnet.com/story/81/story_8198.html]

Over the past 15 years or so, a movement has emerged to "prove" that mainstream interpretations of religious liberty in America are all wrong, and that the "separation of church and state is," as Robertson put it, "a lie" of the Liberal Left. They contend that the United States was founded and intended to be a fundamentalist Christian nation. Using the hermeneutical principle of "original intent", which is very similar to literal interpretations of Scripture, especially the King James Version, that confess belief in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, those who use the hermeneutic principle of "original intent" argue that it has been the Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1948, but most especially those of 1962, regarding school prayer and Bible reading in the public schools, that have foisted the "godless" notion upon a nation, the majority of whose citizens are Christians. (Indeed, a 2001 Gallup poll indicates that as many as 82% of us say we are Christians, and a phenomenal 52% of us attend church at least somewhat regularly.)

In a peculiar twist of political philosophy, they argue that the majority should rule when it comes to fundamental liberties that were written into the Constitution to protect the liberties of the minority. Pastor Bob Russell of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, the mega-church with over 20,000 members, calls it the tyranny of the minority. The Rev. Hershel York, formerly of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, now of Corbin, claims that we can be "tolerant of other religions", but that the unwritten national religion of America is Christianity, and since Christians are the majority, their point of view should hold dominance. Of course, when it comes to government based on biblical principles, democracy goes out the window.

The chief purveyor of the revisionist history that claims the original intent of the Founders to establish the United States as a Christian nation is a man by the name of David Barton. His web-site describes him in this way:

David Barton is the Founder and President of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization which distributes historical, legal, and statistical information; and helps citizens become active in their local schools and communities. WallBuilders is a name taken from the Bible book of Nehemiah. And just as Nehemiah led a grassroots movement in Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of that city and restore its strength and honor, so, too, WallBuilders seeks to energize the grassroots today to rebuild that which makes America strong-its constitutional, moral, and religious foundations.[www.wallbuilders.com/aboutus/bio/indes.htm]

As often as 3-4 times a week, Barton is speaking in some city or town to pastors, to home-educators, and to church folk who, as Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, puts it: "can't get enough of it." I'm not sure how many times Barton has been to Kentucky, but he has done repeated sessions for members at Bob Russell's church in Louisville.

Barton's "research" has been praised by many within what might be called the Religious Right. Jerry Falwell repeatedly praises Barton's work, and sells his books and tapes through his Liberty bookstore. Focus on the Family head, Dr. James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and the Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge ministries are all boosters.

Barton's credentials for his historical work include a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oral Roberts University. He takes advantage of the fact that a state legislator in Texas who agrees with his historical presentations invited him to serve on a committee to help develop the history and social studies standards for Texas students; and that he served on a similar committee in California. Plus, having testified at state legislative hearings, he claims this proves his merit as a historian. Gee, I served on a state committee to pick a research firm to investigate the economic impact of gambling. Does this make me an expert on economics-or field research? Hardly.

Rob Boston, writing for the Institute for First Amendment Studies, in a 1996 article entitled "David Barton: Master of Myth and Misinformation", states:

Barton has no legitimate credentials as an historian, and it shows. Shoddy research, astounding lapses of logic and outright errors are hallmarks of his work. For his first book: America: To Pray Or Not To Pray? (1988), Barton reports that God ordered him to go to the library and look into the connection between the removal of state-mandated prayer in public schools by the Supreme Court in 1962 and 1963 and the drop in SAT scores. "I didn't know why," Barton writes in the book's introduction, "but I somehow knew that these two pieces of information would be very important."

Lo and behold, Barton soon learned that ever since the school prayer rulings, all sorts of bad things have happened in the country: SAT scores have plummeted, the teen pregnancy rate has shot up, crime has escalated, and even per capita alcohol consumption has increased. (Barton stops short of blaming the assassination of John F. Kennedy on the school prayer rulings, but, believe it or not, other advocates of mandatory prayer in schools have seriously advanced that argument.) [Boston, Rob. "David Barton: Master of Myth and Misinformation." Institute for First Amendment Studies: Freedom Writer, June 1996. www.ifas.org/fw/9606/barton.html]

Rob Boston goes on to note that David Barton does not understand either statistics or logic, something that is quickly obvious when you listen to his tapes. But those who see his video productions, or read his books, can become so lost in his arguments and in his marvelous facility to quote the "founders", whose word must surely be true-and therefore applicable for all time, that they cannot sort through the peculiar shifts in logic that he makes. His greatest fallacy is one that is called the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy: after this, therefore on account of. So, after the evil Earl Warren Court removed prayer and Bible reading from our public schools, all other social evils may trace their cause to these judicial rulings.

