A secular nation

THANKS TO Kurt W. Peterson ("American idol," Oct. 31) for pointing out that the reach of "one of the most influential evangelists in America," David Barton, far exceeds his grasp of history and theology. The notion of the U.S. being a "Christian nation," the founders of which "recognized a Christian God" and created a form of government grounded on "fundamental Judeo-Christian principles based on the Holy Bible," is clearly false. The U.S. Constitution begins not with "God says" but with "We the People," and the establishment clause and Jefferson's "wall of separation" are facts that should at least temper such claims.

Even more to the point, John Meacham in American Gospel: God, the Founders and the Making of a Nation cites the 1797 treaty with the Islamic nation of Tripoli of Barbary, negotiated under George Washington and approved unanimously by the Senate under John Adams, in which two presidents and a Senate declare before the world that the United States is a secular nation: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ... it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of harmony existing between the two countries."

It might also be worth noting that Washington and Adams were something other than evangelical Christians and that it can be reasonably assumed that the Senate of their time consisted of a range of both religious believers and nonreligious people. Yet, as per the Constitution, the treaty was passed unanimously by that religiously heterogeneous Senate.

M. L. Brownsberger

St. Augustine, Fla.

COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning