The Founding Myth

by Andrew L Seidel

  The Puritans imposed the death penalty for worshipping other gods, blasphemy, homosexuality, and adultery.68 It is out of this society and this mindset that the terrible idea of a Christian nation founded on Christian principles lodged itself in the American psyche. And it is this intolerant legacy that must be abandoned. That is what a Christian government looks like: exclusive, exclusionary, divisive, hateful, severe, and lethal. It resembles modern theocracies in the Middle East. The insufferable Puritan theocracy declined after King Charles II revoked the colonial charter and passed the Toleration Act of 1689.

  All of this happened more than 100 years before the American Revolution and the drafting of the US Constitution. When the framers, like James Madison, surveyed history, they eschewed theocracy and intolerance, condemning the “torrents of blood” spilled in the name of religion.69 Jefferson looked back on the “millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, [who] have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”70

  When the framers wanted to convince the people to ratify the Constitution, they didn’t turn to the sword, but to the pen. In the first of The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.”71 The early history of theocratic settlements in the New World gave the founders examples to avoid. Jefferson observed that those fleeing persecution “cast their eyes on these new countries as asylums of civil and religious freedom; but they found them free only for the reigning sect.”72 He lambasted Virginia colonial laws that outlawed Quakerism and mandated baptizing children.73 He invoked the execution of Mary Dyer and the others persecuted in New England as something to shun: “If no capital execution took place here, as did in New-England, it was not owing to the moderation of the church, or spirit of the legislature, as may be inferred from the law itself; but to historical circumstances which have not been handed down to us.”74 After surveying this bloody history, the founders decided to build a wall that would forever separate state and church. They disestablished religion and abolished religious tests for public office. They invented the secular state.

  When our nation was founded, it rejected the intolerance theocracy breeds. We had, as Jefferson would say in his inaugural address, “banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered.”75 One of our founding principles is religious freedom. And a Christian nation is hostile to that ideal. A Christian nation would destroy that which has made America so strong, as it did in these Christian colonies. America’s foundation deliberately eliminated religious intolerance. But it also shied away from tolerance, reaching instead for a higher ideal—true freedom.

  PART II

  UNITED STATES v. THE BIBLE

  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

  — US Constitution, preamble

  “[The bible] is a book that has been read more, and examined less, than any book that ever existed.”

  — Thomas Paine, in a letter to Lord Thomas Erskine, 1797 1

  “Is government a science or not? Are there any principles on which it is founded? What are its ends? If indeed there is no rule, no standard, all must be accident and chance. If there is a standard, what is it?”

  — John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Brand Hollis, 1788 2

  6

  Biblical Influence

  “I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.”

  — Thomas Jefferson to William Short, on the bible, 18203

  “Those men, whom Jewish and Christian idolaters have abusively called heathens, had much better and clearer ideas of justice and morality than are to be found in the Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish; or in the New.”

  — Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794–18074

  Our investigation into the founders, the Declaration, and colonial America have not fully answered a central question: Did biblical principles influence the founding of the American nation, government, or legal system? Part II will tackle this query head on.

  But first, it is important to understand that the bible’s indisputable linguistic or literary influence does not answer this question. The bible’s first English translation was both courageous and transformative. John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and the work of King James’s bishops are as influential as Shakespeare in terms of the language and idioms we use. Perhaps even more so, although Shakespeare offers far greater insights about humanity—“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind”; and better rules for living—“This above all; to thine own self be true.”5

  Like Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, Aesop’s fables, and the legends of Greek and Roman mythology, the bible has provided a common stock of stories for the English-speaking world. Unlike Shakespeare’s body of work and these other influential collections, which stood on their own merits to gain renown, the bible’s reputation was imposed and propagated for millennia with the sword, fire, and mandatory reinforcement sessions held weekly—church. Well-known stories influence communication: “slow and steady wins the race,” “sour grapes,” “a man reaps what he sows.” They provide a common well to draw on to make complicated ideas more digestible. Using biblical stories to communicate an idea does not necessarily indicate that biblical theology influenced the underlying idea or that the speaker adheres to a biblical religion. Evangelical historian Mark Noll put it this way: “The Bible was not so much the truth above all truth as it was the story above all stories.”6

