306: A Christian Nation? - Facts and Fiction

WEBVTT

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Religion and government will both exist in greater

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purity the less they are mixed together. James

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Madison. Welcome to the United States of Amnesia,

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the podcast that reminds us of what we have forgotten.

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History doesn't just tell us where we've been,

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it shapes how we understand the present. Yet

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the past is never as simple as we remember it.

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Over time, history becomes filtered through politics,

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ideology, and popular myth until the original

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story can be hard to recognize. History may not

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repeat itself, per se, but it often rhymes, as

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Mark Twain once remarked. Join Marshall Newman,

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Mike Mendenhall, and Blake Hinckley as we explore

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history, politics, religion, and the connections

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between them. By understanding the past more

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clearly, we can better understand the present

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and prepare for history's next rhyme. Looking

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back on this series, we have covered the founders'

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original intent in our country's foundational

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documents. We've looked at the colonies and their

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early histories up to the run -up to this Revolutionary

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War. And we explored in depth the religious views

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of 10 of our most prominent founding fathers.

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We've also explored the Great Awakenings in this

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country, of which there have been three in the

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last three centuries. What we want to do now

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is to discuss some of the facts about the supposed

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Christianity of America and a few of the fictions

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that some Christians use to justify the view

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that America is intrinsically Christian. Then

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we will conclude our series in a comprehensive

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manner and to draw on the themes we have discussed

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thus far, pulling them together to answer the

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central questions that we started with. Is this

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a Christian nation? Was it intended to be? Has

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this changed over time? In short, we'll summarize

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what we have learned in this series and what

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it means about how Christian America really is.

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Now, one topic that we did not cover thus far

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and one that is worthy of its own treatment is

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the issue of the religious justification of slavery.

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In discussing whether or not the United States

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was founded as a Christian nation, we have to

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discuss slavery in the thinking of the founders

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and how they justified having it if indeed they

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were founding a Christian nation. Not to do so

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leaves out a huge moral aspect of their thinking.

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would leave out a very important part of what

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we need to think about in terms of how Christian

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the founding of the country really was. It's

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almost the original sin of our country. It's

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been called that by numerous such stories. Yes,

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I'm not making—I didn't invent that term. No,

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you didn't. It has been called that a great deal

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and with very good reason. So how did the founders

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justify this? How did we create a nation, whether

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Christian or not? With slavery in it, and if

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it indeed is Christian or informed by Christian

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values founded by Christians, how in the world

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did they manage to create a country where its

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constitution includes slavery? Or permitted it.

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It's in there. Yeah, it's in there, about two

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-thirds of a person, yes. Well, three -fifths

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of a person. Three -fifths of a person, I'm sorry.

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And there's also an issue in the constitution

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about fugitive slaves. Yes. You know, you're

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not allowed to help them and that type of thing.

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It was enforced later by the Fugitive Slave Act.

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Yes. which came out right after the Constitution

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was ratified. So it's in there. How did they

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come up with this? So we need to think about

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what the thinking was at the time. And I think

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a lot of people will be shocked to look at it

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this way. The idea that humans should not own

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other humans is actually a fairly recent one

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in human history. Slavery's been around since

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the beginning of time. If you look back for thousands

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of years of human history, slavery was an accepted

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practice. And in fact, it's only been in, what

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would you say, the last couple hundred years

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that it's become something which is odious to

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humanity. Before that, it was broadly accepted.

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The United States, of course, did not get rid

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of it until 1865. Brazil was the last country

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in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery,

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and that wasn't until 1888. And to my surprise,

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Mauritania actually did not make slavery illegal

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until, I think, the 1990s. criminal act to hold

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a slave until 2007. So this idea is actually

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fairly recent. So the people of that time didn't

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think about these things in the way that people

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do now and came to different conclusions about

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it. And that's how you could rationalize in their

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time the existence of slavery in the country,

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even in a religious context. It was a product

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of their time for sure. Yes. But let me just

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offer this. I'm going to go a little bit off

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topic, but I'm going to say the rationalization

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was not just religious. If you look at Jefferson's

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notes on the state of Virginia, he is approaching

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African Americans from a sort of enlightenment

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perspective, and he is assuming that these people

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are inferior, biologically inferior to white

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people. That is expressed in notes on the state

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of Virginia. Well, eugenics was still a thing.

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Was a thing happening? Not yet. Not yet. Until

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we get to Darwin. We kind of get that with Darwin.

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But he's looking at, you know, the Enlightenment

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had a tendency to kind of try to explain things,

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catalog things. This was kind of the great epic

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of cataloging going on. And then we have the

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Greeks and the Romans where slavery was allowed.

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Now, slavery. was a different thing, a radically

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different thing in the Roman Empire and the Greek

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societies. Slaves could actually buy their way

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out of slavery. They could become ministers of

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state. There was no racial component to slavery

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in the Roman Empire. But the founding fathers,

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when they're looking at slavery in their own

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instances, they are basically conflating slavery

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during the Roman times. where slaves had much

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greater latitude and ability to buy their freedom,

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become free, and even rise in society to what

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was a lot of African Americans in the early federal

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period. So we talked a great deal about how the

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founders were influenced by the Enlightenment.

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They were men of the Enlightenment. And you're

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mentioning the Enlightenment, Marshall, and deism

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comes out of a lot of Enlightenment thinking.

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So let's think about deism for a second first

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before we get into Christianity. So deism posits

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that there is this remote creator, watchmaker,

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God who created the universe, sat back and now

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is watching it just move on, see what he created,

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see how it evolves and things. The founders who

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were deists or influenced by deism, and it predates

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them, this way of thinking in the Enlightenment,

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looked around the world and said, well, there

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is a natural hierarchy of human beings. Exactly.

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And that creator, way back when, created that.

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So that's the way things are supposed to be.

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It's the natural state of a man to have different

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people ranked along a hierarchy. And it just

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so happens, quite conveniently, that the white

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people are at the top and the people from Africa,

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black people, are down at the bottom or very

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near the bottom. And this was the natural way

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of things in deist thinking. And this had been

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influenced kind of like by the great exploration

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period where America was discovered by Europeans

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and they thought that their societies were superior.

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Yeah, the idea at the time was that if you weren't

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like us, you're different, then that must be

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inferior. I mean, places like India, China, and

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Japan like blew their minds. Your ways are different

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and therefore they're bad. Yeah. They're not

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as good as ours. Yeah. So that's how deism handled

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it. quite simply, straightforwardly. And so for

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the founders who were influenced by deism or

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were themselves deists, that's how they looked

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at it. But how about Christianity? That's a tougher

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issue to address. How could Christians agree

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to having slavery in the country? Slavery is

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throughout the Bible. It was historical norm.

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So they looked at the Bible. And they found that

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the Bible is just shot through with slavery.

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In the Old Testament, my understanding is, it

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tends to focus on the legal aspects of slavery

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back in ancient times, how much you could beat

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your slave, were you allowed to beat your slave,

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what do you do with a slave who runs away, when

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can you free a slave, and so on and so forth.

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My understanding is, for example, Exodus. tells

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you that it's okay to beat your slave as long

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as your slave can recover from the injuries in

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two days or fewer. If you beat the slave more

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than that, you went too far. And if you kill

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the slave, then the slave can be avenged, which

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seems to imply capital punishment or something

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like that. It could be visited upon you because

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you killed a slave. It gets into things like

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that. Now, Christians will tell you, some Christians

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will tell you, that The New Testament, though,

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is different. The Old Testament is history. The

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New Testament is Christ's teachings. Surely that

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says that you can't have slavery. You have to

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treat everybody as... No, it doesn't. It does

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not. However... It does not. Nowhere in the Bible...

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Does Jesus or anybody else condemn the practice

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of slavery and say that it's abhorrent and you

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shouldn't have slavery anymore? Slavery is accepted

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practice of the time. And in fact, Jesus on several

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occasions has parables where he's telling people,

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teaching them lessons by giving examples of a

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master and how the master treats his slave without

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any discussion about setting the slave free.

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And again, he talks about beatings. He talks

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about the duty of the slave to obey the master

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and these types of things. Now, People will say,

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well, he's speaking in parables. He's trying

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to teach people something. In the first century

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Roman Empire, slavery was omnipresent. So was

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corporal punishment. You did beat people or worse

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for doing things you didn't approve of. And so

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he's only offering people stories in a context

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in which they would understand, especially since

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a lot of the early Christian converts were themselves

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slaves. So they would understand their duties.

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And he's trying to tell, Jesus is trying to tell

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them that. God is the master. All the humans

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are like the slaves. There's a great chain of

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being. There's a chain of being, and so you have

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an obligation to God, a duty to God. God maybe

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can punish you if you don't follow it, and so

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on and so forth. He's trying to draw parables

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like that. Okay. Fine. The bottom line out of

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it all, though, is that the Bible does not condemn

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slavery. No. Does it fully condone it? It certainly

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accepts it. It accepts it. So when you look at

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the Bible, you do not find anything requiring

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you to read yourself of slavery. And that was

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the world in which the founders lived. There

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was a natural hierarchy from a deist perspective,

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and the Christian Bible, the teachings of Christ

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himself, do nothing to indicate that you can't

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have slaves or that there should not be slavery

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on the earth. The thing is, in the classical

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period, just to make that distinction again,

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you became a slave through a series of unfortunate

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events. You were captured. You fell into debt.

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Your father had to sell you into slavery because

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they were short of money or something like that.

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It was not a racially based thing, and it was

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not something that you were permanently forced

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to endure. slavery in the classical period is

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a completely different animal than what existed

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in the United States in the immediate period

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of independence. Sure, but what difference does

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it make? It's still a justification. In other

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words, the Bible says you can have it. The Bible

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seems to say you can have it. There's always

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been slavery. There's a natural hierarchy. And

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this is just the latest manifestation of it.

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I don't think they're going to spend a lot of

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time worrying about, is this exactly the same

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as in the classical period? They're not. Some

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of the founders had some, pause over slavery

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i think jefferson didn't like it but he benefited

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from it not a great thing perhaps immoral but

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it bleeds over into their views which had nothing

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to do with religion of the the practical matter

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of of stitching all these colonies who didn't

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trust each other and were very different culturally

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and politically and in all sorts of other ways

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stitching them together into one country and

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because of that they felt that they could not

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rid the country of slavery, because what would

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happen then? How about all the property owners

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that lost all their slaves? The Southern United

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States had a plantation economy that relied on

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free labor from enslaved people in order to be

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successful and profitable. Well, let me add one

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nuance to that. And that is that Jefferson and

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some of the other founding fathers thought slavery

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would probably die out on its own. And then you

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get the invention of the cotton gin in 1793.

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And that's... how it prolonged itself in the

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South in particular. But before we go down the

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path of that, right, just trying to create the

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country in the first place, they had a lot of

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what they would have considered practical, secular

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concerns about how to create this country. And

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one was you cannot deprive slave owners of their

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property or their livelihood or else they're

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not going to join the new union. That would make

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sense. That's one thing they're worried about.

00:13:46.710 --> 00:13:51.299
They also had racist views. They viewed the black

00:13:51.299 --> 00:13:54.980
people in the country as being racially inferior,

00:13:55.220 --> 00:13:57.820
intellectually inferior, incapable of self -governance.

00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:01.460
And they needed to have the discipline. The discipline.

00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:04.379
They needed to have the structure of a plantation

00:14:04.379 --> 00:14:07.559
around them and the institution of slavery to

00:14:07.559 --> 00:14:10.879
be controlled. And some of them even changed

00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:12.779
that into not just be controlled, but for their

00:14:12.779 --> 00:14:15.460
own benefit. They were better off that way. than

00:14:15.460 --> 00:14:17.419
if you let them, than if you just all let them

00:14:17.419 --> 00:14:20.639
be free. And people like Jefferson and Madison

00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:22.960
were afraid that if there was just immediate

00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:25.480
sudden emancipation, there'd be a race war in

00:14:25.480 --> 00:14:27.779
the country between black and white. Well, the

00:14:27.779 --> 00:14:31.620
idea that... black people were inferior persisted

00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:35.240
up to Lincoln, actually. Well, it persists longer

00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:38.799
than that. Yes, but in some areas it persists

00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:41.960
to this day. Lincoln initially ran on the idea

00:14:41.960 --> 00:14:46.740
that, yeah, they really were inferior, and he

00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:50.500
was not running for president to emancipate the

00:14:50.500 --> 00:14:52.679
slaves. No, he wasn't. He was to limit slavery

00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:55.899
in the territories, which was actually an interest.

00:14:56.519 --> 00:14:59.860
of white people it wasn't it wasn't to benefit

00:14:59.860 --> 00:15:03.740
slaves it was to benefit white people who wanted

00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:05.820
to get land and they didn't want to be in competition

00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:08.639
with plantation farming all right so back to

00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:11.059
the religious aspect yeah so they were willing

00:15:11.059 --> 00:15:13.740
to make a lot of moral compromises shall we say

00:15:13.740 --> 00:15:16.320
in order to put this country together and they

00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:17.779
were very much willing to look the other way

00:15:17.779 --> 00:15:21.379
about slavery if they did not approve of it for

00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:23.460
economic reasons that they saw, for political

00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:25.379
reasons that they saw, for the sake of national

00:15:25.379 --> 00:15:28.240
unity, as they would have thought about it. And

00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:30.700
they were not able to find a reason, a biblical

00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:35.740
reason, for them to be forced by religious belief,

00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:39.620
by God, by Jesus, to rid the country of slavery.

00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:44.039
And that's how they rationalized all of it. Now,

00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:45.299
there's another interesting component of this,

00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:47.279
too, because we've talked about... the Second

00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:49.899
Great Awakening coming along in the 1790s, and

00:15:49.899 --> 00:15:53.080
it lasted until about 1840. A lot of the thinking

00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:56.899
in the Second Great Awakening was along the lines

00:15:56.899 --> 00:15:59.559
of what we would consider democratization of

00:15:59.559 --> 00:16:01.480
so many things in religion, but in society too,

00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:04.879
good works and such, as we've talked about. Abolitionism

00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:09.159
rose through the Second Great Awakening. But

00:16:09.159 --> 00:16:10.860
the Second Great Awakening, you know, petered

00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:14.279
out around 1840, and slavery survived until 1865.

00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:17.120
In fact, we had a rather big civil war. which

00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:20.419
was partly, at least, if not mostly, if not entirely,

00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:25.059
caused by the issue of slavery. So how could

00:16:25.059 --> 00:16:28.379
that be? How could it be that the awakening would

00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:30.399
come along and it still wouldn't result in something

00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:34.299
being done about slavery? That's kind of interesting,

00:16:34.460 --> 00:16:41.899
too, because in the North, you had these new

00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:43.840
religious movements that were gaining a voice

00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.460
in the country during the awakening. You had

00:16:46.460 --> 00:16:48.539
ministers there, Methodists were particularly

00:16:48.539 --> 00:16:51.000
active in this, but others as well, who were

00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:55.580
preaching that there should be abolition. I remember,

00:16:55.740 --> 00:16:57.539
Blake, when you talked about, I think it was

00:16:57.539 --> 00:16:59.539
in the last episode, about the Cane Ridge Revival

00:16:59.539 --> 00:17:02.120
in Cane Ridge, Kentucky, the huge camp meeting

00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:06.279
that they had. The Methodists were there preaching,

00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.680
and they came out in 1801, that was, preaching

00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.990
strongly in favor of abolition. But what also

00:17:13.990 --> 00:17:16.990
happened was that, and this is kind of an ironic

00:17:16.990 --> 00:17:19.569
thing to think about, a lot of Americans, I assume

00:17:19.569 --> 00:17:21.529
predominantly in the South, but I don't know

00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:24.089
that it didn't also happen in the North, listened

00:17:24.089 --> 00:17:26.670
to people saying that and said, there you go

00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:29.309
trying to combine church and state, all you preachy

00:17:29.309 --> 00:17:32.109
people. You're trying to tell us that we can't

00:17:32.109 --> 00:17:34.529
have slaves. You're trying to tell us that we

00:17:34.529 --> 00:17:36.309
have to have black people be equal to us and

00:17:36.309 --> 00:17:40.240
be free. That's your religious view. And the

00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:43.400
people in the South were using biblical passages

00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:47.180
that they pulled out of the Bible to reinforce

00:17:47.180 --> 00:17:50.059
the notion that slavery was a fine practice.

