In Theory

I believe our nation’s founders were incredibly wise in advocating for a separation of church and state. Perhaps it was their own faith convictions that compelled them to act with such foresight.

My own denomination, the United Church of Christ, links its heritage to the Pilgrims who came seeking religious freedom in a land where no king or emperor would mandate religion or its practice, or reign as its head. Instead of setting up the same system, different only by the fact that in place of being the disempowered they would now be the ones in power, they opted for a democracy that would not perpetuate the same persecution they had felt.

Indeed, they used the language of God: It was the lens through which they viewed the divine — this was, of course, the predominant Judeo-Christian-Islamic God they believed in and were exposed to as they emigrated from Western Europe.

Yet, they intentionally did not design a nation of Christians. This is extremely important because while there was little religious diversity then, there is an abundance of diversity today.

My very freedom as a Christian is secured because this is not a Christian nation. What a joy to celebrate our freedom, our rights, our diversity and our nation today!

The Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

There are many reasons I love America, one of which is our freedom, which includes the freedom to worship God as we see fit. That freedom of conscience includes the right to choose not to worship or even acknowledge God. The freedoms we are guaranteed, however, do not include the freedom to revise history to undermine the purpose of our Founding Fathers, nor our godly heritage.

I do not believe that it can be seriously argued that the majority of our Founding Fathers did not intend this to be a Christian nation. All that is necessary is to look at our history and let the facts speak for themselves:

 1620: The first pilgrims arrived. The first official document in our history is the Mayflower Compact, which begins “for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith...”

 1776: 11 of the 13 colonies required that one had to be a Christian to be eligible to run for public office.

 1777: The Continental Congress voted to spend $300,000 of public funds to purchase Bibles for distribution in the nation.

 The Liberty Bell is inscribed with Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land.”

 Ninety-four percent of the writings of the Founding Fathers contained quotations from the Bible.

 The state constitutions of all 50 states mention God.

Neither time nor space will allow me to continue citing the volumes of facts that show that America was indeed founded as a Christian nation.

Let me conclude with a quote by Ronald Reagan. “If we ever forget that we are ‘One Nation Under God,’ then we will be a nation gone under.”

That quote sums up how I feel about the second part of the question, “Does it matter?”

Pastor Dwight Tomlinson

Liberty Baptist Church

Newport Beach

Washington stated that the U.S. “is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or Mohammedan nation,” and Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, that was formulated under Washington and approved under Adams, begins, “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” while the Declaration of Independence made no mention of Christianity, so how could anyone believe that the founders meant the U.S. to be a Christian nation?

The founders were mostly Deists, which only means that they recognized that something powerful, which could be referred to as God, had formed the universe, although they probably doubted that the God as defined by the Christian bible had any connection to that force.

Franklin, Adams and Jefferson selected “E Pluribus Unum” as the country’s motto. It wasn’t until after World War II that the motto was changed to “In God We Trust” in a fear-the-Russians frenzy, as an attempt to emphasize the difference and show contempt for Russia’s atheistic policies. The original motto better expressed the history of our country, “one out of many.”

The founders clearly intended that the government should not be subject to any religious dogma. The faith-based programs started by Bush and continued by Obama would not have been approved by the founders, who clearly wanted a purely secular government free of any religious connections.

Jerry Parks