by Roger Prather

Created on: December 05, 2008

Any claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation is baseless and false. Proponents of this view rely on anecdote and inference to support their claim, but to no effect. Anecdote and inference have no bearing on the legal and social origins of the U.S. This fact is clearly demonstrated by examining the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence, more than any other document of American history, is cited as evidence for the Christian roots of the United States. The evidence of the Declaration is limited to four vague references to God in the text. The first reference to deity comes in the first paragraph where Thomas Jefferson asserts the right of the people to exercise sovereignty over themselves - an entitlement Jefferson says is granted by "the Laws of Nature" and "Nature's God." The second mention of deity comes shortly thereafter in the Declaration's most well known line, when it is said that "all men are created equal" and "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." So we have Nature's God, later identified as the Creator, granting rights to men. Hardly an endorsement of Christianity. Instead, what Jefferson has done in these passages is rely, in clear fashion, upon the philosophical arguments of John Locke and his writings on government. Specifically, Locke argued that humans exist in a state of nature (absolute personal sovereignty), comparable to the first humans, and governments are created and, as Jefferson would have it, dissolved according to the free will of men exercising a divine right to self government.

The final two references to God in the Declaration come at the close. Jefferson writes that the assembled American leaders appeal to the "Supreme Judge" and rely upon "Divine Providence." Again we see two vague references to deity which in no way exemplify a clear endorsement of Christianity or any other religion. Instead, what Jefferson has done is complete his argument. He introduced the American cause with an appeal to Locke's theories, which draw on the divinely granted right to self government and closes by drawing attention back to the original support for American independence. Of course, these arguments do clearly imply the existence of a deity, but they do not identify what or whose diety it might be. In addition to this fact, the Declaration is not in any way a religious document. It's clearly secular with a secular purpose. It presents the logical

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