00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:52.059
And they were doing that. And we talked about

00:17:52.059 --> 00:17:55.299
the reasons for that because there are passages

00:17:55.299 --> 00:17:59.900
in the Bible that either are neutral about slavery

00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:04.029
or actually actively. justify it. One of the

00:18:04.029 --> 00:18:05.809
things that they pulled out of the Bible was

00:18:05.809 --> 00:18:08.369
the curse of Ham, I believe it's called. The

00:18:08.369 --> 00:18:11.809
curse of Ham, yes. And I'm just going to say

00:18:11.809 --> 00:18:14.970
this, growing up in the South during the civil

00:18:14.970 --> 00:18:18.190
rights era, I heard all about the curse of Ham.

00:18:18.289 --> 00:18:21.970
It was still a functioning thing. Ham is somebody's

00:18:21.970 --> 00:18:26.809
name. Ham is the name of Noah, Noah's son, who

00:18:26.809 --> 00:18:32.029
laughed at Noah for being naked and drunk. And

00:18:32.029 --> 00:18:35.569
so the curse of Ham, basically, this is what

00:18:35.569 --> 00:18:38.690
we are asked to believe here. Because way, way

00:18:38.690 --> 00:18:42.069
back during the time of the flood, Ham laughed

00:18:42.069 --> 00:18:46.869
at his drunken father forever. Black people would

00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:50.170
have to be inferior and subservient forever.

00:18:51.049 --> 00:18:54.750
So, I mean, let's complete that thought. So Ham

00:18:54.750 --> 00:18:57.210
was, so the black people of Africa were the descendants

00:18:57.210 --> 00:18:59.029
of Ham. The descendants of Ham, yes. And that's

00:18:59.029 --> 00:19:01.589
why. They had to be held in bondage, and they

00:19:01.589 --> 00:19:03.529
had to be a lesser caste for all of eternity

00:19:03.529 --> 00:19:06.230
because of the curse of Ham, because Noah cursed

00:19:06.230 --> 00:19:08.849
Ham. That was an idea they pulled out of the

00:19:08.849 --> 00:19:13.369
Bible to justify slavery. Well, my mother, the

00:19:13.369 --> 00:19:17.670
born -again evangelical Pentecostal, told me

00:19:17.670 --> 00:19:21.750
that story, or some of it. As did my grandmother.

00:19:21.930 --> 00:19:24.730
Well, and there's a nuance to it, because after

00:19:24.730 --> 00:19:29.119
the flood... When the earth came back and was

00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:33.119
in flower, the grapes that made the wine that

00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:37.640
made Noah drunk was a different kind of grape,

00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:40.519
and he wasn't aware that it was going to make

00:19:40.519 --> 00:19:45.230
him drunk. This seems like a made -up story to

00:19:45.230 --> 00:19:49.529
me, but that's what her doctrine was. That's

00:19:49.529 --> 00:19:53.529
a temperance story, because good people didn't

00:19:53.529 --> 00:19:58.829
drink alcohol even in Bible times. And temperance

00:19:58.829 --> 00:20:01.230
also came out of the awakenings and things, as

00:20:01.230 --> 00:20:03.109
we talked about last time. Sorry, I didn't mean

00:20:03.109 --> 00:20:04.710
to go too far off topic here. Let's not get into

00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:07.450
all of that. But one thing about this whole ham

00:20:07.450 --> 00:20:10.309
thing. I heard that black people couldn't drink

00:20:10.309 --> 00:20:11.710
from the same water fountains because of the

00:20:11.710 --> 00:20:13.490
curse of Ham. Black people couldn't vote because

00:20:13.490 --> 00:20:15.009
of Ham. Black people had to sit in the back of

00:20:15.009 --> 00:20:18.009
the bus because of Ham. And I'm just like, and

00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:22.150
people would act all, I wish we could have black

00:20:22.150 --> 00:20:23.809
people drinking from the water fountain, but

00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:28.289
we can't because God has cursed them. So the

00:20:28.289 --> 00:20:30.890
curse of Ham, that argument has held on well.

00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:33.200
deep into the 20th century, apparently. Yes.

00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:34.819
Anyway, so there was that. But, I mean, they

00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:36.799
could pull other passages, too. You see it says

00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:38.220
you're allowed to beat them, you know, you're

00:20:38.220 --> 00:20:39.940
allowed to beat your slaves, you know, no one

00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:41.400
ever said to get rid of slaves, things that we've

00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:43.200
talked about already. So they were pulling those

00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:45.319
things out. I find it interesting, though, that

00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:47.920
there were people who were trying to secularize

00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:51.059
the whole thing and say, there you go, you religious

00:20:51.059 --> 00:20:53.420
fanatics, trying to push your religion on me,

00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:55.720
and your religion is saying we have to free the

00:20:55.720 --> 00:20:59.549
slaves and treat black people as equals. That's

00:20:59.549 --> 00:21:01.789
a religious extremist argument. You know, there

00:21:01.789 --> 00:21:04.529
were a lot of Americans in the early 19th century

00:21:04.529 --> 00:21:07.890
who actually thought that way about it. The slave

00:21:07.890 --> 00:21:11.470
owners in the South and others in the South also

00:21:11.470 --> 00:21:14.829
tried to justify slavery by saying that you were

00:21:14.829 --> 00:21:18.329
keeping the slaves in an environment in which

00:21:18.329 --> 00:21:21.509
they could be Christianized to cleanse their

00:21:21.509 --> 00:21:26.890
souls for the eventual afterlife. When Northerners...

00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:31.880
said, well, and this came out of the Awakenings,

00:21:31.880 --> 00:21:34.559
this idea that we're all going to be equal before

00:21:34.559 --> 00:21:36.619
God in the afterlife. We're all going to arrive

00:21:36.619 --> 00:21:38.019
in heaven together, and then we're all going

00:21:38.019 --> 00:21:41.579
to be judged equally. So people who said, well,

00:21:41.660 --> 00:21:42.880
if that's the case then, you should probably

00:21:42.880 --> 00:21:44.519
free the slaves now and treat them equally now,

00:21:44.619 --> 00:21:45.440
because when you get to heaven, you're going

00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:48.940
to have to report to God about all this on Judgment

00:21:48.940 --> 00:21:52.470
Day. But the counter -argument was, well, without

00:21:52.470 --> 00:21:54.809
us, they'd be heathen who wouldn't even make

00:21:54.809 --> 00:21:57.309
it there. They'd be cruel to them, they'd lead

00:21:57.309 --> 00:21:59.710
terrible lives. Without us, by us keeping them

00:21:59.710 --> 00:22:01.750
in bondage, we are able to Christianize them,

00:22:01.789 --> 00:22:03.730
to prepare them for that afterlife, so that we're

00:22:03.730 --> 00:22:05.589
all equal, I can go there and say, yes, see,

00:22:05.670 --> 00:22:08.529
I took care of my slaves and made them good Christians

00:22:08.529 --> 00:22:11.089
like you wanted, oh Lord, and now we're all equal

00:22:11.089 --> 00:22:12.970
together up here, and isn't that wonderful and

00:22:12.970 --> 00:22:16.650
great? So these kind of arguments went back and

00:22:16.650 --> 00:22:19.390
forth. The Second Great Awakening actually did

00:22:19.390 --> 00:22:22.359
not, of course, as we know. get rid of slavery

00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:24.500
in the United States at all. It took the Civil

00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:28.619
War to do that. But it was largely ended in the

00:22:28.619 --> 00:22:32.039
North by the 1840s. Yes, and what's interesting

00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:35.279
there as well is that, say, within the Baptist

00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:39.819
community, Northern Baptists were becoming abolitionists

00:22:39.819 --> 00:22:44.150
in their thinking. Their thinking was... God

00:22:44.150 --> 00:22:47.049
wants us to all be equal. Now we have to make

00:22:47.049 --> 00:22:49.690
the world better here. Now it's sinful not to.

00:22:49.769 --> 00:22:52.329
You're going to get caught for that in the future.

00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:56.369
Whereas Southern Baptists were saying, no, we're

00:22:56.369 --> 00:22:58.910
Christianizing them by keeping them on the plantation.

00:22:59.369 --> 00:23:01.329
We're the ones who are making their afterlife

00:23:01.329 --> 00:23:06.619
better. That split was growing. At the very end

00:23:06.619 --> 00:23:08.160
of the Second Great Awakening and after, that

00:23:08.160 --> 00:23:09.799
split was growing and growing. And it was actually

00:23:09.799 --> 00:23:12.799
one of the things that broke the North and South

00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:17.059
apart in terms of any sign of community. It was

00:23:17.059 --> 00:23:19.119
happening within religious communities as well

00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:21.440
as politically and regionally and things like

00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:23.319
that, but based on North versus South with slavery

00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:27.220
being a big part of it. So, I mean, I guess what

00:23:27.220 --> 00:23:29.359
we have to say is that people had their reasons

00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:33.000
for defending slavery. People found reasons in

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:38.200
the Bible. to find slavery acceptable, even if

00:23:38.200 --> 00:23:40.680
the nation was Christian. And in fact, they saw

00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:42.880
no contradiction of having a Christian nation

00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:46.039
and having slavery. No. And that's how we wound

00:23:46.039 --> 00:23:50.500
up with a country founded with slavery in it,

00:23:50.539 --> 00:23:54.380
where slavery was an active thing for the next

00:23:54.380 --> 00:24:00.779
85 years to 90 years after independence. And

00:24:00.779 --> 00:24:04.549
latter -day arguments. about what was Christian

00:24:04.549 --> 00:24:07.750
or what wasn't, were not controlling back in

00:24:07.750 --> 00:24:09.829
those days. And that's how you can understand

00:24:09.829 --> 00:24:13.490
it. There were Christians who were opposed to

00:24:13.490 --> 00:24:15.869
slavery. There were Christians who were comfortable

00:24:15.869 --> 00:24:18.029
with it. There were Christians who actively defended

00:24:18.029 --> 00:24:22.029
it. And in the thinking of the time, the hierarchy

00:24:22.029 --> 00:24:24.230
of human beings was natural with white people

00:24:24.230 --> 00:24:26.490
at the top and everybody else further down the

00:24:26.490 --> 00:24:28.849
ladder and black people at the bottom. And that's

00:24:28.849 --> 00:24:30.730
how they thought about it. Well, someone like

00:24:30.730 --> 00:24:35.039
John Brown, who was a huge radical, a terrorist

00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.640
in the minds of some people, he was driven by

00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:41.380
religious impulses. I mean, the language that

00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:43.759
you see from John Brown is of that second great

00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.579
awakening, you know, to purge this land with

00:24:46.579 --> 00:24:50.059
blood. That was one of his quotes. That is drawing

00:24:50.059 --> 00:24:53.920
heavily on biblical imagery. By the way, a little

00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.079
footnote here. Of course, slavery was done away

00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:58.640
with finally with the 13th Amendment in 1865.

00:24:59.690 --> 00:25:01.670
You know what the last state to actually ratify

00:25:01.670 --> 00:25:04.049
the 13th Amendment was? Mississippi. Do you know

00:25:04.049 --> 00:25:10.890
when that was? Like, recently. 1995. They apparently

00:25:10.890 --> 00:25:13.750
never considered it until 1995. Then they finally

00:25:13.750 --> 00:25:15.930
said, let's close this up and tighten this up.

00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:18.490
I did not realize that. You've never been to

00:25:18.490 --> 00:25:20.130
Mississippi, though. I have been to Mississippi.

00:25:20.369 --> 00:25:22.809
Not the wrong parts. And then they messed up

00:25:22.809 --> 00:25:25.809
the paperwork, and it actually didn't get fully

00:25:25.809 --> 00:25:32.009
ratified with Congress until... 2013. That is

00:25:32.009 --> 00:25:34.490
actually shocking. Yeah. That is shocking. That's

00:25:34.490 --> 00:25:36.609
a technicality. Obviously, slavery was done away

00:25:36.609 --> 00:25:38.430
with long before Mississippi, whether Mississippi

00:25:38.430 --> 00:25:41.349
wanted it to be or not, or ever thought about

00:25:41.349 --> 00:25:45.150
it. But the staying power of slavery is a very

00:25:45.150 --> 00:25:46.569
interesting thing, too. And, you know, Blake,

00:25:46.589 --> 00:25:48.710
you mentioned gradualism, what they call, and

00:25:48.710 --> 00:25:50.369
some people call it the myth of gradualism, the

00:25:50.369 --> 00:25:53.069
idea, well, I don't like slavery, but it's going

00:25:53.069 --> 00:25:55.009
to have to die out on its own because now is

00:25:55.009 --> 00:25:56.890
not the time to get rid of it. But eventually

00:25:56.890 --> 00:26:01.549
it'll go away all on its own. Well, it was going

00:26:01.549 --> 00:26:06.750
pretty strong still. 90 years after independence,

00:26:07.089 --> 00:26:08.529
it was still going strong. There had to be a

00:26:08.529 --> 00:26:10.950
huge civil war in order to get rid of it. A lot

00:26:10.950 --> 00:26:12.930
of people say gradualism was a myth, that there

00:26:12.930 --> 00:26:14.130
was never going to be that. Now, we'll never

00:26:14.130 --> 00:26:16.470
know because there was a civil war. There was

00:26:16.470 --> 00:26:18.569
a 13th Amendment. Who knows? Maybe it would have

00:26:18.569 --> 00:26:21.549
faded away by now or at some time in the 20th

00:26:21.549 --> 00:26:23.470
century or something. Who knows? But it probably

00:26:23.470 --> 00:26:30.339
would have lasted quite a long time. So the founders,

00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:33.839
even those who opposed slavery, or at least were

00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:36.900
uncomfortable with it, found ways to justify

00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:40.059
its existence as they founded the new nation.

00:26:43.579 --> 00:26:46.940
Now we're going to discuss some of the fictions

00:26:46.940 --> 00:26:49.700
about the founding and some of the founding fathers

00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:52.759
that seem to give them a more Christian character

00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:56.009
than they actually had at the time. We'll start

00:26:56.009 --> 00:26:58.390
with the ways in which people have invented stories

00:26:58.390 --> 00:27:02.190
about the founders to depict them as fundamentalist

00:27:02.190 --> 00:27:06.089
Christians. Stories that began to appear early

00:27:06.089 --> 00:27:09.130
at the beginning of the 19th century as the Second

00:27:09.130 --> 00:27:12.490
Great Awakening took hold of the United States.

00:27:12.690 --> 00:27:15.430
And this is something that we call historiography.

00:27:15.609 --> 00:27:19.490
It is the study of the history of history. It's

00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:23.119
kind of the study of historical writing. and

00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.839
changing interpretations of the past and the

00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:29.819
central players in the past we're all probably

00:27:29.819 --> 00:27:34.480
familiar with for example the story about george

00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.019
washington that he chopped the cherry tree down

00:27:38.019 --> 00:27:40.660
and then had to confess it because he could not

00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:44.400
tell a lie that was an invented fiction. That

00:27:44.400 --> 00:27:47.160
never happened. Similarly, I grew up hearing

00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:50.660
a story about how George Washington, as a boy,

00:27:50.779 --> 00:27:53.579
could throw a silver dollar all the way across

00:27:53.579 --> 00:27:57.859
the Potomac River, which is absolutely preposterous

00:27:57.859 --> 00:28:00.380
because the Potomac River was almost two miles

00:28:00.380 --> 00:28:05.059
wide where he lived and grew up. He actually

00:28:05.059 --> 00:28:08.000
grew up at Ferry Farm way down, and it was even

00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:10.480
wider down there as opposed to Mount Vernon.

