The Founding Myth

by Andrew L Seidel

  So let’s look for the answers ourselves, by comparing the Judeo-Christian principles in the bible—the Golden Rule, obedience, biblical crime and punishment, original sin, vicarious redemption, religious faith, and monarchy—with the tenets of the American Constitution, laws, and government. American principles and Judeo-Christian principles are so irreconcilable that we can fairly say: Judeo-Christianity is un-American.

  An Argument Anticipated

  Before we look at those principles, let’s address the inevitable complaint that I am cherry-picking quotes from the bible that support my argument.

  First, occasionally context may be disregarded. Is there a context in which harming innocent children is an appropriate punishment for a parent’s misdeeds, as the second commandment requires? Even attempting such an argument proves the point that everything, no matter how immoral, is permissible with divine sanction.

  Second, such a complaint would be tangential at best. The themes of this section of the book—vicarious redemption of our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus, hell, and obedience—are indisputably strong themes in the bible and are central to the Judeo-Christianity conceived by Christian nationalists. As such, they are not cherry-picked.

  Finally, the argument that the bible also has passages that contradict those cited in this book proves the point that Judeo-Christian principles, as found in the bible, are not a good guide for nation-building. If the bible takes both sides of an argument, it cannot be said that either side is a principle of that document. If the bible says “children should eat peas” and also “children should not eat peas,” it takes no lucid stance on pea-eating. That the bible has opposing messages simply shows that some other moral compass or reasoned analysis is working to help us decide whether or not pea-eating is appropriate. Our country is based on clear principles that are attained by reason, not on a text that repeatedly contradicts itself.

  7

  Christian Arrogance and the Golden Rule

  “The Golden Rule would have been just as good if it had first been whispered by the Devil.”

  — Robert Ingersoll, “The Great Infidels,” 18811

  Christian nationalists make many claims, but perhaps the most arrogant is that America is a Christian nation because we were founded on the Golden Rule.2 For argument’s sake, let’s assume that this is true. The assumption doesn’t improve the Christian nationalist’s position, because the Golden Rule is not Christian.

  Moral behavior can often be boiled down to something like the Golden Rule. The Jewish formulation of the rule first appears in Leviticus: “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”3 As we’ll see with the Ten Commandments (see page 212), the term “neighbor” limits the application of this rule to one’s fellow believers. Here, “your kin,” “your people,” and “your neighbor” are used synonymously. So this version of the rule is not universal and applies only to others who worship the same god—not to heretics. Consequently, it is morally flawed, less deserving of examination, and unfit for reverence.

  Jesus may have issued his Golden Rule as interpreted by the Good Samaritan parable to correct this lamentable defect,4 but he was definitely not the first to do so. The Golden Rule exists in nearly every society and also appears, in one form or another, in many religions, including “Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, and the rest of the world’s major religions,” according to one ethicist.5 Not only is the Golden Rule more widespread than Christianity, but it predates Christianity by hundreds and even thousands of years:

  1. “Now this is the command: Do to the doer to cause that he do.” ~Ancient Egypt (c. 2040–1650 BCE)6

  2. “Don’t do yourself what you disapprove of in others.” ~Pittacus of Mytilene, Ancient Greece (c. 640–568 BCE)7

  3. “Never do ourselves what we blame others for doing.” ~Thales of Miletus, Ancient Greece (c. 624–545 BCE)8

  4. “To those who are good (to me), I am good; and to those who are not good (to me), I am also good; and thus (all) get to be good.” ~Laozi, China (sixth century BCE)9

  5. “Do not impose on others what you do not desire others to impose upon you.” ~Confucius, China (551–479 BCE)10

  6. “What I disapprove of in the actions of my neighbor, that—as best I can—I will not do.” ~Herodotus, Ancient Greece (fifth century BCE)11

  7. “If people regarded other people’s families in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own family to attack that of another? For one would do for others as one would do for oneself.” ~Mozi, China (c. 470–391 BCE)12

  8. “Do not do to others the things that anger you when you experience them from others.” ~Isocrates, Ancient Greece (c. 436–338 BCE)13

  9. “We ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.” ~Plato/Socrates (fifth–fourth century BCE)14

  10. “One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of Righteousness.” ~Hindu Mahabharata (c. fourth century BCE)15

  11. Justice is an agreement “neither to harm nor be harmed.” ~Epicurus, Ancient Greece (341–270 BCE)16

  12. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” ~Hillel (c. 110 BCE–10 CE)17

