http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&c=3&s=allen

Our Godless Constitution
by Brooke Allen

It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George
Orwell,
but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The
lesson the
President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most
useful
to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will
believe
it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about
America
having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not
on
Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the
picture as
a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.Our
Constitution
makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have
been
anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant
responses
when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new
nation was
not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we
forgot."
But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never
forgot
anything important.ADVERTISEMENTIn the eighty-five essays that make up
The
Federalist, God is mentioned only twice (both times by Madison, who uses
the
word, as Gore Vidal has remarked, in the "only Heaven knows" sense). In
the
Declaration of Independence, He gets two brief nods: a reference to "the
Laws of
Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed
by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights." More blatant official
references to a
deity date from long after the founding period: "In God We Trust" did
not appear
on our coinage until the Civil War, and "under God" was introduced into
the
Pledge of Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954 [see Elisabeth
Sifton,
"The Battle Over the Pledge," April 5, 2004].In 1797 our government
concluded a
"Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and
the Bey
and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of
Tripoli.
Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:    As the Government of
the
United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian
religion--as it has
in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquillity of
Musselmen--and as the said States never have 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.This document was
endorsed by
Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was
then sent
to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth
pointing out
that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required
by the
Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history.
There is
no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in
full in
the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no
screams
of outrage, as one might expect today.The Founding Fathers were not
religious
men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall
of
separation between church and state." John Adams opined that if they
were not
restrained by legal measures, Puritans--the fundamentalists of their
day--would
"whip and crop, and pillory and roast." The historical epoch had
afforded these
men ample opportunity to observe the corruption to which established
priesthoods
were liable, as well as "the impious presumption of legislators and
rulers," as
Jefferson wrote, "civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves
but
fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of
others,
setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and 
infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath
established 
and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and
through 
all time."If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the
divinity of 
JesusChrist, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding
Fathers were 
not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine
were
deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected
revelation and 
all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the
Creator, 
they believed, could best be read in Nature. John Adams was a professed 
liberalUnitarian, but he, too, in his private correspondence seems more
deist 
thanChristian.George Washington and James Madison also leaned toward
deism, 
althoughneither took much interest in religious matters. Madison
believed 
that"religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it
for 
everynoble enterprize." He spoke of the "almost fifteen centuries"
during 
whichChristianity had been on trial: "What have been its fruits? More or
less in 
allplaces, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in
the 
laity,in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." If Washington
mentioned 
theAlmighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful
to refer 
to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like
"Great
Author" 
or "Almighty Being." It is interesting to note that the Father of our
Country 
spokeno words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully
aware that 
he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last
act was 
to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age
of 
scientific rationalism.ADVERTISEMENTTom Paine, a polemicist rather than
a 
politician, could afford to be perfectly honest about his religious
beliefs, 
which were baldly deist in the tradition of Voltaire: "I believe in one
God, and 
no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.... I do not believe
in the 
creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek
church, 
by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that
I know 
of. My own mind is my own church." This is how he opened The Age of
Reason, his 
virulent attack on Christianity. In it he railed against the "obscene
stories, 
the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the
unrelenting 
vindictiveness" of the Old Testament, "a history of wickedness, that has
served
to corrupt and brutalize mankind." The New Testament is less brutalizing
but 
more absurd, the story of Christ's divine genesis a "fable, which for
absurdity 
and extravagance is not exceeded by any thing that is to be found in the 
mythology of the ancients." He held the idea of the Resurrection in
especial
ridicule: Indeed, "the wretched contrivance with which this latter part
is told, 
exceeds every thing that went before it." Paine was careful to contrast
the 
tortuous twists of theology with the pure clarity of deism. "The true
deist has 
but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating the power,
wisdom, and
benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him
in every 
thing moral, scientifical, and mechanical."Paine's rhetoric was so
fervent that
he was inevitably branded an atheist. Men like Franklin, Adams and
Jefferson 
could not risk being tarred with that brush, and in fact Jefferson got
into a 
good deal of trouble for continuing his friendship with Paine and
entertaining
him at Monticello. These statesmen had to be far more circumspect than
the 
turbulent Paine, yet if we examine their beliefs it is all but
impossible to see 
just how theirs differed from his.Franklin was the oldest of the
Founding 
Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well
aware of 
the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses,
one 
must at least profess religious sentiments. By his own definition he was
a
deist, although one French acquaintance claimed that "our free-thinkers
have 
adroitly sounded him on his religion, and they maintain that they have 
discovered he is one of their own, that is that he has none at all." If
he did 
have a religion, it was strictly utilitarian: As his biographer Gordon
Wood has 
said, "He praised religion for whatever moral effects it had, but for
little 
else." Divine revelation, Franklin freely admitted, had "no weight with
me," and 
the covenant of grace seemed "unintelligible" and "not
beneficial." As
for the 
pious hypocrites who have ever controlled nations, "A man compounded of
law and 
gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then
destroy them 
under color of law"--a comment we should carefully consider at this
turning 
point in the history of our Republic.Here is Franklin's considered
summary of 
his own beliefs, in response to a query by Ezra Stiles, the president of
Yale. 
He wrote it just six weeks before his death at the age of 84.    Here is
my 
creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it
by his 
providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable
service we 
render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man
is 
immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting
its 
conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound 
religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.        
As for Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I
think 
his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best
the world 
ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various
corrupting 
changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England,
some doubts 
as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon,
having 
never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with now, when I
expect 
soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no
harm,
however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence,
as it
probably has, of making his doctrines more respected and better
observed, 
especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by 
distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any 
particular marks of his displeasure.

