Dispelling the myth of a 'Christian nation'

Inside the First Amendment by Charles Haynes

Culture warriors, pseudo-historians and opportunistic politicians have spent the last several decades peddling the myth that America was founded as a "Christian nation."

The propaganda appears to be working.

A majority of the American people (51 percent) believes that the U. S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the State of the First Amendment survey released last month by the First Amendment Center.

Because language about a Christian America has been a staple of Religious Right rhetoric, it is not surprising that acceptance of this false interpretation of the Constitution is strongest amongst evangelicals (71 percent) and conservatives (67 percent).

 Even many non-evangelical Christians (47 percent) and liberals (33 percent) appear to believe the fiction of a constitutionally mandated Christian America as historical fact. Forgive me for being snippy, but read the Constitution. Nowhere will you find mention of God, Christ or any intention to found a Christian nation.

On the contrary, the only reference to religion in the Constitution-before the addition of the Bill of Rights-comes in article VI: "No religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

This means that political power in the United States may never be limited to people of one faith-a necessary condition for a "Christian nation"-but must be open to people of all faiths or none.

Barring a religious test for office sparked widespread outrage in 1787, especially in states with religious tests designed to make sure that only Protestants or Christians would ever be allowed to hold public office.

In their wisdom, the framers in Philadelphia knew that the time had come to break from the precedents of history and bar any religious group from imposing itself on the nation using the engine of government.

Even this was not good enough for Thomas Jefferson and other founders who wanted to prohibit any and all entanglement of government and religion in the new nation.

In 1791, the opening words of the First Amendment-"Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof"-were added to the Constitution, further ensuring a fully secular state with a guarantee of religious freedom for all.

Of course, some of the founders worried that "no establishment" might lead to a breakdown in Christian values in American culture. Alexander Hamilton, for example, contemplated the creation of a "Christian Constitutional Society" to promote Christian virtues and principles among the people.

In spite of this anxiety, drafters of the Constitution took the radical step of founding the first nation in history with no established religion.

Truth be told, they had little choice. Religious divisions among the many Protestant sects in 18th century America were deep and abiding. Anglicans, Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists and many others fought bitterly over what it meant to be "Christian"-although almost al could agree that "Papists" (Roman Catholics) were followers of the anti-Christ.

In other words, religious diversity at America's founding made a necessity of religious freedom because no one group had the power or the numbers to impose its version of  true faith-Christian or otherwise-on all others.

It is worth remembering, however, that principles as much as practical politics inspired many of our founders to define religious freedom as requiring no establishment of religion.

Roger William founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636 out of his conviction that only by erecting a "wall or hedge of separation" between the "garden of the church" and "the wilderness of the world" would it be possible to protect liberty of conscience as required by God. Religious freedom, Williams argued, is itself a Christian principle.

Any attempt to establish a Christian nation, therefore, always has been and always will be unjust, dangerous and profoundly un-Christian.

Charles C. Haynes is a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center. e-mail: chaynes@freedomforum.org. 

The Otherfish Wrap would like to thank Mr. Haynes for sharing the right to publish this article with us. In these times, we must find truth amongst a proliferation of lies. This article attempts to inject a little sanity into the discussion of politics amongst the people of the Earth.

Why the Penis is Like Religion

Please forgive my using someone elses' idea. It was referred to as "something I saw on the internet" which, to me, it is a terrible citation. If you need someone to blame for it, I take full responsibility. "It's okay to have a penis. You can even be proud if it if you want. Just don't whip it out in public and certainly, don't ram it down any child's throat." Now, to be clear, the substitution of the word any for my at the end is completely mine.
Having survived child sexual abuse, including, at birth, with circumcision. I know that it was wrong, but that it was the sole responsibility of the person or persons perpetrating, each, their own particular type of torture. There is no universal evil force, like a devil on one's shoulder telling them to do wrong, every abuser chooses their own path. Often in a demented way, they are feeling powerful by dictating what goes on by their particular choice. We are all survivors of a pathological culture. This male dominated top-down approach survives on command and control, or "power and control" if you will. The new age is cooperative and sustainable, which is on the opposite end of the socio-political spectrum. The current fight between those who have status, privilege and wealth (In America, they call themselves "conservative")and the vast majority of the United States Citizenry, no longer serves any purpose but enslaving greater numbers and amassing ever more fortune on ever fewer individuals. No matter what the rich, or their supporters might say. Oddly enough, many of the most unlikely groups often fall in with the right leaning folks. Poorly educated, make for the saddest segment of the population to take up the repressive standard. I believe this is mostly due to the exploitation of residual hatred for any minorities, and the myth that illegal immigrants are taking most of the available jobs. In fact, the biggest growth in jobs has often been in low level service sector positions that pay poorly and have little security. The kind poorly educated whites are in competition with "smarter" read more affluent, people for anyway.
Seniors, who by their designation are recipients of entitlement program funds that the conservatives often ransack and threaten will be "broke" by the time young people need them. Closer analysis reveals that small changes over time yield big savings and rebuilding the economy with wages and benefits for the lowest level workers would do the most to "rescue" the system. For a group that touts themselves as "defenders of commerce", they sure suck at bookkeeping. Again, playing both sides of the fence with the "We can't afford it, but we're the greatest country in the world" logic. The one thing to be said about the last hold-ons, many elderly are old men, they are dying off. Grandmothers are, on the whole a lot more sensible.
The creepiest sector that still votes with the money are the survivalists. They think that projectiles will keep one "safe" in a scenario that goes totally awry. Again, with millenarian fervor and conviction. Reality Check Guys! If it goes back to survival, love and a sense of community is going to get you further than bullets.