  13. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” ~Jesus (c. 30 CE)18

  The timespan between that early Egyptian formulation and the later Christian version is about the same as that between Jesus’s life and today. Of course, philosophers can argue about differences in the rule itself. Is the positive formulation (treat others as you’d like to be treated) superior to the negative formulation (don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself)? Is the rule defective, as Kant thought, and is his categorical imperative better? But such arguments are irrelevant here. It is enough to show that the Jewish tradition did not apply the rule universally and that many other versions predated the Judeo-Christian formulations. The dates in the list opposite and above suggest that, if anything, Judaism and Christianity probably borrowed the rule from Ancient Greece.

  The Golden Rule is not a Judeo-Christian principle. It is a universal human principle. This “interchangeability of perspectives” is the “foundation of morality” and can be seen in just as many secular, ethical traditions as religious traditions, according to Harvard neuroscientist Steven Pinker.19 The ethicist Peter Singer put it a bit differently: “The major ethical traditions all accept, in some form or other, a version of the Golden Rule that encourages equal consideration of interests.”20 Therefore, Judeo-Christianity’s “Golden Rule” cannot be said to have had any unique impact on the nation’s founding—especially given that influential founders such as John Adams knew it was not unique to Christianity. One reflective Sunday, Adams wrote in his diary that Christianity included the rule but did not invent it: “One great advantage of the Christian religion is, that it brings the great principle of the law of nature and nations,—Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you would that others should do to you,—to the knowledge, belief, and veneration of the whole people.”21

  According to Adams, the Golden Rule is not a Christian principle: it is a universal principle, a “principle of the law of nature and nations.” Christianity was one vehicle to disperse this universal idea, not its origin.

  Faith affects a Christian nationalist’s self-perception. It is often argued that Christians are humble and that atheists and scientists are arrogant. But this is backward. Atheists, scientists, and other rational citizens—and religious citizens in their nonreligious thinking—claim to have answers supported by evidence, not by faith. Christianity claims to know ultimate truths about the universe with absolute certainty because of faith, not evidence. Faith, almos
t by definition, is conceit.

  Empathy, compassion, guilt, forgiveness, morality, and responsibility cannot be claimed as the monopoly of one religion. They are, to borrow from Christopher Hitchens, part of our “elementary human solidarity.” Arguing that the Golden Rule influenced America’s founding does nothing to prove that we are a Christian nation, but it does help show the arrogance of Christian nationalism.

  8

  Biblical Obedience or American Freedom?

  “Inquiry is Human; Blind Obedience Brutal. Truth never loses by the one, but often suffers by the other.”

  — William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 16821

  “It is verily a great thing to live in obedience, to be under authority, and not to be at our own disposal. Far safer is it to live in subjection.”

  — Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ2

  The founding documents of the United States revere and protect freedom above all else. The bible worships and demands the opposite: obedience, submission, and servility. And it secures that obedience through fear. Fear and obey god. The principles of the two traditions diverge.

  People on both sides of the American Revolution understood the American drive for freedom. The British statesman Edmund Burke, in a 1775 speech advocating reconciliation with the colonies, said that “a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the [character of the Americans]…. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth.”3 William Pitt echoed that sentiment in a 1777 speech to the House of Lords, asserting, “You may ravage—you cannot conquer; it is impossible; you cannot conquer the Americans.”4

  On the other side of the conflict, Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense that a government is in the business of “securing freedom and property to all men, and above all things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”5 Paine and Burke famously disagreed, but not about America’s yearning for freedom. Our Constitution concurs. One of its purposes is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments declare that no citizen can be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” by federal or state governments respectively. The First Amendment protects the freedoms of speech, press, and association and the free exercise of religion by ensuring a secular government. The Second Amendment mentions bearing arms in relation to a militia because the framers thought a militia was necessary to ensure a “free state.” Freedom was always a goal. Without the freedoms protected by our Constitution and its mandate to separate the government from religion, citizens would not have a genuine choice in religion or belief. If most Americans are religious, they are free to be only because there is no government-endorsed religion that devours religious freedom. Christian nationalists are required by their bible to believe in eternal punishment and Noah’s ark; they are free to believe such things because of our Constitution.

