The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

1992 Newsweek article, “the idea of a single ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’ is a made-in-America myth.”

“Judeo-Christian” is slippery because it is more a political invention than a scholarly description. It originated at the close of World War II when Christian exclusivity was too threatening.

Eisenhower was probably the first president to use the term, explaining to a Soviet general in 1952 that the American “form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept.”12

The term has the benefit of sounding inclusive to a broad audience while actually speaking directly to conservative Christians who hear only the second part of the term, “Christian.”

“a systematic attack on Judeo-Christian values that our country was founded on.”15 Davi surely knows that the nativity scene features the birth of Jesus as savior, something Judaism rejects. The nativity is Christian, not Judeo-Christian.

state voter guide linked to groups such as the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association, whose goal is “to be a champion of Christian activism.”18 It did not link to a single Jewish group. The site even had an identical twin, the “Christian Voter Guide” website, which was the same in every respect except that it lacked that crumb of inclusion: “Judeo-.”19 The Family Research Council (FRC),

McCain’s more honest phrasing is less inviting. “Judeo-” is a sop, a fig leaf, tossed about to avoid controversy and complaint. It is simply a morsel of inclusion offered to soften the edge of an exclusionary, Christian movement.

That exclusionary movement is Christian nationalism. As a modern American movement, it is fully described by Michelle Goldberg in her 2006 book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.23 Christian nationalists are historical revisionists bent on “restoring” America to the Judeo-Christian principles on which they wish it were founded. They believe that secular America is a myth, and under the guise of restoration they seek to press religion into every crevice of the government.

History had proven to the framers of the US Constitution that religion is divisive. They separated religion from government to avoid the mistakes of past regimes. “The Framers and the citizens of their time intended…to guard against the civic divisiveness that follows when the government weighs in on one side of religious debate; nothing does a better job of roiling society,”

Problem? Is It Influential? It is because of Christian nationalism that “President Donald Trump” is a phrase that reflects reality and not reality television. Before Trump, Christian nationalism tended toward the corrupt and inept. It was an odd, impotent curiosity. But the 2016 election changed that. Trump won because of Christian nationalism. The movement is still based on lies and myths, but a Christian nationalist was elected president of the United States, and he was elected because of, not in spite of, his Christian nationalism.

The single most accurate predictor of whether a person voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election was not religion, wealth, education, or even political party; it was believing the United States is and should be a Christian nation.26 Researchers studied this connection and were able to control for other characteristics to ensure that Christian nationalism was not simply a proxy for other forms of intolerance or other variables related to vote choice.27 They concluded, “The more someone believed the United States is—and should be—a Christian nation, the more likely they were to vote for Trump.”28

“Christian nationalism provides a metanarrative for a religiously distinct national identity.” 30

Christian nationalism is, at least in this sense, more important than religion, political party, or any other factor in American life.

Christian nationalists had caught the presidential tiger by the tail and were unprepared. Playing catch-up, in February 2016 a loose coalition of conservative religious groups and Christian nationalists launched “Project Blitz,” a curious sobriquet given its historical connotations. The goal was to elevate “traditional Judeo-Christian religious values” and “to reclaim and properly define the narrative which supports such beliefs.”31

Project Blitz encapsulates the problem Christian nationalism poses. First, it seeks to alter our history, values, and national identity. Then it codifies Christian privilege in the law, favoring Christians above others. Finally, it legally disfavors the nonreligious, non-Christians, and minorities such as the LGBTQ community, by, for instance, permitting discrimination against them in places of public accommodation or in employment.

includes three categories of bills that reflect these steps, all of which promote Christian nationalist myths and lies. The first category centers on “Our Country’s Religious Heritage.” These bills “recognize the place of Christian principles in our nation’s history and heritage [and] deal broadly with our national motto, history, and civics, including their Judeo-Christian dimensions.”32 They attempt to prove what Judge Taylor’s nine commandments display was meant to prove, that “religion, and particularly our Judeo-Christian heritage, have played a large part in the founding and history of this country.”33 The second category, which includes measures such as a proclamation recognizing Christian Heritage Week, “focus[es] more on our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage,” though more on the Christian and less on the Judeo.34

Christian nationalist myths are central to the Blitz because they are meant to provide a legislative rationale, historical precedent, and legitimacy. Category 1 bills are supposedly less controversial but promote many of those myths, including a bill that mandates displaying “In God We Trust” in all public schools, libraries, and buildings and on license plates,35 and a “Religion in Legal History Acts” bill that requires “public displays of religious history affecting the law,” including the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington’s Farewell Address.36

The goal is to redefine America according to the Christian nationalist identity and then reshape the law accordingly. As of the end of April 2018, Project Blitz has resulted in more than seventy proposed bills nationwide.39 Christian nationalism’s identity is built on the foundational myths underlying these bills; this inescapable point is reflected in their legislative strategy. If these myths can be exposed and eviscerated, the aim of this book, so can Christian nationalism’s legal and legislative agenda.

