Why America is not Founded on Christian Principles

The claim that America was founded on "Christian principles" [sic] is a tired, outworn attempt to hijack the greatness of the American experiment in order to credit it to primitive mysticism. In many minds, this seems valid, principally because they've been told this is the case over and over, and many will insist vociferously that America is indeed built on Christian principles. I would like to draw your attention to a few points why this cannot be the case.

For one thing, if it is true that America, which was established in 1776, was founded on Christian principles, why did it take 1700 years for a nation like America to come onto the scene? If, as Christians in America frequently tell us, America is a natural outgrowth from the doctrines and ideas of the New Testament, it seems that a nation built on the concept of the individual's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness would have emerged long before the 18^th century, for the west was dominated by Christianity from about AD 400.

But there are a number of other reasons which should be mentioned to give us some indication why it took so long for a nation like America to become established on the earth. The primary reason, I hold, is that a nation like America was not founded until it was in the 1770's because its principles were incompatible with those of the dominant western religion, which is Christianity, and that when a few courageous individuals gathered their intellectual talents together to develop the ideas which eventually became the founding principles of the new nation, it emerged in spite of Christianity, not because of it.

To make this case, I will point to the following facts, namely, that:

Let's examine each point in particular and see what we can determine from the facts of the matter at hand.

For one, America's founding intellectuals were for the most part deists, not Christians. There is an enormous distinction between deism and Christianity. Deists do not believe in a Christ-figure which came to earth to "rescue" men from their "sins" nor do they believe in a "revealed" theological program, like the Old and New Testaments. In fact, while deists posit that the universe was "created" by a deity, they hold that this deity does not operate in the world and that the world is essentially left to its own to operate according to the natural laws which govern it (this is where Jefferson, the architect of the Declaration of Independence, got his illicit idea of a "creator" - he did not mean the Judeo-Christian god as today's fundamentalists want you to believe; indeed, the Bible nowhere states that man was created with "inalienable rights" so Jefferson could not have had the Judeo-Christian notion of god in mind here). The deists were highly influenced by enlightenment thinkers, most notably John Locke among others, who championed man's reliance on his reason as opposed to the mystic's surrender to "faith."

Look at some of the founding fathers: Thomas Jefferson was so critical of the gospel stories that he published what is called The Jefferson Bible from which he has removed those ideas and contents of which he was critical in order to present and preserve those teachings of Jesus which he approved. Many Christians, drawing on Revelations 22:19, would consider Jefferson's cut-and-paste an act of blasphemy. Thomas Paine, a highly influential pamphleteer and one of the chief firebrands of the American revolution, published two volumes of his The Age of Reason which documented his meticulous criticism of the Old and New Testaments, concluding that they were forgeries and unworthy of any credibility or authority. Other enlightenment thinkers who were hostile to Christianity's mind-negating mysticism, such as Ethan Allen, John Adams, Elihu Palmer and numerous others, were also uniquely influential in the development of the philosophical climate of the 18th century which made America possible.

Quotes may be indicative of a speaker's sentiments and ideological alignment. But what about the ideas themselves? Could they have been Christian in nature and origin? Let's review some of the ideas, what they were, and determine whether or not they are Christian.

America is founded on the idea that the individual has certain inalienable rights, notably the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Where does the Bible ever define the concept "individual rights" and provide a defense of this central idea? I wager you'll find no such doctrine in the Bible, and that what you will find instead is a set of ideas which are indeed antagonistic to man's individual rights (e.g., the very idea that man must be commanded to do this or that, or not to do this or that is, in my assessment, completely antithetical to the notion of individual liberty and rights). The very idea that men are obligated to accept religious claims on faith, and thus surrender their reason, is a slap at the idea of individual rights in principle.

It is the idea that man has inalienable rights, when practiced consistently, which made possible the abolition of slavery in the 1860's. But nowhere in the New Testament is the moral validity of slavery once questioned by Jesus or the New Testament's writers. Indeed, in numerous places, Paul condoned slavery and urged slaves to accept their lot and not to complain about it. When the abolitionists brought out their arguments against slavery, they were met with the pastors and "reverends" of Christianity countering those arguments with citations from Paul and Jesus, claiming that slavery was a divine right. Indeed, while Christians and their theo-viral offspring love

to point to the 10 commandments as an ethical code ensuring peace, prohibiting murder and robbery, it is noteworthy that the Bible nowhere prohibits the initiation of the use of force. Indeed, believers are told to yield to those who initiate the use of force when Jesus tells his audience that they are to "turn the other cheek" in Matt. 5:39!!!