What Barton does, on his videos and in his books, is pile up quote after quote from American historical figures that show their personal religious convictions and which assert their belief that good government depends upon a moral people. (I personally find many of the quotations quite appealing and useful, and agree with many of them.) The problem is contextual: the ideas have been pulled out of context and made to prove the point that America used to be a "Christian" nation, meaning a fundamentalist Protestant nation, that has now wandered away from its original intentions and nature.

Most of the people who listen to David Barton with such open hearts and minds are not aware that the authenticity of many of the quotations he uses to buttress his primary arguments are historically dubious, if not outright fabrications. Most notable is this quote from James Madison: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves…according to the Ten Commandments of God." This quote has been a favorite of the "Hang Ten" crowd who want to say that the Decalogue is an historical document and that all of our laws are based upon it. Rush Limbaugh likes to quote it a lot. Finally, Robert S. Alley, professor emeritus at the University of Richmond, and author of James Madison on Religious Liberty, "…undertook a dogged effort to track it down. Enlisting the help of the editors of The Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia, Alley scoured reams of documents, books and writings. After coming up empty-handed, the Madison scholar concluded that the quote was probably fictional."

In 2001, David Barton issued a one-page document titled "Questionable Quotes". It lists 12 statements that Barton relies on heavily that were supposedly spoken or written by Founding Fathers, that are to be considered suspect or untrue.
Rob Boston writes:

Advocates of separation of church and state were left breathless over Barton's audacity. For nearly 10 years, the Texas propagandist has traveled the country, putting on programs about America's alleged 'Christian heritage' at fundamentalist churches and other venues, …[insisting that] the United States…was founded by Christians and was intended to be a fundamentalist style 'Christian nation.' What was Barton's proof for these claims? Many of the quotations he now admits are groundless. [Boston, Rob. "American History Re-Written by Christians", in Positive Atheism, www.positiveatheism.org/writ/founding.htm]

Barton's biggest argument that "separation of church and state" is a lie, finds its grounding in what he calls a misuse of Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, where the phrase is used. He insists that Jefferson went on to add that the "wall" was meant to be "one directional", that is, it would protect churches from state interference, but not the other way around. In fact, if you read this letter, you discover that Jefferson never said any such thing. It is further odd to find so much reliance from a fundamentalist upon a man whom many early American Christians worried was NOT Christian. Jefferson, you will remember, created his own New Testament in which he omitted all miracles, all references to the divinity of Jesus, and other things that he thought went beyond reason.

Similarly, Barton relies heavily on quotations from John Quincy Adams who was believed by many in his own time to be an "atheist". Adams did not use a Bible on which to swear his oath of office, he was an irregular church-goer, and like his father, was a Unitarian. [HomePublications Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. "Critique of David Barton's 'America's Godly Heritage'". http://members.tripod.com/~candst/bjcpal.htm]

The video tapes and the books make the rounds in the growing fundamentalist market place. Very few people who see them understand the misinformation and falsehoods that they contain. Very few people understand what I believe to be the enormous danger that they pose. Barton is closely connected with the politicians who are part of the religious right, and frankly, who have had an impact on our current president, people like Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, and other top GOP leaders. Rob Boston reports: "When Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) held a powwow with Religious Right leaders…to plot strategy for ramming a school prayer amendment through Congress, Barton was there. Powerful people don't view Barton as just some nut peddling phony quotes on the street corner; he is taken seriously." [Boston, Rob. "David Barton: Master of Myth and Misinformation", Op. Cit.]

Had we time I would share with you the peculiar U.S. Supreme Court Case known as "Church of The Holy Trinity vs. United States" (143, U.S. 226 [1892]). David Barton, and many others of the Religious Right use this 1892 U.S. Supreme Court Case as the final proof in their arguments that the U.S. is a Christian Nation, because, they say, the Court said so. They claim that the Court cited 87 precedents and ruled (this is the false word) that this is a Christian nation, and that this Court case has never been overturned. I will save examination of this Court case for one of our attorneys in the Informal Club, or for another time. Suffice it to say that the Court did not HOLD that this was a Christian nation. They HELD something altogether different. The statement that "this is a Christian nation" appeared in the rationale for their decision on an immigration matter that was at the heart of the case, and does not have any specific bearing on the rule of law and is not binding on any future case, even those with similar facts. [Batte, Susan. "Argument Five: The Supreme Court has Declared that the United States is a Christian Nation." http://members.tripod.com/`candst/tnppage/arg7.htm]

