The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

In 2011, a mere 30 percent of white evangelicals thought that an elected official who committed an immoral act in their personal life could still behave ethically and fulfill their public duties. Things had changed by the 2016 presidential race and no group had shifted more than those moral absolutists, the white evangelicals, who swung 42 points, with 72 percent believing that an immoral person could be a moral public figure.

The Puritans imposed the death penalty for worshipping other gods, blasphemy, homosexuality, and adultery.68 It is out of this society and this mindset that the terrible idea of a Christian nation founded on Christian principles lodged itself in the American psyche. And it is this intolerant legacy that must be abandoned. That is what a Christian government looks like: exclusive, exclusionary, divisive, hateful, severe, and lethal.

When the framers, like James Madison, surveyed history, they eschewed theocracy and intolerance, condemning the “torrents of blood” spilled in the name of religion.69 Jefferson looked back on the “millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, [who] have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”70

Jefferson observed that those fleeing persecution “cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the reigning sect.”72