00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:14.559
The point is these stories evolved over time

00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:19.640
and were told about George Washington in particular,

00:28:19.700 --> 00:28:21.559
but this happened with other founding fathers

00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.799
as well, to depict them as more Christian than

00:28:25.799 --> 00:28:28.140
they were, or more fundamentalist Christian than

00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:31.180
they were. But again, same idea. The story's

00:28:31.180 --> 00:28:34.569
about The cherry tree and the silver dollar were

00:28:34.569 --> 00:28:38.970
invented fictions, never happened, and just became

00:28:38.970 --> 00:28:42.829
part of the mythology surrounding some of these

00:28:42.829 --> 00:28:47.970
central characters in our founding. As we see

00:28:47.970 --> 00:28:50.490
the nation experiencing these religious revivals

00:28:50.490 --> 00:28:53.529
throughout the 19th century, proponents of this

00:28:53.529 --> 00:28:55.710
new way of thinking distinct from the time and

00:28:55.710 --> 00:28:58.680
intent of many of the founding fathers. Would

00:28:58.680 --> 00:29:01.000
-be historians and biographers sought, in some

00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:03.920
cases, to sanitize or criticize the beliefs of

00:29:03.920 --> 00:29:05.900
the founding fathers to bring them in line with

00:29:05.900 --> 00:29:08.079
their own ahistorical views about the United

00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:11.519
States as a Christian country. Not unlike the

00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:14.960
mania for relics of Jesus and the saints in the

00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:19.099
early Christian church, This sort of historiography

00:29:19.099 --> 00:29:22.019
was meant to legitimize the beliefs arrived at

00:29:22.019 --> 00:29:24.859
after or near the conclusion of the federal period,

00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:29.940
the time of the founding fathers, 1787 to 1828.

00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:33.160
Leaders used as proof that the United States

00:29:33.160 --> 00:29:35.880
had always been guided by Christianity and not

00:29:35.880 --> 00:29:37.980
free -thinking deists or Unitarian beliefs of

00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:40.259
the Founding Fathers. But the fundamentalist

00:29:40.259 --> 00:29:43.039
Christianity existed in many cases after the

00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:45.279
deaths of the Founding Fathers to put forth a

00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:49.500
completely alien belief system. Biographies that

00:29:49.500 --> 00:29:52.160
were written during this period insisted that

00:29:52.160 --> 00:29:54.720
people of the 18th century behaved in manners

00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.279
that just did not exist in the period, that are

00:29:57.279 --> 00:30:00.920
totally ahistorical, particularly among the educated

00:30:00.920 --> 00:30:03.940
elite which made up the founding fathers. Terms

00:30:03.940 --> 00:30:08.119
such as providence identify the utterer. as having

00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:11.160
deist tendencies were interpreted to indicate

00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:14.140
fundamentalist beliefs. Stories and quotations

00:30:14.140 --> 00:30:16.599
were invented and facts dismissed to provide

00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:18.700
justification for this new set of fundamentalist

00:30:18.700 --> 00:30:23.579
beliefs. Now, let's be fair to these people who

00:30:23.579 --> 00:30:28.200
are writing the first draft of history of the

00:30:28.910 --> 00:30:31.349
founding fathers here and their religious beliefs.

00:30:31.589 --> 00:30:34.690
There were no vast collections of letters or

00:30:34.690 --> 00:30:37.950
diaries available for anyone to draw upon until

00:30:37.950 --> 00:30:41.549
the middle to late 19th century. Publishing the

00:30:41.549 --> 00:30:43.890
collected works of founding fathers did not begin

00:30:43.890 --> 00:30:48.740
until 18... until around 1850, 1856, with the

00:30:48.740 --> 00:30:51.240
publication of John Adams' works as a result

00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:53.839
of his efforts of his grandson, Charles Francis

00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:56.579
Adams. I didn't realize it was that late. It's

00:30:56.579 --> 00:30:58.579
that late. Well, John Quincy Adams was supposed

00:30:58.579 --> 00:31:01.880
to have done it, but he found it more fun to

00:31:01.880 --> 00:31:05.099
be a congressman and go around defending the

00:31:05.099 --> 00:31:08.519
people at Amistad and also insulting his southern

00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:11.220
colleagues over slavery issues in Congress than

00:31:11.220 --> 00:31:15.049
to... I mean, there are letters, and Charles

00:31:15.049 --> 00:31:16.650
Francis is saying, what are you going to do about

00:31:16.650 --> 00:31:19.410
grandfather? You need to do something. I've got

00:31:19.410 --> 00:31:23.210
better things to do, bigger fish to fry. So this

00:31:23.210 --> 00:31:25.670
is the 1850s where we actually get something

00:31:25.670 --> 00:31:29.990
solid that would be recognized as original source

00:31:29.990 --> 00:31:34.269
material. 1858 to 1859 saw the publication of

00:31:34.269 --> 00:31:36.109
Washington's papers. That's how late it took.

00:31:36.650 --> 00:31:39.549
I mean, Washington did not have any direct heirs

00:31:39.549 --> 00:31:42.579
as such. But there was always an interest in

00:31:42.579 --> 00:31:44.700
this. But, you know, it takes time to collect

00:31:44.700 --> 00:31:46.960
these things. You know, these guys are not writing

00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:49.059
these things with an eye towards establishing

00:31:49.059 --> 00:31:54.279
presidential libraries like they are now. We're

00:31:54.279 --> 00:31:56.519
all over the place. Learned institutions like

00:31:56.519 --> 00:32:00.559
Yale and Princeton are still at work publishing

00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:03.160
the complete papers of Franklin and Jefferson.

00:32:03.859 --> 00:32:07.720
Franklin's works as of 2025, number 46 of a projected

00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:11.519
47 volumes. That's where we're at with him. And

00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:15.119
49 of projected 60 volumes of Jefferson's papers

00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:17.880
have been published. So we're still, there's

00:32:17.880 --> 00:32:21.269
still... other things out there for people to

00:32:21.269 --> 00:32:26.690
look at. And so we can sort of give some of these

00:32:26.690 --> 00:32:31.430
original writers a break here. There are those,

00:32:31.609 --> 00:32:35.549
though, that did not see a limitation to not

00:32:35.549 --> 00:32:39.750
having access to papers. These fundamental historians

00:32:39.750 --> 00:32:43.990
would sort of not have any issue with making

00:32:43.990 --> 00:32:47.349
things up. And the best example of this, the

00:32:47.349 --> 00:32:50.529
earliest victim of this campaign was George Washington.

00:32:50.829 --> 00:32:52.970
Now, Franklin was the author of an autobiography,

00:32:53.029 --> 00:32:55.109
which people would cite over and over again.

00:32:55.750 --> 00:32:58.009
There is some truth to Franklin's autobiography.

00:32:58.069 --> 00:33:00.150
There's also, you know, he's going to portray

00:33:00.150 --> 00:33:02.750
himself in a manner that he's going to think

00:33:02.750 --> 00:33:05.269
is going to be appealing. And some of his...

00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:07.880
his more hardline deist views are going to not

00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:10.779
necessarily appear in the autobiography. But

00:33:10.779 --> 00:33:13.940
with Washington, who was also a deist, he died

00:33:13.940 --> 00:33:19.519
in 1799. Parson Mason Weems, whose house lies

00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:23.339
not too far from here, was the first biographer

00:33:23.339 --> 00:33:25.220
of Washington. He is the author of the Cherry

00:33:25.220 --> 00:33:29.240
Tree Story. But he also created vast quantities

00:33:29.240 --> 00:33:32.460
of myths about Washington. to include various

00:33:32.460 --> 00:33:34.619
acts of public devotion that took place during

00:33:34.619 --> 00:33:37.259
the American Revolution, to include kneeling

00:33:37.259 --> 00:33:41.240
in the snow and praying to God at Valley Forge.

00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:44.559
Now, this runs counter to Washington's just overall

00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:47.240
character, which was to maintain a dignified

00:33:47.240 --> 00:33:50.759
persona no matter what. So the idea that Washington

00:33:50.759 --> 00:33:53.279
would, in his brand new uniform, kneel in the

00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:56.539
snow in an act of humility is just not keeping

00:33:56.539 --> 00:34:00.730
with how he would behave there. Now, Weems' biography

00:34:00.730 --> 00:34:04.069
appeared in 1800, and there were certainly plenty

00:34:04.069 --> 00:34:09.010
of people in Washington's home state of Virginia,

00:34:09.250 --> 00:34:12.010
Washington only died one year before, Martha's

00:34:12.010 --> 00:34:14.429
still around, that he could have gone over and

00:34:14.429 --> 00:34:18.889
interviewed and asked questions about to kind

00:34:18.889 --> 00:34:22.449
of justify some of these Washington stories and

00:34:22.449 --> 00:34:24.949
make sure that they were accurate. He did not.

00:34:26.009 --> 00:34:28.369
Weems did write a bestseller. I mean, he knew

00:34:28.369 --> 00:34:30.849
his audience. People like to see these stories

00:34:30.849 --> 00:34:33.989
about Washington kneeling in the snow and calling

00:34:33.989 --> 00:34:36.750
on God to help the cause of the American Revolution.

00:34:37.449 --> 00:34:42.929
This book was the book on Washington for a number

00:34:42.929 --> 00:34:45.690
of years. And one of the readers of the book

00:34:45.690 --> 00:34:48.110
was no less than Abraham Lincoln, who reportedly

00:34:48.110 --> 00:34:50.929
walked several miles to borrow a copy of it and

00:34:50.929 --> 00:34:54.210
then several miles to return it. Similar edifying

00:34:54.210 --> 00:34:57.369
tales were created throughout the 19th century

00:34:57.369 --> 00:35:00.250
that reflected more of the 19th century sensibilities.

00:35:00.610 --> 00:35:04.010
We can certainly identify with what Weems and

00:35:04.010 --> 00:35:06.809
some of the other writers did as what might be

00:35:06.809 --> 00:35:08.869
called Christ -washing, taking the beliefs of

00:35:08.869 --> 00:35:11.349
the Founding Fathers and transforming them into

00:35:11.349 --> 00:35:14.829
something completely alien. Initially, Jefferson

00:35:14.829 --> 00:35:18.369
could not be altered to suit fundamentalist myths

00:35:18.369 --> 00:35:22.269
regarding America and the eternal nature of fundamentalist

00:35:22.269 --> 00:35:26.190
Christianity and its impact on the founding and

00:35:26.190 --> 00:35:29.489
generation of the country. This was thanks to

00:35:29.489 --> 00:35:32.269
a lot of Federalist opposition propaganda that

00:35:32.269 --> 00:35:36.000
betrayed him. at first as an infidel. During

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:38.079
his lifetime, religious leaders resented his

00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:42.320
advocacy of freedom of religious dictation. So

00:35:42.320 --> 00:35:44.500
the kinds of things that you were talking about,

00:35:44.619 --> 00:35:47.199
Blake, that Jefferson took a great deal of pride

00:35:47.199 --> 00:35:50.699
in, this notion of separation of church and state,

00:35:50.840 --> 00:35:54.380
was not winning him any friends or followers

00:35:54.380 --> 00:35:57.800
in the 19th century. At least in that community,

00:35:58.039 --> 00:36:01.179
yes. Well, this has remained a problem down to

00:36:01.179 --> 00:36:04.860
our own time. And I think this is worth kind

00:36:04.860 --> 00:36:08.920
of jumping into like the 21st century. In 2010,

00:36:09.099 --> 00:36:12.480
the Texas Board of Education, as it began its

00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:14.579
descent from being the seventh best educational

00:36:14.579 --> 00:36:17.559
system under Governor Ann Richards to the 40th

00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:21.719
under Governor Greg Abbott, Jefferson was actually

00:36:21.719 --> 00:36:24.659
removed from serious study within the curriculum.

00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:28.199
He was banned. Jefferson became an un -person

00:36:28.199 --> 00:36:32.380
in Texas. You're kidding. I am not. I had relatives.

00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:34.280
I had relatives down there. How can you take

00:36:34.280 --> 00:36:38.480
Jefferson out of the curriculum? Well, they substituted

00:36:38.480 --> 00:36:41.719
other people that were more consistent with their

00:36:41.719 --> 00:36:46.460
belief system, like Thomas Aquinas. Jefferson

00:36:46.460 --> 00:36:49.320
was just not something that was allowed to be

00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:53.239
included within the curriculum for Texas. And

00:36:53.239 --> 00:36:57.800
the reason that they disliked Jefferson so much

00:36:57.800 --> 00:37:00.980
was because of this separation of church and

00:37:00.980 --> 00:37:03.960
state. It was like, you know, it was almost like

00:37:03.960 --> 00:37:05.639
their little brains were about to explode over

00:37:05.639 --> 00:37:09.929
this. So Jefferson became an un -person. However,

00:37:10.070 --> 00:37:12.730
due to nationwide and even international criticism,

00:37:13.110 --> 00:37:15.250
Jefferson was later restored to the curriculum

00:37:15.250 --> 00:37:18.010
of study within Texas. But just imagine this,

00:37:18.210 --> 00:37:19.909
you know, this is like something out of 1984.

00:37:21.130 --> 00:37:24.829
Now, a solution to this Jefferson's problematic

00:37:24.829 --> 00:37:31.150
beliefs for the fundamentalist was a book authored

00:37:31.150 --> 00:37:33.989
by a guy named David Barton, who published The

00:37:33.989 --> 00:37:38.099
Jefferson Lies in 2012. He simply said that everything

00:37:38.099 --> 00:37:40.679
anyone had ever written about Jefferson's religious

00:37:40.679 --> 00:37:43.420
beliefs was a lie, including Jefferson, for that

00:37:43.420 --> 00:37:48.159
matter, or fake news. You know, in fact, according

00:37:48.159 --> 00:37:51.440
to Barton, Jefferson was a fundamentalist Christian

00:37:51.440 --> 00:37:55.880
at heart. Jefferson did provide support to various

00:37:55.880 --> 00:37:57.820
fundamentalist religious groups, but mainly to

00:37:57.820 --> 00:38:02.320
foster religious diversity, religious DEI, in

00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:05.019
the United States. He gave money to Baptist churches

00:38:05.019 --> 00:38:08.360
periodically and generally wanted to promote

00:38:08.360 --> 00:38:11.320
them in competition to more high church religions

00:38:11.320 --> 00:38:13.960
like the Anglicans. That's also consistent with

00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:15.980
what we see in a lot of the founders, the idea

00:38:15.980 --> 00:38:18.000
that we don't care which religion you pick, just

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:20.639
pick one. Pick one. And follow its moral dictates,

00:38:20.659 --> 00:38:22.699
and that's better for society. if you don't pick

00:38:22.699 --> 00:38:24.460
one and don't follow any moral dictates. Yeah.

00:38:24.920 --> 00:38:27.619
Tranquility and all of that. So that fits that

00:38:27.619 --> 00:38:31.059
line of thinking. Everybody basically hated the

00:38:31.059 --> 00:38:34.679
idea of atheism, even someone as extreme as Thomas

00:38:34.679 --> 00:38:36.940
Paine, because they felt like you're going to

00:38:36.940 --> 00:38:40.590
be sort of living an amoral life. that's excluded

00:38:40.590 --> 00:38:45.869
from any sort of moral uplift. So that is consistent,

00:38:45.989 --> 00:38:49.210
but just because you're supporting, say, Second

00:38:49.210 --> 00:38:52.070
Great Awakening -type style churches doesn't

00:38:52.070 --> 00:38:53.650
mean that you're necessarily ascribing to their

00:38:53.650 --> 00:38:57.809
belief system. John Adams, delighted in attending

00:38:57.809 --> 00:39:00.449
the Unitarian Church, going as frequently as

00:39:00.449 --> 00:39:03.349
three times in a single Sunday, was dismissed

00:39:03.349 --> 00:39:05.670
in some circles as not really being Christian,

00:39:05.829 --> 00:39:08.789
regardless of his devotional behavior. I mean,

00:39:08.849 --> 00:39:11.090
Adams believed in things like, even though he

00:39:11.090 --> 00:39:14.210
was Unitarian, he believed in prayer and fasting

00:39:14.210 --> 00:39:17.530
as things to be able to intercede with God there.

