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Was America founded on Christianity?
Posted by yunyi2009 • 9/23/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: america, christianity, founding fathers
Many people believe that this country was based on Christianity, but by reading history I know at least something called: Separation of church and state. What's more, I found this from the movie "Religulous":
Thomas Jefferson: "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man."
Benjamin Franlin: "Lighthouses are more useful than churches. "
John Adams: "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it! "
Is this all about the perspective?
However, it is true to say that American people live in a Christian community. And I do believe that's what makes this country's ideology relatively behind even though the economic, scientific and social system are absolutely advanced.
User Comments
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You may be interested in this excerpt from George Washington's farewell address:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"-
Washington's farewell address was written originally by Madison, and later heavily revised by the quixotic Mr. Hamilton. I'm guessing that particular passage is part of said revision.
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I believe many of the founding fathers were Deists, not Christians. What makes our country unique and special is that they were able to devise a system that values individual rights, regardless of specific culture or background. The Puritans may have founded the colony of Massachusetts, but we are fortunate they did not author the Constitution.-
@midwestmom
I agree with your belief that many of the founding fathers were Deists, and not Christians. I will even further and say many early Americans did practice Christianity, albiet not as it is today, for they also believed in deistic philosophy. In addition, although they respected the rights of other religions, most of America's influential founding fathers, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets, rather than to Christianity.
With respect I share my POV which is that among the leading nations in the world today, America is most certainly not an outstanding example of valuing individual rights, regardless of specific culture or background. I can easily list other nations that have done a far better job of walking the talk. In fact, I sincerely believe that it may be the persistent clinging to this inaccurate portrayal of their reality that may hamper Americans from actually achieving those goals. -
Timethief
I am an historian, and when I speak about the Constitution, I am speaking of the original document. I never said the United States was a shining example of anything, nor did I compare it to other countries. What I meant by my statement was that the framers of the Constitution were attempting to create a state based upon the value of each individual and an even-handed application of law to all citizens.
That, in itself, was a novel idea at the time. But I don't believe it had its origins in Christian doctrine -- at all. -
Good then we are on the same page.
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@MidwestMom
I am also under the belief that the US was founded, at least in part, by Deists.
@timethief
We had many more rights until the Bush Administration's overkill response to 9/11. I have no idea what ever happened to "give me liberty or give me death" but apparently somewhere in the last couple of centuries we (unfortunately) changed our minds. -
@midwestmom: The puritans were actually more civilized and merciful then their English counterparts of that time period. At the time of the Salem witch trials, the Glorious Revolution, which made England essentially a democracy, was still a couple decades away.
Yes, Deists were the elites, but it's the working man that builds a country, and the government is the product of the people, not the other way around. -
thanks MidwestMom.
were they puritans who persecuted quakers? or quakers were one group of puritans? -
Quakers were a group of non-conformists that splintered away from the Puritan movement. They are far more loosely organized and characterized by tolerance of other faiths and activism on social issues (particularly opposition to slavery.) They are also known as the "society of friends".
If you want to read more about their history and present activities, here's a link to the wikipedia article on them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Society_of_Friends
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If this country was founded on christianity, then that would explain the slavery, genocide and deforestation.-
I'm not a Christian and I'm not taking up for their history - but when were the Christians accused of deforestation? -
Indeed it seems that the belief that mankind (patriarchs and their corporate spawn) were given dominion over the entire planet, allegedly by a supernatural being, whose existence has neither been proven not disposition does seem to be a prevalent Christian POV in some circles only.
Fortunately, only a minority of Christians take this POV. That's means there is still hope that upcoming generations may actually witness equality, and an end to wars based on exploitation of resources that belong to other nations, wherein the majority are adherents to other religions. -
@ NT77 - he was making a point about the widespread "expansion" or "development" in the name of land acquisition. ie - if this country was founded on Christian principles, why do we not hold this religion responsible for the deliberate infection of native humans to hasten their deaths, then widespread tribal extermination?
For thousands of years, cultures existed on this continent who did not... pave paradise to put up a parking lot, as it were. -
thanks for your humorous response. yes, "God take only credit, not responsibility". forgot who said that.
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Got it. Thanks for clarifying Pillownaut & Timethief.
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All peoples commit genocide. There is nothing in Christian teaching that would even remote support such a position, and it is worth noting that prior to the 1600's, no one could read the Bible because it could only be translated to Latin.
The Bible's ideal of slavery is so wildly different from what America did (legal rights, limitation on period of service...) that no thinking man could ever claim the two were connected. Indeed, our tradition of slavery actually comes out of Islam as the muslims were the ones who started the trade and we started buying from them.
