Religion and America’s Founding

Religion and America’s Founding

America was founded on the thought of moral rights and wrongs. The founders used their bases for the Constitution with religion in mind. In today’s’ world we are taking religion or God out of everything. As a Christian, I ask myself why this is. Although I do know the answer, which is much deeper than we are writing about, I will forgo and move ahead with the question at hand as to why our present day notion religion is marginalizing from public and civic spheres. In our reading, it says the Founders viewed religion and politics as one. The opposed the establishment of a national church, because they did not want the church to determine the laws, but also the laws would not undermine the church doctrine.  However, according to Spalding, the Founders did favor government encouragement and support of religion in public laws.

In the first amendment it states, “CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHIMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES." .  When asked if I feel that in today’s world are we marginalizing religion in the public and civic spheres, the answer is yes, of course we are. They want to take God out of everything, the Pledge of Allegiance, the currency, and most of all in the federal buildings where God is mentioned. Our founding fathers understood the divine necessity of this First Amendment to our Constitution, coming out from under the tyranny of a king who ordered a "state church" & the bondage from a system that told them what they could preach, teach & believe. This is one main reason the early settlers came to America. They wanted the freedom to worship God when, where & how they saw fit.

Our nation was established on Christian principles. Our Constitution was spawned out of the deepest meaning of the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Old Testament, & numerous other books in the Holy Bible. Our God-inspired Constitution is a true achievement. Just the First Amendment in our Bill of Rights affords freedoms when honored, will truly bring freedom to each of us that few other people on earth may experience.  Washington had stated in his Farewell Address, “OF all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity” meaning, religion is necessary for morality.

Jefferson was one of the Founders who actually evaded the idea of where or not there was or was not a Christian God, but, he did feel that people cannot have liberty without religion.  I believe that when the Founding Fathers sat and figured out the Constitution, they felt that people did need virtues of tolerance, civic spirit, and a love of the common good.  This was due to the fact they were not a strong opposition in way of armed power, so they needed a higher power to believe in and trust.

When Jefferson built his wall of separation, it really was a metaphor, but, this figure of speech is accepted by many Americans as a pithy description of the constitutionally prescribed church and state arrangement, and it has become the sacred icon of a strict separationist dogma that champions a secular polity in which religious influences are systematically and coercively stripped from public life. In our own time, the judiciary has embraced this figurative phrase as a virtual rule of constitutional law and as the organizing theme of church and state jurisprudence, even though the metaphor is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution.

We as a country have many rights and one is religion, and to be as we want. No one can take that from any of us and this is stated in the first amendment. It is written that the Constitution has no mention of God in it, this may be true, then I ask, why was “under God” added to pledge? It was added by patriotic Americans, who wanted to thwart the threat of rising Communism in America.  Few people today realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was involved in at least 60 Communist front organizations.  It is sickening that Americans celebrate a Communist holiday every January, dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. and don't even realize that he was a Communist.

 It’s true that our Founding Fathers knew what holy wars were, and put in “We the People” at the beginning of the Constitution, but, The U.S. Constitution was born out of a desperate desire to ESCAPE government abuse, tyranny and oppression.  It was the desire for FREEDOM from oppression that formed the foundation of the U.S. Constitution.  It was the threat of Communism—a vile and sinister form of thinking that strips away all morality, faith in God, family values, and Christian teachings—with led to the phrase “UNDER GOD” being added to our nation’s pledge. 

Tocqueville saw how liberty could be channeled by widespread participation in public life to prevent a potentially volatile “tyranny of the majority” from spilling over into anarchy or despotism .  Tocqueville’s theory of democracy and religion has received renewed attention. His theory is a reminder that among the American political and constitutional founders, two diametrically opposed positions prevailed on the issue of religion. As we see today, when we have two sides of if there should be religion in government or not, it’s a very tough battle.

While reading the bible, I was going to sum up the Gospel of Matthew and how it pertained to religion and government today. Here is my thought, I think pretty much this has to do with morals, how we are suppose to live and pretty much just proving Jesus/God does exist and we can nothing without that knowledge .

So, my thought is are we at odds with our Founding Fathers on separation of church and state and the religion in our demographic republic. When you start taking our religious values out I think about our forefathers and what they had to say. Jefferson saying,” No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.’ Or Madison “No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man, and I as Chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example.”

Consider the fruit of this Chris­tian virtue translated into the American experience: The United States is a nation of breathtaking ethnic and religious diversity, with thousands of different religious groups and traditions. And yet we have sustained a level of civic peace and social stability that is the envy of the world.