The US Was Not Founded As a Christian Nation

For some reason the view has become prevalent (or at least, I have encountered it frequently) that the United States was founded upon the Christian religion. The people who espouse this hypothesis use it a rationalization for their desire to transform our secular government into a theocracy. When I had the patience and time (and lack of sense) to participate in online discussions about politics, I heard this argument quite a bit.

The thing is that it’s absolutely and demonstrably false. The First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, does a decent job, and hundreds of years of precedent have quite clearly said that it prohibits the establishment of any state religion. But that’s never enough for the people I’ve encountered.

But I wonder if these people have read a Treaty with Tripoli drafted under Washington and ratified by the Senate under Adams in 1797. It reads, in part, “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” [emphasis added]

Any treaty ratified by the Senate is US law. It is in US law that the US is not a Christian nation. It’s really that simple. So if you ever hear anyone say that this country was founded as a Christian nation, make sure to tell them that it wasn’t.