Posted on 03/28/2005 4:52:35 PM PST by twas
The real heart of our national identity is the constant remaking of who and what we are by the countless immigrants who have enriched our culture.
One of the core controversies that is engulfing the United States today concerns the very definition of America itself; in particular, the role of religion in public life has engendered intense definition-mongering.
Religious conservatives insist that America is "one nation under God," which is often interpreted to mean "a Christian nation." They hold that religion and patriotism go hand in hand and that America has a divine destiny. The Republican Party has virtually been captured by this evangelical minority, which seeks to redefine America in terms of its own religious outlook.
They believe that America's core culture is the culture of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglo-Protestant settlers who, they claim, "founded America."
I submit that such a viewpoint is un-American. It is biased, narrow and chauvinistic. The first humans on the American continent were not the English settlers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but the native population of Indians. They had been living on this vast land for thousands of years before the conquering settlers arrived from Europe. The nations and tribes of North and South America numbered millions of people in well-developed societies. These were the real "first Americans," and they were pagans, not Christians.
As for the first Europeans who came to America, they were not exclusively Anglo or Protestant. The Spanish, Roman Catholic conquistadores occupied sections of the West and South before English Protestants came to New England and Virginia, or the Dutch to New York. Today's Hispanics carry on the historic Spanish influence in the West and Southwest.
America was also built by Africans, who certainly were not Anglos. Enslaved against their will, they were brought to the American colonies by biblically drenched Southern Protestants.
America is best understood as a universal culture. What it means to be American is constantly redefined by successive waves of immigrants, who intermarry and blend into the culture, to whose content they themselves add spice and vigor.
To claim that America can be defined only or primarily by the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglo colonists and not by any people here before nor by immigrants who came later is prejudicial balderdash. Anglo-Protestants have contributed massively to modern culture - but let us balance their role with those of so many others.
America encompasses virtually every ethnic, racial, religious and national group in the world. In recent decades, millions of Asian immigrants have arrived - Vietnamese and Koreans, Filipinos and Indians, Buddhists and Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, Shintoists and Confucians. In what sense can anyone claim that the Anglo-Protestant influence embodies the only true definition of America?
In misrepresenting America, conservatives ignore another important point. The U.S. Constitution was written by deists and freethinkers as much as by believers. These framers were influenced by the Enlightenment, notably by French writers who were not religious Christians. We see their influence in the absence of any religious test to hold public office under the Constitution. And the First Amendment, authored by Madison and inspired by Jefferson, stipulates that "Congress shall make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The U.S. Constitution must be understood as a secular document, the first of its kind, defending freedom of conscience and the right to believe or not believe. What is crucial to the definition of America is not that it is Protestant or Catholic or even Christian or Judaic, but that it is and has been a secular republic, electing its leadership without a hereditary monarchy and without any pretensions of theocracy, whether dejure or defacto.
The real heart of our national identity is the constant remaking of who and what we are by the countless immigrants who have enriched our culture. Essential to this process have been the civic virtues of democracy, which are basically humanistic. These grew out of the Renaissance and the Reformation, but also out of the Enlightenment and the democratic and scientific revolutions of the modern world.
We should welcome the pluralistic diversity (over 2,000 separate denominations and sects) that the United States has provided within the framework of shared democratic values. What unites us is our willingness to negotiate any differences and to reach compromises for the public good. This is intrinsic to the democratic ethic.
Each individual is entitled to his or her own convictions and values, as long as he or she agrees to abide by the law. The government should, however, remain neutral about what its individual citizens prefer, and it should not seek to establish Christianity or even Judeo-Christian monotheism as the official creed of the land.
Hence, the effort to redefine the United states and rewrite history is a distortion thatmay have a powerful political appeal but is false.
Paul Kurtz is the editor in chief of Free Inquiry, a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University at Buffalo, and the chair of the Center for Inquiry.
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050327/1070223.asp
These people did not found the Republic. These are stupid arguments, and only make the case for the authors bias and ignorance.
Clearly somebody needs to go back and re-read his history. Who is re-defining the basis by which this country was created?
To the HEBREW CONGREGATIONS IN THE CITIES OF PHILADELPHIA, NEW YORK, CHARLESTON, AND RICHMOND.