Jefferson thoroughly agreed with Franklin on the corruptions the
teachings of
Jesus had undergone. "The metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and
the 
maniacal ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams
of
Plato, have so loaded [Christianity] with absurdities and
incomprehensibilities" 
that it was almost impossible to recapture "its native simplicity and
purity."
Like Paine, Jefferson felt that the miracles claimed by the New
Testament put an 
intolerable strain on credulity. "The day will come," he predicted
(wrongly, so 
far), "when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as
his father
in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the
generation of 
Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." The Revelation of St. John he
dismissed as 
"the ravings of a maniac."Jefferson edited his own version of the New
Testament, 
"The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," in which he carefully
deleted all 
the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended
it, he 
said, as "a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to
say, a
disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." This was clearly a defense against
his many
enemies, who hoped to blacken his reputation by comparing him with the
vile
atheist Paine. His biographer Joseph Ellis is undoubtedly correct,
though, in
seeing disingenuousness here: "If [Jefferson] had been completely
scrupulous, he
would have described himself as a deist who admired the ethical
teachings of
Jesus as a man rather than as the son of God. (In modern-day parlance,
he was a
secular humanist.)" In short, not a Christian at all.ADVERTISEMENTThe
three
accomplishments Jefferson was proudest of--those that he requested be
put on his
tombstone--were the founding of the University of Virginia and the
authorship of
the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious
Freedom.
The latter was a truly radical document that would eventually influence
the
separation of church and state in the US Constitution; when it was
passed by the
Virginia legislature in 1786, Jefferson rejoiced that there was finally
"freedom
for the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammeden, the Hindu
and
infidel of every denomination"--note his respect, still unusual today,
for the
sensibilities of the "infidel." The University of Virginia was notable
among
early-American seats of higher education in that it had no religious
affiliation
whatever. Jefferson even banned the teaching of theology at the
school.If we
were to speak of Jefferson in modern political categories, we would have
to
admit that he was a pure libertarian, in religious as in other matters.
His real
commitment (or lack thereof) to the teachings of Jesus Christ is plain
from a
famous throwaway comment he made: "It does me no injury for my neighbor
to say
there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks
my leg."
This raised plenty of hackles when it got about, and Jefferson had to go
to some
pains to restore his reputation as a good Christian. But one can only
conclude,
with Ellis, that he was no Christian at all.John Adams, though no more
religious
than Jefferson, had inherited the fatalistic mindset of the Puritan
culture in
which he had grown up. He personally endorsed the Enlightenment
commitment to 
Reason but did not share Jefferson's optimism about its future, writing
to him, 
"I wish that Superstition in Religion exciting Superstition in
Polliticks...may 
never blow up all your benevolent and phylanthropic Lucubrations," but
that "the 
History of all Ages is against you." As an old man he observed, "Twenty
times in 
the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking
out, 'This
would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in
it!'" 
Speaking ex cathedra, as a relic of the founding generation, he
expressed his
admiration for the Roman system whereby every man could worship whom,
what and 
how he pleased. When his young listeners objected that this was
paganism, Adams
replied that it was indeed, and laughed.In their fascinating and
eloquent 
valetudinarian correspondence, Adams and Jefferson had a great deal to
say about 
religion. Pressed by Jefferson to define his personal creed, Adams
replied that
it was "contained in four short words, 'Be just and good.'" Jefferson
replied, 
"The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the
four words, 
'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end; as the
riddles 
of all priesthoods end in four more, 'ubi panis, ibi deus.' What all
agree in, 
is probably right. What no two agree in, most probably wrong."This was a
clear 
reference to Voltaire's Reflections on Religion. As Voltaire put it:
There 
are no sects in geometry. One does not speak of a Euclidean, an
Archimedean. 
When the truth is evident, it is impossible for parties and factions to 
arise.... Well, to what dogma do all minds agree? To the worship of a
God, and 
to honesty. All the philosophers of the world who have had a religion
have said 
in all ages: "There is a God, and one must be just." There, then, is the 
universal religion established in all ages and throughout mankind. The
point in 
which they all agree is therefore true, and the systems through which
they 
differ are therefore false.Of course all these men knew, as all modern 
presidential candidates know, that to admit to theological skepticism is 
political suicide. During Jefferson's presidency a friend observed him
on his 
way to church, carrying a large prayer book. "You going to church, Mr.
J," 
remarked the friend. "You do not believe a word in it." Jefferson didn't
exactly 
deny the charge. "Sir," he replied, "no nation has ever yet existed or
been 
governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the
best 
religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this
nation am 
bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir."Like
Jefferson, 
every recent President has understood the necessity of at least paying
lip 
service to the piety of most American voters. All of our leaders,
Democrat and 
Republican, have attended church, and have made very sure they are seen
to do 
so. But there is a difference between offering this gesture of respect
for 
majority beliefs and manipulating and pandering to the bigotry,
prejudice and 
millennial fantasies of Christian extremists. Though for public
consumption the 
Founding Fathers identified themselves as Christians, they were, at
least by 
today's standards, remarkably honest about their misgivings when it came
to 
theological doctrine, and religion in general came very low on the list
of their 
concerns and priorities--always excepting, that is, their determination
to keep 
the new nation free from bondage to its rule.





































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