The Framers and Christianity
(Part 2 of America as a Christian Nation)
The Framers were not uniform in their religious beliefs, ranging from evangelical to Deist. Still, all believed in two principles that were necessary for the success of the new nation. First, there could be no official establishment of religion; second, there had to be robust religious influence, by which they meant, at least for the most part, Christian influence. The result was the peculiar symbiotic relationship between secularity and Christianity that we find in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Bear with me as I try to explain what this arrangement might mean for us today. As you would expect by now, I shall begin with history.
The real scene of conflict over the role of religion was in Virginia. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson introduced the Statute of Religious Freedom for state approval. The ensuing debate ended in a stalemate. A new bill was introduced on its heels, establishing Christianity as the official religion of the state, ordaining the worship of the one true God, and proclaiming the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God. That bill, too, languished.
The War of Independence disrupted further deliberations. It reminded colonists of the nation’s desperate need for divine intervention, which only reinforced the sentiment to establish Christianity as the religion of the land.
After the war Patrick Henry introduced another bill, which required that religion receive tax support. The purpose was to promote Christianity, which would produce the kind of citizens the new nation and its government needed. “General diffusion of Christian knowledge,” Henry wrote, “would correct the morals of men, restrain the vices, and preserve the place of society.” The bill attracted supporters, but Deists and dissenters (Baptists, for example) opposed it in sufficient numbers to defeat it.
Finally, James Madison reintroduced Jefferson’s bill, shepherding it through the process. “Who does not see,” he argued, “that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?” That bill became the model for the First Amendment. Government should be a secular, neither establishing nor prohibiting a religion, though it still needs the indirect influence of religion to survive and thrive.
Not all religious leaders supported the official separation of church and state, at least not at first. The famous Congregationalist pastor Lyman Beecher is a telling example. He opposed disestablishment, believing it would allow godless ideas, moral decay, and religious indifference to destroy the nation. Without an officially established religion, the new government would falter and fail.
But Beecher changed his mind later on. Contrary to previous beliefs, he came to realize that disestablishment of religion was “the best thing that ever happened to America.” Released from dependence on state support, churches discovered a “renewed vigor and forcefulness,” relying on “their own resources and on God” to reach people and meet the needs of a rapidly expanding frontier and population. He noted the vitality, growth, and influence of Christianity across the new nation. Religion in America was prospering without state support. It was good for the nation, and it was good for religion.
This trend only gained momentum over time. Christianity in America has always been vibrant and entrepreneurial, if not a little crazy, too. It has been an incubator for many new movements, some orthodox (e.g., Pentecostalism), others not (e.g., Christian Science), which is the consequence of a religious free market system. Religion in America does its best work when functioning independently.
Take, for example, the Methodist movement. Though initially suspect in the minds of religious elites like Beecher, the new movement won hundreds of thousands of converts, planted thousands of churches, especially on the frontier, and produced platoons of volunteers to invest in social causes. All of this within the first fifty years of its founding in America!
Today this symbiotic relationship between church and state is facing two major threats, one from the right and one from the left. The first is Christian Nationalism and the second is an aggressive secularism.
Christian Nationalists assert America is a “Christian nation” with a divine destiny, almost as if it were a “new Israel.” They believe it should be made official, too. But there are people who wish to undermine, if not destroy, the Christian identity of the nation, which is why they zealously resist the encroachment of liberal ideas, secular elites, non-Christian religions, moral decay, and racial and ethnic outsiders, this ensuring that “real Americans” stay in power. They exhibit a certainty in matters of religion that makes it difficult to disagree and debate with them. How can opponents challenge a group that claims God is on their side?
Aggressive secularists pose a different kind of threat. They see religion’s role in American history as largely negative because it appears to stand in opposition to racial justice, environmentalism, women’s rights, and immigration. They fail to grasp the important role religion—including evangelical Christianity—has played in the American story. Like it or not, America has always been a deeply religious nation. Their critical and dismissive attitude toward religion makes it equally difficult to disagree and debate with them. How can one challenge a group that scoffs at traditional religious belief?
The two movements have become politicized, too. As we all know, Christian Nationalists gravitate toward the Republican Party, secularists toward the Democratic Party, which is why the former has become known as the “party of Christians” and the latter the “party of godlessness,” though we know of course that neither is completely true. There is little common ground between the two. Conservative Republicans vie to “take America back for God,” saving it from liberal secularists. In turn, progressive Democrats hope to save America from religious fanatics.
The symbiotic relationship of secularity and religion in America is brilliant, but also fragile. Government should be secular, but also open to the influence of religion. Christianity should be resourceful, vibrant, and winsome, but also separate from government. As De Tocqueville argued, religion is most powerful when it does what only religion can do, which is to hold people accountable to God and to form people in the faith. It is different from political power, and in the end more influential.
Christianity has long been the religion of the nation. Churches have always had an open field of opportunity in America. Christianity has no need to become official or coercive. It just needs to be itself, which will yield influence enough.