Who Are the Christian Nationalists? The most vocal Christian nationalists are, as you’d expect, religious leaders. James Dobson founded Focus on the Family and thinks “that we have been, from the beginning, a people of faith whose government is built wholly on a Judeo-Christian foundation.”40 Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell wrote that “our Founding Fathers established America’s laws and precepts on the principles recorded in the laws of God, including the Ten Commandments…[and any] diligent student of American history finds that our great nation was founded by godly men upon godly principles to be a Christian nation.”41 Jimmy Swaggart preached that America has “the greatest freedoms of expression the world has ever known…. Those freedom are based squarely on the Judeo-Christian principle, which is the Word of God.”42 The late Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham have preached that America “was built on Christian principles.”

Christian nationalism is not solely about religion. It’s an unholy alliance, an incestuous marriage of conservative politics and conservative Christianity. According to ABC News, the Council for National Policy is one of the most powerful political organizations you’ve never heard of,44 and it exemplifies this alliance. The New York Times described it as “a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country.”45 It was founded by prominent Christian nationalist Tim LaHaye, and its secretive membership roll is filled with Christian nationalists from the religious and government sectors, including many repeatedly cited in this book.46 The group’s vision statement declares its Christian nationalist mission: to “restore…Judeo-Christian values under the Constitution.”47

That “the American Founders invoked our Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence.” That the pilgrims at Plymouth were religious and prayed. That “our currency proudly declares, ‘In God we trust.’” That “Benjamin Franklin reminded his colleagues at the Constitutional Convention to begin by bowing their heads in prayer.” That presidents take the oath of office and “say, ‘So help me God.’” That “we proudly proclaim that we are ‘one nation under God’ every time we say the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Texas representative Louie Gohmert declared in a December 2017 floor speech, “The Supreme Court looked at all of the evidence and declared in an opinion that the United States was founded as, and is, a Christian nation.” He added to this gross misstatement by insisting that “the only way any people can truly have freedom of religion is if they have a constitution that is founded on Judeo-Christian principles.”64 The opposite is true.

Michele Bachmann invited one of the most deceitful historical revisionists, David Barton—a man who used erroneous historical quotations,66 misrepresented Jefferson and his views on the separation of state and church,67 and wrote a biography of Jefferson so full of bad history that the publisher pulled it off the shelves68—to teach a class to Congress on the Christian history of the Constitution.69 Two-time presidential hopeful and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee expressed the belief that “all Americans should be forced—forced at gunpoint no less—to listen to every David Barton message.”70 Forbes’s Congressional Prayer Caucus once introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to recognize “the first weekend of May as Ten Commandments Weekend to recognize the significant contributions the Ten Commandments have made in shaping the principles, institutions, and national character of the United States.”71 The resolution also claimed that the Ten Commandments are “an elemental source for United States law.”72 Not quite. Forbes and Barton founded and run the groups (the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation and Wallbuilders, respectively) leading the Christian nationalist push discussed earlier, Project Blitz.

(Thomas Jefferson thought the idea that the Ten Commandments or Christianity was the foundation of English Common Law an “awkward monkish fabrication” and a “fraud.”74)

PATRIOTISM HAS NO RELIGION. The Christian nationalist’s argument seeks to change that and is, at its core, a fight about what it means to be an American. A disturbing number of Americans already believe that Christian and American identities are one and the same. The Pew Research Center found that about 32 percent of “people in the U.S. believe it is very important to be Christian to be considered truly American.”79 Some are vocal about it. When Mike Pence accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination, after a few formalities, he repeated one of his favorite lines: “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican — in that order.”80 The Christian nationalism ideal fuses two identities, Christian and American, so that to be one, you must also be the other. And if you’re not both, you can, as Santorum’s preacher screamed, “Get out!” President Trump’s infamous travel bans embodied this idea.

