Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Is the United States a Christian nation? Many people, including many of today’s political and religious leaders, feel that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Other the other hand, secularists disagree.
There is, however, a rather interesting feature of American law that is based on the premise that the United States is a Christian nation: the Doctrine of Discovery. The Doctrine of Discovery is not well-known to people who are not: (a) historians, (b) legal scholars, or (c) American Indians. In brief, this is an ancient European Christian legal concept which says that Christian nations have a right, if not an obligation, to rule over all non-Christian nations. Thus, the European nations, and the United States after 1787, felt that they had a legal right to govern American Indians. The Doctrine of Discovery gave Christian nations, including the United States, the right to take land away from indigenous peoples paying for it with the gift of Christianity.
The Doctrine of Discovery entered into American jurisprudence in 1823 when the Supreme Court ruled on Johnson and Graham’s Lessee versus McIntosh. The Court found that the Doctrine of Discovery gave sovereignty of Indian lands to England and then to the United States. Indian nations, under this Doctrine, have a right of occupancy to the land. Christian nations, such as England and the United States, have superior rights over the inferior culture and inferior religion of the Indians. According to the Court, Indians have been compensated for their lands by having the gift of Christianity bestowed upon them.
The Supreme Court’s use of the Doctrine of Discovery in Johnson and Graham’s Lessee versus McIntosh laid the foundation for Indian law that still continues. The decision reinforced the superiority of Christianity as a governing philosophy and paid little attention to either Indian history or the possibility of Indian religions.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the Tee-Hit-Ton case. The government argued that under international law, Christian nations can acquire lands occupied by heathens and infidels. It was an argument made by the United States government on the basis of the Christian religion. In their argument, the United States government not only cited the nineteenth century case of Johnson v McIntosh, but also the Papal bulls of the fifteenth century and the Old Testament from the Bible.
In 1955, the Supreme Court announced its decision which denied the Tee-Hit-Ton any compensation for the taking of the timber. According to the Court:
“The Christian nations of Europe acquired jurisdiction over newly discovered lands by virtue of grants from the Popes, who claimed the power to grant Christian monarchs the right to acquire territory in the possession of heathens and infidels.”
The view of the United States as a Christian nation is also seen in the opposition to non-Christian religions, such as Islam, Hinduism, Wicca, and others. For example, in 1992 a mosque was proposed to be constructed in Edmund, Oklahoma. Christians opposed the construction of the mosque and one woman testified:
“The constitution says One nation under God and that’s a Christian God. These people have absolutely no right to be here.”
At the present time, a majority of Republicans in the United States support establishing Christianity as the national religion. There is also strong support in many areas for establishing Christianity as a state religion and many people feel that the Constitution allows this. On the other hand, the number of people who indicate “none” when asked about religion is growing and for many of these people living in a theocracy or a theocratic-centered nation would not be tolerable.
Open Thread
This is an open thread—all topics are welcome.