An American Myth

USA Today reports at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-09-11-amendment_N.htm that a majority of all Americans surveyed believe that the Constitution establishes the United States as a "Christian nation." The balance is tipped by preponderant majorities of self-described Republicans and Evangelicals affirming the idea. What this tells me is that these people read the Constitution about as closely as they read their Bibles.

In secular circles, it is well known that the word "God" never appears in the Constitution, apart from the date of the "year of our lord" 1787. Check this for yourself http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html The First Amendment, by stating that Congress shall make no law respecting religion, makes it impossible to establish Christianity or any other creed as the national faith. During George Washington's presidency, within a decade of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, the State Department states flatly that the U.S. is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. The proof is right here: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1796t.htm.

Against these facts, believers offer mythology and confusion. Many who responded to the poll probably confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence, and may have taken the latter document's attribution of inalienable rights to a creator as some sort of acknowledgment of divine sanction for the Founding. Others who actively mislead the public blow out of proportion little stories like Benjamin Franklin's call for prayer during the Constitutional Convention (see http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=98), or simply make stuff up out of faith that the Founders could only be godly men. They dismiss the "wall of separation" as a phrase that Thomas Jefferson made up but fail to admit that he was describing the First Amendment as he understood it, as shown at http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html. They assume a lot about this country, and you know what happens when you assume? You make an ass of yourself and everyone else in this country.