00:39:18.090 --> 00:39:22.769
He was also not really assigned as being Christian

00:39:22.769 --> 00:39:25.579
because he was Unitarian. And then along with

00:39:25.579 --> 00:39:30.300
Washington, Benjamin Franklin was sort of brought

00:39:30.300 --> 00:39:32.300
into this fundamentalist role because of his

00:39:32.300 --> 00:39:35.619
appeals to Providence. This began in the 19th

00:39:35.619 --> 00:39:37.820
century and it continues down to the present

00:39:37.820 --> 00:39:42.300
day. Now Madison probably faced the worst fate.

00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:46.559
And here it wasn't just a matter of... questioning

00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:50.619
motives and things, but it was also about people

00:39:50.619 --> 00:39:53.460
making up quotations to support a fundamentalist

00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:56.940
position. We all know that Madison was very tolerant

00:39:56.940 --> 00:40:00.960
of other religious beliefs. But by the 21st century,

00:40:01.079 --> 00:40:03.519
all manner of right -wing causes found support

00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:06.159
from the Founding Fathers as they addressed issues

00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:10.340
as diverse as religion and gun control, far differently

00:40:10.340 --> 00:40:12.320
than the language of the Constitution of the

00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:15.559
Federalist Papers indicated. According to fundamentalists,

00:40:15.579 --> 00:40:18.340
Madison is alleged to have said, the future of

00:40:18.340 --> 00:40:21.099
the United States depends on Jesus and the Bible.

00:40:22.170 --> 00:40:26.329
And this is just so counter to Madison's actual

00:40:26.329 --> 00:40:28.670
beliefs. He is ascribed to have said that? Yes,

00:40:28.670 --> 00:40:31.090
he is ascribed to have said this. And this is

00:40:31.090 --> 00:40:33.070
something he never said. It doesn't sound like

00:40:33.070 --> 00:40:34.530
it would come out of his mouth. It wouldn't be

00:40:34.530 --> 00:40:37.670
Jesus. It would be Providence. And I'm not sure

00:40:37.670 --> 00:40:39.690
that the Bible would be what he would, you know,

00:40:39.730 --> 00:40:42.389
I would say sound moral teachings or something

00:40:42.389 --> 00:40:45.070
would be more consistent with what he was saying.

00:40:45.230 --> 00:40:47.699
Do they make any... effort at all to provide

00:40:47.699 --> 00:40:49.559
a source for these claims they make? I mean,

00:40:49.599 --> 00:40:52.099
what are they looking at when they say that he

00:40:52.099 --> 00:40:54.400
said this? They just assert that he said it and

00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:55.500
move on. They just assert that he said it. I

00:40:55.500 --> 00:40:57.820
mean, like, there's all sorts of gun stuff about

00:40:57.820 --> 00:41:00.460
Washington, too, that comes up. But people just

00:41:00.460 --> 00:41:03.099
make these things up, not unlike Parson Weems

00:41:03.099 --> 00:41:06.849
did, about the cherry tree and... kneeling in

00:41:06.849 --> 00:41:09.369
the snow and various other things that Washington

00:41:09.369 --> 00:41:11.670
is alleged to have done. So this is a practice

00:41:11.670 --> 00:41:15.130
that began as early as 1800, but it continues

00:41:15.130 --> 00:41:18.670
down to the present day. So mythos over logos.

00:41:18.929 --> 00:41:24.170
Mythos over logos. Now, turning to Hamilton.

00:41:24.369 --> 00:41:26.809
Now, Hamilton is an interesting situation here.

00:41:28.150 --> 00:41:33.349
Hamilton does have a high church phase. where

00:41:33.349 --> 00:41:37.030
he's depicted as being reflective of a lifelong

00:41:37.030 --> 00:41:39.750
religious belief, which we discussed previously

00:41:39.750 --> 00:41:43.070
as not being the case. He had his phases. He

00:41:43.070 --> 00:41:46.269
had his phases. This is something just with anybody

00:41:46.269 --> 00:41:48.909
who's looking at them. The idea that founding

00:41:48.909 --> 00:41:53.110
fathers spring forth with one set of ideas from

00:41:53.110 --> 00:41:55.489
the womb, practically, which they persist in

00:41:55.489 --> 00:41:57.550
throughout their entire life, like they're incapable

00:41:57.550 --> 00:42:00.250
of growth or changing their minds or something

00:42:00.250 --> 00:42:04.809
like that. But with Hamilton, Hamilton had a

00:42:04.809 --> 00:42:08.530
wife. Her name was Elizabeth Schuyler. And she

00:42:08.530 --> 00:42:13.250
was a very nice woman, almost saintly by contemporary

00:42:13.250 --> 00:42:16.610
standards. But she was definitely much more...

00:42:17.019 --> 00:42:21.659
high church, much less deist than Hamilton was.

00:42:21.719 --> 00:42:24.860
Hamilton basically made a joke about why is there

00:42:24.860 --> 00:42:27.239
no mention of Jesus in the Constitution, and

00:42:27.239 --> 00:42:30.260
Hamilton said, oh, we forgot. She would never

00:42:30.260 --> 00:42:33.199
have made a comment like that, and she spent

00:42:33.199 --> 00:42:38.480
her entire life, and she lived until the 1850s.

00:42:39.019 --> 00:42:42.699
beyond anyone else in the circle. She even outlasted

00:42:42.699 --> 00:42:45.440
Dolly Madison, who died in, I believe, 1848.

00:42:46.039 --> 00:42:50.019
She was renowned for her piety, and she did her

00:42:50.019 --> 00:42:53.900
best to make Hamilton almost into a secular saint

00:42:53.900 --> 00:42:57.739
during her entire lifetime. Yeah, fact check.

00:42:57.880 --> 00:43:01.760
Dolly Madison died in 1849, and Elizabeth Schuyler

00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:10.849
Hamilton in 1854. lots of charitable works. So

00:43:10.849 --> 00:43:14.449
people listened and respected to her. She did

00:43:14.449 --> 00:43:20.150
also a service to historians by collecting Hamilton's

00:43:20.150 --> 00:43:22.650
papers to ensure his legacy. She didn't publish

00:43:22.650 --> 00:43:25.349
them, but she collected them. She insisted that

00:43:25.349 --> 00:43:29.070
her husband never was above doing anything that

00:43:29.070 --> 00:43:32.929
was untoward, which is not necessarily the case

00:43:32.929 --> 00:43:36.869
by contemporary accounts. John Adams thought

00:43:36.869 --> 00:43:40.280
he had too many in his body, and that made him

00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:43.039
sex -crazed. Well, he had the big sex scandal.

00:43:43.179 --> 00:43:44.780
Yeah, he did have the big sex scandal, but that

00:43:44.780 --> 00:43:47.099
was not the only sex scandal. Let's just say

00:43:47.099 --> 00:43:50.739
Martha Walsh named her Tomcat because he was

00:43:50.739 --> 00:43:53.219
constantly on the prowl. Because he was Tomcatting.

00:43:53.219 --> 00:43:57.099
He was Tomcatting. And so, you know, Elizabeth

00:43:57.099 --> 00:43:58.900
Schuyler Hamilton was determined to make sure

00:43:58.900 --> 00:44:01.960
that that sort of side of Hamilton got downplayed

00:44:01.960 --> 00:44:05.800
as much as possible. She insisted that her husband

00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:10.280
was... was always a pillar of rectitude. She

00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:14.099
even demanded an apology from former President

00:44:14.099 --> 00:44:16.460
Monroe, who nearly fought a duel with Hamilton,

00:44:16.739 --> 00:44:20.760
only to be talked out of it by Aaron Burr concerning

00:44:20.760 --> 00:44:24.320
Monroe's allegations of financial impropriety

00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:27.219
on Hamilton's part. This was associated with

00:44:27.219 --> 00:44:30.500
the sex scandal. There was mention made about

00:44:30.500 --> 00:44:34.239
financial impropriety. Hamilton may have discovered

00:44:34.239 --> 00:44:37.730
religion after leaving office following his affair

00:44:37.730 --> 00:44:40.989
with Mariah Reynolds. That was the sex scandal.

00:44:41.869 --> 00:44:45.250
She was determined to ensure that Alexander Hamilton's

00:44:45.250 --> 00:44:47.250
later existence was that of a Christian gentleman,

00:44:47.369 --> 00:44:51.909
and until Ron Chernow's Hamilton and the musical,

00:44:52.150 --> 00:44:54.269
this was generally how Hamilton was perceived,

00:44:54.530 --> 00:45:00.809
a bit stuffy and not terribly approachable and

00:45:00.809 --> 00:45:04.340
not terribly human. While there were founders

00:45:04.340 --> 00:45:07.059
who beliefs more closely corresponded to the

00:45:07.059 --> 00:45:10.239
beliefs of Orthodox Christianity, proponents

00:45:10.239 --> 00:45:15.619
then and now need to portray the founders as

00:45:15.619 --> 00:45:17.860
part of a longstanding religious belief system

00:45:17.860 --> 00:45:22.059
that goes back. all the way to Christianity.

00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:24.239
This is authentic Christianity that they are

00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:26.699
supporting. Authentic Christianity is what the

00:45:26.699 --> 00:45:29.659
founders supported themselves. What is authentic

00:45:29.659 --> 00:45:32.460
Christianity defined as in their minds? When

00:45:32.460 --> 00:45:35.559
is it? When does it begin? What do they define

00:45:35.559 --> 00:45:37.619
as the time when Christianity was authentic?

00:45:38.059 --> 00:45:41.000
Because that can be a matter of opinion. At the

00:45:41.000 --> 00:45:43.579
time of Christ. At the time of Christ, okay.

00:45:43.579 --> 00:45:46.219
There were always underground cells of people

00:45:46.219 --> 00:45:49.420
who practiced fundamentalist Christianity. all

00:45:49.420 --> 00:45:51.719
the way through going back to Christ, and they

00:45:51.719 --> 00:45:55.440
face persecution and various other things. But

00:45:55.440 --> 00:45:58.280
in the United States, at long last, things were

00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:01.219
allowed to reach full flower. But everybody who's

00:46:01.219 --> 00:46:04.840
conceived as heroic is generally conceived as

00:46:04.840 --> 00:46:07.699
being also a fundamentalist Christian in their

00:46:07.699 --> 00:46:10.320
mind. That is how history gets rewritten here.

00:46:10.860 --> 00:46:15.500
The problem is it's totally ahistorical. And

00:46:15.500 --> 00:46:18.320
even if the founding fathers did ascribe to this,

00:46:18.380 --> 00:46:23.019
they certainly did not do anything in the writing

00:46:23.019 --> 00:46:25.980
of the Constitution to promote it at the federal

00:46:25.980 --> 00:46:28.780
level, to promote this as part of the federal

00:46:28.780 --> 00:46:32.280
state. And this is kind of where we get into

00:46:32.280 --> 00:46:37.599
invention and misinterpretation of original intent.

00:46:38.349 --> 00:46:41.329
And things like that continue. For example, as

00:46:41.329 --> 00:46:44.250
another example of Christian nationalists pushing

00:46:44.250 --> 00:46:48.630
their agenda, in the late 19th century, 1894,

00:46:48.969 --> 00:46:51.389
they even tried to amend the U .S. Constitution

00:46:51.389 --> 00:46:55.030
to add references to God, Jesus Christ, and Christianity.

00:46:55.849 --> 00:46:58.250
Their efforts failed because they were not in

00:46:58.250 --> 00:47:00.489
keeping with the founding spirit of our country.

00:47:00.710 --> 00:47:03.449
Well, isn't this a mighty counter -argument to

00:47:03.449 --> 00:47:06.449
this notion of Christian nationalism? Because

00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:09.320
If they needed to amend the Constitution to do

00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:11.780
it, it meant that it wasn't there in the beginning,

00:47:11.840 --> 00:47:33.699
and there wouldn't be a reason for that. During

00:47:33.699 --> 00:47:37.360
the Civil War, a movement arose to try to amend

00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:40.440
the Constitution to put God in it. There was

00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:43.079
thinking among religious conservatives in the

00:47:43.079 --> 00:47:46.400
United States that the Civil War was visited

00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:49.300
upon the United States by an angry God, and God

00:47:49.300 --> 00:47:51.920
was upset that there was no God in the Constitution.

00:47:52.960 --> 00:47:55.880
There were also some ministers who claimed that

00:47:55.880 --> 00:47:58.900
the Union defeats, ministers in the North, of

00:47:58.900 --> 00:48:01.730
course, claimed that the Union defeats. that

00:48:01.730 --> 00:48:03.690
the army suffered early in the war were also

00:48:03.690 --> 00:48:07.070
God's will. Again, because the lack of religion,

00:48:07.190 --> 00:48:10.130
the lack of God, the lack of Christ in the Constitution.

00:48:10.989 --> 00:48:16.989
So in 1863, a group formed called the Christian

00:48:16.989 --> 00:48:20.309
Amendment Movement. In the next year, 1864, they

00:48:20.309 --> 00:48:22.349
renamed themselves the National Reform Association,

00:48:22.889 --> 00:48:27.230
abbreviated NRA. interestingly enough. But the

00:48:27.230 --> 00:48:28.869
National Reform Association was its name for

00:48:28.869 --> 00:48:32.389
a long time, decades after that. They proposed,

00:48:32.670 --> 00:48:35.269
an attorney in Pennsylvania named John Alexander

00:48:35.269 --> 00:48:38.969
wrote a proposed amendment to the Constitution,

00:48:39.230 --> 00:48:43.650
which would change the preamble of the U .S.

00:48:43.670 --> 00:48:47.329
Constitution to put God in it, Christianity right

00:48:47.329 --> 00:48:49.929
in it. So the way the preamble reads, for those

00:48:49.929 --> 00:48:52.230
who don't have it memorized, is, we the people

00:48:52.230 --> 00:48:54.739
of the United States in order to form a more

00:48:54.739 --> 00:48:57.579
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic

00:48:57.579 --> 00:49:00.039
tranquility, provide for the common defense,

00:49:00.380 --> 00:49:02.780
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings

00:49:02.780 --> 00:49:05.260
of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity,

00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:08.500
do ordain and establish this Constitution for

00:49:08.500 --> 00:49:11.239
the United States of America. There's no religion

00:49:11.239 --> 00:49:13.320
in it, unless you want to say that securing the

00:49:13.320 --> 00:49:15.559
blessings of liberty has a religious connotation

00:49:15.559 --> 00:49:18.920
to it, maybe. Otherwise, no religion in it. Well,

00:49:19.059 --> 00:49:22.030
that's the problem, you see. So the National

00:49:22.030 --> 00:49:26.550
Reform Association proposed a new preamble, which

00:49:26.550 --> 00:49:28.989
would be written as follows. We, the people of

00:49:28.989 --> 00:49:31.670
the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty

00:49:31.670 --> 00:49:34.309
God as the source of all authority and power

00:49:34.309 --> 00:49:37.190
in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ as

00:49:37.190 --> 00:49:39.949
the ruler among the nations, his revealed will

00:49:39.949 --> 00:49:42.969
as the supreme law of the land, in order to constitute

00:49:42.969 --> 00:49:45.699
a Christian government, And in order to form

00:49:45.699 --> 00:49:48.420
a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure

00:49:48.420 --> 00:49:50.480
domestic tranquility, provide for the common

00:49:50.480 --> 00:49:53.239
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure

00:49:53.239 --> 00:49:55.960
the inalienable rights and the blessings of life,

00:49:56.099 --> 00:49:59.219
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ourselves,

00:49:59.619 --> 00:50:03.579
our posterity, and all the people, do ordain

00:50:03.579 --> 00:50:05.460
and establish this Constitution for the United

00:50:05.460 --> 00:50:08.400
States of America. So they've added a lot of

00:50:08.400 --> 00:50:10.570
religion into it, specifically Christian. So

00:50:10.570 --> 00:50:13.429
what were they hoping to get out of this? Well,

00:50:13.469 --> 00:50:15.530
they wanted to appease God. They thought that

00:50:15.530 --> 00:50:18.340
then... terrible things like the Civil War and

00:50:18.340 --> 00:50:20.079
all the Union defeats in the Civil War, bad things

00:50:20.079 --> 00:50:21.199
like that wouldn't happen anymore because we

00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:23.139
would have pleased God by putting him into the

00:50:23.139 --> 00:50:25.420
Constitution. So God is transactional in their

00:50:25.420 --> 00:50:27.639
mind. I can't speak for them. I'm just saying

00:50:27.639 --> 00:50:29.880
that that was their motivation, and this is what

00:50:29.880 --> 00:50:33.079
they proposed. And somebody actually talked Abraham

00:50:33.079 --> 00:50:35.500
Lincoln into meeting with them, and he listened

00:50:35.500 --> 00:50:37.139
to them, heard them out, and he gave them a rather

00:50:37.139 --> 00:50:39.500
lukewarm response. You know, I generally agree

00:50:39.500 --> 00:50:41.659
with you, but I don't want to do this hastily.

