Religion
Farrell Till: The Christian Nation Myth
A Christian miracle: transforming deism into Christianity.
In The Christian Nation Myth, Farrell Till says that America was not founded on Biblical Christianity. Till is right. And he quotes the founding fathers themselves—along with others of their time—to show that he is right.
Look at the major founding fathers. Not surprisingly, they are the ones whose names you know:
- Thomas Jefferson
- James Madison
- Benjamin Franklin
- John Adams
- Thomas Paine
- George Washington
- James Monroe
All these men wanted a secular nation.
And all these men were deists, not Christians. Deists believe that a being created the universe, but then went away. Deists do not believe in a god who interacts with nature, inspires holy books, or listens to humans.
Till dives into the evidence for two of these characters: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. For the others, check an encyclopdia. Or, try The Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David Holmes.
Thomas Jefferson
- Wrote: “To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise.”
- Wrote: “In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.”
- Rewrote the gospels as The Jefferson Bible, which eliminated all miracles and ended with Jesus’ burial.
- 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 Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
- Wrote: “There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.”
- Clergy of the time called him a “true infidel.”
- As president, Jefferson refused to give Thanksgiving proclamations, and fought for the continued separation of church and state.
- Twice, the Supreme Court cited a letter by Jefferson as “an authoritative declaration of the scope of the [First] Amendment.” They agreed its intention was “to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.’”
George Washington
- Attended church with his wife, but never participated, prayed, or took communion.
- The rector of the church Washington attended told someone, “Sir, Washington was a Deist.”
- In 1831, Reverend Bird Wilson said that “among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion.” He said Washington was “really a typical eighteenth century Deist, not a Christian.”
- Never mentioned the Christian God in his public speeches.
- Even on his death bed, he did not profess any faith. He said, “I am not afraid to go.”
One criticism
Till’s article is not recent enough to mention the best argument against Washington’s deism, found in Washington’s God by Michael and Jana Novak.
The Novaks point out that during war, Washington thought that Providence intervened on his behalf a few times. A deist god does not intervene.
Their other arguments are weak, but that one stands. Maybe Washington was an odd kind of deist. Anyway, that one piece of evidence doesn’t compare to the evidence that Washington was a deist.
A secular nation
Many Christians signed the constitution. But they were minor players. And even those who had Christian beliefs meant to found a secular nation. Just look at the founding documents they wrote and signed:
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights don’t mention God. Not once.
They mention religion once, to say: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Christians can’t seriously claim that America was founded on Christian ideas when:
- The most important founders were deists, and outspoken critics of religion.
- The founding documents do not even mention Christian ideas or the Bible.
- The founding documents, in fact, prohibit the government from supporting any religion.
Pastor Greg Boyd agrees. He says that when the church and politics mix, things get ugly. He’s right.