Rethinking “America’s Godly Heritage”
By J. Brent Walker
Executive Director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs

David Barton, in his taped presentation called “America’s Godly Heritage,” peddles the proposition that America is a “Christian Nation,” legally and historically. He also asserts that the principle of church/state separation, while not in the Constitution, has systematically been used to rule religion out of the public arena, particularly the public school system.

This article contains a short critique of some of the major points that Mr. Barton raises (for complete text of the booklet from which this article is adapted visit the Baptist Joint Committee website at www.bjcpa.org)

Barton claims that 52 of the 55 signers of the Constitution were “orthodox” Christians and many were “evangelical Christians.”

Barton does not cite any authority to support this assertion. Indeed, the weight of scholarly opinion is to the contrary. For example, Professor Clinton Rossiter has written:

“Although it had its share of strenuous Christians ... the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men who could take their religion or leave it alone. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit.” (Clinton Rossiter, 1787; The Grand Convention, pp. 147-148.)

While there can be little doubt that Christian values shaped the thinking of the Founders, it is wrong to jump to the conclusion that the Founders were almost all orthodox evangelicals Christians. Even though many of the Founders applauded religion for its utility— believing religion was good for the country— they also argued vigorously for voluntary religion and complete religious freedom. Thus, even if Barton’s point were true, it does not compel the conclusion that we should privilege Christianity in any legal or constitutional sense.’

Barton makes much from a statement attributed to John Quincy Adams to the effect that the principles of Christianity and civil government form an “indissoluble bond.”

Most of the Founders did believe that religion was good for the country. Even today public officials try to baptize their political aims in the waters of sacred approval. Of course, this ignores the fact that true Christianity serves as much a prophetic function as a pastoral one. Christianity does not exist to prop up government or a particular regime but to critique it and call it to judgment.

In any case, one wonders whether Barton really wants to embrace John Quincy Adams. According to John McCollister, “some members of the organized church branded [Adams] an atheist” and there was no evidence that the Bible was used at the time he took the oath of office. His church attendance was irregular at times. He, like his father, was a Unitarian. (John McCollister, So Help Me God, pp. 41-43.)

Barton spends a great deal of time lambasting the concept of church-state separation.

A. Church-state separation is not in the Constitution.

Of course, neither the words “church/state separation” nor “wall of separation” appear in the Constitution. That does not mean Barton’s position is correct. The Constitution does not specifically mention “separation of powers” or “the right to a fair trial” either, but who would deny the constitutional status of those concepts? “Church-state separation” is a metaphor for what certainly was and is the spirit of the First Amendment’s religion clauses — government is to be neutral toward religion to the end of ensuring religious liberty.

B. Barton quotes the First Amendment as saying “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” He also goes on to talk about the amendments that were rejected primarily by the Senate which, on their face, would have allowed the government to support religion on a non-preferential basis. He says this shows the Founder’s true intent behind the First Amendment.

Barton is absolutely wrong. First of all, the phrase is not “the” establishment of religion, but “an” establishment of religion. It is not sufficient for the government to avoid establishing one particular religion; it may not establish any religion. Moreover the Founders banned laws even “respecting” an establishment of religion, indicating how broadly they intended the government’s non-involvement in religion to be extended.

Barton’s citing of the Senate amendments allowing non-preferential support of religion cuts against his argument, not in favor of it. Those amendments do show that the Founders considered adopting such non-preferential ideas into the Constitution. However, they then defeated those amendments and deliberately adopted the language we have now which calls for governmental neutrality towards religion, neither favoring a specific sect nor religion in general.

Unless we are willing to accept this ludicrous assertion— that the Framers really intended the government to non-preferentially support religion, but then voted down amendments to that effect— we must conclude that the First Amendment says precisely what the Framers meant: the government should remain neutral towards religion.

Barton claims that virtually all of or social ills over the past 30 years were cause by the prayer and Bible-reading decisions in 1962-63. He lays at the feet of these decisions the increase in divorce, decline of SAT scores and rampant crime.

One wonders how the exclusion of routine — indeed,—“bland”— prayers from schools could have such disastrous consequences. Of course, there is no connection between the elimination of state-sponsored religion in public schools and the described social ills. This is a classic “after this, therefore because of this” logical fallacy. Just because one event follows another in time sequence does not mean that the latter caused the former.

The problems that we face as a society are due to a variety of complicated socioeconomic factors. To try to blame the lack of prayer in school is simplistic. The whole thing needs to be put in perspective. For example, SAT scores have fallen but that decline is better explained by the fact that more students from a wider variety of socioeconomic backgrounds are taking the test than that the decline is in any way attributable to the elimination of state-sponsored religious exercises. Moreover, if one is going to engage in this kind of thinking, one also ought to point out some of the improvements that have been made since 1962. Life-expectancy has increased, as well as the average standard of living; great strides have been made in medical science, space travel and computer technology— to name a few.

Our country has many problems and many of our institutions must share some of the blame: government, churches, families and, yes, the public schools. But to attribute all the problems on the schools and the Court’s prayer decisions thirty years ago is a pure fantasy at best and base demagoguery at worst.

Barton concludes by calling upon his listeners to become involved in politics. He says that if Christians don’t influence the government, someone else will.

Much of what Barton says here is correct. Church-state separation does not require the divorcement of religion from politics. Religious people have just as much right to engage in politics and to try to influence public policy by religious, even Christian values. However, any foray into politics with a decidedly sectarian agenda or a “God is on our side” mentality ought to be tempered with a healthy dose of humility. The Kingdom of God cannot be equated with any political party; religious people of good faith can differ on a number of issues.

Something that pervades all of Barton’s thinking is a certain dualism which effectively denies the ability of government to remain neutral in matters of religion. He seems to suggest that if government is not promoting his brand of religion, it is necessarily promoting the opposite. If Christian don’t take over the schools, Barton implies, the Satanists will, and on and on.

Schools cannot teach the opposite of Christianity or actively debunk belief in God any more than they can promote religion. That, too, would be unconstitutional. But there is a middle ground of neutrality in which the schools legitimately can operate that neither promotes nor inhibits religion. To refuse to indoctrinate Christianity is not the same thing as promoting its opposite.

Finally, Barton suggests that since the majority of Americans are Christians, or at least religious people, they should be able to use the government to privilege their religious stance. Those who disagree should, at best, be tolerated or, at worst, discriminated against.

This is not at all what our Founders intended or what our Constitution says. The religion clauses in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights are, by definition, “counterman.” The Constitution ensures the will of the majority, but the Bill of Rights protects the rights of the minority. Justice Jackson said it well more than 50 years ago in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943):

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

Originally published BJCPA, January 20, 1995.

October 2004