As for "deforestation," that's more caused by a lack of common sense then anything else. Regardless of where you consider man in the scheme of things, it only takes the tiniest sliver of intelligence to see why this is a bad idea. Trouble is, for most of our history we have been (understandably) more concerned about poverty then sustainability, and only with the affluence/spoiled childreness of the last 70 years combined with our first true environmental disaster (the Dust Bowl, 1930's Great Plains of US) has anyone really considered, in detail, our effect on the environment.
I will give you this though: It is quite telling that in the Bible, legal authority is defended and backed by God but with religious authority you are told to "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7: 16, KJV) and "a bad tree bears only bad fruit... [and] will be chopped down and fed to the fire." (Matthew 7: 17-19, NIV)
BTW, "God take only credit, not responsibility", inaccurate. The Skeptics Annotated Bible makes a big deal about how God has to "repent himself" of the human race on a routine basis. That's part of the point of God's judgement. I fear, however, that what we do to each other is a far greater evil then deforestation, hard as that may be to believe.
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America was founded on deism and an enlightenment philosophy. -
"America" has yet to be found.-
lol
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The founders of America were humanists, regardless of what sect or lack thereof that they belonged to. Those who favored to old pre-enlightenment hierarchies were typically royalists and fought against the independence of the colonies and those who survived were helped to immigrate to other English colonies by "devine" decree of England's King.
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"old pre-enlightenment hierarchies"
Protestantism is not an old pre-enlightenment hierarchy. Indeed, the Late Protestant Reformation (Baptist, Methodist aspect) and the Enlightenment were very close to simultaneous and fed in to each other, while the Early Protestant Reformation (Calvinist, Lutheran, Episcopalian Aspect) is what got Europe educated enough and thinking enough to have an enlightenment and especially got the philosophers to reading the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, father of humanism. -
"is what got Europe educated enough"
The church invented reading and writing?
we might as well say that we are based on Sumerian traditions
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Mesopotamia was a land of opportunity, where the smallest tribe could lay claim to an entire continent. By the fourth millennium the city-states of Sumer had begun to stamp their authority on the region, pioneering skills such as agriculture, irrigation and social structuring, and writing (cuneiform script). Another form of writing, which too had been around since the end of the 4th millennium BC was the Egyptian hieroglyph.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JsfwAcCo0
The story of Noah and the flood was lifted from Sumeria. It's an ancient Sumerian legend found in The Epic of Gilgamesh. It was orally transmitted and made it into the Tanakh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/
Please understand that early christians, who were called followers of The Way deliberately chose to re-nterpret the Old Testament in a manner required to uphold the doctrine and dogma that depicts Jesus as God. The Old Testament books do not incorporate all of the Judaic spiritual teachings and books. What was left behind when some were adopted was over 600 rabbinical teachings that illuminate meaning. Christians the Tanakh from the Jews, sans the rabbinical teachings. They cherry pick prophetic and messianic passages from it. Then they put their own spin on it because if they didn't they would have only the New Testament books to base their religion upon.
Also when it comes to borrowing there is absolutely no doubt among bible scholars that the New testament book containing John's so-called Book of Relevations was borrowed from the Jews and the contents were in existence long before John could have been born.
When we study this compilation of books we come to know the fantasy of being descended from the house of David. That was only introduced into the story of Jesus' life decades after the events occurred, most likely after anyone who actually witnessed the events was dead.
The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most moving stories rooted in the ancient wisdom-tradition of mankind. Recited for nearly three millennia, it was virtually lost for another two with the advent of Christianity. Modern generations came to know about Gilgamesh only after the first cuneiform fragments of his story were excavated in 1853 at Nineveh from the library of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the 7th century BC. Almost twenty years elapsed, however, before the clay tablets were deciphered by George Smith at the British Museum. -
Education is teaching of existing skills. Europe, in the middle ages, was 99% uneducated hicks who thought ducks floated because they were made of wood. Europe after the Protestant Reformation knew how to read. End of story, and no, just because you post a lot of pointless unrelated folly does not mean you're right.
@Agit8r & TT: No, but the middle ages killed it, and the Gutenburg Bible brought it back to life. Beyond that, your comment is folly because education is about teaching existing skills, not discovering new ones. -
our founders didn't accept EXISTING government. They started a NEW one. Hellohhhhhhhh!
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@Agit8r: And why do you think that protestants accept established government?