A number of other groups have emerged in recent years whose roots may or may not stem from exposure to David Barton's media exposure and presentations. Quite a few of these groups have taken on the goal of amending the U.S. Constitution to put God back into our very flexible and sturdy national governance covenant. They argue that the Declaration of Independence has four references to God ("nature's God"; "their Creator"; "Supreme Judge of the world"; and "Divine Providence"-all ideas about God that were popular with Deists, not Christians), but they note that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution do not have equal status. They cite the fact that the Articles of Confederation acknowledged God with the words "great Governor of the World." And, of course, we cannot forget that our coinage and paper money states "In God We Trust". Also, they say that the constitutions of each state in the USA contains some specific acknowledgement of God. So, they wish to amend the preamble to include the phrase "one nation under God." [Acknowledge God, America!, http://www.acknowledgegodamerica.com/]

Another group whose origins I cannot determine proposes the following Christian amendment to the Preamble, so that it would read:

We, the People of the United States [recognizing the being and attributes of Almighty God, the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, the Law of God as the paramount rule, and Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior and Lord of all], in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility….[etc.]
["The Proposed Christian Amendment. http://candst.tripod.com/chrsamnd.htm]

V. Some of the Other Infelicitous Ideas

I have already briefly noted the "hang 10" movement's connection to the concept of the United States as a Christian nation. But there are other unhappy, and more than unhappy, scary connections that many people do not understand and that the media rarely note. The themes, but not the sources, are regular topics on talk radio and on the CBN of Pat Robertson. This will, of necessity, be a quick excursis into these deep waters.

A. Christian Reconstructionists

First, meet the Christian Reconstructionists, whose primary intellectual strategist is a man by the name of Rousas John Rushdoony, whose 1973 book, Institutes of Biblical Law, is the defining text of the movement. It is an 800 page explanation of the Decalogue, "…the Biblical 'case law' that derives from them, and their application today." [Clarkson, Frederick. "Christian Reconstructionists: Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence.", found at http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/reconstruct2.html]

Rushdoony, who died in February, 2001, was often found often alongside Pat Robertson on "The 700 Club," and quoted often in Jerry Falwell's publications.

Here is Rob Boston's description of Christian Reconstructionism:

Christian Reconstructionism is based on "theonomy", a term that literally means "God's law". (Christian Reconstructionists are also known as "theonomists"). …Reconstructionists say the Bible is inerrant and applicable to all aspects of modern life. …They believe the Bible provides workable models for a contemporary economy, a foreign policy, a system of social justice, a criminal justice system, and a national defense, as well as the most intimate and trifling details of personal and family life. [Boston, Rob. "Thy Kingdom Come: Christian Reconstructionists Want to Take Dominion Over America." Church and State, September, 1998, p. 6 (174)]

Another author who has studied the Religious Right in great depth and has written a book entitled Eternal Hostility: The Struggle between Theocracy and Democracy (1997), Frederick Clarkson writes the following:

Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of the Old Testament Israel, or "Biblical Law," is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth.
Reconstructinism argues that the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life, such as government, education, law, and the arts, not merely "social" or "moral" issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion….

…More broadly, Reconstructionists believe that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church government, and civil government. …The husband is the head of the family, and wife and children are "in submission:" to him. In turn, the husband "submits" to Jesus and to God's laws as detailed in the Old Testament. [Clarkson, Frederick. Op.Cit. p. 3]

Among the ideas of the Reconstructionists are to be found:
· a greatly reduced civil government
· abolition of welfare system and replacement with Church based charity.
· abolition of affirmative action and dismantlement of civil rights legislation;
· abortion would be outlawed and punishable by death, preferably by stoning;
· "government schools", as they call them, would be closed, and education would be replaced by private church schools or home-schooling;
· in the marketplace, currency would be backed by gold and silver, "hard money", and the economy would be largely an unregulated free-wheeling capitalism;
· taxes would be 10% of a person's income;
· debts would be limited to 6 years;
· in criminal justice, many crimes would be punishable by death, and prisons would be largely holding pens. Non-capital crimes would be punishable by whipping and forced restitution. Among the crimes punishable by death would be: murder, striking or cursing a parent, kidnapping, adultery, incest, bestiality, sodomy or homosexuality, unchastity, rape of a betrothed virgin, witchcraft, offering human sacrifice, incorrigible delinquency, blasphemy, Sabbath desecration (now superseded by the Lord's Day, Sunday), etc. [Boston, Rob. "Thy Kingdom Come", Op. Cit., pp. 7 (175) - 9 (177)]

