Examining The Myth

Can someone explain “America is a ‘Judeo-Christian’ or ‘Christian’ nation?”

 “I am the Lord your God.
Do not steal.
Do not lie.
Do not deceive one another…
Do not defraud or rob your neighbor…
Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. 
I am the Lord….
Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 
The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born…”
Leviticus 19: 

To pay the worker fairly and not withhold his wages, to treat the foreigner amongst you as you would a native-born. This is to be faithful to the “Judeo tradition.”

“For I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink,
a stranger and you invited me in, naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you cared for me, imprisoned and you came to visit me….
Whatever you did for one of the least of these 
of my brothers and sisters you did for me….”
Matthew 25

Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless… This is to be Christian.

To do these is to be a Judeo-Christian nation. To speak of these things and do less or refuse to do these things and call oneself or one’s nation “Christian” or “Judeo-Christian” is to lie. 

It’s time for a serious examination of politicians’ talk about the nation’s “Judeo-Christian” or “Christian” foundations and values.

Yes, many among the earliest settlers of this land sought religious freedom for themselves – not necessarily for any other Christians. Only for those – in different parts of Rhode Island or Massachusetts or Virginia or Pennsylvania - who thought, prayed, worshipped, and read the same version of Sacred Scripture as they did. North America’s colonies were founded as “my version” of Christianity colonies.

And slavery. Whoops! Many of the Founders agreed with Paul’s directive “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only to please them while they are watching, but with sincerity of heart and fear of the Lord.” (Colossians 3:22)

If we are to “return” to our Judeo-Christian principles, whose? Puritans’? Calvinists’? Some minority Jews’? Shall we forget the Catholics in Maryland with their allegiance to Rome? What about those mid-Atlantic colonialists committed to the Church of England and loyal to the King?

During the Revolutionary War period, members of the Society of Friends, the Quakers, endured widespread abuse – economic and social – because of their adherence to Jesus’s admonition “Blessed are the peace makers.” In fact, “the people called Quakers” were specifically singled out by the Continental Congress on August 28, 1777. Individual states were given the right to “apprehend and secure all persons…who have… evidenced a disposition inimical to the cause of America.” Congress’s refusal to tolerate any doubts about their righteousness resulted in rank anti-Quaker bigotry.

George Washington, who never took communion, was more than just a little anti-Quaker, once cautioning his officers to be certain that “the unfriendly Quakers and others notoriously disaffected to the cause of American Liberty do not escape your vigilance.” 

Washington never knelt in prayer at Valley Forge – despite the popularity of portraits having him do so. The “kneeling Washington” story was originally conveyed (can we say “contrived”) by Isaac Potts, a Quaker who claimed to experience a conversion to the American military cause by witnessing Washington bent in prayer. First, problem – Potts did not report the incident for forty years after it allegedly occurred and then initially to his pastor, Reverent Nathaniel Snowden. Second, the relationship between Potts and Snowden is questionable at best and Potts’ family didn’t even move to the Valley Forge area until 1800 and Snowden really screwed up the names of family members. The story originated with Mason Locke Weems but didn’t appear until his twentieth-something edition of The Life of George Washington.

Despite attending church services with some regularity, Washington refused to be confirmed as a member of any domination and it was common for him to walk out of church in the middle of communion ceremonies. He refused to kneel in prayer – making clear to his military advisers that he detested anything that brought a man to his knees. 

John Adams called his experience of the Roman Catholic Mass “awful” – in those days meaning “inspiring awe” but let’s not forget his attitude toward the Jesuits: "I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola’s. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.”

Thomas Jefferson was – unfairly - denounced as a “howling atheist” during the presidential campaign of 1800 and twenty years later “cut and pasted” an 84-page volume titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth – a “New Testament” minus many of the miracles of Jesus and those elements Jefferson considered “contrary to reason.” Jefferson’s effort reflected his classic education and familiarity with Greek and Latin; he also used French and a King James English version in developing his text. The 1820 version included teachings and events from the life of Jesus without the miracles or any suggestion of the virgin birth, the feedings of the multitudes, or raising Lazarus from the dead. In Jefferson’s Life, there is no Resurrection. 

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, 
I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, 
and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, 
so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, 
as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions 
should have proceeded from the same being.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820

He wrote:

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, 
by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed 
with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. 
But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought 
in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, 
and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines 
of this most venerated reformer of human errors.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

A dozen years before his death he wrote:

“The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful 
that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: 
and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books
relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, 
to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. 
In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have 
proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts
are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, 
as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.”
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

John Adams provided a unique defense against those who argue for the “Judeo-Christian” or “Christian” foundations of the United States:

“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
John Adams, “A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” 1787-1788

And Benjamin Franklin:

“You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render Him is doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental principles of all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them…

“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and better observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in His government of the world with any particular marks of His displeasure…”
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale, shortly before his death; from “Benjamin Franklin” by Carl Van Doren, the October, 1938 Viking Press edition pages 777-778 Also see Alice J. Hall, “Philosopher of Dissent: Benj. Franklin,” National Geographic, Vol. 148, No. 1, July, 1975, p

So, when we talk about returning to the “Christian” or “Judeo-Christian” traditions and values of the “Founding Fathers,” which “Founding Fathers” do we mean? The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence or the 48 signers of the Articles of Confederation? Perhaps the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 – often referred to as the Founding Fathers because they actually debated, drafted and signed the Constitution? Of course, then there’s the problem of the fact that 16 delegates did not actually sign the Constitution but are still considered Founding Fathers. 

And the “Judeo-Christian” tradition of the Founders? There were no Jews represented among the Founding Fathers.

Episcopalians/Anglicans totaled 88 of the 204, followed by 30 Presbyterians, 27 Congregationalists, 7 Quakers, 6  Dutch Reformed/German Reformed, 5 Lutherans; Catholics, Huguenots and Unitarians each had 3, 2 Methodists and 1 lonely Calvinist. And let’s not forget some of these Founding Fathers did not even use the same Bible and their professed religions were still at war with each other in Europe. 

Those Founders did not even mention God in the Constitution. “Nature’s God” received one recognition in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, as did the “Creator” of “all men,” “the Supreme Judge of the world” to whom they appealed “for the rectitude of our intentions,” and “Divine Providence” on whose “protection” they relied. The signers of the Articles of Confederation only refer once to “the Great Governor of the World.” Approximately twenty words out of more than 6,100 in those three documents.