The very terms that we use, in conversation about issues, are dictated by the wealthy purveyors of truth. Like a referee at a boxing match, the media is supposed to keep both sides honest. If we fight fairly, the politics of reason should win out over lies. After all, lies need to be constantly propped up, you might say. In America today, politics is more about the concept of one dollar one vote. The Supreme Court in the USA, ruled that "political" speech can equate to dollars and that corporate money, even that from overseas, including that from media magnates, sent out over "public airwaves", is both free and protected. We have the technology to screen political ads for truth, but when these political action committees get going it is more about innuendo and half-truth anyway. Bad campaign ads are obvious to those who have seen any. Democracy would be further ahead if we spent just half what is currently spent on campaigning on funding social programs.
Religion aside, there are millions of reasons to get government right. look around at the children. They do not deserve a culture based on consumption alone. They should not have to bear the burden of our addiction to cheap oil. When the soils are all blown from the prairies, the watersheds tainted with chemicals and the very groundwater that slakes our thirst is made poison, how will we eat our profits and the factories that grew up around our extractive culture? Perfecting what polychronic creatures have known for ever, can help us grow and adapt to different time signatures throughout the seasons, the moon cycles and the different phases of life itself. Thinking only to next quarters' profit ossifies development and ham strings creativity limiting our ability to find new solutions.
Evolution of our species requires reveling in uniquely variable characteristics to achieve more than a sum of parts. Compelling evidence shows that humans are born magnanimous and compassionate, unselfconscious and endowed with generosity and helpfulness, until they are faced with neglect or abuse. Calvinists and many who have tried to limit the development of humankind with statements about the "human nature" of "brutishness" and rancor have done nothing more than to perpetrate the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophesy. It is time to break free the shackles of old way thinking. Justice and peace go hand in hand. The dawning of the new age requires us to liberate our minds from old strictures, old convictions and out dated limits to growth, awareness and synchronous action. Spin the wheel of life and often you will find that there are many more winning numbers than the ones you bet on. giving away your limits might be the best way to find harmony, or at least resonance with a larger whole.
The art of the give away needs to be explored if we are to

New Patriotism: Religion of the Soil

Patriotism has been referred to as the "Religion of the Soil". We do have a mystic relationship with local microbes. After all, we mutually exchange gasses with the same "local" air. We rely on their existence, inhabiting all the spaces around and some within us. Without bacteria, fungi, and primary decomposers, we would drown in waste. In a single handful of living, healthy soil, billions of relationships weave a complex web of life. It is time for us to have a true worshipful attitude toward soil. Earth is a daunting concept to many of us. The sheer scale of our planet trumps our imaginations from grasping the entire globe. Think locally can likewise boggle our ability to appreciate, the full complexity, overwhelming our imaginations. We have virtually sterilized much of our part of North America, leading to much less diversity of species, and far fewer organisms overall.
Imagine, intact forest, towering eighty to over one hundred feet. In this matrix are many thousands of individual plants, a myriad of creatures, living just on the bark of the several hundred trees per acre! Add in the thousands of insects that would inhabit a single dead tree...You can see that in short order, we would find billions of organisms, then trillions. Truly mind boggling. Now, remember the last parking area that you saw. Not only is there a minute area on which life to exist, but the conditions over the entire area are at odds with any sort of ecologic system. We can reclaim paved areas, we just need the will, and respect for the soil that it deserves. The desolation that has been rolled, like dice, out upon the landscape can be reclaimed. By the simple act of respect, for the land, the soil, and our "need" to civilize and control nature on this most basic level.
Our fresh air depends on other living things, our food, many of our clothes, our homes, our very ability to make a living, depends on the Mother, Earth. The earth's systems have developed over millennia to be perfectly suited to their locale. Ours is to find a way to encourage the unity of complexity in and amongst the inhabitants of every thimbleful of soil that we can. We need to develop ways to add verticality to our landscape as well. Trees, vines, herbs and flowers all multiply the area that is available for life to thrive in and on. Profusion of life is the rule rather than the exception in nature. If we are to survive as a species, we need to fit ourselves to the web rather than trying to make it bend to us.
Today, we only got to plant a few trees, but each one made a huge impact on the local landscape. these were larger, specimen trees, and relatively tower above what had been there before. Shade, even dappled shade reduces extremes of both temperature, humidity and wind. This in turn encourages a wider variety of life-forms who add their energetic spin to the vortecies of life. all beings imbibe and sanctify Earth, Air and Water, and through the furnace of metabolism, and harvesting solar energy, Fire. Every organism also brings to the equation Spirit. The will to survive is at the root of all life. Although it has been suggested that the death drive is equal to the drive to life, I see quite the opposite. The death drive is almost always aberrant. Think of the Kamakazi Squirrels, who run under your tires, deer in the headlights, and teenagers for that matter. If they were like that all the time, the species would have died out long ago. We can strive for incremental change to have lasting affects. What we can do now is better than what we hope to do in the future. That being said, each of the trees that we planted to day has a high probability of outliving me. What better way to serve the next seven generations!
Please plant a tree as soon as you can, and if you would like us to plant a tree with your blessings, send donations to ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier Street, Green Bay, WI 54301-3334