Christian nation<\/a> \u2026 in our DNA.\u201d<\/p>\nCountering the Christian nation narrative<\/p>\n
Critics and advocacy groups are pushing back.<\/p>\n
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\u201cMost \u2014 nearly all \u2014 serious historians agree that America was not founded as a Christian nation in any meaningful legal, philosophical, or constitutional sense,\u201d says the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.<\/p>\n
Six in 10 U.S. adults surveyed said they believed the founders originally intended America to be a Christian nation, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center report.<\/p>\n
Why do the founders\u2019 beliefs and intentions matter?<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s looking for what we historians call a usable past,\u201d says John Fea, author of \u201cWas America Founded as a Christian Nation?\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe go into the past looking for what we want in order to advance a particular political or cultural agenda,\u201d says Fea, a fellow at the Lumen Center, a Christian research institute and study center in Madison, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
Public officials and others did indeed offer prayers on behalf of the new republic at important historical moments. But he said other issues \u2014 such as taxation and representation \u2014 were more central to the Revolution.<\/p>\n
Church and state in the new nation<\/p>\n
Historian Mark David Hall argues that Christianity did strongly impact the founding. While core founders did not hold traditional Christian beliefs, he contends that many other founders did, and this shaped their thinking about how to form the new republic.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s plenty of evidence Christianity had an influence,\u201d says Hall, author of \u201cDid America Have a Christian Founding?\u201d<\/p>\n
He says founders\u2019 attention to human dignity harmonizes with the Bible\u2019s teaching of humanity created in God\u2019s image. The system of checks and balances \u2014 to prevent the concentration of power \u2014 reflects teachings about human sin that would have permeated a largely Protestant culture, he says.<\/p>\n
He also notes that some early presidents and Congresses issued proclamations for prayer and thanksgiving, though some drew opposition and controversy. Some states sponsored churches for decades after the Constitution was ratified, indicating that the founders didn\u2019t believe religion should be absent from public life.<\/p>\n
The believed that faith was important in forming moral, responsible citizens of the new republic. They promoted \u201ctoleration without eliminating the importance of real religious commitment on the part of differing adherents,\u201d Frazer wrote in his book, \u201cThe Religious Beliefs of America\u2019s Founders.\u201d<\/p>\n
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There\u2019s no reference to any specific religion in the Constitution beyond the date \u2014 \u201cin the year of our Lord\u201d 1787. It forbids religious tests for officeholders. The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and forbids \u201cestablishment\u201d of a national religion.<\/p>\n
Twentieth-century Supreme Court rulings applied the First Amendment to the states on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying citizens\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n
Frazer argues that the Bible is not cited as a source for any governing principles in the documented proceedings of the Constitutional Convention or in the influential Federalist Papers. He says the founders drew on influences such as Enlightenment thinking for such concepts as human equality, accountable government and freedom of religion. Early critics faulted the Constitution’s lack of religious content.<\/p>\n
The Declaration of Independence does have religious language, declaring that rights come from the \u201cCreator.\u201d It appeals to the \u201cLaws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Thomas Jefferson and other founders \u2014 adroitly, Frazer says \u2014 used terms acceptable to Christians as well as followers of other religious and philosophical movements.<\/p>\n
The founders’ diverse beliefs<\/p>\n
At the time of the Revolution, most colonists were Protestant, though church participation had been in decline.<\/p>\n
Rationalistic approaches to religion strongly influenced many college-educated and propertied elite men, such as those who produced the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Frazer wrote. So did Freemasonry, a fraternal order based on beliefs in a universal God and morals.<\/p>\n
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Some founders were devout Christians such as John Jay, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry. Others believed in God but not in Jesus\u2019 divinity, including key founders like Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The enigmatic Washington kept active in his Episcopal church but avoided sacraments and also was an active Freemason.<\/p>\n
Challenging misconceptions about deist founders <\/p>\n
But contrary to popular belief, most founders were not deists.<\/p>\n
Frazer instead describes many founders as \u201ctheistic rationalists.\u201d George Washington believed that divine \u201cProvidence\u201d saved his life in battle and intervened on America\u2019s behalf. He was far from alone.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey did believe in an active God,\u201d Frazer says.<\/p>\n
Even the skeptics thought religion was important in forming virtuous citizens. Many scholars believe the First Amendment created a sort of religious free market in which Christianity and other faiths have flourished to this day.<\/p>\n
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration<\/a> with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – President Ronald Reagan prays with National Association of Evangelicals President Arthur Gay, left, following his address…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96255,145,102519,96254,102523,102520,33024,102522,23681,59373,93145,102521,3310,59371,93144,61262,96852,82,84,83,16527],"class_list":["post-277308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-benjamin-franklin","tag-donald-trump","tag-founding-fathers-faith-america-250","tag-george-washington","tag-john-adams","tag-john-fea","tag-john-jay","tag-mark-david-hall","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-package-101570-grant-funded-package","tag-patrick-henry","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-46855-religion-grant-funded-text","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-samuel-adams","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-thomas-jefferson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}