by Hercules Mulligan

Created on: September 15, 2009   Last Updated: September 16, 2009

Is America a Christian nation? Was it founded as a Christian nation? Did we cease to be a Christian nation at some point? These are questions that many have tried to answer, but today there does not seem to be much of a consensus in the general response.

However, there was such a concensus among the Founding Fathers of America. They believed that we were founded as a Christian nation. The following statement is from Founder John Jay, co-author of The Federalist Papers, a chief architect of New York's first state constitution, and the First Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (appointed by President George Washington):

"Providence [God] has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest, of our CHRISTIAN NATION to select and prefer Christians for their rulers" (Letter to John Murray, Jr., October 12, 1816; emphasis added). Now why would John Jay make a statement like that? He explained his position in the same letter: "It certainly is very desirable that a pacific disposition should prevail among all nations. The most effectual way of producing it, is by extending the prevalence and influence of the gospel. REAL Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war" (emphasis original).

Jay's words imply a very politically incorrect truth: that only real Christians (those who live out the biblical gospel) are qualified to hold public office in America, because only those people can be trusted to refrain from trampling upon the rights of others and from unnecessary war.

But why should we care what John Jay said? Very few Americans even recognize his name. To that, I answer that Jay was one of the many important Founders whom America does not recognize. It took more than Jefferson's pen and Franklin's lightning rod to create this land of liberty.

But what did the other Founders have to say? What about other, more prominent Founding Fathers? What did they have to say about this issue?

Christianity is not specifically named in the Constitution or in the Declaration (and does not need to be; previous founding documents like the Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, two major cornerstones of our Constitution and Declaration, name it as the religion of the US), an important creator and ratifier of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton (the chief author of The Federalist Papers and the First Treasury Secretary), believed that Christianity

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