Did America Have a "Christian" Foundation?

[Justin Kissel]

I say that it sort of did, and sort of didn't. Without going into a long essay, I'd say that it clearly had a "Christian" tone to it, but was not really something I'd feel comfortable calling a "Christian society".

Some of the states, for example, mentioned scripture verses right in the laws they passed (and I think even the constitutions they wrote). "God" is talked about often, and while many founding fathers did not want an establishment of an official state religion, certainly some religions were more favored among the general populace, and some were very much less favored (to the point of persecution).

On the other hand, most of the Fathers seem to me to have been Deists and/or rationalists. I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who cut out the miracles from the Bible, and there are other such examples of activity that we would hardly identify as Christian. They clearly saw the Bible as a foundational text, but so do many cults, but that doesn't mean that the cult's experiment works. The founding fathers did, after all, call our country (or government) an experiment.

[Daniel]

I voted "I don't know", because I honestly don't know. If I'm not totally mistaken, most, if no all, were men of the "Enlightenment", several were Masons, and none were Orthodox. Then to top if off they rebeled against their king, and I still don't quite understand why. The essay by Fr. Micheal Azkoul entitled Sacred Monarchy and the Modern Secular State explains even more why I don't know if the United States was every really Christian

http://www.stvladimirs.ca/library/sacre ... state.html

-Daniel

ps-Now that I have thought about it, I would lean more towards the side that this country was never Christian. This country was not founded on Christian (read: Orthodox) ideals, but in all honestly it is totally based on secular ideals. The Christian and the Secular can not be mixed, they are antithetical to one another.

[Justin Kissel]

Thanks for the link Looks interesting!

[rebecca]

several were Masons

I heard that most of them were Masons.

[Gregory2]

What's most interesting (to me) is how the role of religion/faith in American society has changed so much in 200 years. The prevailing thought among our Supreme Court and the District Courts is that there should be no visible role of faith in public life. I.E., if you have faith in God, then hide it and don't let people know about it.

It's clear to me that this is not was the founders of America intended -- they assumed that those active in political life would have religious views or faith and would let this show in their actions...... simply because they would be American citizens with good character that people would elect. (Why would they want people to be schizophrenic?) They simply didn't mean that no one in politics was allowed to have or express any religious faith.

Of course, they also didn't intend on career politicians -- they thought that man should actually have to work for a living! The idea of a man doing nothing except career politics is stupid (a la Bill Clinton) - such a man has no substance to him at heart, nor does he have a home to go to when his term is over! He's a leech, living off the stupid people who elected him.

What's interesting is that the prevailing thought in 2003 is that God is bad, people are good, whereas for hundreds of years people generally thought God was good, people were bad. How pathetic times have become