Well, here it is Sunday, a day in which millions upon millions of Americans will go to church and Sunday school. These millions of Americans, a significant portion of them children, will be taught diverse things, much of it from the Bible. I don't really have any problem with this, except for the fact that in many of these Sunday school classes both adults and children will be taught fiction as fact, myth as reality, and superstition as common sense. To me, that's not only sad, but unhealthy.
In many of these churches across our land, here's one myth that is going to be taught: America is by heritage and design a Christian nation. According to this myth, the "Founding Fathers", i.e. the men who gathered, debated, framed, drafted, created, designed, and wrought the U.S. Constitution did so using the Bible as their main source of inspiration and reference. This myth is, of course, utter baloney sauce. It is history revisionism at its worst. More specifically, it is fundamentalist, Religious Right Christian history revisionism, and is utter nonsense. Nonsense promoted as truth is something I do have a problem with.
A book exists that holds all the evidence one needs to utterly debunk this myth. The title of this book is Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, and is essentially a transcription of James Madison's extensive notes that he took as a delegate sitting and participating in the authorship of our constitution. Madison, it should be noted, had developed a form of shorthand note taking, so his notes often contain virtual and actual verbatim record of what went on there.
Back in 2002 I read this entire book. Although I would recommend this book for all to read, I also present this caveat: it's really dry reading, and takes patience and perserverence to get through, but if you like U.S. history, and knowing the facts about how our Constitution came into being, it's a must-read.
But before I get into what my title suggests, let me tell you a little about myself. I consider myself neither religious nor spiritual, but I do find study of religion very engaging. I utterly reject all forms of supernaturalism. I am a Humanist by self-identification, which for me means that I do hold a coherent and comprehensive philosophical worldview, but I do not practice Humanism as a religion. I have been a member of the American Humanist Association, and were it not for financial difficulties, I would be keeping my membership in that organization current. However, I do not speak for the AHA, so what follows is strictly my own work and opinion.
This morning I found this link at Humanist Network News for a petition directed to the Texas Board of Education aimed at keeping the Texas public school cirriculum secular and religion neutral, especially in terms of keeping the "America was founded as a Christian nation" myth from being promulgated in Texas's public school system. That brought to mind a short essay I had written after finishing reading the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787. I would like to share that essay with you now.
America Was Not Founded Upon God: the results of my research into James Madison's Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.
Yesterday, December 9, 2002, I finished reading Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison's extensive notes he took as a delegate sitting and participating in the authorship of our Constitution. It is clear James Madison served to impress the document much to the way it appeared in its final form, though by no means was he the boss, or even one of the most frequent speakers. It was a surprise to read that Edmund Randolph, then-governor of Virginia, introduced the very first set of resolutions as a starting-block, then refused to sign the final draft.
Though agreed through and through upon the idea of a three-branched government to provide check and balance of power, the delegates wrangled long over many major issues, such as how to go about selecting/electing the executive branch, over how to establish the norm by which equitable "representation" would be achieved in the legislative branch, over whether the supreme judicial ought also to have some law-crafting role as opposed to strictly an interpretive role, over how the constitution should address the issue of slavery, if at all, and over much minutae such as whether two-thirds or three-fourths of either or both houses should be the requisite majority to override executive negative (veto) of laws passed.
Conspicuously absent from the debates, however, is any sense that they declaimed their work to be of religious motivation, with final appeal of their outcome subject to divine approbation. That is to say, as a body they certainly didn't make any overt statement that what they were truly about here was God's business (specifically Christianity's God); namely that of establishing this nation as a Christian nation. They most unequivocally did recognize and aver that their intention was to found a nation, where only a confederacy of states currently existed, and the reason was simply because confederacies had an irrefutable history of failure. The debates reveal no "mission from God" (so to speak) to establish a nation for the purpose of worship. Not one single delegate recorded by James Madison holds forth in any such manner.
The straight-forward words of the delegates during their convention and deliberations, as scrupulously and assiduously recorded and transcribed by James Madison, monumentally stand as their affirmation that they explicitly understood that this was precisely the nature of the task before them: to define, constitutionally, the what, when, where, who, how, and why that this new nation was to be, and that this work was no mere academic stage show, but was rather a do-or-perish juncture of human progress. To them, something completely different was demanded if the newly independent states were to escape a childhood death. They knew that a national government was the only viable option. Precisely how this government was to be structured and implemented was the job they set their hand to. From the beginning, one mandate was crystal clear: it had to be the people's national government; a national government of, for, and by the people. On this question, "God" had little, if any, regard in their deliberations, motions, resolutions, or intent. The debates of 1787 were about the American people and the forging of their constitution. They were not about God or The Holy Bible. No part of the Bible was referred to in any of their speeches or written motions except in a very passing manner on very few occasions. Certainly not one single article of the constitution they collectively authored and signed has as its origin any words that are referenced to any biblical citation. Not one!
For those wishing to delve much more deeply into this subject, author and scrupulous historical researcher (and frequent Daily Kos contributor) Chris Rodda has written extensively on Christian history revisionism. Her website can be found here. I heartily encourage everyone to check out her work. It stands as authoritative backup to my above essay.
I'll close Sunday school now with this thought: the 1st Amendment to our Constitution contains two clauses about religion, which I quote:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ...
Needless to say, volumes upon volumes have been written by historians, constitutional scholars, theologians, and myriad professional and amateur writers on what these clauses mean. Many of these people agree, and disagree, on the meaning of these words, and even the U.S. Supreme Court has had to thrash out their import on our laws. Commonly it is held that these two clauses form the foundation of the "Wall of Separation between Church and State" (or as I prefer to phrase it, the Wall of Separation between Religion and Government). I paraphrase it as "Government has no business in the business of religion, and vice-versa".
Our public schools are a government function. Thus our public schools also have no business in the business of religion, and religion should have no business in the business of our public schools. Our public schools need to remain religion-neutral, with the exception of objective education of religion in the context of social studies, history, and comparative study of religions and philosophy, and critical thinking. Otherwise, religion should stay where it belongs: in the privacy of each individual's right to Liberty of Conscience, and in America's Constitutional right to freedom of (and from!) religion.
OK, kids. That's it. Sunday school's out. Now go play.