A useful reminder about the Constitution and religion

The kingdom Jesus preached was radical. Not only are nations irrelevant, but families are, too: he instructs those who would be his disciples to give up all they have and all those they know to follow him.

I have no intention of offering a sermon.  Neither did the author of the words I just quoted, which are from A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation, an op ed by Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek.  Immediately after the words with which I began, Meacham reminds us that

The only acknowledgment of religion in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated "in the year of our Lord 1787." Even the religion clause of the First Amendment is framed dryly and without reference to any particular faith. The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God's authority, but the effort failed.

I believe Meacham's piece is a useful reminder, which I want to explore in the context of attitudes, actions and events of our own day.
The occasion of Meacham's peace are the remarks last week by John McCain that "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."  Meacham wonders, not so tongue in cheek, if McCain picked up such a warped expression when he visited Liberty University o receive an honorary degree.  Regular readers of dailykos are aware, through he work of a number of our writers, of the concerted events - overtly or concealed - to attempt to turn America into a "Christian" nation.  Even as I write this one of the diaries on the recommended list is Troutfishing's Found: The Fundamentalist Handbook For Subverting US Military and one of the diaries rescued last night was Frederick Clarkson's Is a Dem State Rep like Benedict Arnold and Judas?

Meacham provides, in 869 words, an overview of how many of our great figures have opposed the idea of America being a Christian nation, which Meacham warns "is an article of faith among many American evangelicals" and thus one reason we see politicians like McCain pandering to that incorrect view.  But first he provides a broad reading of Scripture which makes clear that for Christians

believers are to be wary of all mortal powers. Their home is the kingdom of God, which transcends all earthly things, not any particular nation-state.

Clarence Thomas, who is because of his book tour again highly visible, has argued that the doctrine of incorporation through which we receive the protection of the Bill of Rights against state actions should not include the establishment clause, noting that the Fist Amendment begins with the word "Congress" and at the time of the ratification of that and the other nine early amendments many states had established churches.  Meacham remind us that the last state to disestablish was Massachusetts, and that was in 1833. His examination of our civic history goes from Jefferson's Statute in Virginia (with his famous words about protection for "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination" through the early 20th Century, when Theordore Roosevelt defended William Howard Taft from attacks vy supofrters of evangelical candidate William Jennings Bryan because of Taft being a Unitarian.  Along the way we are reminded that when Washington was inaugurated in New York in April 1789 the city listed 14 clergymen, among which was Gershom Seixas, the hazan (cantor) of Shearith israel, a Jewish Congregation of Sephardic origin that still functions, albeit now on the Upper West Side.  He reminds us that

Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a "Christian party in politics." Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed "Christian amendment" to the Constitution to declare the nation's fealty to Jesus.

The iconic representation of the leadership of this nation is Mount Rushmore.  Meacham includes actions of all four who appear on that monument, referring us also to the 1790 letter Washington sent to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, RI, in which the Father of the Nation wrote

"happily the government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. ... Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Article VI of the Constitution contains the Supremacy Clause, which reads (and note the emphasis I have added)

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

In the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast. Toward the end of his second term, Washington sent Joel Barlow, the diplomat-poet, to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty, finished after Washington left office, bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that "as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion," there should be no cause for conflict over differences of "religious opinion" between countries.

The treaty passed the Senate unanimously. Mr. McCain is not the only American who would find it useful reading.

Meacham notes the unanimous approval.  I have written about this treaty in the past in a diary entitled The relationship of religion and government (which will provide an ever broader introduction to the issue than Meacham can offer in less than 900 words).  As I noted in that diary

It is worth noting that the Senate of this 5th Congress including 7 men who had been in the 1st Congress and thus voted on the First Amendment.  There were at this time 16 states, and thus 32 Senators.  This provision of the treaty was well publicized in the press of the day, and no significant opposition on account of Article XI is reported in the press, nor was there any serious opposition in the Senate.

I am a social studies teacher.  I have taught American and World History, as well as electives in Social Issues and Comparative Religion.  My primary course is Government.  I often tell my students that b the end of a year with me they are likely to know far more about government and the Constitution not only that most adults, but unfortunately, often more than some who serve in our Federal and State legislatures.  When I read remarks like those of Thomas on establishment not being included through incorporation, I wonder about more than a few of our judges and justices as well, even though they may be law school graduates and I am not.  But that observation is probably irrelevant.

What is NOT irrelevant is the clear evidence of so many involved in our founding and among our greatest leaders who, regardless of their own religious commitment (itself something not unnversal among the founders as a close examination of people like Franklin, Washington, John Adams and Jefferson will show them to be very far from conventional Christians or even within the bounds of what some who call themselves Christians today would accept) made clear that there was NOT to be a religious basis to this nation, not even under the broad rubric of being "Christian."  An oath of office does not, constitutionally, have to include the words "so help me God" and one is not even required to swear, but instead may affirm - this perhaps being an acknowledgment of people like the Quakers who do not swear.  What is interesting, and what I explore in the diary to which I refer above, is the role played by people who were Baptists (albeit not Southern Baptist Convention, which did not exist) in helping establish the idea of separation of Church and State:  the role of men like Roger Williams in colonial days and John Leland during the early years of the Republic was invaluable in establishing the conditions upon which the Founders based their work.

