In the Twenty-first century, the Christian principles that our nation was founded upon are all but forgotten by the majority of humanity. We live in a day and age where the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed in public, where the first amendment has been misinterpreted by the Supreme Court to mean a “wall of separation” between church and state, and public prayers in schools are not allowed. Intellectual leaders in academia and the political realm deny that our country has any Christian heritage whatsoever. Today I want to provide you with substantial evidence with which to thwart the outrageous claims made by those who doubt our country’s Godly heritage. America was indeed founded on Christian principles, and today will show you several quotes from men who played significant roles in the early stages of America’s development that make it hard to believe otherwise.

Thomas Jefferson, a very influential founder and our nation’s third President, was a staunch supporter of religious freedom. In a letter to the Dansbury Baptists, he calls the First Amendment: “A wall of separation between church and State”. Many allude to Thomas Jefferson’s misleading metaphor, using it to justify the removing of public displays of Christianity, and then they themselves incorrectly describe the First Amendment as such. In actuality, the first amendment was created in order to restrict the Federal government from favoring one sect of Christianity over another, as well as to allow citizens of any religion to display it in public.

The Declaration of Independence contains public expression of devotion to the Christian God when it uses phrases like these:

“Nature’s God” (i.e., an 18th century way to refer to the God Who created nature), “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator,” “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world,” and “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence” (The Declaration…)

The Federal Constitution:

George Mason, the “Father of the Bill of Rights” proposed the following as the text for the first Amendment:

[A]ll men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others (Rowland, 1892, 1:244, emp. added).

America was considered a Christian nation for nearly two centuries. The above was suggested as text for the First Amendment because the founders wanted to ensure that no particular sect of Christianity was elevated above the others, as well as to make it certain that the Federal government did not adopt a State religion. Since the early 20th Century, radical socialistic organizations like the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) have been trying (and largely succeeding) to erase Christianity from the public arena. In 2003, at the same time that a  Federal Judge told the Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court that a public display of the Ten Commandments had to be taken down, California unveiled in Sacramento, at the California Veterans Memorial that reads: “In Honor of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans Killed in Action” (Sanders, 2003)

This kind of thing exposes the true liberal agenda. The fact is that America was originally intended to be a Christian nation. The ACLU has been attacking the Christian faith for ninety years, wrongly asserting that the public display of  religion is what The First Amendment was made to repel. However, quite the opposite is true. The First Amendment was made in order to allow every citizen to practice his religion of choice freely in private or public without any opposition by the Federal government. One must look no further than the delegate discussions pertaining to the First amendment (Annals of Congress, 1789), to see that pluralization of America’s culture was not the objective.

As further proof that America was founded on Christian principles, the Federal constitution contains a direct reference to Jesus Christ! Read the following excerpt from Article 1 section 7 to see what I am referring to:
“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 like Manner as if he had signed it….”

Sunday is the day of the week when Christians traditionally meet together in congregations across the globe and worship God. If the founders wanted to show pluratism, they wouldn’t have picked Sunday. If they wanted to acknowledge Jewish custom, they would have picked Saturday. But they picked Sunday, yet another example of early Americans showing devotion towards their Creator in a public and political place.

Immediately after Article 7, the Constitution closes with these words:

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 and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth….

Christianity dates human history in terms of the birth of Christ. B.C stands for “Before Christ”, and A.D. is the abbreviation for the Latin words “anno Domini,” meaning “year of our Lord.”

There is no doubt that America was founded on Christianity. However, this does mean that citizens of other nations cannot live in America and enjoy the same freedom as the rest of us do.

On March 4, 1921, right after the close of World War I, Warren G. Harding delivered his inaugural speech:

One cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the tremendous responsibility. The world upheaval has added heavily to our tasks. But with the realization comes the surge of high resolve, and there is reassurance in belief in the God-given destiny of our Republic. If I felt that there is to be sole responsibility in the Executive for the America of tomorrow I should shrink from the burden. But here are a hundred millions, with common concern and shared responsibility, answerable to God and country. The Republic summons them to their duty, and I invite co-operation. I accept my part with single-mindedness of purpose and humility of spirit, and implore the favor and guidance of God in His Heaven. With these I am unafraid, and confidently face the future. I have taken the solemn oath of office on that passage of Holy Writ wherein it is asked: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” [Micah 6:8—DM]. This I plight to God and country (1921, emp. added)

Don’t let these liberals tell you that America is a religiously neutral country, and that you cannot exercise your freedom of religion in the public realm. America was set up so that everyone would have that freedom.

-Calvin

In 1791, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution were written. These ten amendments are referred to as the Bill of Rights. These were designed to limit the power of Government, and ensure continued freedom and liberty for the people. The First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The intention of this amendment is obvious: To make sure hat the U.S. Congress shall not make any laws with the intention of either favoring a specific religion, or discriminating against someone of another.

However, in the past century, the first amendment has been radically reinterpreted by legislative powers such as the U.S. Supreme Court, who have oppressed the new interpretation down on the American people as law. This is the way in which the first amendment has been reinterpreted: That the first amendment has in fact set up a “wall of separation” between the Church and State that extends through all forms of Government, and prohibits all levels of Government from promoting or hindering a religion/religious organization in any way at all. For example, in the case: Everson vs. Board of Education, a local taxpayer, Arch R. Everson, challenged a New Jersey law that permitted State funding for the transportation of the students of local private schools to and from schools, of which 96% were Parochial Catholic schools, under the grounds that by giving money to reimburse parents and students for the cost of transportation to and from the school, the State was giving aid to the religious organization, and in doing so was violating the New Jersey Constitution, as well as the First Amendment. Everson lost against the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals, which at that time was New Jersey’s highest court, so he brought his case to the U.S. Supreme court, under federal grounds. The ACLU(American Civil Liberties Union) a far-left organization founded by Roger Baldwin in 1920, was in favor of Everson’s case. During the case, the ACLU stated that the New Jersey law that provided state reimbursement for the transportation of students to and from parochial schools, “constitutes a definite crack in the wall of separation between church and state. Such cracks have a tendency to widen beyond repair unless promptly sealed up.” This metaphor: “wall of separation” is used a lot by those who have such radical ideas on how the first amendment should be interpreted. This metaphor was used by our third President Thomas Jefferson, who used it in writing a letter to a committee of Danbury Baptists. At the time, America had just passed through the Presidential contest of 1880. The Danbury Baptists were a religious minority, and had been worried by claims made by Jefferson’s Federalist foes, who called him an atheist. The Danbury Baptists had sent a letter to President Jefferson congratulating him on his victory to the Presidency. Jefferson sent this reply: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Those who support a separation of church and state that extends through all levels of government, and prohibits things as trivial as the State funding transportation of students to and from parochial catholic schools, as well as prohibits the leading of a prayer during a City Council Meeting, have adopted this metaphor to wrongly define the extent and purpose of the first amendment. One example of such behavior was displayed in Everson vs. Board of Education, in the statement made by the ACLU that I mentioned earlier. The Supreme Court made their decision in favor of Everson, and in so doing accepted the radical far-left’s false interpretation of the first amendment. The point of this article is to show that the Supreme Court has legally reinterpreted the first amendment to stand for the very thing it was meant to destroy. In a later article I will show in more detail what Jefferson’s “wall of separation” stands for. I hope that this article has helped you to better understand the dangerous myth that is the “wall of separation” between church and state.

Calvin Lyman