America Is Not a Christian Nation — Never Has Been, Nor Should It Be
As both a Christian and an American, I firmly believe in the separation of Church and State. Please hear me out.
W e are nearing Thanksgiving in the U.S. and are surrounded by reminders of the Pilgrims sitting down with their new neighbors to give thanks for surviving to that point. It’s easy to forget why they were here in the first place: to escape religious persecution. Neither Roman Catholic nor Church of England (England’s breakaway from Rome), the Pilgrims were one of many sects of Puritans who had disavowed the state-approved religions of their time.
Puritans, Quakers, Calvinists and Jews also sought religious freedom, alongside Lutherans, Dutch Reformed and the Catholics and Anglicans who came to populate the colonies, whether by choice or conscription.
When our Founding Fathers were debating the Constitution, they were very cognizant of this diverse background and the often rancorous relationships that existed between these groups. They included language in the Bill of Rights accordingly, specifically prohibiting laws to establish a state religion and prohibiting laws against the free exercise of religion. This was important, as some colonies at the time already had “official” churches.