The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

Two facts illustrate the founders’ intentions to build this wall. First, our Constitution is deliberately godless. There are no references to gods, goddesses, or divine intervention.40 The omission was not an oversight. Supernatural power was rejected in favor of the natural power contained in the first three words: “We the People.” Civil War colonel, author, and orator Robert Ingersoll best captured the deliberate beauty of this omission: They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping, or in the keeping of her God, the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship, or not to worship; that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man, and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality and liberty of all, to prevent the few from governing the many, and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.41