He then made his infamous “Two Corinthians” gaffe, saying “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians.” The verse to which Trump was referring, 2 Corinthians 3:17, says that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” and confirms the point. After that telling slip, Trump continued, “If you look at what is going on throughout the world, if you look at Syria, if you are a Christian, they are chopping off heads…. Christianity is under siege. I’m a Protestant, Presbyterian to be exact…. Very, very proud of it. We have to protect [Christianity] because very bad things are happening.”84 Incidentally, Syria was one of the seven countries whose citizens Trump banned from the United States in his first order. Syrians were also banned in the two subsequent immigration orders. For Trump and Christian nationalists, to be an American is to be a Christian. The two have fused. Conservative columnists, such as Diana West, opined on Breitbart.com in 2015 that “the Trump [immigration] plan is absoutely [sic] essential to any possible return…to America’s constitutional foundations and Judeo-Christian principles. I actually think of it as our last shot.”85 West penned this before the Iowa Caucus, when Trump was still a candidate proposing a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the country.”86

Christian nationalists use the language of revival and return, but that itself is misleading. They are not seeking to return, but to redefine. They want to redefine our Constitution—they want to redefine what it is to be an American—in terms of their religion.

When Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, Christian nationalist mouthpieces on Fox News declared that he had “fulfilled…biblical prophecy” and related the move back to “the foundation of our own Judeo-Christian nation.”87 Christian nationalism affects immigration policy, as we’ve just seen. Its effects on education policy could be felt for decades, and not just because Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was a dream appointment for the Christian nationalist goal of dismantling public schools through vouchers and school choice. It has denigrated our concept of equality, including by meddling with the legal definition of discrimination and attempting to redefine religious freedom as a license to discriminate, and it has sought to restrict women’s rights and even the social safety net. And, of course, Christian nationalism features heavily in the culture wars.

Christian nationalism’s hold on political power in America rests on the claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. Without historical support, many of their policy justifications crumble. Without their common well of myths, the Christian nationalist identity will wither and fade. Their entire political and ideological reality is incredibly weak and vulnerable because it is based on historical distortions and lies. In this right-wing religious culture, the lies are so commonplace, so uncritically accepted, that these vulnerabilities are not recognized. The purpose of this book is simple, if lofty: to utterly destroy the myths that underlie this un-American political ideology.

George Santayana’s warning that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” rings true because the past influences the present.88 Unfortunately, history’s power does not depend on its accuracy. A widely believed historical lie can have as much impact as a historical truth. President John F. Kennedy explained to Yale’s graduating class of 1962 that “the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears…. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”89 Powerful historical falsehoods are particularly harmful in constitutional republics such as the United States. Courts may uphold practices that would otherwise be illegal by relying on comfortable myths instead of legitimate history. Legislators might promulgate laws based on historical clichés instead of reality. Each law or court decision based on revisionist history provides a new foundation from which the myth can be expanded. The myth feeds off itself, lodging more firmly in our collective consciousness.

When James Madison protested Patrick Henry’s proposed three-penny tax to fund Christian ministers, he wrote a landmark in American history and law: the “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments” (1785). Madison’s arguments overwhelmed Henry and convinced Virginians to strike down the proposed tax. Madison argued that even small, seemingly insignificant battles to uphold our rights must be fought on principle; otherwise the infringements become authority for future violations of our rights:

It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the c...

myths

When Christian nationalists are permitted to use the machinery of the state to impose their religion on us all, even if they do so during times when dissent is punished, these constitutional violations are remarkably tenacious. Christian nationalism operates like a ratchet or a noose, with each violation tightening its hold and making it more difficult to undo. Worse, the violations are used to justify other violations, so the tightening proceeds apace.

two Christian nationalist myths we failed to guard against.

The claim is demonstrably false as revealed by any number of documents from the time, including America’s godless Constitution, Madison’s Memorial, or the Treaty of Tripoli, which was negotiated under President George Washington and signed by President John Adams with the unanimous consent of the US Senate in 1797, and which says that

“the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”91 Most people with even a modest grasp of US history, law, government, or politics can debunk this divisive fabrication.

According to Bertrand Russell, religious apologists “try to make the public forget their earlier obscurantism, in order that their present obscurantism may not be recognized for what it is.”92 So do Christian nationalists.93 They abandon their earlier obscurantism, the first myth, in favor of a new one: the subtler argument that our nation is founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Christian nationalism hinges on this second myth and, unlike the first, it is broadly accepted.

This second myth is the focus of this book because it pervades all other Christian nationalist arguments. If America is not founded on Judeo-Christian principles, it is not a Christian nation. If America is not founded on Judeo-Christian principles, Christian nationalists are wrong. And although other authors have refuted the first fiction, the second remains untouched. This book seeks to change that by comparing the principles of Judeo-Christianity and the principles upon which the United States of America was founded. By focusing on the central tenets, the core ideas, of America and Judeo-Christianity, the first myth—America as a “Christian nation”—will necessarily be tested, as will the relevance of the founding fathers’ personal religious choices. But those issues are subsumed in the second, greater question, the question the “nine commandments” judge never had to answer: did Judeo-Christian principles positively influence the founding of the United States?

