> We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.
What a bizarre claim. Even the most cursory glance at historical documents would reveal this belief before the 1930s.
One such example (among innumerable others) is from Princeton Seminary professor Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, published in 1895.
> Proof that this is a Christian and Protestant Nation
> The proposition that the United States of America are a Christian
and Protestant nation, is not so much the assertion of a principle as the statement of a fact. That fact is not simply that the great
majority of the people are Christians and Protestants, but that the organic life, the institutions, laws, and official action of the government, whether that action be legislative, judicial, or executive, is, and of right should be, and in fact must be, in accordance with the principles of Protestant Christianity...
There is a post ww2, really post 1970s mythos about the founders being deists of the sort we have in philosophy departments today. Because some of the founders were... low church Christians who read the bible as they saw fit, this thesis can be maintained by citations back to the original claimant. Argument from authority at its best.
Of course, this view of the founders unravels pretty quickly when reading their personal writings or the federalist papers.
John Jay comes to mind, perhaps a second tier father but none the less a fairly 'orthodox' christian at least by american protestant standards.
My suspicion is that this book is motivated by the desire to undermine the Christian foundations of american to make further secularization 'natural' and 'in keeping with our foundational documents,' rather than the clear departure that it plainly is.
Professors are people too, with their biases and ideologies.
I myself am happy to bean increasingly secular nation, but I dont share the authors desire to erase the past
I'd say, before about 1930 it was believed to be strictly Protestant nation. Catholicism was seen as un-American and dangerous, while not outright banned. Carrols - including the famous Charles Carrol of Carrolton, at one point the richest man in the U.S. - were the only Catholics among founding fathers and first senators, and in general there were few of them in the very early U.S. (XVIII century) and they were underrepresented in upper classes of society.
A lot of hatred and discrimination to Irishmen ("Irish need not apply" times) was due to their Catholic faith.
Joe Biden is only 2nd U.S. Catholic President ever.
I think most progressives are glad he's a progressive and most Christians are glad he's on the Judeo-Christian spectrum. So he gets a pass from both sides.
> While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Note that Madison, more than 200 years ago, viewed the morality as something separate from religion, exactly the opposite to what the "Corporate America Invented Christian America" promoters would expect us to believe now. And Madison writing so in not an accident -- it's a direct consequence of the ideas of Enlightenment which he accepted:
"Madison's ideas on philosophy and morality were strongly shaped by Witherspoon, who converted him to the philosophy, values, and modes of thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Biographer Terence Ball wrote that at Princeton, Madison
was immersed in the liberalism of the Enlightenment, and converted to eighteenth-century political radicalism. From then on James Madison's theories would advance the rights of happiness of man, and his most active efforts would serve devotedly the cause of civil and political liberty."
As always, the argument is subtler than the blurb on the back side.
A reviewer summarized it as follows:
> In One Nation Under God, Kruse argues that the idea of the United States as a Christian nation does not find its origins with the founding of the United States or the writing of the Constitution. Rather, the notion of America as specifically consecrated by God to be a beacon for liberty was the work of corporate and religious figures opposed to New Deal statism and interference with free enterprise.
Yes. The politically popular meme "City on a Hill" connotes the role of America as a missionary leading the world to the Protestant God. This initiative got mindshare more in the 20th century than the 18th.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/046...