Furthermore, America was fighting for its independence from monarchical England. The founders rejected the very notion of a sovereign king, an idea which is nowhere questioned (let alone rejected) in the Bible and which is promoted in the slavish worship of the "king of kings" throughout the New Testament. Instead, the founders developed the idea of an *elected* leader, a president, thus implementing their rejection of the idea that authority is found in a single person. This concept is antithetical to the idea of a king, and thus antithetical in principle to a staple Christian idea as such. The whole idea of "question authority" which is forbidden in monarchical systems, was now elevated to a supreme guiding status. This is blasphemous in serious-going Christian circles, for authority is never to be questioned in such arenas. But here was a new governmental system where the leaders could suddenly find themselves checkmated by the governed. This certainly does not reflect the New Testament's idea of authority.

Paul and other New Testament authors were explicit in their exhortations to their believers not to rebel against secular authorities (cf. Romans 13:1-2; Titus 3:1; I Pet. 2:13 et al.). If the American colonists had taken the Christian teaching of the New Testament seriously, there would never have been a revolt against the king of England. Rebelling against the king would have constituted a violation of biblical injunction. Therefore, disobeying the New Testament in principle is precisely what made American independence possible to begin with. Christians do not realize this when they parrot the unexamined claim that America was founded on "Christian principles." They are reality-rejecting ingrates, if you ask me.

Instead of a monarchical system (which we would expect if America were founded on "Christian principles"), America's founders developed the idea of a constitutionally-limited republic which declared man's right to his existence and established on this principle certain functions and organs of state designed to protect that right. In essence, this is what they sought to do, and for the large part, they were successful. However there were certain contradictions and errors which they accepted (e.g., the notion that man's rights proceeded from a "creator," the idea that governments have the right to confiscate wealth in the form of taxation, etc.), and for these we are now reaping the expense. But had the founders been guided by "Christian principles," it is likely that we would still have the tyranny of unquestionable kings (i.e., dictators) ruling on the west side of the Atlantic.

Another important idea in the budding nation is the judicial principle that the individual is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty. While these words "presumed innocent until proven guilty" are not found in the US Constitution (and they certainly are not found in the Bible), this concept is embodied in such places as the Fifth Amendment rights ("No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…") and the individual's right to trial by jury (cf. Article III, Sec. 2).

That one should be presumed innocent until proven guilty is in principle completely antithetical to the Christian notion that man is "born into sin" and is by nature a depraved being (cf. Calvinism, et al.). Christianity holds precisely the reverse of the presumption of innocence principle, claiming that man is guilty until he has been redeemed. However, instead of seeing man as an innately corrupt and degenerate reprobate in need of an authoritarian state to keep him in control, the American view is premised on the assumption that man is innately good, capable of guiding himself according to his own self-regulating rationality, and able to deal with others in a civil manner, essentially that the individual is an end in himself. The government's role was not conceived as a means to force man to do good or to redeem him to a tyrannical, whim-worshipping creator, but to be there to protect him when others act in violation of his rights. In principle, this is again antithetical to the Christian conception of the nature of authority, civil or otherwise, and thus cannot be of Christian origin.

Now look at the success of America, and ask what made it possible. It is indisputable that America is the most prosperous nation ever to exist on the face of this planet. In just over 200 years from its official inception, America transformed from a largely agrarian society into an industrial super-giant with a productive capacity unrivaled by any single instance throughout all of man's history. America is the greatest engine of wealth the world has ever seen. In every area of life and intellectual endeavor, be it mechanical technology, science, medicine, business, or philosophy, American progress is the standard-bearer and the trail-blazer. But what made this possible? Jesus' teachings on self-sacrifice? Far from it! Indeed, it was precisely the opposite of the ethics of self-sacrifice as emphasized throughout the Bible which made American wealth, prosperity and success possible. In principle, it was the selfishness of the American individual which made this prosperity possible, and that principle is the profit motive: that personal gain is the primary motivator of one's moral choices and actions.

