Monthly Archives: March 2013

What Would a Religious Constitution Look Like?

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The US Constitution is not in the least religiousHappy birthday, Constitution! The U.S. Constitution went into effect March 4, 1789.
Paul Kurtz of the Center for Inquiry has said that 94 national constitutions are explicitly neutral on religion, with the U.S. Constitution being the very first. It’s frustrating that the secular nature of the Constitution is now being second guessed, when that trait is the friend not only of the atheist and non-Christian but also of the Christian.
Don’t Like History? Rewrite It!
History revisionists like David Barton (whose book The Jefferson Lies was recently recalled by its Christian publishing house for historical inaccuracies) imagine that America was founded on biblical principles.
The Constitution is full of biblical inspiration, he says:

You look at Article 3, Section 1 [sic], the treason clause. Direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article 2, the quote on the president has to be a native born? That is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, it drives the secularists nuts because the Bible’s all over it! … [We Christians] think it’s a secular document; we’ve bought into their lies. It’s not.

The Constitution not secular? There is no mention of deities, and the only mention of religion is to prohibit religious tests for public office in Article 6. But let’s investigate Barton’s claims.
First, the treason clause. In another video he makes clear what “direct quote” he’s talking about:

On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness (Deut. 17:6).

Compare that with the Constitution:

No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court (Art. 3, Sect. 3).

That’s the great wisdom that the founding fathers had to consult the Bible for—that you need at least two witnesses for an important crime? And that’s hardly a direct quote.
Consider what the Bible is talking about in this chapter: if anyone worships a god besides Jehovah, you are to stone them to death, with the witnesses the first to cast the stones. Death penalty for worshipping the wrong god? Uh, no—that’s about as unconstitutional as it comes.
In Barton’s second point, he compares

Be sure to appoint over you a king [Jehovah] your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite (Deut. 17:15).

with

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States … shall be eligible to the Office of President (Art. 2, Sect. 1, Clause 5).

That’s not a “verbatim” copy. That’s not even a rough approximation. The United States is to pick a king that God chooses?!
Not … even … close.
No, David, what “drives the secularists nuts” is your blatant lies. Do you assume your audience is too ignorant to know the truth or too stupid to care about it?
What Would a Religious Constitution Look Like?
There are lots more Barton claims, but he’s a waste of time. If the founding fathers had wanted America to be governed by Christian or biblical principles, they would have said so in the Constitution.
Compare it with the constitution of the Philippines, which implores the aid of “the Almighty God,” or Malaysia, which makes Islam the official religion, or Nigeria, which declares that it is a “nation under God,” or even the new constitution of Egypt, which makes Islam the official religion and Islamic Sharia the “principle source of legislation.”
The signers of the Constitution knew full well how to make religious constitutions since these same founding fathers helped to create constitutions in their states. Maryland granted religious protection for Christians only, New Jersey referred to “the inestimable privilege of worshipping Almighty God,” Pennsylvania required office holders to acknowledge that the Bible was divinely inspired, and Vermont required all men to declare “by the ever living God” that they will honorably carry out civic responsibilities such as voting.
That’s what the Constitution would’ve looked like if the founding fathers had wanted it to be religious. By contrast, the U.S. Constitution begins “We the People.” By not referring to God, it says volumes.

I think we need to have a government
that respects our religions.
I’m really tired of being lectured
about respecting every other religion on the planet.
I want them to respect our religions.
— Newt Gingrich, while campaigning for president in 2012

Photo credit: Wikimedia

The U.S. Constitution is 100 Percent Secular—or Is It?

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Is the Constitution secular? Yep.In other blog posts, I’ve made the point that the secular U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from getting involved with religion, which makes the best environment for both atheists and Christians. However, on several occasions, I’ve gotten pushback that the Constitution isn’t secular. Let’s investigate this claim.
First consider a historic document that is easily seen to be religious, the Mayflower Compact (1620). It’s quite short, and the majority of the body is here:

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic.

This is one of the documents that David Barton likes to use while bending history to take on his preconception of America as a Christian nation. There are also several federal Thanksgiving declarations that acknowledge the Christian god. For example, George Washington in 1789 created the first national Thanksgiving Day with this statement:

[Congress requests that the president] recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God.

The constitution of the Confederate States (1861) was adopted with few changes from the U.S. Constitution, one being the addition of “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God” in the preamble.
However, when we read the U.S. Constitution, this overtly Christian language isn’t there. Neither is the vaguely deist language present in the Declaration of Independence. It’s 100 percent secular. It’s not God making this constitution; it begins, in big letters, We the People. In fact, Article 6 says in part, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
But is it secular? Some Christians assert that it’s not. The first example is from Article 1:

If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law.

In other words, it recognized Sunday as a holiday. The second example is the wrapup in Article 7:

done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven.

In other words, it replaces AD (Anno Domini—“in the year of our Lord”) with its English translation, as was customary for formal documents at the time.
That’s it?? Those are the powerful counterexamples? Compare this to the Mayflower Compact—a constitution with some balls that not only affirmed God’s existence but said that the entire project was for his glory.
That Sunday was a holiday simply acknowledged the custom of the people of the time. Spelling out AD and saying that this acknowledges Yahweh is like saying that the use of the names Thursday, Friday, and Saturday acknowledges the gods Thor, Frigg, and Saturn, respectively. Or that the use of the names May and June acknowledges the Roman goddesses Maia and Juno. “AD” is just another part of the same calendar.
The final irony is that “in the year of our Lord” isn’t even correct from a Christian standpoint. The few clues we have of Jesus’s birth in the gospels make clear that he wasn’t born in the year 1 but probably around 5 BCE.
So, yes, the Constitution does reflect the customs and calendar of the people of the time. But it’s still obviously and boldly secular. Isn’t that the best for everyone who is governed by it?

None are more hopelessly enslaved
than those who falsely believe they are free.
— Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

(In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, this is a modified version of a post originally published 1/30/12.)
Photo credit: Wikipedia