gallo

I have frequently seen the assertion from fundamentalist christians that ours is a government founded on Christian principles. In the sixth grade I believed this, but as I became more knowledgable and more educated in the actual history of our country, I reached the opinion that it was not true. But recently, I have been reading some of the fundamental principles of our country and giving them consideration from the standpoint of some 1800 years of Christianity. Maybe it has only been a matter of semantics to claim "founded" on Christian principles. I have concluded that the principles of our foundation must have been at least motivated by Christian history.

Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. I am not through yet. Also let me warn you that I will unashamedly steal any good ideas with which you may respond and use them, along with my own, on my web site. This is the beginnings of a web page so that I can stop the "return to Christian principles" argument, agree with them, and point them to my page.

Amendment I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
It was the experience of our founding fathers that every nation of Europe from the time of Constantine had an established state church. That tradition was followed in the colonies and 12 of the 13 colonies established state churches that enabled them to tax the entire population to support a single religion. Further, the early history of our country is full of examples of the enforced practice of that established religion and the persecution and punishement of those who resisted. The establishment clause and the free exercise clause were most certainly motivated by christian principles.
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
Also most definitely motivated by christian principles. Even in America, to speak out against the king who ruled by the grace of God was treason. To speak against the state church was blasphemy, which could be punishable by death. As was pointed out to me by a fundy, just translating the Bible into the vernacular was heresy punishable by death at one time.
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Most definitely motivated by the christian principle of the king's word as law. The king, of course, ruled by the Grace of God. For most of the history of Christendom there didn't exist any right to complain.

Amendment II.
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Modern fundamentalist christians seem to have taken this one to heart so strongly that it must certainly be a principle of christianity. However, I think they may have a misunderstanding of the meaning of terms like "regulated", "militia" and "free state". For example, Article I that defines the powers of Congress specifies one of those powers is "To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;" and "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;" Clearly the founding fathers believed that the militias were subject to the control of the states and ultimately to the Federal Government. Further, Article II that defines the powers of the President says in Section 2 that "The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States..." Clearly, the Second Amendment doesn't mean what some would lead us to believe. The founding fathers viewed the militia as a resource to be called up in time of need for the defense of the nation, and they should bring their weapons. We should also consider that the Second Amendment has not been incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Amendment III.
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Most certainly a christian principle was the right of the king (by the grace of God) to quarter his men however, whenever, and wherever he chose to do so. These rights had existed even up to the very beginning of the Revolutionary War, and were mentioned among the grievences listed in the Declaration of Independence.

I'm still working on the rest, but already some clauses motivated by christian principles occur to me. How about this from the Fifth Amendment?
All of christian history is full of the torture of people until they confessed to crimes against the holy faith, for which sins they were promptly killed. There are some exceptions. Bruno never did confess under torture and was burned at the stake anyway. Galileo, old and sick at the time, confessed and was allowed to live, although deprived of liberty.

I would appreciate any help in the enumeration of the christian principles that motivated our founding fathers.

hezekiah jones

I couldn't tell you what a "christian principle" is, so you won't get any from me. But here is an outstanding, annotated online resource:

<a href="http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/constitution/" target="_blank">The Constitution at findlaw.com</a>.

gallo

In recent weeks I have consulted FindLaw several times each week. I've been doing some reading on the Constitution and Constitutional law and sometimes like to read the whole context of quotes. My son like WestLaw better, but it's not free - his firm pays the big bucks.

That will be great! Thanks.

Pantera

Slavery?

hezekiah jones

Another excellent resource for Supreme Court caselaw is Northwestern University's Oyez Project, which features, among many other things, brief synopses of cases, biographies and images of the Justices, and lots of realaudio recordings of oral arguments:

<a href="http://oyez.nwu.edu" target="_blank">The Oyez Project</a>

I think it ultimately links to findlaw for the actual text of the opinions, but it's got some pretty cool stuff.

Toto

You might find some interesting matierials in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000444&p=" target="_blank">this closed thread about wallbuilders.com</a> and the links in it - expecially on the topic of the Christian principles the country was founded on.

hezekiah jones

Ah, David Barton. I hear Barton and my favorite Attorney-For-Christ, Mat Staver, are engaged in an unholy alliance to produce the definitive statement on America's "christian heritage."

In the meantime, Staver has prepared a 76-page brief pursuant to several cases in the Kentucky courts involving posting of the Ten Commandments. It's mostly pretty dreary reading, and purports to support the notion that the "Decalogue" is a purely secular, historical document.

Many of the citations Staver provides are culled from 17th century sources, none of which, as far as I can tell, have much to do with the current Constitution, or "settled law" (as John Ashcroft would say) relating to the Establishment Clause.

The .pdf file is at the bottom of the page here:

<a href="http://www.lc.org/pressrelease/religion-in-public-places/nr110101.htm" target="_blank">Liberty Counsel Files Brief Outlining the Historical Significance of The Ten Commandments</a>

One of the more amusing cases Staver cites is State v. Mockus, a 1921 decision from the Supreme Court of Maine in which the conviction for blasphemy of a delightfully irreverent Lithuanian man was upheld.

Among Mockus' contentious statements were:

Although this decision may not have been explicitly overturned, this is the type of irrelevant nonsense to which Staver appeals. Implicit in Staver's message is that we are somehow to be proud of such a historical validation of, in this case, the so-called Third Commandment.

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: hezekiahjones ]</p>

theyeti

If they actually believe this, then why are they in such a hurry to post this "secular" document all over the place?

theyeti

PopeInTheWoods

Hmm, let's see. We have

Amendment I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

and we also have

Commandment I.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Unless I'm missing something, either Commandment I is not a "xian principle", or at least one of the major founding principles of the United States is non-xian. I'm pretty sure this is a real (not false) dichotomy.

Andy

Tomije

This is my very first post on this board, so I'm slow to point out the obvious, but it hasn't been mentioned thus far...

The United States wasn't founded on Christian principles. The reason for that wasn't because our forefathers were Christians really trying hard to be inclusive. Please! These are the same white guys who went home and raped their black slaves. They were not visionaries, or saints.

But an important handful were Deists, and that is key. Deists were not, in any sense of the term, Christian. They didn't believe in Christ as God, for example. In fact, their view of Christ owed a lot to the classical Moslem view of Jesus. Good to great Prophet, yes. Son of God? Not so much.

Deists were everywhere, and influential. Washington, Adams, Franklin--all of them at some point were Deists. They were also important figures at America's birth.

So this whole debate is kind of null and void. This country quite simply wasn't founded on Christian ideals. It never was--I'm not reconstructing things. Hell, the Pledge of Allegiance made it to Eisenhower before the phrase "under God" was added. Good luck getting it out now!