The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

The Puritans’ “grim theocratic monoculture,” to borrow a phrase from historian Russell Shorto, was the antithesis of the thriving, diverse Dutch communities farther south.50 New England’s enforced uniformity stood opposed to what would become an important American principle: strength through diversity. Manhattan, on the other hand, was America’s first melting pot. Shorto’s Island at the Center of the World (2005), a history of the Dutch colony on Manhattan, eloquently recaptures an era that was lost when the less progressive English took over in 1664. Amsterdam was the most liberal and tolerant city in Europe, perhaps the world, and New Amsterdam, renamed New York by the English in 1664, took after its parent city. It was liberal and diverse, a character it has maintained. A marker of the city’s early diversity is that in 1646, one observer counted at least eighteen languages while strolling the streets.51 Religion in the city was as varied as nationalities and tongues. A later English governor, Thomas Dongan, listed fourteen denominations in the newly English colony, including “Singing Quakers, Ranting Quakers, Sabbatarians; Antisabbatarians,…Jews, [and] Independents.” He concluded his list by observing, “of all sorts of opinions [denominations] there are some, and the most part of none at all.”52 In stark contrast to New England’s rigid homogeneity, most of Manhattan was nonreligious. Pride in American diversity was enshrined in America’s de facto original motto, E pluri...