00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:43.699
Give me some time to think about this and get

00:50:43.699 --> 00:50:45.500
back to you, and then I don't think he ever really

00:50:45.500 --> 00:50:48.980
got back. nothing really came of it now they

00:50:48.980 --> 00:50:51.800
didn't give up and they kept lobbying for this

00:50:51.800 --> 00:50:54.659
there was some congressional action minor action

00:50:54.659 --> 00:50:57.559
about 1874 but the real congressional action

00:50:57.559 --> 00:51:00.360
came in 1894 it didn't really go anywhere it's

00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:02.500
just that this got more of a hearing you know

00:51:02.500 --> 00:51:04.039
it never came out of committee or anything or

00:51:04.039 --> 00:51:06.940
got voted on but they actually voted on on this

00:51:06.940 --> 00:51:09.659
or something very similar to it in 1894 and it

00:51:09.659 --> 00:51:12.800
failed That was the closest they ever got to

00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:15.699
creating a Christian constitution, if you want

00:51:15.699 --> 00:51:18.039
to put it that way, for the United States. And

00:51:18.039 --> 00:51:20.400
it was all about changing the preamble. It wasn't

00:51:20.400 --> 00:51:22.559
an amendment in the sense you might think of

00:51:22.559 --> 00:51:24.159
an amendment now. It was an amendment to actually

00:51:24.159 --> 00:51:25.980
change the wording of the preamble is what they

00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:28.639
were pushing for. The Wikipedia article about

00:51:28.639 --> 00:51:31.380
some of this states, and it's not cited, so I

00:51:31.380 --> 00:51:33.880
just mentioned that to you so you can decide

00:51:33.880 --> 00:51:36.039
for yourself. the veracity of it, but it's probably

00:51:36.039 --> 00:51:37.940
true. There were similar proposals considered

00:51:37.940 --> 00:51:43.940
by Congress in 1874, 1895, 1896, 1910, 1947,

00:51:44.579 --> 00:51:53.960
1949, 1951, 1953, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1961,

00:51:54.559 --> 00:52:01.949
1963, 1965, 1967, and 1969. I read all this off

00:52:01.949 --> 00:52:03.130
to you because I just want to make the point

00:52:03.130 --> 00:52:05.090
that this kept coming up over and over and over

00:52:05.090 --> 00:52:08.869
again. And it always failed. And it always failed.

00:52:08.929 --> 00:52:10.809
It never really got serious congressional action.

00:52:10.989 --> 00:52:14.070
It never really had any chance of passing. I

00:52:14.070 --> 00:52:15.769
mean, there were plenty of people in the Congress

00:52:15.769 --> 00:52:18.389
and in the country in general who said, no, that's

00:52:18.389 --> 00:52:19.730
not what our Constitution is supposed to be about.

00:52:19.809 --> 00:52:21.730
It shouldn't say that. Freedom of religion. It

00:52:21.730 --> 00:52:23.349
would violate the Establishment Clause of the

00:52:23.349 --> 00:52:24.929
First Amendment and so on and so forth. So it

00:52:24.929 --> 00:52:28.170
never got serious attention. 1894 was the closest

00:52:28.170 --> 00:52:33.099
it ever got. So this would actually indicate

00:52:33.099 --> 00:52:37.099
by the fact that there is what to be a need to

00:52:37.099 --> 00:52:40.199
establish this sort of language within the Constitution.

00:52:40.280 --> 00:52:42.920
The Constitution is not necessarily a Christian

00:52:42.920 --> 00:52:45.579
document, and it kind of runs counter to the

00:52:45.579 --> 00:52:47.579
idea that the United States is a Christian nation.

00:52:47.860 --> 00:52:50.380
Well, what they're saying is that the United

00:52:50.380 --> 00:52:52.760
States should be and is a Christian nation, and

00:52:52.760 --> 00:52:55.690
it should say so in its Constitution. And not

00:52:55.690 --> 00:52:58.150
to do so is an abomination to God, and therefore

00:52:58.150 --> 00:52:59.849
he's going to visit things on you like the Civil

00:52:59.849 --> 00:53:02.380
War. defeats in your wars and things like that.

00:53:02.420 --> 00:53:04.199
We've got to fix that. The way we fix it is we

00:53:04.199 --> 00:53:06.500
put God right there in the Constitution, and

00:53:06.500 --> 00:53:07.800
that was their way of doing it. That's their

00:53:07.800 --> 00:53:09.639
way of thinking. Well, where I'm going back is

00:53:09.639 --> 00:53:12.579
this goes back to original intent, and original

00:53:12.579 --> 00:53:16.000
intent is not for that. And so a lot of conservatives

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:19.659
or people who are in favor of this idea of a

00:53:19.659 --> 00:53:22.480
Christian nation like to say, oh, we're just

00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:24.460
trying to get us back to what the original intent

00:53:24.460 --> 00:53:26.800
was. Well, clearly the original intent wasn't

00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:29.199
that. Otherwise, there would be no need to...

00:53:29.369 --> 00:53:32.389
come up with these amendments and so forth. Yeah,

00:53:32.449 --> 00:53:34.389
if you found it as a Christian nation, you don't

00:53:34.389 --> 00:53:36.710
need to therefore amend the Constitution to say

00:53:36.710 --> 00:53:37.889
that you were founded as a Christian nation.

00:53:38.190 --> 00:53:40.230
You must be trying to fix something if you're

00:53:40.230 --> 00:53:42.409
going to amend it, right? Or invent something

00:53:42.409 --> 00:53:44.750
that wasn't there in the first place. Now there's

00:53:44.750 --> 00:53:46.409
another interesting aspect of this too, and I'd

00:53:46.409 --> 00:53:48.389
like to bring this out because it touches on

00:53:48.389 --> 00:53:49.750
some of the things we talked about actually in

00:53:49.750 --> 00:53:53.230
the very first episode of this series. Another

00:53:53.230 --> 00:53:55.269
movement came from a different source. So that

00:53:55.269 --> 00:53:57.389
movement basically came from the Civil War and

00:53:57.389 --> 00:53:59.989
kept going on and on and on for decades, for

00:53:59.989 --> 00:54:03.789
100 years afterwards. Another one was in the

00:54:03.789 --> 00:54:06.170
late 1940s and 1950s, and we talked about this

00:54:06.170 --> 00:54:08.829
quite a bit in the Tea, Drugs, and Jesus series

00:54:08.829 --> 00:54:10.889
we did on China in the latter couple episodes

00:54:10.889 --> 00:54:12.670
there. We talked about the Red Scare and things

00:54:12.670 --> 00:54:14.829
like that going on in the late 40s and the 50s

00:54:14.829 --> 00:54:18.150
in the United States. So there was a backlash

00:54:18.150 --> 00:54:20.489
in American society generally against communism.

00:54:21.389 --> 00:54:24.369
And there was a feeling that we needed to double

00:54:24.369 --> 00:54:26.590
down on Christianity in the United States to

00:54:26.590 --> 00:54:29.969
oppose godless communism, to demonstrate our

00:54:29.969 --> 00:54:33.469
opposition to godless communism. And instead

00:54:33.469 --> 00:54:35.650
of amending the preamble, the idea there was

00:54:35.650 --> 00:54:38.309
to actually have a constitutional amendment in

00:54:38.309 --> 00:54:40.070
a more conventional sense of an amendment as

00:54:40.070 --> 00:54:43.570
we think of it. And these proposals came out

00:54:43.570 --> 00:54:45.730
in like the 40s and 50s. The most significant

00:54:45.730 --> 00:54:49.289
one was in 1954, Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders.

00:54:49.679 --> 00:54:52.820
proposed an amendment which would read, I'm going

00:54:52.820 --> 00:54:54.239
to read it to you because I think it's interesting.

00:54:54.380 --> 00:54:57.380
Section one, this nation devoutly recognizes

00:54:57.380 --> 00:55:00.500
the authority and law of Jesus Christ, savior

00:55:00.500 --> 00:55:03.280
and ruler of nations through whom are bestowed

00:55:03.280 --> 00:55:07.659
the blessings of almighty God. Section two, this

00:55:07.659 --> 00:55:10.219
amendment shall not be interpreted so as to result

00:55:10.219 --> 00:55:12.820
in the establishment of any particular ecclesiastical

00:55:12.820 --> 00:55:15.519
organization or in the abridgment of the rights

00:55:15.519 --> 00:55:18.079
of religious freedom or freedom of speech and

00:55:18.079 --> 00:55:21.840
press. or of peaceful assemblage. Section 3,

00:55:22.099 --> 00:55:25.440
Congress shall have power, in such cases as it

00:55:25.440 --> 00:55:28.280
may deem proper, to provide a suitable oath or

00:55:28.280 --> 00:55:30.460
affirmation for citizens whose religious scruples

00:55:30.460 --> 00:55:32.579
prevent them from giving unqualified allegiance

00:55:32.579 --> 00:55:37.039
to the Constitution as herein amended. Oh, I

00:55:37.039 --> 00:55:39.119
know who they're referring to there. Now, this

00:55:39.119 --> 00:55:42.090
never came to a congressional vote. But what

00:55:42.090 --> 00:55:44.349
I find interesting about it, too, is, I think

00:55:44.349 --> 00:55:45.969
particularly in the first episode of the series,

00:55:46.070 --> 00:55:48.309
we talked about the mess you make by trying to

00:55:48.309 --> 00:55:50.110
create an official religion in the United States.

00:55:50.349 --> 00:55:52.130
And even if you decide that that's Christian,

00:55:52.250 --> 00:55:54.230
it's still a mess. Because who's a Christian

00:55:54.230 --> 00:55:56.429
and who isn't? There's all sorts of issues. And

00:55:56.429 --> 00:55:57.969
what type of Christian are you? What type of

00:55:57.969 --> 00:55:59.170
Christian are you? Which Christians themselves

00:55:59.170 --> 00:56:01.690
bring up and argue with each other about. Now,

00:56:01.849 --> 00:56:04.869
so, just to parse this a little bit, because

00:56:04.869 --> 00:56:07.130
I think it's interesting in that context. So,

00:56:07.170 --> 00:56:09.230
Section 1, the nation devoutly recognizes the

00:56:09.230 --> 00:56:10.630
authority and law of Jesus Christ, so on and

00:56:10.630 --> 00:56:13.360
so forth. Well, good for us. It doesn't really

00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:16.719
prescribe anything. It's just sort of a performative

00:56:16.719 --> 00:56:19.340
statement of piety, I guess, right, is all Section

00:56:19.340 --> 00:56:23.440
1 is. But Section 2 then says that Section 1,

00:56:23.500 --> 00:56:27.440
that statement, doesn't affect anything. It doesn't

00:56:27.440 --> 00:56:30.050
change anything else the Constitution says. I

00:56:30.050 --> 00:56:33.010
kind of got that part. I was like, this is doublespeak.

00:56:33.010 --> 00:56:35.150
Yeah, it doesn't establish a religion. It doesn't

00:56:35.150 --> 00:56:37.889
abridge anybody's freedom of anything or peaceful

00:56:37.889 --> 00:56:40.789
assemblage, speech, press, etc. It doesn't do

00:56:40.789 --> 00:56:43.269
any of those things. So my question then is,

00:56:43.369 --> 00:56:46.510
what does it do? I would argue that it does establish

00:56:46.510 --> 00:56:52.039
Christianity in an official status. by that first

00:56:52.039 --> 00:56:54.159
statement, regardless of what's said in the second

00:56:54.159 --> 00:56:56.000
paragraph. Granted, but then the second paragraph

00:56:56.000 --> 00:56:58.780
basically says, but this doesn't affect anything.

00:56:59.139 --> 00:57:01.900
So why bother to do the first paragraph if you're

00:57:01.900 --> 00:57:04.059
not going to accomplish anything by doing it?

00:57:04.119 --> 00:57:06.719
That's how I look at it. I think basically you

00:57:06.719 --> 00:57:08.699
get into a situation, and I don't want to go

00:57:08.699 --> 00:57:11.480
down a huge rabbit hole about gun rights here,

00:57:11.619 --> 00:57:14.920
but we do have some ambiguous language in the

00:57:14.920 --> 00:57:18.889
Second Amendment about... a militia and the right

00:57:18.889 --> 00:57:22.590
to bear arms here. And so I think this would

00:57:22.590 --> 00:57:24.690
merely create, if something like this were ever

00:57:24.690 --> 00:57:27.750
passed, it would create all sorts of confusion

00:57:27.750 --> 00:57:30.590
and interpretations and counter interpretations

00:57:30.590 --> 00:57:37.230
as to what takes precedence over what in this

00:57:37.230 --> 00:57:38.929
case. And I completely agree with you, but I'm

00:57:38.929 --> 00:57:42.960
just saying that the second part of it, makes

00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:45.119
the first part moot unless you decide to start

00:57:45.119 --> 00:57:46.940
interpreting it in ways that cause all sorts

00:57:46.940 --> 00:57:48.579
of problems. In other words, what I'm trying

00:57:48.579 --> 00:57:50.780
to say is you get no benefit by having this,

00:57:50.840 --> 00:57:52.559
but you do create more and more and more problems.

00:57:52.579 --> 00:57:55.840
You create the potential for different readings

00:57:55.840 --> 00:57:59.380
and like what exactly are you going to like,

00:57:59.380 --> 00:58:02.659
say takes precedence in legal decisions. And

00:58:02.659 --> 00:58:04.659
if you want to parse the words, it says it's

00:58:04.659 --> 00:58:06.039
not supposed to result in the establishment of

00:58:06.039 --> 00:58:08.940
any particular ecclesiastical organization. The

00:58:08.940 --> 00:58:11.949
word ecclesiastical is a Christian word. Yes.

00:58:12.070 --> 00:58:13.750
Now, I suppose someone could parse this and say,

00:58:13.909 --> 00:58:16.730
well, they're talking about Christianity. It

00:58:16.730 --> 00:58:19.090
doesn't require any particular Christian organization,

00:58:19.250 --> 00:58:22.650
but we can do things to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu,

00:58:22.869 --> 00:58:25.949
Buddhist, whoever else we want to. Just not any

00:58:25.949 --> 00:58:28.329
particular ecclesiastical organization. They

00:58:28.329 --> 00:58:30.130
pick that word and that has a specific meaning.