Gentlemen:-The liberality of sentiment toward each other, which marks every political and religious denomination of men in this country, stands unparalleled in the history of nations.
The affection of such a people is a treasure beyond the reach of calculation, and the repeated proofs which my fellow-citizens have given of their attachment to me and approbation of my doings form the purest source of my temporal felicity.
The affectionate expressions of your address again excite my gratitude and receive my warmest acknowledgment.
The power and goodness of the Almighty, so strongly manifested in the events of our late glorious revolution, and His kind interposition in our behalf, have been no less visible in the establishment of our present equal government. In war He directed the sword, and in peace He has ruled in our councils. My agency in both has been guided by the best intentions and a sense of duty I owe to my country.
And as my exertions have hitherto been amply rewarded by the approbation of my fellow citizens, I shall endeavor to deserve a continuance of it by my future conduct.
May the same temporal and eternal blessings which you implore for me, rest upon your congregations.
G. Washington.
Read some more history before you wish to change it
No one is seeking to establish the Judeo-Christian belief as the law of the land, the law of the land was created by those who followed the Judeo-Christian belief system. But in their infinite wisdom, they did not establish their beliefs as the "official" belief system of the land. Contrary to what the left believes, Christians are not trying to impose Christianity on everyone, they are objecting to the atheists and agnostics trying to impose their lack of belief and immorality onto the nation making it the law of the land.
My home is defined by my family, not by intruders.
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We are the chirruns . . .
There is NO benefit to this country with all this diversity tower of babel rubbish. Diversity is NOT our strength. UNITY is our strength. White anglo prots wrote the Declaration of Independence whether this author likes or not!
About 3/4 of Americans call themselves Christians. Of course, for most it's just a title/category.
Hardly a reference point for the definition of America.
These people get more absurd each day.
"Christian" is the most concise and accurate common denominator of our unique culture. Suffice to say that every denomination which has survived since the inception of the republic is still here, unless gone due to self-destruction. The Christian ethos allows for other beliefs, even for the absurd. No other, aboriginal or otherwise is as tolerant.
America is not remaking itself, America is and has always been the same, it is, however enriched by the multitude of cultures which it's immigrants have shared with each other throughout our history. America does not change it's core, only it's decorations. Unfortunately we are living in a time when the forces of Islamo-fascism and cultural marxism are trying to change America at it's roots.
The leading families of the Old South were heavily Catholic, this is well documented. Pope Pius was in contact with Jeff Davis throughout the civil war. Southern protestantism became prominent as a post civil war phenomenon.
Again, "These are stupid arguments, and only make the case for the authors bias and ignorance."
So what is the religion, if any, of Kurtz? The majority of people who came here to freely practice religion and found universities were Islamists? Buddists? Jewish? atheists? Christians? whatever? I vote Christian.
"Christian" is the most concise and accurate common denominator of our unique culture. Suffice to say that every denomination which has survived since the inception of the republic is still here, unless gone due to self-destruction. The Christian ethos allows for other beliefs, even for the absurd. No other, aboriginal or otherwise is as tolerant.
And may I add, well said.
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
The author takes the claim that America is a Christian nation, morphs it into a claim that it is an Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation stuck in 18 century, then fights -- not very ably -- the second claim.
This is what is American: freedom of religion. That means a freedom to exercise one's religion. Now, religion is exercised in the public square. Not solely, but in an essential part. When the author comes out in support of laws that protect religious public life, -- even if such life happens to be 90% Christian, -- I will grant him his right to have atheist ceremonies in public, too.
FR doesn't really need ignorant comments such as this.
Perhaps you could explain to the rest of us how Lewis and Clark, and the members of their expedition managed to return to Washington, DC, uneaten.
ML/NJ
I've yet to see what there is particularly "Christian" about the way our laws are formulated. Certainly our founding was premised on the notion that human beings were subject to certain immutable laws that transcend the narrow and petty wonts of their condition. Apart from that, where is the Christianity? To the best of my knowledge our laws only mirror certain tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition, namely, that one must not murder, steal, or bear false witness. So what is it that these anti-Christians want? That our laws should smile upon murder, theft and perjury?
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