The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

WHEN THE PURITANS AND PILGRIMS FLED LEIDEN, they escaped the liberalizing effects of Dutch tolerance, but not completely.48 Two hundred miles south of their new Massachusetts home, the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which would become New York, was thriving. John Adams observed that the Netherlands—which gave the fledgling, newly independent colonies their first loan in 1782 thanks to Adams’s hard work—and America were two republics “so much alike, that the history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other; so that every Dutchman instructed in the subject, must pronounce the American revolution just and necessary.”49 The principles Americans are so proud of today have far more in common with the liberal Dutch colony that would become New York City than with the Puritans, the Pilgrims, Menéndez, the conquistadors, and their religious intolerance. In particular, two American principles that contrast severely with Puritan ideals can be traced to Dutch liberalism: diversity, and freedom over intolerance.