Why do Christians say this nation was founded on Christianity by the founding fathers?

Question

Why can't everyone call the U.S. a religiously free nation with a majority of Christians? Why do Christians call it a Christian nation founded on Christianity. Thomas Jefferson disliked the bible enough to strip it and rewrite it, leaving it behind in secret so that it could be published after his death. After interviewing the people closest to George Washington on religion after his death, they claimed he was a proud deist in hiding. We see letters criss crossing founding fathers left and right explaining to each other their disregard for Christianity. From Pain, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, all the way to Adams we have letters mocking Christianity. What grounds do Christians have to make their claim? Most Christians would call me everything other than a Christian if I rewrote the bible and left it behind for people to find after my death. There are many records showing the top Christian founders rarely showing up at church. Please write in detail why the founders were so Christian.

Answer 1

The answer is: They werent!

This nation is NOT based on Judeo-Christian values. If anything it bases its ideals on Greco-roman philosophy and principles.

This is the reality but people like to fool themselves that there is something "righteous" and "godly(in the sense of being on God's side)"about America when in reality it is nothing like that!

The founding forefathers were mostly deist and reject the idea of divine revelation.

Answer 2

The United States is a Nation where there is Freedom to worship as one pleases. America is a Christian Nation and no matter how you try to prove differently, it remains to be Christian. You claim that these Presidents did things like hiding and re-writing. Evidently they were false if they had to do things the way you insinuate. True example on how Christianity has been treated. It is a terrible sin to re-write the Holy Bible to ones own likings. Just goes to show that even way back then, some Politicians were dis-honest.
I have been to George Washington's Home and in a glass case there was a book called the Holy Bible. So until I can read where you say you have found facts, I stand firm at believing , that America was built on a Christian foundation.

Answer 3

Understand that most Christians confuse the colonization of the Americas with the founding of the nation.

The original settlers were overwhelmingly Christian, and were moving specifically for that reason. In this sense, many of the colonies were founded as Christian colonies. This started to see a rapid downfall, however, after the Salem Witch Trials, when the governor of Massachusetts forbade spectral evidence when the girls pointed their murderous fingers at his wife.

When the founding fathers came together, most were Christian in one form or another, but many of the authors of the documents were in fact Deists. So why did the Christians sign off on Deistic texts?

Had any one of the Christian groups won, the other groups would have been slighted. The Deists really ultimately had no stake in that war, so were a logical neutral position, and one that ensured that no matter what faith was believed, it could be practiced in good faith so long as the civility of the society was maintained. Thus, the Christians among the founding fathers knowingly and intentionally signed off on Deistic documents, to ensure their own continued freedom to worship as they saw fit.

The physical colonization was Christian in origin, however, the legalistic founding of the USA (the Declaration of Indepedance and the Constitution of the USA) was Deistic in nature, and did not describe any one true correct religion. In fact, the Declaration references only once the Creator (a term Deists use since it's the only definition they ascribe to the divine), and the Constitution never mentions a creator at all.

Further, Washington signed off on the Treaty of Tripoli which outright stated that the USA was in no way founded as a Christian nation -- which is true. The nation was founded on Deistic principles, even though the colonies were founded on christian principles.

Once you separate the two types of involved 'foundings', the issue becomes very clear.

Answer 4

People say this because they do not know their history.

A seperation of church and state was made clear.

Yes, most of the founding fathers were Christian (there were a couple based on their writings that appeared agnostic), but who wasn't Christian back then in that part of the world?

The United States has never had an official religion which was a big step at the time.

There IS a difference between a country founded as a Christian nation and a country founded by people who happen to be Christians. Some people cannot tell the difference.

Answer 5

Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men

with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
All the above from the Declaration of Independence

1787 Northwest Ordinance
Article 3;
Religion, Morality, and Knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The text for teaching in the NW Ordinance was the Bible (a book virtually every household had)

George Washington Farewell Address
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports

Ben Franklin
5 fundamentals of All sound religion
I believe in 1 God, the creator of the universe. That he governs by his providence. that he ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render him is to do good to his children. That the soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.

This is the religious tenants the founders wanted for Americans.

Sam Adams
These tenants "the religion of America and are the religion of all mankind"

John Adams
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.


Thomas Jefferson
These basic beliefs are the principles "in which God has united us all"

10 commandments on the supreme court building of the US (wonder why the atheists never go after that one)

Answer 6

Why did Renes DesCartes have to publish his ideas on neurology and the control of the human body by including the idea that the mind is separate and superordiante?
B/c that was the framework that people understood.
Who knows if the eraly settlers cared what the Pope siad... but certainly, if they tried to produce their higher level thoughts to the lay people, they may never have been followed into freedom in the first place!

Answer 7

The main reason that this idea exists is because one of the reasons this country fought for its independence was for freedom from the oppressive Church of England. Its much easier to believe that our ancestors left the Church so that they could worship in a much more "Christian" way.

This may have been true of the majority of the people, but the founding fathers themselves had a deist attitude -- that God was in fact real, but he could not be reached by prayer, nor could his perfect will be altered through prayer. In the eyes of a deist, God is more of an observant creator, not one that is active in our everyday lives.

Deism died out, mostly because a large number of deists became atheists. We don't live in a Christian nation, nor in a Christian world. The laws and leaders will not support our beliefs. Our job is to bring the love of Christ to a secular society.

Answer 8

in no way "the belief additionally of a union of all to style one united states of america under one government in acts of devotion to the God of all is an impressive concept. yet reason and the concepts of the Xn faith require that all of the persons composing a rustic even of an identical precise creed & wanted to unite in a customary act of religion on an identical time, the union might desire to be effected thro’ the intervention of their religious no longer of their political representatives. In a rustic composed of distinctive sects, some alienated extensively from others, and the place no settlement ought to take place thro’ the former, the interposition of the latter is double incorrect" -- James Madison; from 'indifferent Memoranda' The Christian stunning has yet another source for his or her ideology: "The national government will regard it as its first and best accountability to restore interior the country the spirit of cohesion and co-operation. that's going to look after and look after those trouble-free concepts on which our united states of america has been equipped. It regards Christianity because of the fact the start of our national morality, and the kinfolk because of the fact the inspiration of national existence." -- Adolf Hitler; from national proclamation (February a million, 1933)

Answer 9

Because no matter what the people who wrote or did the political parts claimed to believe, the ideals (except slavery, which was only begrudgingly allowed) have their origins in Judeo-Christian philosophy. Read some real Christian thought- not what public schools tell you Christians think.

Answer 10

I would like to quote Tim LaHaye:

"This Christian consensus is easily verified by the fact that prior to 1789 (the year that eleven of the thirteen states ratified the Constitution), many of the states still had constitutional requirements that a man must be a Christian in order to hold public office."

Answer 11

“I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.” Alexander Hamilton

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” Patrick Henry

“ Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” John Jay


"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson

“It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”
James Madison

In vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments around our institutions.
James McHenry


"Let the children who are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education”
Benjamin Rush

“In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” Noah Webster

" It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.” (and also)

“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.”
George Washington

“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity"
John Adams

“Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"? John Quincy Adams