No, they did not. America was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles. In fact, Judeo-Christian principles, especially those central to the Christian nationalist identity, are thoroughly opposed to the principles on which the United States was built. The two systems differ and conf...

Not only is it fair to say that Judeo-Christian principles are un-American, we must. The word “un-American” might make some squeamish because of the value judgment inherent in it. But America is in a fight for its values—its soul, if you prefer—and Christian nationalism is warping and torturing those values, dragging this country down a dark hole. To hesitate to describe this identity with apt phrases because they may be unpleasant is to cede the American identity to a...

here’s what the founders actually meant, here’s what the founders actually said. And they’ve left it at that. But correction is not enough—otherwise we wouldn’t have a President Trump. No, pointing out errors is insufficient. This book does so, but then it takes the next step. It goes on the offensive. This book is an assault on the Christian nationalist identity. Not only are Christian nationalists wrong, but their beliefs and identity run counter to the ideals on which this nation was founded.

This book is an assault, but it’s also a defense, a defense of that quintessentially American invention, the “wall of separation between church and state.” I am a watcher on that wall. As a constitutional attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, I defend the First Amendment to the US Constitution by ensuring that government officials do not use the power of a public office to promote their personal religion. It is my duty to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We handle thousands of state/church complaints every year. Without fail, recalcitrant violators and their vocal supporters argue that they can impose prayer on kindergartners or pass out bibles in public schools or display the Ten Commandments on public property because this is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. In short, I rebut this claim for a living, and I’ve dedicated my career to this fight because it is so important.

It is important to understand the arguments this book is not making. Our country’s government and laws are distinct from its society and culture. It is the difference between our constitutional (or legal) identity and our popular (or social, or cultural) identity. This book does not argue that religion is absent from our culture. Indeed, some of the founders thought religion was necessary for an ordered society (as we shall see, this belief was both elitist and mistaken). However, this book will argue that religion is absent from our constitutional identity and that much of the Christian religion conflicts with that identity.

Those as-yet-unmet goals do not alter America’s founding principles; rather, they speak to our ability and appetite to realize those principles.

Many books have been written about religion’s role in those movements while seeming to ignore religion’s contribution to the need for those movements in the first place. It’s a bit like praising a child for cleaning up his messy room. Religion helped perpetuate slavery in the first place, as we’ll see in chapters 17 and 24. Religion did not create slavery—war, economics, racism, poverty, and many more explanations for slavery have been advanced. But religion did provide a moral justification for American slavery. Plenty of historians and authors have focused on the cleanup while ignoring who made the mess. It may seem that this book blames all of society’s ills on religion, but that is simply because I am focusing on the side of the ledger that is typically ignored. Religion has much to answer for.

religious beliefs should be immune from criticism, even when analyzed from a historical perspective. Religious beliefs are ideas like any other, though they are defended more fervently and can often seem immune to reasoned argument. This book will treat religion like any other idea: not with contempt, but not with undue respect either. Christian nationalism has succeeded in part because of Americans’ ingrained unwillingness to offend religious sensibilities. But catering to these sensibilities limits our search for the truth, as does religion itself. There is strength in throwing off those self-imposed restraints.

This book presents the facts. The endnotes are extensive, though the important substance is in the text, not the citations. Wherever possible for the founding era, citations are to original sources. If no original source could be found, the point cannot be found in this book.

The destruction of a beloved myth is no more persecution than the erosion of an unwarranted privilege. Many conservative American Christians fail to grasp these distinctions and, as a result, they are gripped by a morbid persecution complex. Every new instance of equality—every time a Christian government employee is told to obey the Constitution, every unconstitutional religious display removed from government property—becomes another talking point of the persecuted majority: the same majority that is overrepresented at every level of American government. When Trump told the Values Voter Summit in 2017, “We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values,” he was referring as much to books like this as he was to store clerks not saying Merry Christmas.94 The Founding Myth is not a work of academic history but an argument, an attack. Specifically, it is an attack on Christian nationalism.

This book takes seriously JFK’s warning about holding fast to the clichés of our forebears. It is time to subject the second myth—that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles—to the discomfort of scrutiny.95 This book will analyze Judeo-Christian principles and compare them to American principles to see if there is agreement or positive influence.