The United States is a Secular Nation

A recent sex scandal in Indonesia has opened up a can of worms over the role of religion and secularism in that country. Why is this relevant to anybody that doesn't live there? Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world, and many are debating about what to do about young people using the Internet, which helped spread the sex tape in question, as well as opening up debate about attitudes toward sexuality. Here are some interesting statements about the situation from the BBC article:

More than 80% of Indonesians are Muslim, and while it is a secular nation, most people are still largely conservative.

But that is changing, especially among young people who have access to information in a way their parents could never have dreamed of.

Uzham Izhar, 32, had brought her two-year-old daughter.

"We want to live in an Indonesia that follows Islamic values," she said, as she patted her daughter asleep on her lap.

"Islamic law isn't just for Muslims, it's for the whole country.

"This kind of country is very dangerous, and it is particularly dangerous for my young daughter. I don't want her growing up in this kind of Indonesia."

These very words could be transplanted to the U.S. and it would not be out of place at all. Many reactions towards changing policies that are favored by young people, such as support of gay marriage, has been opposed on religious, specifically Christian, grounds.

A common boast by conservatives is that "the United States is a Christian nation". Conservatives also claim that many or most of the Founding Fathers were inspired by Christianity and God when writing the Constitution, a document in which, in reality, there is no mention of Christianity, religion, or God at all.

Is the United States a Christian nation, though? God is, in fact, mentioned on national currency, and many court houses have the Ten Commandments present on their property. The president has been known to usually be sworn in by placing his hand on a Bible. There has also never been a non-Christian elected president of the United States (despite what some people say about Obama's "hidden Muslim" tendencies).

Certainly, the role of Christianity in American politics is substantial and influential, in that it would be very difficult to go far in the current political climate if one was anything other than non-Christian (or, in many cases, non-White as well).

As well, 76% of Americans said they were Christian in 2008. An even more impressive number would be the 34% of adult Americans who proclaimed to be Evangelical or Born-Again Christians. However, though these numbers may seem high, they are not incredible or shocking. Religious adherence has been on a steady decline in the U.S. for the past several decades, as more people are becoming apathetic to organized religion in general, not just Christianity.

If 76% of Americans are Christian (though this doesn't mean that they all go to church, or engage in other Christian-related activities), then that means that almost a quarter of the population, or over 50 million people, are not Christian.

Other countries, as well, have large swathes of population who consider themselves Christian. In Canada, 77% claim Christianity as their religion. In Spain, 73% are Christian. 88% of Italians are Catholic. In the United Kingdom, 71% of the population is Christian. In Germany, the amount is 67%.

Are these other countries considered "Christian nations" because the majority of citizens are Christian? All of this depends, of course, on what exactly is meant by "Christian nation". American conservatives appear to be using the term to indicate that the country is fundamentally Christian in its very fabric, due to the "Christian influences" on our Founding Fathers and written in our Constitution, as well as being in many other aspects of our history and politics, and of course because a majority of Americans say they are also Christian.

The Founding Fathers

Other countries don't seem to view the U.S. as a "Christian nation" in the same way that conservatives do. Though not exactly empirical, a quick glance at the French and Spanish Wikipedia pages for "Secular State" lists the United States as secular. However, the English-language page of the same category does not list the U.S. under the heading of "Americas". Why do Spanish and French language speakers consider the United States secular, but English-speaking Americans (who make up the majority of Wikipedia contributors/readers) do not?

The obvious problem with this belief is the contradiction that there is actually no reference to God in the Constitution. At all. Many Founding Fathers were not what we could really call Christian today, and much of the influence for the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America came from the Enlightenment, with such heavyweights as John Locke and Voltaire's influence being pretty noticeable. The motto "In God We Trust" actually wasn't added to our currency until the Civil War - much later than the 1780's, wouldn't you say?

This fact - that the United States is not founded on Christian principles, that the separation of church and state in American society is one of the bedrock foundations upon which the country was built - could not be more easier and well-summarized than by this statement in a peace treaty signed between the United States and Tripoli in 1797:

"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 treaty was signed by President John Adams and ratified by the Senate in a unanimous decision. See, the Founding Fathers knew that the country had first been populated by crazy religious nuts who had fled (re: were kicked out) of their own countries for having insanely different religious views, and they didn't want to see the same kind of massacres, persecution, bigotry, and violence that had marked other countries who had adherents to different religions other than the official state's (check out the French Wars of Religion or the 30 Years' War).

Americans tend to think of the Puritans as noble, God-fearing, humble farmers who bravely traveled across the ocean at the beginning of winter to start a new, fresh life for themselves in America. They were actually kicked out of their home country, England, for being radically different in their views, from where they then fled to the Netherlands, a country known for its liberalness and openness to diversity, upon which they were once again thrown out.

If the United States were to have an official religion, which would it be? The problem with picking "Christianity", is that there are so many different sects of the religion that any single one being picked over another would cause dissidence and chaos amongst those who do not adhere to it. That is why the Founding Fathers knew that America must have a separation of church and state and remain secular.

Many on the Right choose to interpret such basic facts in the wrong way, sometimes even confusing which documents said what. This type of deliberate misconception of basic and fundamental American documents, that form the basis of our government, politics, society, and culture, has been going on for decades, and it needs to stop.

What will help this stop is for people to hear and understand the truth, which not only would educate those who are easily brainwashed (people who believe anything their mentors tell them without forming an opinion for themselves [Conservatives, duh]), but increase the amount of people who are politically active and involved, which is good for our democracy.

Barack Obama, not insane

Luckily, not everyone subscribes to this ludicrous notion concerning our Founding Fathers or the Constitution. Speaking at a press conference in Turkey, President Barack Obama said

"One of the great strengths of the United States," the President said, "is ... we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

How refreshing! How logical! How correct! How idealistic! How... he was vilified by the Right.

It is imperative that the truth be told about American history, especially when in regards to such powerful and fundamental aspects of American life and society. A country that does not know its own history is free to make it up so that it suits them. It does not suit the Right to know that the United States is and has always been a secular nation, and therefore they are attempting to spread a lie so much that it becomes a truth. This cannot and should not happen.