The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

The Declaration, the principles it embodied, and the political philosophy it outlined, are truly and thoroughly opposed to Judeo-Christian principles. This is not to say that American preachers and religious leaders of the time did not advocate independence and revolution; some did.64 But they did so in spite of biblical constraints. Robert Boucher, the Anglican minister opposed to independence, chastised his godly brethren for this crime: “Let a minister of God, then, stand excused if…he seeks not to amuse you by any flowery panegyrics on liberty. Such panegyrics are the productions of ancient heathens and modern patriots: nothing of the kind is to be met with in the Bible.”65 Preachers tortured biblical passages to fit their arguments, including independence; that is the preacher’s job. But in truth, ministers preaching independence relied on natural—not supernatural—law, just like the Declaration’s author, Thomas Jefferson.