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What do you mean by that? Do you mean is our current system of government christian? No. But the founding fathers, as I've stated before and will state again, were a tiny minority in a largely Protestant Christian nation whose Northern Colonies would not have been founded without the efforts, organization, and morality of the Puritans and the Quakers, while the Colony of Maryland would not have been founded without the efforts of the Catholics and it was a christian motive (the forgiveness of debts) that led to the creation of Georgia. Even New York could not have been an English possesion if not already surrounded by English border. Only the Southern states (irony) could've been English without the Christian influence. Even Canada was acquired by the English when fighting to defend the Northeast.
Further, humanism itself came out of Christianity and Christian traditions previous to the great awakenings of the 17 and 1800's, which were actually more "modern" as may of the humanist bloggers on this board would understand it. (In Shakespeare's time, most Christians believed Hell was a state of mind, and this features prominently in Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus.")
I find it very funny that Liberals claim to fight for the common man yet will conveniently ignore his contributions to civilization.-
Jeremy,
I don't hear anyone here denying that many of the first US citizens were Christian. The OP was asking whether the country was founded on Christian principles -- it was not. I would posit that the reason so many Protestants and Quakers 'bought in' to the new form of government was because of novel rights afforded them in the Bill of Rights. They could not expect such even-handed treatment under British law, but instead ratified the Constitution because the framers made the document flexible enough to accommodate their regional needs and concerns. -
It depends upon what you mean by country. Do you mean the government, or the people? Do you mean the principles of the Republic, or the principles of the society? Depending upon which of these you mean, America may or may not be a Christian nation. American Government WAS NOT built on strictly Christian ideas, but American society and civilization was. America is not a piece of paper. From the Northeast the Midwest was settled, and the South also had very Christian roots but was less theocratic. The West for a time avoided Christianization, but as it grew in the 20th Century many areas out west (especially West Texas, Colorado, Alaska and California) began assimilating in to the Christian traditions of the East and Heartland.
As for "ratifying the Bill of Rights," that Bill of Rights is the only piece of the US Constitution that may have been established by a (sadly) less common then it used to be interpretation of the Bible. I have heard that case made, though I cannot speak for it's accuracy as of yet because I have not heard the case of the opposition. -
@jj
Have you read the federalist papers? They are a great read.
And my comments speak only to the formation of the government -- not of colonial society. One comment, though -- you mentioned Puritans and Quakers in the same breath earlier, as though we can put them in the same category. They would not have considered themselves remotely similar, which is why freedom of religion and separation of government and any single church was so important. A member of a Protestant sect in Virginia or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts would most likely have considered each other virtually foreign. -
@MM: But they all read the same book, and just because people consider each other foreign does not mean they have nothing in common. For example, some of the better attributes of the Puritans (for example, hard work, self-control and social responsibility) were equally true of the Quakers, and the first two in that list were true of nearly all Christian groups in America. This is only an example, I'm sure more similarities could be found. It is true the the Puritans were much more right-wing in the modern sense then the Quakers, but right/left divides are far more emotional then substantive.
And yes, I already noted in my original post that the US Government is not a Christian government: "Do you mean is our current system of government christian? No." I just don't believe that government, which in many countries changes every other year, is that important. France has changed radically in the form and ideals of it's republics and kingdoms at least 8 times in the last 200 years, but is still basically France. Norway has been ruled by Danes, ruled by Swedes, ruled by Nazis/Anarchy and twice been a constitutional monarchy, and is still basically Norway. The Jews have lived in every country at every time, tried Anarchotribalism, Imperial Federalism, Monarchy, Democracy, Direct Democracy and everything in between and are still basically Jewish. And I find it sickening that too few people consider the working mans' contribution to America.
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No of course not -
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Ya absolutely
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*grumbles loudly* I'm getting sick of Americans thinking their a Christian country. (Not that the author of this thread is one of them.) It's RIGHT THERE in your constitution people! Read it!
And another thing while I'm at it - all you Yankees who despise Liberals so much? Liberalism actually IS one idea your country was founded on: Separation of Church and State, the Separation of Powers etc. etc. are Liberal ideas!
*SIGH* Ok, I'm calm again now. -
"It's RIGHT THERE in your constitution people!"
America is not a piece of paper.
"Separation of Church and State, the Separation of Powers etc. etc. are Liberal ideas!"
By a definition of Liberal that has not applied for over 100 years. Today, the people who fight for Separation of Powers are usually Conservatives, while it is usually liberals attempting to extend the authority of individual branches and the Fed. As for "Separation of Church and State," the issue has been cartoonified and is now largely an argument over statues, posters and uniforms. -
Government paid statues, posters, and mandatory uniforms.
