Christian-Debt.net

There are a number of people who believe that this is a Christian nation. If you mean that a majority of people here are Christian than yes you are right. Just like we would be a female nation and a white nation. That has nothing to do with what this great nation is based on. People come up with quotes of the founding fathers as if that means this nation is founded upon the Christian religion. Well, that can be useful but that hardly proves anything. The problem is people are taking quotes from different points within the founding father’s lives and claiming that this is what they believed when they really believed a plethora of different things. You can find quotes where I’ve contradicted myself because for 16 years of my life, I was a Christian, and I’m sure we can do the same with you. And what the founding fathers ultimately thought has no bearing on what reality should be. These men thought slavery was morally permissible. Just because they though so, doesn’t make it so. Their actions speak louder than their words and their actions set up a secular nation.

"the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion" which is in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli. This was negotiated under George Washington, took effect under John Adams, and was debated and unanimously approved by the Senate of the United States without any controversy or complaint about the language. There are your founding fathers. These men really understood what religious freedom means. In 1786, before the Constitution was written, Patrick Henry submitted a proposal to the state of Virginia to publicly finance the teaching of Christianity in public schools. What happened? Virginians rejected it and instead they passed the "Act for Establishing Religious Freedom." This act, which prohibited tax support for religious institutions and religious tests for public office was supported by evangelicals who feared, as they were a minority in an Episcopalian state, government intrusion upon the rights to practice their religious beliefs.

These are the very people who are now stating that this great nation is a Christian nation. Why? Because they are now the majority and they feel the protection of the power of the majority. This is a hypocrisy. The religious freedoms that were established within that Virginia Act were the foundation for both the language in Article 6 (no religious test for public office) and for the 1st Amendment (Congress shall make no law protecting the establishment of religion (And Under the "due process" clause of the 14th Amendment (ratified in 1868), the entire Bill of Rights applies to the states, not just Congress anymore)).

The founding fathers weren’t all of one mind on this issue. Washington had no problem making presidential proclamations that thanked "god." Jefferson, on the other hand, felt that Washington was violating the Constitution. However, actions speak louder than words. Language had been attempted to be introduced showing preference to Jesus Christ, and every time it was voted down. Look at the Treaty of Tripoli and the action they took there, including their language.