Views and News: Was America founded by Christians?
By Al Duncan
During Obama”s visit to Turkey”s Cankaya Palace, April 2009, he was asked if America was a Christian nation. He replied: “America”s a predominantly Christian nation” but “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”
Most Americans still believe that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, while others believe it was founded as a secular nation. According to a number of 2008 polls, an overwhelming majority, approximately 76 percent of Americans called themselves Christian.
American Historian David Barton depicts the founding fathers as men who: “had an impact upon the birth and development of America as an independent, self-governing nation.” They were: 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, 55 men who signed the U.S. Constitution, 14 men who served as President of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789, 90 members of the First Congress that ratified the Bill of Rights, 84 military leaders of the Revolutionary War, some members of President George Washington”s administration, governors who helped ratify the Constitution, the initial justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Patrick Henry, Noah Webster and other men who helped establish our nation, but didn”t hold office.
Tim LaHaye researched the religious beliefs of the 55 men who wrote and signed the U.S. Constitution; 53 were orthodox members of one of the established Christian Churches.
Since 53 of the 55 Founding Fathers who drafted the U.S. Constitution were members of various Christian denominations the First Congress enacted the First Amendment to prevent Congress from passing a law that would favor one Christian denomination over another: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof?;”
Patrick Henry addressed this matter before the House of Burgesses, May 1765: “It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”
Article VII of the U.S. Constitution states: “Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord 1787 and of the Independence of the United States of America the 12th in witness whereof? ”
The phrase “the year of our Lord” refers to the year that Jesus Christ is believed to have been born, and the capitalization of the word “Lord” denotes His deity. The reference to “The Independence of the United States of America the 12th” refers to July 4, 1776, when the Founding Fathers signed The Declaration of Independence because that document was the “Articles of Incorporation” of the Constitution, and the foundation of our nation. The Declaration of Independence refers to God as “Nature”s God,” “Creator,” “Supreme Judge of the Universe,” and “Divine Providence.”
On Sept. 15, Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights: life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Obama omitted the key phrase, “endowed by their Creator.” His misquote is from the Declaration of Independence, the unique document that distinguishes the U.S. from every other country. This can be veiwed by going to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd7ZQZxDhjk.
This is inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in the nation”s capital: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
In Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S., 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court stated: “This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single-voice making this affirmation … These are not individual sayings, declarations of private persons; they are organic utterances; they speak the voice of the entire people ? These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add volumes of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”
I, too, would be hard-pressed trying to prove that America is a Christian nation today, but one would have to literally rewrite American history in an attempt to disprove that this nation was founded by Christians and established on Christian principles.
Al Duncan is a local author, businessman and Record-Bee columnist. He can be contacted at alduncan@pacific.net.