  Lincoln’s use of the “house divided” metaphor when he accepted the Republican nomination to be Illinois’s senator is a perfect example: “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.”7 According to Lincoln’s law partner and biographer, Henry Herndon, Lincoln chose the metaphor, which appears several times in the Christian gospels, because he “want[ed] to use some universally known figure expressed in simple language as universally well-known, that may strike home in the minds.”8 Lincoln didn’t quote the bible because he believed it to be divine revelation. One Springfield resident recalled Lincoln saying it was “a pleasure to be able to quote lines to fit any occasion” and noting that the bible was the richest source of pertinent quotations.9 He simply reached for a convenient, comfortable, familiar allusion to ease the acceptance of a hard truth. (In any event, Lincoln “read Shakespeare more than all other writers together,” according to his secretary, John Hays.10)

  Politicians and statesmen like Lincoln may regularly quote from and allude to the bible, but this does not necessarily indicate an underlying religiosity. Ethan Allen, of Green Mountain and Fort Ticonderoga fame, read the bible because it was the only book available during his bucolic childhood. According to Matthew Stewart, he read it “over and over again, until its parables took up residence in every foxhole of his mind, always ready to sally forth to defend a friend or threaten a foe.”11 But neither Lincoln nor Allen can be considered Christian merely because they read and quoted the bible. Many atheists do the same and, according to studies, know the book better than Christians.12 Knowing and even reciting the bible does not make one religious, and reading the bible can often have the opposite effect. The road to atheism is littered with bibles that have been read cover to cover.13 Allen’s knowledge of the bible led him to pen one of the first freethought books in America, Reason: The Only Oracle of Man (1785). (According t
o Herndon, Lincoln wrote a similar book, “in which he made an argument against Christianity, striving to prove that the Bible was not inspired, and therefore not God’s revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the son of God.” Others dispute this and, according to Herndon’s account, a friend burned the manuscript to secure Lincoln’s political future.14)

  Even quoting the bible is not necessarily an indication of the writer’s beliefs about that book. Thomas Paine quoted extensively from the bible in Common Sense because he was writing to a people who were familiar with biblical stories, like 1 Samuel 8. Paine made a biblical argument for revolution. But I’m an atheist and I regularly quote the bible to argue against government prayer. In Matthew 6:5, Jesus condemns public prayer as hypocrisy: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen.” As an atheist, I use the bible to convince believers not to abuse their public office to promote their personal religion, pointing to the words of their own savior in his Sermon on the Mount. Like Paine and Lincoln, I write to my audience.

  Influencing the English language and American culture is not the same as influencing the founding of the American laws and government—our nation. Yet Christian nationalists still claim that the bible is the basis of America. One Christian nationalist went so far as to declare, on the 2017 National Day of Prayer, that “You’ll find almost verbatim wording in many clauses of the Constitution to passages in the Bible. It’s a one-to-one correlation on the wording.”15 That is demonstrably false. Other Christian nationalist assertions are just as absurd. For instance, they claim that the concept of three separate branches of government contained in Articles I (legislative), II (executive), and III (judicial) of the Constitution came from Isaiah 33:22: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our ruler, the LORD is our king; he will save us.”16 This verse concludes with passages that lay out “the Lord’s plans to reveal worldwide sovereignty,”17 so it is not about a tripartite separation of powers, but about destroying all governments in favor of concentrating power in one being, Yahweh. There is no separation of powers without a separation of people holding those powers.18 For Jefferson, “concentrating [powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government.”19 Madison thought that such a concentration was “the very definition of tyranny.”20 The biblical vision of government supported in Isaiah is exactly what the Constitution ended.

  Those two points aside, we know that the modern idea of separation of powers did not come from the bible. It came from Montesquieu, who never mentioned or referred to the bible in his discussion of three separate branches of government.21 The Federalist number 47 is entirely devoted to explaining “this invaluable precept in the science of politics.”22 In it, Madison wrote that “no political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty.” He added, “The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu.” Judeo-Christian principles have nothing to do with separation of powers.

  Occasionally a similarly implausible argument—that the holy trinity is the basis for our three branches of government—is put forth, evidently because both are made up of three parts. This is especially absurd given that some founders treated the trinity with contempt. In writing about it, Jefferson said, “Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions” and called the trinity the “mere Abracadabra of mountebanks calling themselves the Priests of Jesus.”23 John Adams wrote to Jefferson, “Had you and I been forty days with Moses on Mount Sinai, and been admitted to behold the divine Shekinah [the manifestation of this god dwelling among man], and there told that one was three and three one, we might not have had courage to deny it, but we could not have believed it.”24