Boston quotes Byron Snapp, a Virginia Reconstructionist, who asserted: "The Christian must realize that pluralism is a myth. God and His law must rule all nations….At no point in Scripture do we read that God teaches, supports, or condones pluralism. To support pluralism is to recognize all religions as equal. Such a recognition denies God glory that belongs uniquely to him." [Boston, Rob. "Thy Kingdom Come", Op. Cit., p. 7)

Do you hear the echoes in the sermons and speech of Jeffrey Fugate, who probably does not realize how his preaching expands the political base of movements like this.

I've attached to this paper a listing of the philosophy of the Christian Reconstructionists. They are frightening people whose influence is growing. Among those swayed by them are such people as John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based legal aid group that often takes up Religious Right causes, and was the principle group that supported Paula Jones in her harassment case against President Clinton. Whitehead cites works by R.J. Rushdoony, and his son-in-law, Gary North, and calls them major influences on his thought. Others include the late evangelical guru Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky Schaeffer; and Washington Times columnist John Lofton. I hear strong overtones of this message coming from Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, from Franklin Graham (but not his father, Billy Graham), and regularly from talk radio shows.

The correlations with the ideologies of such groups as Christian Identity, the KKK, and the Church of the World Creator are also apparent. One has only to listen carefully to what was being said at the demonstration on Sunday against the Gay-Straight Alliance in the Boyd County high school to hear it again.

B. Christians for Israel

Finally, let me introduce you to one more idea that I do not think has an official "group" endorsing their ideas, but the concepts grow out of the Biblical literalism of American fundamentalist Christianity and are popular in those circles. It has to do with support by Christians for Israel. Their web-sites encourage donations to help Jews from all over the world immigrate to Israel, to help in building the settlements in the new territories (formerly held by Palestinians, at least some of whom, ironically are Christian), the purchase of products made in Israel, and overwhelming political support for Israel.

My inclusion of this group in this paper has nothing to do with my own position regarding Israel, and its right to exist as a nation. The critique focuses on those Christian fundamentalists who, without much thought, arbitrarily give their support to the return of Jews to the Middle East. Why? The sooner we get all the Jews back to Israel, the sooner we might expect the second coming, and the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan….which, in their literature, sounds remarkably like that of the Christian Reconstructionists.

Bob Westbrook, editor of the evangelical and eschatological journal, Trumpet Sounds, wrote in an article in 2001,

…all was not immediately fulfilled in His [Christ's] first appearance. But without question all of these prophecies will be fulfilled in His second appearance. Jesus' close acquaintances understood this, asking Him just before He departed from them, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" These men clearly understood that the fulfillment of the Kingdom and the restoration of Israel to the place of world preeminence are intimately connected events. Therefore, for any Christian who wishes to fully support God's redemptive plan, it is essential that he or she support Israel. [Westbrook, Bob. "Why Should Christians Support Israel?" http://www.worthynews.com/cgi-bin/masterpfp.cgi?doc=http://www.worthyinsights.com/fe…]

Westbrook goes to great lengths to argue that the primary issue that Christians should support on Israel's behalf is the right of Israel to all the land of Palestine. So much for even the Christians in that ancient land.

VI. Conclusion

I have argued in this paper that the idea of a Christian America is historically inaccurate, constitutionally unsupported, and more important, has dangerous implications for our political life together in this country. These falsely nostalgic beliefs in the United States as a Christian nation, somehow betrayed by the modernism and secular humanism of our time and the Supreme Court, are the premise of much Christian Right political and historical literature and speech. This ideology is being widely taught and preached in churches, in church-based schools, and in home-schools. The popularization of these ideas have become a dangerously polarizing factor in contemporary politics, and may lead to infringements on the civil liberties that we have all known to love and trust. It is time for progressive Christians and mainstream Americans to articulate a different point of view, and to challenge these half-truths and misconceptions whenever and wherever we encounter them. It is also as important for us to become engaged in the political process, to preserve this amazing Constitutional republic in which we live, to save religious liberty that has been so healthy for the religious life of our citizens, and to remember always that the Christian God is a God of justice and mercy, that God is Sovereign, and not we ourselves.