A Christian Nation is a Civil Right. Right?

The insistence that we are and were always intended to be a Xian nation is much like other aspects of evangelical Xian belief, where they cherry-pick a few factoids and ignore or deny everything else, it makes me want to taze the whole bunch in hopes the shock makes some of their synapses fire ( Zap! Hey, I just noticed that opinions aren't the same as facts!). Yes, it's true that the Pilgrims were Puritans and Virginians were Church of England and, in fact virtually all the 13 colonies were Xian. That, however, does not mean that in 1776 the founding fathers wanted religion incorporated into their government.

Currently, evangelicals are the most insistent that we were always intended to be a Xian nation. This does a great disservice to their forefathers. The evangelicals at the dawn of our nation were the most adamant supporters of separation of church and state. Heck, Roger Williams, Baptist minister and founder of Rhode Island is credited with first using the term "a wall of separation," when talking about keeping church and state separate. The prevailing attitude at that time was, that anyone who felt their religion needed help from the government, had very weak faith in their religion.

Unlike today, the first generation of US citizens had seen plenty of examples of Xian nations for comparison. They viewed the Church of England as synonymous with the British government from whom they were seeking independence, they'd observed how the Catholic Church controlled the governments of other countries and, many of the people had themselves been driven out of their homes for following the wrong religion.

The colonies themselves were also examples. The Puritans of Mass. didn't come to America for religious freedom so much as they came to isolate themselves from the less conservative religions. They drove out or, in a few cases, killed those who wouldn't convert to the Puritan religion. At the same time, in Virginia, one could not get a government job without joining the C of E. Bigotry against Catholics and Jews was prevalent and it's estimated that only about 15% of the American population were members of a church when the Constitution was written.

All of that history is largely irrelevant since every time the separation or church and state is argued in court, the separation is reiterated. Still we get people standing up at school board or local government meetings insisting we are a Xian nation, therefore we have a right to blah, blah, blah. I think the problem is that since they have the right to freely practice their religion, any opinion shared by a majority of their church congregation must also be their religious right to practice.

They think subjecting the general public to Xian ceremonies is a good idea, then it must be their 1st amendment right. The same is true about what constitutes a fact, what media should be censored, what politician should be elected, what minorities should not be tolerated, or whether miniature marshmallows should top the jello salad at the potluck. It's not opinion; it's their god-given constitutional right. Right?

Christian Peace and Harmony

An article today in Yahoo news about a rift in a big Presbyterian church in FL, got me thinking about how often one sees claims that peace and harmony are among the benefits of being an Xian compared to the actual observed evidence. The above church is only unique in that it was one of the first mega-churches and that it has connections to Billy Graham and religious right leader D. James Kennedy. There's nothing at all unusual about seeing a headline that there is a rift within or between Xian denominations, and I suppose we should be glad that, at least in most places, the denominations aren't torturing and killing each other any more, but you'd think that when they make bumper stickers and song titles they might want to stick to claims that are less demonstrably false.

Most of the time when I hear of religious discord, I think of the bloody wars and suppression between Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Britain, but the first thing that came to my mind today was Africa. Have you ever wondered why there are so many followers of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, even though most of those nations were colonies of Xian countries? It seems that when the imperial Europeans decided to claim ownership of Africa, they included the traditional imposition of missionaries on the indigenous population, but the different Xian denominations spent so much time arguing with each other over who had more right to force their religion on the locals, that the Islamic missionaries were able to walk in with a monolithic message and convert everyone.

Maybe I'm the only one amused by this, but I'm always hearing about how the spread of Christianity, with all its manifest benefits, throughout the world is evidence of it being the true religion. Yet, it seems these guys are their own worst enemies and in spite of the constant discord, they'd like us to believe they are the primary force for achieving world peace and harmony.

Enough with the Pilgrims

Just about every time some one argues that the US is a christian nation they bring up the Pilgrims. Because the Pilgrims were christians of the puritan denomination that, according to legend, came to America for religious freedom, they somehow had something to do with the US Constitution about 160 years later. I think the proponents of a christian nation need to read more.

First of all, the Pilgrims were not the first North American colonists. It should be remembered that Native Americans with their own perfectly good religions were here for thousands of years before any of the usual suspects arrived. Then there were Norse, French traders, Spanish conquistadors, abandoned African slaves, and English colonists in Virginia, just to name a few, before the Pilgrims.

Second, they didn't come for religious freedom; they came for religious isolation. They had freedom to practice their religion in Holland, but what they really wanted was to get rid of the Church of England so they used the Dutch printing industry to print anti-C of E pamphlets which they smuggled into England. This naturally did not sit well with the head of the English Church, who also was King of England, James I. That made advocating the ouster of the head of the church sound remarkably like treason against the crown, because it was. Furthermore, they didn't much care for Holland with all those less pure christians running around practicing religious freedom too.

Third, when they got to America, they acted like a bunch of narrow-minded, intolerant jerks. The Native Americans in the region were helpful and tolerant, except when the Pilgrims stole food or desecrated their graves, and when the local tribes frequently saved the Pilgrims from starvation and death, the Pilgrims thanked their god rather than the people who actually did the work and provided the food. When any new English colonists arrived, they either had to follow the Puritan religion or they were banished, jailed, or, in at least on case, executed.

These are the great forefathers that advocates of a christian nation want to hold up as examples; people who would not have tolerated the religious beliefs of any of their modern admirers, who would have abhorred the kind of religious freedom advocated in the Constitution, and who were the kind of bores you would never invite to a party.