00:58:30.369 --> 00:58:33.210
Well, I think like the third one that you're

00:58:33.210 --> 00:58:35.329
talking about, the third section. Third section.

00:58:35.369 --> 00:58:38.369
And I wanted to say, right, so that's a mess

00:58:38.369 --> 00:58:42.699
too. Congress shall have power. In cases in which

00:58:42.699 --> 00:58:45.079
it deems it proper, which has the power to, it

00:58:45.079 --> 00:58:47.579
doesn't have to do it, to provide a suitable

00:58:47.579 --> 00:58:51.059
oath of affirmation for people whose religious

00:58:51.059 --> 00:58:53.980
scruples don't let them ascribe to what's stated

00:58:53.980 --> 00:58:56.360
above. They have the power to create one for

00:58:56.360 --> 00:58:59.719
them, but they're not required to. And it also

00:58:59.719 --> 00:59:03.880
then says that it implies strongly, it pretty

00:59:03.880 --> 00:59:06.199
much says, that if you don't take the oath that

00:59:06.199 --> 00:59:08.829
we put right here, then... You're not giving

00:59:08.829 --> 00:59:11.550
unqualified allegiance to the Constitution. Now,

00:59:11.550 --> 00:59:13.550
you see, this is interesting, because let me

00:59:13.550 --> 00:59:19.130
just cite an example. This brings up a case where,

00:59:19.230 --> 00:59:22.250
say, when Felix Frankfurter was up for confirmation,

00:59:22.630 --> 00:59:26.969
Frankfurter was an academic. He was well qualified

00:59:26.969 --> 00:59:31.329
to sit on the Supreme Court. But during his hearings,

00:59:32.449 --> 00:59:37.190
someone asked him, can you? believe in the Constitution?

00:59:37.510 --> 00:59:40.349
Can you believe in the American way because you're

00:59:40.349 --> 00:59:44.730
Jewish? Doesn't your Jewish religion prevent

00:59:44.730 --> 00:59:48.869
you from being a fair arbiter on the Supreme

00:59:48.869 --> 00:59:50.989
Court on matters of the Constitution? And that

00:59:50.989 --> 00:59:54.570
is what that references to me at any rate, that

00:59:54.570 --> 00:59:57.230
you're saying that there are groups that because

00:59:57.230 --> 01:00:01.070
of their religious beliefs cannot a scribe you

01:00:01.070 --> 01:00:03.090
know cannot faithfully follow the constitution

01:00:03.090 --> 01:00:07.429
and and that is kind of that again runs counter

01:00:07.429 --> 01:00:10.269
to these notions that we've seen as far as original

01:00:10.269 --> 01:00:12.710
intent where the original founding fathers are

01:00:12.710 --> 01:00:15.150
saying this is this form of government is something

01:00:15.150 --> 01:00:18.619
that open to everyone. And I mean, if you actually

01:00:18.619 --> 01:00:20.739
look at the Constitution, the Constitution is

01:00:20.739 --> 01:00:22.679
about this is how the government is organized

01:00:22.679 --> 01:00:25.280
and these are various rights that people enjoy

01:00:25.280 --> 01:00:28.179
under the Constitution. There is nothing about

01:00:28.179 --> 01:00:32.659
God in there about having to support a particular

01:00:32.659 --> 01:00:35.500
religious ideology. Yes. I mean, when I look

01:00:35.500 --> 01:00:37.099
at this and the reason I just wanted to discuss

01:00:37.099 --> 01:00:39.840
it here is just that I see that it doesn't solve

01:00:39.840 --> 01:00:42.630
any problems and creates a lot of problems. All

01:00:42.630 --> 01:00:45.150
it is is a performative statement of piety, which

01:00:45.150 --> 01:00:48.050
has no real meaning to it unless you then create

01:00:48.050 --> 01:00:51.570
a bunch of problems in which to enforce whatever

01:00:51.570 --> 01:00:54.349
this is trying to achieve. And the wording is

01:00:54.349 --> 01:00:56.130
there to allow you to do a lot of mischief. And

01:00:56.130 --> 01:00:58.809
these are the same sort of problems that I contend

01:00:58.809 --> 01:01:01.489
the founding fathers were trying to avoid that

01:01:01.489 --> 01:01:06.030
had happened, you know, roughly 80 years before

01:01:06.030 --> 01:01:08.510
under Queen Anne over in England where they're

01:01:08.510 --> 01:01:11.969
trying to deal with what rights do dissenters

01:01:11.969 --> 01:01:14.849
have, what right do low church people have, and

01:01:14.849 --> 01:01:17.269
what rights do Catholics have within English

01:01:17.269 --> 01:01:19.489
society at the time. But the problem that they're

01:01:19.489 --> 01:01:22.110
trying to solve is none of those things. You

01:01:22.110 --> 01:01:24.010
know, a lot of folks who find this kind of thing

01:01:24.010 --> 01:01:26.210
attractive feel that the nation has moved away

01:01:26.210 --> 01:01:28.530
from God and moved away from Jesus, and that's

01:01:28.530 --> 01:01:30.889
the cause of all its problems. And that's a,

01:01:30.929 --> 01:01:33.510
you know... You can just pin whatever issue you

01:01:33.510 --> 01:01:36.269
want on there, drug abuse, racial relations,

01:01:36.750 --> 01:01:39.690
wars, disease, you know, you name it, very biblical.

01:01:39.949 --> 01:01:42.570
Whatever is wrong, it's because we moved away

01:01:42.570 --> 01:01:43.849
from God, we've got to do something about it

01:01:43.849 --> 01:01:46.030
the way we do it is, we put him in the Constitution,

01:01:46.369 --> 01:01:48.789
things like that. That's where this kind of thinking

01:01:48.789 --> 01:01:51.289
seems to come from. Well, again, I think what

01:01:51.289 --> 01:01:55.059
we're seeing is an attempt, not unlike... making

01:01:55.059 --> 01:01:57.460
up stuff, making up fake quotes from the founding

01:01:57.460 --> 01:02:01.579
fathers. This is a way of achieving some sort

01:02:01.579 --> 01:02:05.480
of justification of their own belief system as

01:02:05.480 --> 01:02:10.380
opposed to doing anything else. Now, apparently

01:02:10.380 --> 01:02:13.059
there are like about 200... proposed amendments

01:02:13.059 --> 01:02:15.239
similar to this one none of them got very far

01:02:15.239 --> 01:02:18.559
but between 1894 and 1984 there were 200 things

01:02:18.559 --> 01:02:20.300
similar to what i just read off to you that were

01:02:20.300 --> 01:02:22.880
proposed in one in one way or another what's

01:02:22.880 --> 01:02:24.780
a little bit interesting is that um there was

01:02:24.780 --> 01:02:27.860
a in 1962 the supreme court case engel versus

01:02:27.860 --> 01:02:31.619
vital yeah that ruled school sponsored and dictated

01:02:31.619 --> 01:02:34.869
prayer in schools is unconstitutional That had

01:02:34.869 --> 01:02:38.590
a surprisingly limited effect, but the very next

01:02:38.590 --> 01:02:42.030
year, 1963, was the court case which said that

01:02:42.030 --> 01:02:45.369
school -mandated prayer, any school -mandated

01:02:45.369 --> 01:02:48.449
religious activity violates the Establishment

01:02:48.449 --> 01:02:51.070
Clause of the First Amendment. That was Abington

01:02:51.070 --> 01:02:52.929
School District versus Shemp, is what that was

01:02:52.929 --> 01:02:57.320
called, 1963. The 1963 court ruling then caused

01:02:57.320 --> 01:03:01.940
a big surge in amendments and proposals and things

01:03:01.940 --> 01:03:04.260
like that to try to address this and make sure

01:03:04.260 --> 01:03:06.989
that you could still have... school prayer and

01:03:06.989 --> 01:03:10.550
other religious observations in school. And so

01:03:10.550 --> 01:03:14.989
from 1963, the year of that case in 1965, members

01:03:14.989 --> 01:03:17.730
of Congress introduced 121 proposals to recognize

01:03:17.730 --> 01:03:19.989
God in the Constitution, of which 87 specifically

01:03:19.989 --> 01:03:23.829
would have enacted the constitutionality of school

01:03:23.829 --> 01:03:27.510
prayer. That died down after that. And actually,

01:03:27.590 --> 01:03:32.389
there hasn't been a lot of these kind of proposals

01:03:32.389 --> 01:03:36.670
going on. There weren't any from 1985 through

01:03:36.670 --> 01:03:39.670
1995. There hasn't been one, I guess, since 2005.

01:03:40.190 --> 01:03:43.030
But we have this in our history. It's come up

01:03:43.030 --> 01:03:45.050
a lot. And here's the interesting thing, though.

01:03:45.369 --> 01:03:50.969
The way this is spun is not official school prayer.

01:03:51.570 --> 01:03:55.900
It means prayer is any prayer. Like, you cannot

01:03:55.900 --> 01:03:59.460
pray in school. That is what people say is going

01:03:59.460 --> 01:04:02.719
on here. That is not the case. There is nothing

01:04:02.719 --> 01:04:04.820
that prevents you if you want to go and have

01:04:04.820 --> 01:04:08.739
a moment of quiet devotion somewhere on school

01:04:08.739 --> 01:04:11.119
grounds. You can do that. No one's going around

01:04:11.119 --> 01:04:12.880
poking you with a stick saying, keep your eyes

01:04:12.880 --> 01:04:14.539
open, don't bow your head, don't put your hands

01:04:14.539 --> 01:04:15.780
together. Yeah, exactly. There's no one doing

01:04:15.780 --> 01:04:17.880
that. Exactly. And, you know, when you look at

01:04:17.880 --> 01:04:20.380
these people who are advocating things like this

01:04:20.380 --> 01:04:24.590
and you kind of push them. What they're actually

01:04:24.590 --> 01:04:26.889
after is they're seeing that I have a captive

01:04:26.889 --> 01:04:31.889
audience here that I can compel to listen. They

01:04:31.889 --> 01:04:37.230
cannot escape. They are there. And there was

01:04:37.230 --> 01:04:39.730
a thing on 60 Minutes a few years ago, probably

01:04:39.730 --> 01:04:43.719
like... many years ago in which there was a there

01:04:43.719 --> 01:04:45.980
was a school district that actually had introduced

01:04:45.980 --> 01:04:49.099
some of these things and the parents that were

01:04:49.099 --> 01:04:51.960
advocating for it were saying well we can't get

01:04:51.960 --> 01:04:54.900
at these people any other way than at the school

01:04:54.900 --> 01:05:00.900
so it's like again it's kind of like and you're

01:05:00.900 --> 01:05:04.690
not meant to That is, you know, people like that

01:05:04.690 --> 01:05:06.409
will always say, well, parents should be able

01:05:06.409 --> 01:05:08.650
to do this and that. Well, parents should be

01:05:08.650 --> 01:05:11.409
able to determine people's religious orientation

01:05:11.409 --> 01:05:14.530
for good or for evil, no matter what. That's

01:05:14.530 --> 01:05:16.750
kind of like, you know. Yeah, because how do

01:05:16.750 --> 01:05:19.090
you tell if someone's praying or not? Yeah. I

01:05:19.090 --> 01:05:20.369
could be sitting there talking to you right now,

01:05:20.389 --> 01:05:22.269
praying for this podcast recording session to

01:05:22.269 --> 01:05:24.409
end. How would you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

01:05:25.510 --> 01:05:29.710
You would have a big smile on your face. But

01:05:29.710 --> 01:05:32.789
anyway. Yes, I mean, those have to be some of

01:05:32.789 --> 01:05:35.429
the motivations. Yeah, I mean, it's just like

01:05:35.429 --> 01:05:38.090
you can pray if you want to, you know, you can

01:05:38.090 --> 01:05:39.670
pray before a test, and nobody's going to, like,

01:05:39.670 --> 01:05:42.369
whack you upside the head if you want to. And

01:05:42.369 --> 01:05:44.030
I think that it would probably be stuff like

01:05:44.030 --> 01:05:59.110
praying before a test. Now, there are some other

01:05:59.110 --> 01:06:01.389
things that, Christian nationalists will use

01:06:01.389 --> 01:06:05.309
as ammunition for this notion that the United

01:06:05.309 --> 01:06:07.610
States is a Christian nation. For example, we

01:06:07.610 --> 01:06:11.210
have, in God we trust on our money. There seem

01:06:11.210 --> 01:06:13.670
to be a lot of people who think that actually

01:06:13.670 --> 01:06:17.869
fairly recent references to God, religious references

01:06:17.869 --> 01:06:23.190
in various official or just popular traditions

01:06:23.190 --> 01:06:25.650
that have come along, somehow are representative

01:06:25.650 --> 01:06:29.019
of the... nature of the religious founding of

01:06:29.019 --> 01:06:31.219
the country or the religious essence of the country

01:06:31.219 --> 01:06:35.219
in some way. I was at the Washington Nationals

01:06:35.219 --> 01:06:38.719
game on Sunday afternoon, and on Sundays since

01:06:38.719 --> 01:06:41.099
September 11th, Major League Baseball, during

01:06:41.099 --> 01:06:43.099
the seventh inning stretches, played God Bless

01:06:43.099 --> 01:06:46.539
America. God Bless America was written in 1918

01:06:46.539 --> 01:06:49.599
by Irving Berlin, and it became famous in 1938

01:06:49.599 --> 01:06:52.320
when Kate Smith sang it, a slightly modified

01:06:52.320 --> 01:06:56.199
version of it. I've been aware of the song since

01:06:56.199 --> 01:06:58.539
childhood, but here I am at the stadium and I

01:06:58.539 --> 01:07:01.000
see that people stand up, stand at attention,

01:07:01.239 --> 01:07:02.679
put their hands over their hearts, take their

01:07:02.679 --> 01:07:05.480
hats off, turn and face the flag during God Bless

01:07:05.480 --> 01:07:08.760
America, which is not the national anthem. No.

01:07:09.059 --> 01:07:11.940
It's a popular song. Where does the idea come

01:07:11.940 --> 01:07:14.400
from that you have to treat a popular song in

01:07:14.400 --> 01:07:16.219
the same way you treat the national anthem? Yet,

01:07:16.300 --> 01:07:19.159
I'm outvoted because entire stadiums do this,

01:07:19.280 --> 01:07:21.300
okay? Well, it would be an improvement on the

01:07:21.300 --> 01:07:24.659
national anthem if you ask me, but anyway. I

01:07:24.659 --> 01:07:25.860
looked it up, and apparently a lot of people

01:07:25.860 --> 01:07:27.860
view it now as the unofficial national anthem

01:07:27.860 --> 01:07:30.219
of the United States. I was unaware of that decision.

01:07:30.880 --> 01:07:33.619
I just bring it up because there you have God

01:07:33.619 --> 01:07:36.280
blessing America, and now there it is in an unofficial

01:07:36.280 --> 01:07:38.639
national anthem. But that didn't come along until

01:07:38.639 --> 01:07:41.139
the 20th century, where there was no— 21st century.