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If one uses the term "Nation" in it's true sense, We are a diverse Nation, not given easily to a single identity. Those who want to classify us as ONE ORGANISM seem to be rather marxian to me.
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@Agit8r: Agreed, but there are some things that are definitively American about nearly all of America, and that is America to me. If I speak as if it is one organism, it is simply because cultures almost seem to have a mind of their own and a personhood in their own right, and the best way to study them is often from this angle.
@VK: "Congress shall make no law affecting the establishment of a national religion or interfering in the free practice of any religion." (Roughly Paraphrased.) I'm not going to look it up right now, but I'm sure if I did I'd probably find that the idea was to prevent the infringement of an important freedom, not waste huge amounts of money changing out decorations and creating a smokescreen for more pertinent and substantive civil rights violations.
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Just read "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, or the various letters written by Thomas Jefferson among others. It is clear that America was not founded upon Christian ideology, but that the founding fathers wished for a separation of church and state.
With that said, it is true that many Americans at the time were religious. However it is also true that during that time period, fewer people went to church, and the one's who did went less often.
But again, to simply answer the question, no it was not.-
thanks!
i came to this country over 10 years ago. before i came, i had acknowledged the extrodinary political system called "Separation of church and state" as the key factor of american's success as a new born country. however, after living in this country for long, especially since i moved to south, the overwhelmingly spread christianity really surpprised me, even confused me. poeple just hold their belief so firmly without doubt, without checking on history, or scientific facts.
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You have to learn to understand statements such as the ones that you quoted in the light of 1) the immediate context in which they were made, and 2) numerous other statements that the founding fathers made. -
Although Christianity has been a dominant religion throughout American history (as it has been throughout Western Europe), it has never been officially recognized. "Freedom of Religion" - as stated in commentaries above - has been a bedrock of our founding. Polls today show the continual growing trend here - as elsewhere - is to a more personal belief system, not the dogma of the organized religions that have long dominated throughout the world. -
it is interesting how the Framers of our Constitution, in particular looked to the pre-Christian republics of Athens and Sparta as their examples, and that they settled on a middle-ground between the two.
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Does Christianity needs America?-
yes. We are the only people that wage crusades based on christianity anymore...
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bush-god-told-me-to-invade-iraq-5...
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@jeremyjanson
I am not convinced that humanisim is rooted in christianity. I believe it was greeks' idea. If christians claim humanism is their privilege just because they could find "love your brothers" in bible, then humanism really was evented by all religions, exists in all culture.-
@yunyi: Read St. Thomas Aquinas, and no, the Greeks were very antihumanist (Plato especially) and tended to believe that there was no intrinsic value in human beings, "all Artists should be killed," while Aristotle believed in human freedom from a different angle.
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@jeremyjanson: "it is worth noting that prior to the 1600's, no one could read the Bible because it could only be translated to Latin."
That is not true, not even for the Roman Catholic Church. The Bible was translated to many languages prior to the 1600s by the Orthodox Church, including Old Church Slavonic (which later evolved into Russian) in the late 9th century. The Bible was originally written in a pastiche of several languages, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and has been available to believers from the Orthodox Church in local languages, including the Syriac dialect of Aramaic, and in the Ethiopian language of Ge'ez.
Portions of the Bible were available in English as early as 735 AD. In fact, alternate translations of the Bible were widely available until 1199, when Pope Innocent III banned them as a way to control the Waldensians, Cathars, Albigensians, etc. However, this ban was in effect only in primarily Roman Catholic countries, and not in primarily Orthodox countries, and concerned only members of the Roman Catholic Church. Anyone involved with the translation, printing, etc. of the Bible who was not a member of the Roman Catholic Church would not have cared, since the most likely punishment was excommunication (being cast out of the body of the Church).-
Great info, geekchick. Do you have a link or citation if people want to read more about it?
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I believe that there's an article on Bible translations in Wikipedia. You could also try Will and Ariel Durant's "The Story of Civilization," which goes into great detail about the Great Schism of 1054 and the fallout therefrom, as well as the influence of the Roman Church. And of course, we have the Patristic writings. Most of this is common knowledge and can be found in any reputable history of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
I might also point out that many of the tradesmen, merchants, etc. had an education in at least rudimentary Latin, as it was the lingua franca of educated people everywhere in Central and Western Europe. Thatchers had the worst literacy rate, at only 2%; most tradesmen and merchants had a fair knowledge of Latin. What was really controlled was the individual possession of Bibles. Again, this was in primarily Roman Catholic countries; primarily Orthodox countries encouraged individual possession of Bibles, with the understanding that until the invention of moveable type, all books were rare and usually possessions of the wealthy, just as yachts are today. Anyone who can afford it could own one; the number of people who could afford it was very small. -
In any case, the Gutenburg Bible bolted the literacy rate from less then 10% to over 80% in a very short period of time. The fact that Orthodox countries had translated bibles doesn't really have much effect as they were too poor, war-torn and enslaved by my ancestors (Vikings) and the ancestors of the people we're fighting right now to make much contribution to civilization anyways.
