Growing up, I had the assumption that the US was a Christian Nation. This thought went unchallenged until college, when Pastor John Cress gave a sermon during a religious liberties themed service at the Walla Walla College Church where he very convincingly showed that the US was founded on enlightenment principles mostly by deists.

He took an hour, I need less than 600 words. We will only cover two documents of supreme legal significance, as that is all that is needed. To establish what is considered the “supreme law of the land,” let’s look at clause 2 of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America:

“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…”

So let’s start with the Preamble of the Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The entire Constitution makes no mention of God, a creator, or specific religion. The only original mention of religion is found in clause three of Article VI and states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The authority the Constitution appeals to is “the People of the United States” and one of the goals defined in the preamble is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” If the Founding Fathers had been trying to set up a Christian nation then we can assume that the preamble would likely have appealed to “God’s divine providence” or the “Grace of Jesus Christ” for authority and they would have been interested in securing the “Blessings of God.” This is of course an argument from silence, which is admittedly one of the weakest  forms of argument.

We can safely note that the Founding Fathers did identify several things they failed to cover adequately in the Constitution. The first was corrected by the Bill of Rights. A few years later they found the need to make an explicit official pronouncement of the religion of the nation.

On June 7, 1797 the “Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary” was unanimously approved by the US Senate and President John Adams. Article 11 of this great treaty reads:

“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 tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan 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.”

Did you catch that, “the Government of the United Sates of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” For those who buy into the myth that the US was founded as a Christian nation, I ask how could the Founding Fathers have been any clearer?