01:07:41.360 --> 01:07:43.860
Well, no, the 20th century is when the song became

01:07:43.860 --> 01:07:46.190
popular. Oh, okay, but they practiced. And I

01:07:46.190 --> 01:07:47.590
don't know when people started viewing it as

01:07:47.590 --> 01:07:50.710
the unofficial national anthem. At baseball games,

01:07:50.769 --> 01:07:52.809
it's 21st century. You're exactly right. I just

01:07:52.809 --> 01:07:54.650
mentioned that because I think it's a good intro

01:07:54.650 --> 01:07:57.530
into thinking about some of this. Because for

01:07:57.530 --> 01:07:59.889
those who don't know, our listeners, we've started

01:07:59.889 --> 01:08:02.630
posting YouTube shorts. If anybody wants to go

01:08:02.630 --> 01:08:04.869
over to YouTube and check those out, we get comments

01:08:04.869 --> 01:08:08.269
on those. One of our viewers wrote after one

01:08:08.269 --> 01:08:11.750
of our Christian Nation shorts and said that

01:08:11.750 --> 01:08:14.070
Christian ideals are ingrained in America's system

01:08:14.070 --> 01:08:16.250
of government. The nation's motto is literally,

01:08:16.329 --> 01:08:18.369
In God We Trust, and the Pledge of Allegiance

01:08:18.369 --> 01:08:21.710
even says, One Nation Under God. So it may not

01:08:21.710 --> 01:08:24.670
be an official religion, but Christianity is

01:08:24.670 --> 01:08:26.369
an essential part of American culture to this

01:08:26.369 --> 01:08:29.609
day. All right. We're combining two different

01:08:29.609 --> 01:08:31.930
things there. One is, you know, is Christianity

01:08:31.930 --> 01:08:34.430
a very important part of American life? Yes.

01:08:34.529 --> 01:08:37.310
Yes. Does that make America a Christian country

01:08:37.310 --> 01:08:40.510
in its foundation, in its governmental system,

01:08:40.689 --> 01:08:44.199
in its ideals? No, okay? Those are two separate

01:08:44.199 --> 01:08:47.180
issues. We're not arguing that America isn't

01:08:47.180 --> 01:08:48.939
predominantly Christian, isn't heavily influenced

01:08:48.939 --> 01:08:50.859
by Christianity. It would be arguing against

01:08:50.859 --> 01:08:52.899
facts. Right. That would be arguing against facts.

01:08:53.000 --> 01:08:55.380
We're discussing a separate issue, which is,

01:08:55.420 --> 01:08:57.800
what was it founded to be? Was it founded to

01:08:57.800 --> 01:09:00.420
be that? Does it just happen to be that way?

01:09:00.579 --> 01:09:03.869
What, right? And the legalistic... The legalistic

01:09:03.869 --> 01:09:07.949
standing of religion in society. But then we

01:09:07.949 --> 01:09:10.989
look at what's being cited in this viewer's comments.

01:09:11.069 --> 01:09:12.689
And we appreciate the comments. People, please

01:09:12.689 --> 01:09:14.210
write in. We want to hear what you have to think.

01:09:14.310 --> 01:09:17.109
But, you know, in God we trust, one nation undergone

01:09:17.109 --> 01:09:18.609
the Pledge of Allegiance. What do we really make

01:09:18.609 --> 01:09:22.390
of things like that? In God we trust did not

01:09:22.390 --> 01:09:27.550
come along until 1864. Remember I talked about

01:09:27.550 --> 01:09:30.449
how... A lot of conservative Christians viewed

01:09:30.449 --> 01:09:33.449
the Civil War as something visited upon us by

01:09:33.449 --> 01:09:35.050
an angry God because we didn't have enough God

01:09:35.050 --> 01:09:37.449
in our government and everything. And one of

01:09:37.449 --> 01:09:39.010
their solutions to that was to put, in God we

01:09:39.010 --> 01:09:41.930
trust, on our currency. So the two -cent coin,

01:09:42.170 --> 01:09:45.710
there used to be a two -cent coin, of 1864 included

01:09:45.710 --> 01:09:48.449
the words, in God we trust. After it appeared

01:09:48.449 --> 01:09:52.649
in the two -cent coin, it became mandatory on

01:09:52.649 --> 01:09:57.460
U .S. silver and gold coins in 1908. And this

01:09:57.460 --> 01:10:00.220
followed a public backlash after Teddy Roosevelt

01:10:00.220 --> 01:10:02.619
briefly removed the phrase from certain gold

01:10:02.619 --> 01:10:06.760
coins. The $10 and the $20 gold coin. He said

01:10:06.760 --> 01:10:08.800
that it was sacrilegious to put God's name on

01:10:08.800 --> 01:10:11.380
money. But public backlash, Congress mandated

01:10:11.380 --> 01:10:14.000
its return on all gold and silver coins. In 1938,

01:10:14.239 --> 01:10:15.899
the phrase began appearing continually on all

01:10:15.899 --> 01:10:20.340
U .S. coinage. And in 1956, at the height of

01:10:20.340 --> 01:10:23.479
the Cold War, a congressional resolution signed

01:10:23.479 --> 01:10:25.680
by Dwight... President Eisenhower, Dwight D.

01:10:25.680 --> 01:10:28.140
Eisenhower, declared that In God We Trust is

01:10:28.140 --> 01:10:30.420
the official national motto of the United States.

01:10:30.939 --> 01:10:33.479
It was the first official national motto that

01:10:33.479 --> 01:10:36.039
the country ever had, and it replaced the unofficial

01:10:36.039 --> 01:10:39.720
Latin phrase, e pluribus unum, out of many one.

01:10:40.319 --> 01:10:42.140
It replaced that, which had been an unofficial

01:10:42.140 --> 01:10:45.439
Latin phrase. In God We Trust became an unofficial

01:10:45.439 --> 01:10:49.159
motto, I should say, was replaced, and this became

01:10:49.159 --> 01:10:52.140
the first official national motto. Why then?

01:10:52.460 --> 01:10:56.300
Cold War. Cold War. Red Scare, opposition to

01:10:56.300 --> 01:10:57.899
communism, all those kind of things were going

01:10:57.899 --> 01:10:59.520
on in the United States at the time. There were

01:10:59.520 --> 01:11:01.619
a lot of, again, performative things about making

01:11:01.619 --> 01:11:04.479
everything be about God in opposition to godless

01:11:04.479 --> 01:11:08.300
communism. In 1957, it started appearing on U

01:11:08.300 --> 01:11:12.020
.S. paper money for the first time. So this does

01:11:12.020 --> 01:11:13.899
not date way back. It's not part of the foundation

01:11:13.899 --> 01:11:17.560
of the country. It dates to the mid -19th century,

01:11:17.659 --> 01:11:19.939
and a lot of it hasn't even been around until

01:11:19.939 --> 01:11:22.659
the mid -20th century in terms of where you see

01:11:22.659 --> 01:11:25.439
it in our nation. One thing to keep in mind about

01:11:25.439 --> 01:11:27.760
the money, there was no national currency until

01:11:27.760 --> 01:11:30.159
there was the Civil War. The United States did

01:11:30.159 --> 01:11:32.300
not issue currency until then, and we will be

01:11:32.300 --> 01:11:42.699
getting into this in subsequent episodes. How

01:11:42.699 --> 01:11:45.279
about the Pledge of Allegiance? That has a history,

01:11:45.340 --> 01:11:48.119
too. First thing to note is that the very first

01:11:48.119 --> 01:11:50.260
Pledge of Allegiance wasn't written until 1885.

01:11:50.989 --> 01:11:53.090
and it wasn't the one that we have today. The

01:11:53.090 --> 01:11:56.210
first one that we would recognize today was written

01:11:56.210 --> 01:12:00.689
in 1892. What is it? It's a patriotic recited

01:12:00.689 --> 01:12:02.350
verse. Does it have any kind of an official status?

01:12:03.180 --> 01:12:05.039
You know, some states have mandated that you

01:12:05.039 --> 01:12:06.300
have to say it at the beginning of a legislative

01:12:06.300 --> 01:12:08.199
session or say it in school or something like

01:12:08.199 --> 01:12:10.619
that. Sure, there are mandates to say it, but

01:12:10.619 --> 01:12:12.619
it doesn't have any national history in terms

01:12:12.619 --> 01:12:14.460
of being a founding document or anything like

01:12:14.460 --> 01:12:16.920
that. It's a recited verse that was written in

01:12:16.920 --> 01:12:18.699
the late 19th century and has been amended from

01:12:18.699 --> 01:12:21.739
time to time since. It was originally intended

01:12:21.739 --> 01:12:24.520
to promote citizenship among immigrant children,

01:12:24.659 --> 01:12:26.579
and that is why it was recited in classrooms.

01:12:27.550 --> 01:12:29.329
The very first version was, I pledge allegiance

01:12:29.329 --> 01:12:31.470
to my flag and the republic for which it stands,

01:12:31.510 --> 01:12:33.770
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice

01:12:33.770 --> 01:12:38.430
for all. No religion in there. That was in 1892.

01:12:38.850 --> 01:12:41.329
And then until 1923, it was, I pledge allegiance

01:12:41.329 --> 01:12:43.430
to my flag and to the republic for which it stands,

01:12:43.510 --> 01:12:45.510
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice

01:12:45.510 --> 01:12:49.020
for all. And then for one year, 23 to 24, it

01:12:49.020 --> 01:12:51.359
was, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

01:12:51.359 --> 01:12:53.079
States and to the republic for which it stands,

01:12:53.199 --> 01:12:54.739
one nation, individual, with liberty and justice

01:12:54.739 --> 01:12:58.640
for all. And from 1924 to 1954, I pledge allegiance

01:12:58.640 --> 01:13:01.239
to the flag of the United States of America and

01:13:01.239 --> 01:13:02.960
to the republic for which it stands, one nation,

01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:04.779
individual, with liberty and justice for all.

01:13:05.020 --> 01:13:09.060
But then 1954, the Cold War, godless communism,

01:13:09.460 --> 01:13:11.640
the Red Scare, all these things are going on.

01:13:11.960 --> 01:13:15.689
What happens? It gets changed to say, I pledge

01:13:15.689 --> 01:13:17.430
allegiance to the flag of the United States of

01:13:17.430 --> 01:13:19.189
America and to the republic for which it stands,

01:13:19.390 --> 01:13:23.010
one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty

01:13:23.010 --> 01:13:25.810
and justice for all. So, first off, the Pledge

01:13:25.810 --> 01:13:27.149
of Allegiance only dates back to the end of the

01:13:27.149 --> 01:13:29.529
19th century. And second, it had no mention of

01:13:29.529 --> 01:13:32.289
religion or God or anything else like that until

01:13:32.289 --> 01:13:36.250
the mid -1950s. So it's not a founding document.

01:13:36.369 --> 01:13:38.050
It's not something that informs us of what the

01:13:38.050 --> 01:13:40.869
creators intended. It's a Cold War relic, is

01:13:40.869 --> 01:13:43.649
actually what it is. An anti -communist Cold

01:13:43.649 --> 01:13:47.729
War relic. And it wasn't necessarily something,

01:13:47.869 --> 01:13:50.569
even when it was concocted, that was meant to

01:13:50.569 --> 01:13:53.729
be recited by everybody. It was meant to promote

01:13:53.729 --> 01:13:56.270
citizenship amongst people who were new arrivals.

01:13:57.090 --> 01:14:01.850
Similarly, the phrase, so help me God, was, I

01:14:01.850 --> 01:14:07.489
believe, added to the oath of office in the Chester...

01:14:08.010 --> 01:14:10.329
B. Arthur administration. Well, to be exact.

01:14:10.569 --> 01:14:12.970
Yes, please be exact. It's never been added to

01:14:12.970 --> 01:14:16.189
the oath of office officially. Okay. There is

01:14:16.189 --> 01:14:19.010
a myth that George Washington said it when he

01:14:19.010 --> 01:14:22.069
was inaugurated in 1789, a persistent myth. He

01:14:22.069 --> 01:14:26.229
did not. There is limited evidence, but it's

01:14:26.229 --> 01:14:27.970
not really proven that perhaps William Henry

01:14:27.970 --> 01:14:31.069
Harrison said it when he took the oath in 1841,

01:14:31.210 --> 01:14:34.529
but that's definitely not proven. There is attestation

01:14:34.529 --> 01:14:37.270
that Chester Arthur, when he was... was sworn

01:14:37.270 --> 01:14:42.229
in in September 1881, he first used it. So saying,

01:14:42.350 --> 01:14:44.729
so help me God, in the presidential oath only

01:14:44.729 --> 01:14:47.470
dates back to 1881, and it is entirely voluntary.

01:14:47.909 --> 01:14:50.029
The presidential oath is the only oath that's

01:14:50.029 --> 01:14:52.189
in the Constitution, and the Constitution does

01:14:52.189 --> 01:14:54.649
not include so help me God in its phrasing of

01:14:54.649 --> 01:14:56.750
the oath. Now, does that invalidate your oath

01:14:56.750 --> 01:14:58.430
if you add it in there? It's been legally determined

01:14:58.430 --> 01:15:00.229
it does not. It's simply an addition you stuck

01:15:00.229 --> 01:15:03.289
in, but you said the rest of the oath, so legally

01:15:03.289 --> 01:15:07.529
that counts as you being sworn in. So Help Me

01:15:07.529 --> 01:15:09.710
God and things like that, though, have been included

01:15:09.710 --> 01:15:14.130
in other oaths that are taken by federal officials,

01:15:14.270 --> 01:15:16.590
people performing some kind of federal function.

01:15:17.470 --> 01:15:21.430
I think it's in 1789, the Judiciary Act, where

01:15:21.430 --> 01:15:25.210
Congress created an oath for justices being sworn

01:15:25.210 --> 01:15:28.010
in, which does have a reference to God in it.

01:15:28.189 --> 01:15:29.970
There's a So Help Me God or something similar

01:15:29.970 --> 01:15:33.590
to that in that oath. It has been added in gradually

01:15:33.590 --> 01:15:36.420
into other things. For example, the oath of enlistment

01:15:36.420 --> 01:15:39.680
for American enlisted people in the U .S. military

01:15:39.680 --> 01:15:45.359
in 1962. You know, a so help me God kind of phrase

01:15:45.359 --> 01:15:49.340
was added into that. So it's over time it's been

01:15:49.340 --> 01:15:53.319
added to more and more oaths, but it does not

01:15:53.319 --> 01:15:55.619
date to the founding. It was not the intention

01:15:55.619 --> 01:15:57.260
of the founders to have so help me God in all

01:15:57.260 --> 01:16:01.359
of these oaths. A lot of it was added. frankly,

01:16:01.539 --> 01:16:03.859
added again, you know, as a Cold War response.

01:16:04.140 --> 01:16:06.420
Or a Civil War response. Well, as a Civil War

01:16:06.420 --> 01:16:08.300
response, and then later as a Cold War response,

01:16:08.420 --> 01:16:10.119
and that type of thing, you know, fighting godless

01:16:10.119 --> 01:16:13.520
communism and such. And it stuck with us. But

01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:16.439
you can't take any of these phrases and cite

01:16:16.439 --> 01:16:18.840
them as evidence that the United States was founded

01:16:18.840 --> 01:16:21.380
as a Christian country. They all came along later,

01:16:21.520 --> 01:16:25.640
at least by, in many cases, by 90 to 100 years

01:16:25.640 --> 01:16:50.680
later, and sometimes beyond that. All right,

01:16:50.680 --> 01:16:53.100
we're going to continue our journey toward concluding

01:16:53.100 --> 01:16:58.100
this series about the Christian nation. And I

01:16:58.100 --> 01:17:01.159
need to attribute much of what I'm going to say

01:17:01.159 --> 01:17:05.340
as the narrator from now until the end to an

01:17:05.340 --> 01:17:08.960
organization called Americans United. It's on

01:17:08.960 --> 01:17:13.319
the web, au .org. I've borrowed a lot of their

01:17:13.319 --> 01:17:17.000
content, and it's very good. Through the Constitution,

01:17:17.439 --> 01:17:19.979
the Founding Fathers created a purely secular

01:17:19.979 --> 01:17:22.760
government. And they did so not because they

01:17:22.760 --> 01:17:25.380
disliked religion. Many were believers themselves.

