This is obviously a very emotive subject for many, especially for the every growing conservative Christian factions who are becoming more prominent in America today. One of the problems with understanding history is that our ticket to the past is mainly found in peoples writings. These thoughts and ideas are used by the next generation of writers to inspire their works and so it goes from generation to generation until you realise that any book you read today is just a series of interpretations from one author to the next. Many books have hidden agendas and it is very easy to represent facts in such away that they support your cause. Facts and truth are often not the same thing. Countries, like people, often re-invent their own paths to help support the image they want to project today. So in a rambling way I am saying that if it is not in the modern history books that we need to look for evidence to the true nature of the founding of America, then it is to the original writings of the founding fathers themselves.
I would say at this juncture that I am at no point saying that America was largely shaped by men with Christian beliefs, from the Mayflower to the drafting of the Declaration Of Independence and through out much of America's history the main players have largely been of white, protestant European, if not British stock. But it is not the individual beliefs of the politicians that is under scrutiny here. It is certainly true that the Great Migrations of the 1630 which founded the Virginia Colonies were as a direct result of the puritans belief that Charles I of England was trying reunite the country with Roman Catholicism, and a new protestant kingdom was sought away from the religious turmoil of Europe, currently embroiled in the religious fervour of the Thirty Years War and an England about to embark on its own Civil Wars. But these colonies are not yet America, merely hidden outpost too far from the control of Europe.
The question of Americas founding being religious or secular is found in the writings and official documents of the men who drafted the Declaration, the document that effectively created The United States as a country in its own right, in political terms. The clearest indication of the nature of the newly founded America comes from two of its biggest players. The following is from a treaty drafted in 1796 under George Washington and signed by John Adams advocating a peace accord with the Muslim Kingdom of Tripoli.
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen (Muslims); and as the said states never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
That as got to be as big a declaration of the secular nature of the nation as you could wish to have to support the non-religious basis of the creation of the United States of America. Although this statement seems to be very out of line with the held beliefs in Washington today, it seems to have caused no uproar at the time. It does open up the grounds of an interesting paradox, and it is this. The United States, founded on secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, whilst England with its established church headed by a constitutional monarchy, is amongst the least. A second is that because America is legally secular, religion has become a free-enterprise with rival churches aggressively competing for congregations, and thus their tithes and donations. In England, religion under the control of a long established church, has become something of a pleasant social pastime.
There are also some quite dramatic quotes that even show that some of the men who forged America were not only secular but even Atheists. In a letter to his nephew in 1787,Thomas Jefferson said
If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in this exercise, and the love of others which it will procure
He also remarked Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man Both these statements are clearly deist if not atheist, though other quotes from him follow a more agnostic nature.
One common argument regarding the perceived religious nature of the founding of America is the pledge of allegiance. Many use the argument that certain phrases in the pledge point to a religious basis for the country's constitutional creation. Again we need to look at the evolution of the pledge to see where the arguments falls flat. The pledge of allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 and read
I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
There is no mention of God or indeed the United States itself. The change from my flag to something more specific as added in 1923 to ensure that immigrants coming to the country would be sure which flag they are searing by. The under God addition is even later. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternity, believed that the pledge should have a reference to a deity and so between 1951 and 1954 lobbied for the inclusion of the words under God
I believe that founding fathers were secularists who believed that a persons religious beliefs and their constitutional rights were separate issues and one should never be reliant on the other. It can even be noted that amongst their ranks there were agnostics and deists if not atheists, but that in no way had any bearing on the creation of a modern constitution for a new republic. I wonder what they might make of the rampant religious fanaticism in America today.