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The United States has it's roots in Christianity but it has never been solely a Christian country. Those who came to this country were seeking to get away from governments that required belonging to a certain sect. Religious freedom not freedom from religion was the bases for this country. The founding fathers wanted the government to stay out of religion not to have men keep their religious views from guiding them in their decision making in government. This has always been a country where men would fight for your right to believe or not to believe in God. As a pastor it is not my job to cram my beliefs down anyone's throat but it is my job to speak the truth to those who want to listen. You cannot get one's attention if he is gagging from what you are saying. I support your right to believe what you do and all I ask is for you to give me the same respect. -
You need to find history books prior to the 1920s if you want truth about history. Historians since have distorted the truth.
The country was founded on Freedom. Freedom of religion. Freedom to no religion. Religion shouldn't be forced on anyone, but by the same token my religious freedom of expression shouldn't be taken away from me.
And the whole separation of church and state has just been blown all out of portion from what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the Constitution. They did not want the government dictating and setting up and State religion like in England. -
It seems to me that clinging to the myth that America was founded as a "Christian Nation" is of great import to the Christian right wing. Perhaps they need to cling to this false belief and to the equally false belief that America today is a nation for "people of faith" in order to achieve their aims which appear to be:
(1) enshrining their form of Christianity in law, politics, and culture;
(2) eliminating the influence of those citizens who have religious faith in any other construct of god(s) and religion to prevent them from enshrining their faith in law, politics, and culture;
(3) eliminating the influence those citizens who don't have faith in any gods or religion from law, politics, and culture.
If so then such aims are clearly in stark opposition to the intent of the founding fathers, who deliberately chose NOT to create a Christian nation in America.-
It is of great import to the Christian right, but right now you look like the stubborn fool:
"Mesopotamia was a land of opportunity, where the smallest tribe could lay claim to an entire continent. By the fourth millennium the city-states of Sumer had begun to stamp their authority on the region, pioneering skills such as agriculture, irrigation and social structuring, and writing (cuneiform script). Another form of writing, which too had been around since the end of the 4th millennium BC was the Egyptian hieroglyph."
Typical rhetorical smokescreen, used to undermine an opponents Ethnos and thus prevent the debate rather then answering it. None of these details have anything to do with the level of education in Europe before the Protestant Reformation, which was, of course, very low, or of the Gutenburg Bible, which created a religious incentive to GET educated.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible
By fool I mean in the sense of rejecting truth, not intelligence.
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In these debates I frequently notice that the argument could be resolved if people were clearer about their terms. Some people are talking about the religious and cultural orientations of those who founded this nation. Others are more attune to the principles of the founders, especially as reflected in the foundational documents of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And the Constitution is clear about the separation of church and state. But history is clear about the primary cultural and religious orientations of this country's elite for an awful long time. If people could be clear about this, all would be well.
Unfortunately, there have been examples from the religious right of efforts to bring a kind of Christian influence (as they understand it) to the business of government, but that doesn't mean that everyone who notices or identifies with the nation's Christian past are part of this effort. Most, I suspect, understand the Constitution, and many probably get that today's religious diversity is not only legal, but even valuable. To call the US a primarily Christian country today is not really tenable, though I'm guessing that is still the majority religion in all its many variations.-
@c&m: Thank you. And for the record, I do not support Christianity in politics. This is my skewering of both the Christian Right and Left:
atlantapoliticsonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/christian-left-supports-exploita...
But I've stated this like 50 times already and no one is listening! I'm sorry, I don't find government very important to defining a country, I really don't see why anyone does. Governments change all the time, societies remain the same.
Of course clio, about "majority Christian" you realize that the fact that no one practices the Roman Religion anymore does not mean it doesn't have an effect on culture still, and especially on Christianity. In fact, I'd argue that your social conservative is a better practicioner of the Roman faith with its emphasis on religion for the preservation of society, sexual purity and bargaining with the Gods then he is of the Christian one. Now all they need to do is replace the Cross with a wolfs head and Joila! Baptist Church = Roman Pagan Temple. Good goin guys!
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