The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

The Puritans imposed the death penalty for worshipping other gods, blasphemy, homosexuality, and adultery.

That is what a Christian government looks like: exclusive, exclusionary, divisive, hateful, severe, and lethal. It resembles modern theocracies in the Middle East.

In the first of The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.”

When our nation was founded, it rejected the intolerance theocracy breeds.

PART II

UNITED STATES v. THE BIBLE

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Biblical Influence

Using biblical stories to communicate an idea does not necessarily indicate that biblical theology influenced the underlying idea or that the speaker adheres to a biblical religion.

Those two points aside, we know that the modern idea of separation of powers did not come from the bible. It came from Montesquieu, who never mentioned or referred to the bible in his discussion of three separate branches of government.

Christianity’s view and treatment of its founding documents is at odds with the American view and treatment of its founding documents. God’s law is unchangeable. American law is not.

The Constitution has been altered twenty-seven times and nearly always improved. The glaring exception to this steady improvement was partly due to religious groups, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which advocated for the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, and which was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.

The bible has been edited, rewritten, excised, supplemented, translated, retranslated, and mistranslated so many times that claims of immutability are laughable.

When Lutz examined only the political writings, the writing relevant to the discussion here (about 2,200 documents), the citations to the bible disappeared. The authors cited the bible about 0.3 times on average, or made about one biblical reference in every three or four works.35

In 528 writings published during the formative years of the American Constitution (1787–88), there were thirty-three citations to the bible, or about one in every sixteen publications.

When Lutz separated the Federalists (those arguing for the Constitution and a central, federal government) from the Anti-Federalists (those arguing against the Constitution), he discovered that the Federalists never cited the bible—not once.

It is assumed that our government was founded on biblical principles, on Judeo-Christian principles. Because this answer is assumed, few bother to explain which specific Judeo-Christian principles and ideas were so influential to America’s founding.

Judeo-Christian principles are so irreconcilable that we can fairly say: Judeo-Christianity is un-American.

An Argument Anticipated

Our country is based on clear principles that are attained by reason, not on a text that repeatedly contradicts itself.

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Christian Arrogance and the Golden Rule

The Jewish formulation of the rule first appears in Leviticus: “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”3

Here, “your kin,” “your people,” and “your neighbor” are used synonymously. So this version of the rule is not universal and applies only to others who worship the same god—not to heretics.

The Golden Rule exists in nearly every society and also appears, in one form or another, in many religions, including “Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world’s major religions,” according to one ethicist.

“Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do.” ~Ancient Egypt (c. 2040–1650 BCE)6

“Don’t do yourself what you disapprove of in others.” ~Pittacus of Mytilene, Ancient Greece (c. 640–568 BCE)7

“Never do ourselves what we blame others for doing.” ~Thales of Miletus, Ancient...

“To those who are good (to me), I am good; and to those who are not good (to me), I am also good; and thus (all) get to be good.” ~Laozi, China (sixth century BCE)

“Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose upon you.” ~Confucius, China (551–479 BCE)

“What I disapprove of in the actions of my neighbor, that—as best I can—I will not do.” ~Herodotus, Ancient Greece (fifth century BCE)

“If people regarded other people’s families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself.” ~Mozi, China (c. 470–391 BCE)12

“Do not do to others the things that anger you when you experience them from others.” ~Isocrates, Ancient Greece (c. 436–338 BCE)

“We ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.” ~Plato/Socrates (fifth–fourth century BCE)

“One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of Righteousness.” ~Hindu Mahabharata (c. fourth century BCE)

Justice is an agreement “neither to harm nor be harmed.” ~Epicurus, Ancient Greece (341–270 BCE)

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” ~Hillel (c. 110 BCE–10 CE)

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” ~Jesus (c. 30 CE)

The Golden Rule is not a Judeo-Christian principle. It is a universal human principle.

It is often argued that Christians are humble and that atheists and scientists are arrogant. But this is backward. Atheists, scientists, and other rational citizens—and religious citizens in their nonreligious thinking—claim to have answers supported by evidence, not by faith. Christianity claims to know ultimate truths about the universe with absolute certainty because of faith, not evidence. Faith, almost by definition, is conceit.

Arguing that the Golden Rule influenced America’s founding does nothing to prove that we are a Christian nation, but it does help show the arrogance of Christian nationalism.

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Biblical Obedience or American Freedom?

The founding documents of the United States revere and protect freedom above all else. The bible worships and demands the opposite: obedience, submission, and servility.

If most Americans are religious, they are free to be only because there is no government-endorsed religion that devours religious freedom.

God requires fear and unquestioning obedience to the point of killing your children.

If Christianity is about anything, it is about obedience to god. That’s why the original sin is not genocide, murder, or rape, but eating a piece of fruit after being told not to.

Franklin Roosevelt said, “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”

At its core, Judeo-Christianity’s insistence on obedience and fear conflicts with America’s essential value.

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