One Nation, Under God

Has the U.S. ever been a “Christian nation”? The debate about the religious status of our founders and their intentions for this nation has been ongoing throughout the entire history of the U.S. One side argues that our society is broken because we’ve strayed from our Christian roots as a nation, while the other side argues that we never had any homogenous religious roots and that to impose such religion onto our people is to do a great injustice to each other and to our history of religious tolerance. Nevertheless, growing up I have witnessed the ongoing debate over the inclusion of religion in politics, schools, and other public arenas. I learned the Lord’s Prayer in church and the Pledge of Allegiance in school. In high school, my friends claimed that it was better to elect George W. Bush than Al Gore because Bush was a “true Christian” and would guide our nation according to Christian principles.
This argument is recycled again for the 2008 presidential election. Many U.S. voters invest great concern in the religious principles of the candidates. Is McCain a true conservative Christian? Is Obama secretly a Muslim? Does his religious affiliation with Rev. Jeremiah Wright cause him to hate all white people in the U.S.? Will Sarah Palin try to institute the teaching of Creationism in our public schools? Abstinence-only sex education? How will our national security and our children’s futures be affected by the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of the next President and VP?
In his book Religion in American Politics (Princeton University Press, 2008), Frank Lambert describes the myriad intersections of religion and politics in the U.S. throughout the history of the nation. He describes the discussion of religion that took place in the Constitutional Convention, sparse as it was, which focused on whether or not to institute a religious test for elected public officials. The delegates agreed that no elected official could be considered unqualified to serve in public office due to his/her religious beliefs (Lambert, 29). According to Lambert, the delegates wanted to protect the religious liberties of U.S. citizens and prevent any one religious group from becoming a tyrannical force in U.S. society, so they banned the creation of a federal religious test for public officials.
In electoral politics today, it seems that we have found ways to institute our own informal religious tests for candidates. Leaders in the Religious Right loudly proclaim their beliefs that Democratic candidates cannot be “true” Christians if they support a woman’s abortion rights, if they oppose the death penalty, if they want to promote social programs for poor classes and/or minorities, if they want to establish diplomatic relations with non-Christian leaders in other countries. The Religious Left tries to counter these attacks by claiming that their brand of Christianity is much, much closer to the teachings of Jesus, using the language of social justice, equality, and care for “the least of these”. Jim Wallis and Rick Warren, outspoken Christian leaders with widespread support, have both hosted forums during the campaign in which they’ve interviewed candidates about how their religious beliefs might affect their presidential decisions. Do we even have the right to ask candidates these religious questions? Are we “violat[ing] the constitutional principle of separation of church and state?” (Lambert, 36). Or are we exercising our right to free speech? Although I recognize that most voters take their religious principles into account when making electoral decisions, I think that we cannot use a candidate’s religious affiliation as a measure of her/his worthiness. That is both a violation of the Constitution and an inaccurate method of judgment—my understanding of Christianity is much different than that of some prominent politicians, for example. Rather, we should acknowledge the ways in which our religious or ethical convictions shape our opinions about specific political issues, and choose a candidate based on her/his support of those same issues regardless of his/her religious affiliations. As Thomas Jefferson once argued, religious affiliation is not a prerequisite for the formation of a moral code of conduct (Lambert, 25).