What do people mean when they say that the United States is a Christian nation? There is, of course, a difference between a Christian nation and a nation of Christians. Often times they are thinking back to when our nation was founded and believe that it was established and based upon Christian ideals by our founders and that the founders wanted there to be a requirement that certain Christian teachings be universally adopted.

History tells us that Jefferson and Madison, two of the main individuals who wrote large parts of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, were strong supporters of the separation of church and state. They felt that religion and the divisiveness of religion lay as the root cause of bloodshed and tyranny. They were deeply involved in the Virginia Constitution which was the first state requirement for the separation of church and state.

Neither the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence is partial to Christianity. None of the 27 grievances against Britain concern religion. One of the few things that the colonies shared historically was being deeply anti-Catholic, far from being a Christian nation.

We find religious statements in only two places in the Constitution. The first is in Amendment #1 where it bars “an established of religion or the free exercise thereof...” The second is in Article VI where it says, “but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Probably the most clear indication of the founders of our nation was the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 which was begun by President Washington and completed and signed by President John Adams (and unanimously adopted by the Senate) which included the statement, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

The idea of us being founded as a Christian nation usually is brought forward by those who want to require prayer in public schools or in the public arena. It is also used as a talking point to try and require particular religious beliefs such as being pro-life or to limiting adoption to only heterosexual couples or to allow commercial establishments to require their customers to follow certain religious beliefs. These issues seem to do nothing but divide the nation into separate religious camps.

What if instead of using religion to divide us, we were to use religion to bring us together? What if instead of disagreements over women’s rights, birth control, abortion and LGBT issues we were to focus instead on what we share? Jesus had nothing to say about birth control or abortion or homosexuality. He did have quite a lot to say about the poor and the vulnerable, and maybe that would be a good place to start.

People across the political spectrum tend to believe that we are called to feed the hungry, heal the sick, protect the weak and welcome the stranger. Wouldn’t agreement on those ideals allow us to work together to see that these issues which unite us can also be the issues which allow us to improve the quality of life for all?

Think of leaders putting their efforts into coming up with ideas that would unite us rather than divide us. Putting their efforts into finding the best way to accomplish some of the uniformly supported goals of feeding the hungry, etc. Not only would life be better for the neediest, the healing that would accrue to all of us were we working on accomplishing common goals, would lead to ours being “a more perfect Union” as called for in our Constitution.

Don Thompson

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Alamosa