  The principles underlying Judeo-Christianity and America conflict on other points. Christianity’s view and treatment of its founding documents is at odds with the American view and treatment of its founding documents. God’s law is unchangeable. American law is not. The Constitution is not perfect. The framers knew this, and none left the Convention having secured everything they wanted. In his closing address to the Convention, Franklin consented “to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”25 Adams, writing a few years later as vice president, was more specific: “The Constitution is but an experiment, and must and will be altered.”26

  These were not men acting with the certainty of religious conviction. They were thoughtful, reasonable men aware that they, and other delegates, were governed partly by passion and self-interest. And so, certain mostly of their own fallibility, they crafted a provision to alter—to amend—the Constitution. They would take advantage of Article V almost immediately, to write and pass the first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. The Constitution has been altered twenty-seven times and nearly always improved. The glaring exception to this steady improvement was partly due to religious groups, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which advocated for the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, and which was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment.

  Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Howard Chandler Christie’s famous 1940 painting of the founders at Independence Hall on September 17, 1787.

  The framers were wise enough to recognize—as their near-contemporary Alexander Pope put it—that “to err is human,”27 but the bible is divine and infallible, according to many in the Judeo-Christian traditions. “All scripture is inspired by God,” wrote Paul to Timothy.28 John Wesley, who founded Methodism, called the bible “infallibly true.”29 Catholics believe the bible is “without error,” as do many evangelical Christians.30 The bible has been edited, rewritten, excised, supplemented, translated, retranslated, and mistranslated so many times that claims of immutability are laughable. Yet about thirty percent of Americans, many of them Christian nationalists, believe the bible is the literal, inerrant word of their god.31

  IF THE BIBLE AND ITS PRINCIPLES influenced America’s founding, surely the founders quoted from it regularly? It must have been repeatedly referenced during their important founding debates, such as the Constitutional Convention and state ratifying conventions? And not just for cultural and linguistic stories, but for its theology, thought, and principles, right?

  Not so. Some writers during the founding era cited the bible when discussing politics, but they were almost always preachers citing it during their sermons. But it was almost never referenced during important political debates. University of Houston professor Donald Lutz tallied how often writers in the founding era quoted European political thinkers and the bible.32 Lutz analyzed 15,000 pamphlets, newspaper articles, and books, but not all were relevant to the political principles that influenced the founding. When Lutz included printed sermons—a common form of literature at the time—in the sample, total citations to the bible, a decent proxy for influence, ranked highly. Unsurprisingly, the sermons cited the bible more than eight times on average.33 And if you listen to the Christian nationalists, the analysis ends there, with the bible as the “single-most-cited source.”34 But that included every scrap of literature, whether it dealt with politics or not. When Lutz examined only the political writings, the writing relevant to the discussion here (about 2,200 documents), the citations to the bible disappeared. The authors cited the bible about 0.3 times on average, or made about one biblical reference in every three or four works.35

  Lutz points out something even more striking: the bible was hardly cited in the constitutional debates. In 528 writings published during the formative years of the American Constitution (1787–88), there were thirty-three citations to the bible, or about one in every sixteen publications.36 Lutz concluded that when looking for biblical influence in the framing of our founding document, “the Bible’s prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the debate centered upon specific institutions about which the Bible has
little to say.”37 But there is something still more striking. When Lutz separated the Federalists (those arguing for the Constitution and a central, federal government) from the Anti-Federalists (those arguing against the Constitution), he discovered that the Federalists never cited the bible—not once. Put simply, those who argued for and supported the Constitution were not influenced by the bible.38

  Lutz looked at published writings. But what about unpublished writings—for instance, what about citations to the bible during the Constitutional Convention, which was conducted mostly by voice and the proceedings of which the delegates voted to keep secret? At the Constitutional Convention the bible was briefly mentioned once, by Franklin, during a debate over a proposed property requirement for public office, in what was simply a case of Franklin using religion, again, to attain his political ends.39

  This lack of influence makes sense because Christian nationalists have never convincingly answered a basic question: How, precisely, did the bible influence American political thought and America’s founding? The question is even more pressing knowing that the founders did not cite the bible when writing and debating the Constitution. It is assumed that our government was founded on biblical principles, on Judeo-Christian principles. Because this answer is assumed, few bother to explain which specific Judeo-Christian principles and ideas were so influential to America’s founding. Instead, we get vague assertions from men like Tim LaHaye, a Christian nationalist author and co-author of the popular Left Behind series, who lauds “the Christian consensus of our Founding Fathers and the Biblical principles of law that have provided the freedoms we’ve enjoyed for over two hundred years.”40 These partial answers rely on emotion and desire, not on history or fact, and therefore fail to truly answer anything.