But contrary to the principles of the New Testament, personal gain for the American individual was not to come at the expense of others. Where in Christianity the believer is taught to expect to gain from the losses of others (cf. Jesus' pain, the believer's gain), the American individual is his own risk-taker: he produces wealth by earning it by his own efforts, not by seeking and expecting the unearned. Christians tell us that "salvation" is a "free gift," and explicitly state that it cannot be earned. Someone else had to pay for it. But this is a blatantly anti-capitalist ethic and is fitting only for the communist or fascistic state where the worker must work to his ability, but receive as reward only that which others say he should need, where one man's need is a mortgage on another man's life, where the incapable enslave the capable.

If you take Jesus' teachings seriously, you will be lazy and find yourself waiting around for the second coming. Jesus teaches in Matt. 6:34, "Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." No business-owner can take such a principle as this seriously and expect to make a decent living. It is inane foolishness. The New Testament in numerous places speaks about Jesus' return, and that this is what should preoccupy the believer's conscious experience and routine. But if this were the case among America's business leaders, very little commerce would be taking place. Why develop sales strategies for the fourth quarter of the year if you're persuaded that these are "the last days"? Indeed, Jesus' instruction in his parable is "Occupy until I come" (Luke 19:13), not "pursue your choice of happiness."

The creation of wealth is no small endeavor, and it is only by recognizing the importance of planning for the future that long-term, wide-scale wealth-creation is possible. But if one takes seriously the New Testament's gloom-and-doom warnings of an imminent catastrophe which will result in the ominous "last days" predicted by those who condemn the world, the future on earth is a bleak wasteland in which long-term investment can be nothing more than unprofitable vanity.

The author of I Thess. (traditionally attributed to Paul) writes (4:16-18), "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Now, if I were a believer and I took these words seriously, how could I take the company payroll very seriously? How could I take seriously my company's plans to move into new markets over the course of the next five years, or to merge with another company in the next three years? These ideas, as superstitious and imaginary as they are, can only inhibit progress on earth if people took them seriously. And indeed, Christians themselves do not take them seriously, but they want everyone else to.

James 5:3 states "Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." Is this a principle which has made America's unprecedented wealth possible? And what about those staunch believers here in America and elsewhere who benefit directly and indirectly from those who essentially disobey the very principles of Christian doctrine, and yet tell the world that it is perishing from disobedience of God's "holy principles"? This is a snow job of the grandest proportions. (Incidentally, I didn't know that either gold or silver rust.)

What does the Bible model? The Jewish kings of the Old Testament only grew prosperous by raiding their neighbors and confiscating their wealth in the form of war spoils. Jesus praised the poor by virtue of their poverty (Matt. 5:3). The anonymous author of I Timothy (6:10) condemned "the love of money" as "the root of all evil." What is evil, according to this view? The evil is the one thing they dare not identify and defend: man's right to exist selfishly for his own sake, that he has the right to live his life according to his rational self-interest without the approval of the priest, without the approval of the collective, without the approval of the supernatural. Simultaneously, this is the single-most important tenet of the Declaration of Independence, that man has the right to his own life, to his own liberty and to the pursuit of his own happiness. This is not a biblical ideal in any sense of the word (though they want to hijack credit for the success it has made possible). This is an ideal that is diametrically opposed to the spirit and explicit teachings of the Bible, including particularly the New Testament.

Given the above points, it should be clear that, in terms of principle, America is not in any way founded on the ideas of Christianity. Many of America's intellectual framers were indeed not Christian themselves, and indeed many were quite critical of Christianity and distrustful of organized religion as such. And even if they were Christian, this would not overturn the fact that the ideas on which America was based, including the concept of the individual's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the idea of an elected president serving a short term until a new election is held, and the presumption of the individual's innocence until he is proven guilty by a court of law before his peers, could not be more incompatible with orthodox Christianity. And, America's historically unprecedented wealth and success as a superpower was made possible by the selfishness of its citizens, the very ethical principle which Christianity is most geared to destroy.

A few other facts are also noteworthy:

• Christmas did not become a federal holiday until 1870.

• The Constitution of the United States of America nowhere mentions the words God, Jesus, Christ, Christian or Christianity. It is a completely religion-free document.

• America has never been officially declared a Christian nation, or even a religious nation as such; such labels have only arisen without official state sanction and principally because so many people happen to be religious (the majority of whom identify themselves as Christian to some degree).

So, as you can see, there is no reason why you should give any credence to the contentless claim that America was founded on Christian principles, or the implication that America's wealth is the result of divine providence. Indeed, if anything is true, it is the disregard for "Christian principles" and a recognition of man's nature as a volitionally rational being which has made America possible and its wealth an actuality.