  Judeo-Christianity is not concerned with freedom or liberty—quite the opposite. The bible is rife with obedience and servility. Perhaps the most familiar example of biblically mandated obedience is the story in which the all-powerful god commands Abraham to murder his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, a “burnt offering.”6 The sacrifice of Isaac was “a test of true devotion,” as one scholar has noted.7 Abraham takes Isaac into the wild, gathers wood, builds the pyre, binds his son’s hands and feet, and places him on the pyre.8 As Abraham raises the knife to plunge it into his own child, the biblical god stops the murder, “for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”9 God was testing Abraham’s obedience, ensuring that he was sufficiently scared to obey. This fearful obedience is rewarded: “Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven…because you have obeyed my voice.”10 God requires fear and unquestioning obedience to the point of killing your children.

  That story alone, and the frequency with which it is preached and referenced, should be enough to show the bible’s fetish for fear-based obedience. But there’s so much more. Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt for breaking a “no peeking” rule.11 The first few of the Ten Commandments are all about serving and obeying this petulant god: I am your god, have no other, etc. Believers must “fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”12 Paul wrote that we should be “obedient slaves” to his god, for “obedience…leads to righteousness.”13 And there will supposedly come a time when Jesus, “with his mighty angels in flaming fire,” will inflict “vengeance on…those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”14 If Christianity is about anything, it is about obedience to god. That’s why the original sin is not genocide, murder, or rape, but eating a piece of fruit after being told not to.

  As we’ve seen, the bible’s demand for slavish obedience prohibits rebellions of the very type that freed the American colonies from Great Britain: “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”15

  There are many more passages in the bible that not only revere but also require servility, especially in the New Testament:

  “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.” ~Ephesians 6:5–9.

  “But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” ~John 14:31.

  “Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” ~2 Corinthians 10:5

  “He became to all who obey Him the source of salvation.” ~Hebrews 5:9.

  “That you may obey Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.” ~1 Peter 1:2.

  “As obedient children…be holy.” ~1 Peter 1:14.

  “We must obey God rather than men.” ~Acts 5:29.

  “Through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous.” ~Romans 5:19.

  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” ~John 14:15.

  Is it any wonder that slaveholders in the American South found support in the bible? Or that they wanted to convert their slaves to an obedience-inducing religion like Christianity?

  PERHAPS THE ONLY BIBLICAL COUNTEREXAMPLE to such servility is the Exodus flight from Egypt. However, there is virtually no archaeological, historical, linguistic, or other evidence that suggests this was an actual event.16 Even if it were true, treating the story as a fight for freedom, as Christians have done for centuries, ignores the bulk of the bible and the story’s lesson.

  The full Exodus story is about fear and obedience, not freedom. God tells Moses, “Obey my voice and keep my covenant, [and] you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.”17 Moses tells his people, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”18 The Exodus flight trades one god, Pharaoh, for another god who demands such servile fealty that it can hardly be called freedom.19

  God even bars Moses from the Promised Land at the end of the Exodus tale because he disobeyed. Wandering in the desert, water quickly became an issue for the nomads. Yahweh instructed Moses to assemble the congregation and command a certain rock to produce water for the complaining multitude. The refugees gathered, and Moses did two things to anger his god. First, he asked them, “Shall we bring water out of this rock?” Then, instead of speaking to command the rock, Moses tapped the rock with his wooden rod. For this heresy—tapping, instead of commanding—“the LORD said to Moses…‘you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.’”20 That’s it. For tapping a rock with his magic wand instead of saying the magic words and possibly for saying “we” instead of “he” (i.e., Yahweh), Moses was barred from the Promised Land. The moral of this story is not freedom: it is obedience to arbitrary authority. Even were it an example of freedom in the bible, the story provides no eviden
ce to support the claim that it influenced America’s founding.

  In the bible story, Yahweh bestowed freedom on the Israelites, but, as Franklin Roosevelt said, “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.”21 Freedom under the yoke of absolute power does not exist, even if it were a benevolent power. “No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power,” observed Thomas Paine.22 Blind obedience to and fear of an omnipotent being is tyranny, not freedom. At its core, Judeo-Christianity’s insistence on obedience and fear conflicts with America’s essential value.

  9

  Crime and Punishment: Biblical Vengeance or American Justice?

  “Never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’”

  — Romans 12:19

  “Punishments I know are necessary, and I would provide them, strict and inflexible, but proportioned to the crime. Death might be inflicted for murder and perhaps for treason if you would take out of the description of treason all crimes which are not such in their nature.”

  — Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Edmund Pendleton, August 26, 17761