01:17:25.560 --> 01:17:28.180
Remember, we talked about deists and deistic

01:17:28.180 --> 01:17:31.560
rationalists. Some of them were Unitarians. Others

01:17:31.560 --> 01:17:34.659
were Orthodox. Yet they were well aware of the

01:17:34.659 --> 01:17:37.939
dangers of a powerful state backing or requiring

01:17:37.939 --> 01:17:41.119
an official religion. They had studied and even

01:17:41.119 --> 01:17:43.800
seen firsthand religious wars and persecutions

01:17:43.800 --> 01:17:47.239
in Europe and in the colonies, as Marshall had

01:17:47.239 --> 01:17:50.579
mentioned in earlier episodes. During the colonial

01:17:50.579 --> 01:17:53.979
period, alliances between religion and government

01:17:53.979 --> 01:17:56.859
produced oppression and tyranny on our own shores,

01:17:57.100 --> 01:18:00.079
particularly in Massachusetts, as we discussed,

01:18:00.359 --> 01:18:04.840
Maryland at times, Connecticut. Some colonies

01:18:04.840 --> 01:18:07.800
had officially established churches and taxed

01:18:07.800 --> 01:18:10.420
all citizens to support them. as in Virginia,

01:18:10.600 --> 01:18:14.520
and we covered that. Whether these people were

01:18:14.520 --> 01:18:17.880
members or not, some limited public office to

01:18:17.880 --> 01:18:20.699
Christians, and dissenters faced imprisonment,

01:18:20.699 --> 01:18:23.699
torture, and even death. This occurred in Connecticut

01:18:23.699 --> 01:18:27.220
and Massachusetts in particular. These arrangements

01:18:27.220 --> 01:18:30.880
led to bitterness and sectarian division. Many

01:18:30.880 --> 01:18:33.619
people began agitating to end compelled support

01:18:33.619 --> 01:18:36.920
for religion. Those who led this charge were

01:18:36.920 --> 01:18:39.699
not anti -religion. Indeed, many were members

01:18:39.699 --> 01:18:42.760
of the clergy and people of deep piety. They

01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:45.560
argued that true faith did not need or want support

01:18:45.560 --> 01:18:48.939
from the government. And I remember the quote

01:18:48.939 --> 01:18:53.699
from Ben Franklin regarding the idea that any

01:18:53.699 --> 01:18:55.699
church that needed support from the government

01:18:55.699 --> 01:19:01.779
was probably not worth it. Now, respect for religious

01:19:01.779 --> 01:19:05.270
pluralism gradually became the norm. For example,

01:19:05.430 --> 01:19:07.569
when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of

01:19:07.569 --> 01:19:10.989
Independence, he spoke of, quote, unalienable

01:19:10.989 --> 01:19:14.689
rights endowed by our creator, end quote. He

01:19:14.689 --> 01:19:17.489
used generic religious language that all religious

01:19:17.489 --> 01:19:20.470
groups of the day would respond to, not narrowly

01:19:20.470 --> 01:19:23.029
Christian language traditionally employed by

01:19:23.029 --> 01:19:26.270
nations with church states. Or even narrowly

01:19:26.270 --> 01:19:30.569
defined Protestant religions. Even Christian.

01:19:30.750 --> 01:19:34.100
Yeah, I mean, if you look at it, I mean... When

01:19:34.100 --> 01:19:38.220
we've explored this, different religious groups

01:19:38.220 --> 01:19:41.680
that are Christian, not all that are acknowledged

01:19:41.680 --> 01:19:45.779
as Christian, have different language. So it's

01:19:45.779 --> 01:19:47.920
like you can get as specific as you want to,

01:19:47.939 --> 01:19:52.439
and you can alienate one group by offending other

01:19:52.439 --> 01:19:55.739
groups, and offending other groups by reinforcing

01:19:55.739 --> 01:19:59.300
one particular set of languages. Right. And we

01:19:59.300 --> 01:20:01.939
did cover that in our episode there. Yes, yes.

01:20:02.720 --> 01:20:04.699
While some of the country's founders believed

01:20:04.699 --> 01:20:06.600
that the government should espouse Christianity,

01:20:07.140 --> 01:20:10.140
that viewpoint soon became a losing proposition.

01:20:10.600 --> 01:20:13.920
In Virginia, Patrick Henry argued in favor of

01:20:13.920 --> 01:20:17.359
tax support for Christian churches. But Henry

01:20:17.359 --> 01:20:19.680
and his cohorts were in the minority and lost

01:20:19.680 --> 01:20:23.039
that battle. Jefferson, James Madison, and their

01:20:23.039 --> 01:20:25.920
allies among the state's religious groups ended

01:20:25.920 --> 01:20:28.359
Virginia's established church and helped pass

01:20:28.359 --> 01:20:31.899
the Virginia Statute for Religious Liberty, a

01:20:31.899 --> 01:20:35.979
1786 law guaranteeing religious freedom to all.

01:20:36.300 --> 01:20:38.979
And as we discussed, George Mason was central

01:20:38.979 --> 01:20:42.640
to that effort as well. Jefferson and Madison's

01:20:42.640 --> 01:20:45.640
viewpoints also carried the day when the Constitution

01:20:45.640 --> 01:20:48.699
and later the Bill of Rights were written. If

01:20:48.699 --> 01:20:50.640
the founders had wanted an officially Christian

01:20:50.640 --> 01:20:53.699
nation, that concept would appear in the Constitution,

01:20:54.060 --> 01:20:57.640
and it does not. Instead, our nation's governing

01:20:57.640 --> 01:21:00.739
document ensures religious freedom for everyone.

01:21:01.399 --> 01:21:03.819
Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention

01:21:03.819 --> 01:21:06.439
argued for formal recognition of Christianity

01:21:06.439 --> 01:21:09.739
in the Constitution. Still, they did not adopt

01:21:09.739 --> 01:21:12.460
that view. and the Constitution did not give

01:21:12.460 --> 01:21:15.220
the government authority over religion. Article

01:21:15.220 --> 01:21:19.020
6, which allows persons of all religious viewpoints

01:21:19.020 --> 01:21:22.060
to hold public office, was adopted unanimously.

01:21:22.399 --> 01:21:26.180
That's important to underline, unanimously. Well,

01:21:26.340 --> 01:21:30.779
just some context with that. Back in England

01:21:30.779 --> 01:21:34.020
in the 17th century, there was this controversy

01:21:34.020 --> 01:21:38.810
over occasional conformity in which people who

01:21:38.810 --> 01:21:40.510
were not part of the Church of England had to

01:21:40.510 --> 01:21:44.090
periodically go to Anglican services four times

01:21:44.090 --> 01:21:49.029
a year in order to be eligible for office. And

01:21:49.029 --> 01:21:52.350
this was huge controversy over in Britain in

01:21:52.350 --> 01:21:56.170
the late 17th, early 18th century. This is something

01:21:56.170 --> 01:21:58.310
the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid. They saw

01:21:58.310 --> 01:22:00.810
this as a kind of witch's brew of controversy

01:22:00.810 --> 01:22:05.010
that really got no one nowhere really fast. Agreed.

01:22:15.609 --> 01:22:18.130
Pastors who did favor church -state union were

01:22:18.130 --> 01:22:21.689
outraged at this. They delivered sermons asserting

01:22:21.689 --> 01:22:24.270
that the United States would not be a successful

01:22:24.270 --> 01:22:27.210
nation because the Constitution did not give

01:22:27.210 --> 01:22:30.380
special treatment to Christianity. but many others

01:22:30.380 --> 01:22:32.840
welcomed the new dawn of freedom and praised

01:22:32.840 --> 01:22:35.699
the Constitution and the First Amendment as true

01:22:35.699 --> 01:22:39.100
protectors of liberty. Early national leaders

01:22:39.100 --> 01:22:41.199
understood that the separation of church and

01:22:41.199 --> 01:22:43.579
state would be good for all faiths, including

01:22:43.579 --> 01:22:46.859
Christianity. Jefferson rejoiced that Virginia

01:22:46.859 --> 01:22:49.760
had passed his religious freedom law, noting

01:22:49.760 --> 01:22:52.039
that it would ensure religious freedom for, quote,

01:22:52.140 --> 01:22:55.819
the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian, the Mohammedan,

01:22:55.859 --> 01:22:59.560
the Hindu, the infidel of every denomination,

01:22:59.760 --> 01:23:03.159
end quote. And I would just add here that there

01:23:03.159 --> 01:23:08.039
was a full flowering of religious movements and

01:23:08.039 --> 01:23:13.260
thought and theology throughout the great awakenings

01:23:13.260 --> 01:23:16.550
in this country, which were... essentially unleashed

01:23:16.550 --> 01:23:19.550
by this freedom. Yeah, this was a catalyst. To

01:23:19.550 --> 01:23:21.789
invent. I mean, we're talking about Mormonism,

01:23:21.970 --> 01:23:23.850
Seventh -day Adventists. Well, not necessarily

01:23:23.850 --> 01:23:26.829
invent, but to interpret. To interpret. To interpret

01:23:26.829 --> 01:23:30.109
the Bible in their own way and basically come

01:23:30.109 --> 01:23:33.229
to conclusions on various theological controversies.

01:23:33.470 --> 01:23:36.850
Right. Other early U .S. leaders echoed that

01:23:36.850 --> 01:23:39.739
view. President George Washington, in a famous

01:23:39.739 --> 01:23:43.300
1790 letter to a Jewish congregation in Newport,

01:23:43.380 --> 01:23:46.239
Rhode Island, celebrated that Jews had complete

01:23:46.239 --> 01:23:49.399
freedom of worship in America. Noted Washington,

01:23:49.579 --> 01:23:57.939
quote, And we did cover that in an earlier episode.

01:23:59.290 --> 01:24:01.930
It's worth reiterating. It's worth reiterating,

01:24:01.930 --> 01:24:04.489
yes. I mean, that synagogue still exists in Newport,

01:24:04.529 --> 01:24:07.909
and it is still considered like a major shrine

01:24:07.909 --> 01:24:12.350
to American history. I've been to it. I don't

01:24:12.350 --> 01:24:14.189
know, Mike, when you've been up there, did you

01:24:14.189 --> 01:24:16.170
ever go to the Churro Synagogue at all or buy

01:24:16.170 --> 01:24:18.750
it? No, I've not been. Okay, but it's worth going

01:24:18.750 --> 01:24:22.079
to. Washington's administration even negotiated

01:24:22.079 --> 01:24:24.939
a treaty with the Muslim rulers of North Africa

01:24:24.939 --> 01:24:28.060
that stated explicitly that the United States

01:24:28.060 --> 01:24:31.420
was not a Christian nation. That pact, known

01:24:31.420 --> 01:24:34.800
as the Treaty of Tripoli, was approved unanimously

01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:38.380
by the Senate in 1797 under the administration

01:24:38.380 --> 01:24:42.159
of John Adams. Article 11 of the treaty states,

01:24:42.340 --> 01:24:44.779
quote, The government of the United States is

01:24:44.779 --> 01:24:47.880
not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

01:24:48.430 --> 01:24:50.670
End quote. And we also covered that. But it's

01:24:50.670 --> 01:24:53.430
worth reiterating. Yeah, because, you know, look,

01:24:53.550 --> 01:24:55.409
here's the guys that founded the country. If

01:24:55.409 --> 01:24:59.130
somebody disagreed with this, now was the time

01:24:59.130 --> 01:25:02.510
to say something back in 1797. Not, you know,

01:25:02.529 --> 01:25:05.489
it's not like people were compelled to take a

01:25:05.489 --> 01:25:07.310
vow of silence on this point. This is something

01:25:07.310 --> 01:25:10.470
that people actually agreed to. And this is how

01:25:10.470 --> 01:25:13.189
they understood the nation's, the nature of the

01:25:13.189 --> 01:25:17.090
nation. Throughout our history, Christian nationalists

01:25:17.090 --> 01:25:19.930
have fought against church -state separation.

01:25:20.649 --> 01:25:23.689
And we need to admit that in some instances,

01:25:23.750 --> 01:25:25.810
the U .S. government has not always lived up

01:25:25.810 --> 01:25:28.670
to its constitutional principles. In the late

01:25:28.670 --> 01:25:32.369
19th century especially, officials often promoted

01:25:32.369 --> 01:25:35.989
a de facto form of Protestantism. Even the U

01:25:35.989 --> 01:25:39.090
.S. Supreme Court occasionally fell victim to

01:25:39.090 --> 01:25:42.699
this mentality. Throughout our history, a determined

01:25:42.699 --> 01:25:45.399
faction of Christian nationalists have fought

01:25:45.399 --> 01:25:48.640
against America's wise and time -tested policy

01:25:48.640 --> 01:25:56.500
of church -state separation. Today, America's

01:25:56.500 --> 01:25:59.039
religious demographics are changing, and religious

01:25:59.039 --> 01:26:01.899
diversity has greatly expanded since our nation's

01:26:01.899 --> 01:26:05.229
founding. The number of Jews has increased, more

01:26:05.229 --> 01:26:07.590
Muslims are living in America than ever before,

01:26:07.829 --> 01:26:10.930
and now America is welcoming high numbers of

01:26:10.930 --> 01:26:14.010
Hindus and Buddhists. In addition, the fastest

01:26:14.010 --> 01:26:16.930
-growing segment of Americans say they have no

01:26:16.930 --> 01:26:20.590
religious faith or identity themselves and classify

01:26:20.590 --> 01:26:23.949
themselves as atheists, agnostics, or humanists.

01:26:24.810 --> 01:26:28.029
According to some scholars, over 2 ,000 distinct

01:26:28.029 --> 01:26:30.770
religious groups and denominations now exist

01:26:30.770 --> 01:26:34.329
in the United States. So I would say, in short,

01:26:34.489 --> 01:26:37.409
the United States was not founded to be an officially

01:26:37.409 --> 01:26:41.069
Christian nation or to espouse any official religion.

01:26:41.449 --> 01:26:44.449
Our government is neutral on religious matters,

01:26:44.689 --> 01:26:48.850
leaving such decisions to individuals. This democratic

01:26:48.850 --> 01:26:51.630
and pluralistic system has allowed a broad array

01:26:51.630 --> 01:26:54.729
of religious groups to grow and flourish and

01:26:54.729 --> 01:26:57.569
guarantees every individual American the right

01:26:57.569 --> 01:27:00.850
to determine his or her own spiritual path or

01:27:00.850 --> 01:27:04.729
to reject religion entirely. As a result of this

01:27:04.729 --> 01:27:07.770
policy, Americans enjoy more religious freedom

01:27:07.770 --> 01:27:11.119
than any people in world history. We should be

01:27:11.119 --> 01:27:13.460
proud of this accomplishment and work to preserve

01:27:13.460 --> 01:27:16.800
the constitutional principle that made it possible,

01:27:17.039 --> 01:27:21.520
separation of church and state. The United States

01:27:21.520 --> 01:27:24.699
is not a Christian nation and was never intended

01:27:24.699 --> 01:27:31.380
to be. That's it for this episode of the United

01:27:31.380 --> 01:27:34.760
States of Amnesia. Thank you for listening. We

01:27:34.760 --> 01:27:37.020
hope you learned something and we hope you discovered

01:27:37.020 --> 01:27:39.319
new ways of looking at things you had already

01:27:39.319 --> 01:27:42.479
heard or thought about or perhaps hadn't heard

01:27:42.479 --> 01:27:45.399
about. If you enjoyed it, that's great. If we

01:27:45.399 --> 01:27:48.899
made you mad, that's okay too. Either way, email

01:27:48.899 --> 01:27:53.319
us at usa .amnesia at gmail .com and let us know

01:27:53.319 --> 01:27:55.819
what you think. Also, let us know about anything

01:27:55.819 --> 01:27:58.220
you think we missed or got wrong. We'd like to

01:27:58.220 --> 01:28:01.420
know about that too. And of course, Please like

01:28:01.420 --> 01:28:03.560
and subscribe and let your friends and neighbors

01:28:03.560 --> 01:28:07.079
know about us. We also have a website. It's www

01:28:07.079 --> 01:28:13.739
.usofamnesia .com. For Marshall, Mike, and myself,

01:28:14.140 --> 01:28:16.060
Blake Hinckley. Till next time.