It is also important to remember that we could not have had a nation and a national church: in New England what is now the Congregational Church was dominant.  In Southern states, the upper classes were largely Anglican, although there were a fair number of Methodists and others on the frontier.  The Middle States had a huge mixture of religions.  It is difficult to see how ONE national church could ever have been established.  In that we were as a nation fortunate.

It is also interesting to see how many of those who now argue that the nation IS a Christian nation belong to denominations that did not exist at the time of our national founding.  After all, the Southern Bpatist Convention was organized in 1845 in Augusta Georgia - that is more than a decade after MA became the last state to officially disestablish in 1833.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Mormons) traces its founding to Joseph Smith in Palmra New York in 1820, although the real development occurred under Brigham Young, who led the church from 1847-1877.  Many of the evangelical churches were founded here, for example, Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal churches during the revival that began in the late 1800's into the early 20th Century.  Fundamentalism as a movement in American Christianity can be dated to 1909 when brothers Lyman and Milton Stewart began funding the publication of The Fundamentals. 

In fairness, it is true that the Second Great Awakening can be placed in the period of the early Republic, say from 1800-1830, and that there are strands of that which come down to the modern evangelical and fundamental churches.  But the religious fervor of that period was personal, and did not have a major influence on governmental policy, except that it in fact coincided with the disestablishment of the remaining state churches.

One might argue that we are a nation of Christians, although even that is dangerous.  After all, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists consider themselves Christian while most other denominations do not.  The Catholic Church still has its Feeneyites (named after a former chaplain at Harvard) who still literally affirm the idea of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, first postied by Cyprian of Carthage in the 3rd century and used by Popes since Innocent III in the 13th Century to mean that no one is saved unless they are Catholic and under the Pope.  In return I have heard some Protestants describe the Catholic Church as "Rome the whore of Babylon."  Even were we a "Christian nation" I am sure we would be having battles on the question of who should be included in that adjective of that expression.

And perhaps our Founders understood that.  After all, many came to this nation during a period of conflict over religion in Europe.  And we had had our own history of religious discrimination, whether it was Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson being driven out, Mary Dyer and other Quakers being hung on Boston Common, an Act of "Toleration" in Maryland that prescribed (but fortunately never applied) death to anyone who denied the holy trinity.

Some who are themselves fairly devout would argue that our nation is NOT  Christian, that at best it can be described as post-Christian, with isolated strands of traditional Christian thinking, but certainly not a Christian world view.

I have been a Christian, having spent time in the Episcopal and Orthodox Churches.  I have a master from a Catholic Seminary.  My wife and I were married in the Orthodox Church, and leaves is still a devout Orthodox Christian.  There is much about Christianity and many Christians whom I deeply admire precisely because their lives are shaped by their faith.

The genius of America has been that what has bound us together for over 200 years has not been a common religion, not even a common language, but rather a system of government and a common political tradition which while it has evoked religious imagery (for religion even if not called that seems an integral part of humanity for most people) has not imposed a religious view nor required religious adherence to be a full participant.

It is ironic that the person among the major party contenders for whom the most would refused to vote is a Republican who happens to be a Mormon.  Mormonism is seemingly unacceptable to many Americans.  So long as Romeny's faith does not interfere with his faithfulness to the Constitution, it should not be a bar, although individuals can base their votes on whatever they choose.  I find many other reasons not to vote for Romney, and I don't give a damn what if anything he wears under his trousers. 

We are Americans, and we should not be divided up by party, by ethnicity, by race, by gender, by sexual orientation, or by religion.  Our Founders were not perfect in their vision - our vision of whom we include in the American polity is far broader than most of them could fathom.  Those who would seek office by pandering to a more narrow vision are not worthy of high office, and if we are to preserve our Constitution and Bill of Rights we should eny our support even if they would give us majorities in legislative bodies. 

John McCain betrayed the Constitution with the words he spoke last week.  Meacham has offered us a timely reminder of the history we should all know, but which unfortunately is rarely taught to our children. 

However you believe, I strongly defend your right to that belief so long as you do not seek to IMPOSE it upon me or anyone else.  Whether most Americans are Christian or not does not matter.  Our nation includes Jews, followers of Islam both Sunni and Shi'a, Buddhists of every stripe, Hindus, Jains, Santerians, Native American religious traditions, pagans, Wiccans, agnostics, atheists . . . too many labels to list.  They are all Americans, all part of this nation, all MUST be included in any vision of who we are and what we should be.

Unless and until they seek to impose their narrow vision upon the rest of us.  Then they can and must be rejected, or rather, that approach must be rejected.

Enough. 

Peace.

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