Is the United States of America a Christian nation, or has it actually built an impenetrable wall separating religion from government – separating so-called “Church and State”?
President Joe Biden gave a nine-minute Christmas speech Thursday, December 22, 2022. He claimed it was to be his seasonal address to unify the nation. In fact, however, it was nothing more than promotion of his Christian (Catholic) faith, a Christian hegemonic discourse that was totally inappropriate in a country that purportedly separates “Church and state.”
His Christmas speech could have been given in any and every Catholic Church.
“There is a certain stillness at the center of the Christmas story…,” he began. “And we look to the sky, to a lone star, shining brighter than all the rest, guiding us to the birth of a child — a child Christians believe to be the son of God; miraculously now, here among us on Earth, bringing hope, love and peace and joy to the world….” Continuing, Biden said, “Yes, it’s a story that’s 2,000 years old, but it’s still very much alive today.”
I argue that the Christmas story does not, in fact, represent everyone’s hopes, love and peace and joy to the world,” but, rather, possibly reflects the approximately 30% of the world’s population that defines as “Christian” in all its many denominations.
Yes, Biden gave a speech the day before about Hanukkah because of the sharp rise in antisemitic incidents during the year as his attempt to call out people’s hatred. He did not talk about Hanukkah to promote Judaism as his speech about Christmas promoted his faith.
To be clear: I like Joe Biden very much. I voted for him. I appreciate his kindness and compassion for others and his attempt to unify the country after the disastrous Trumpian years. Biden is the right person at the right time to help protect our democracy from the forces of tyranny and autocracy.
My resistance lies in his promotion of Christian hegemony.
Joe Biden’s clearly Christian religious flavor in his address would not appear as serious a salvo upon the wall of separation if we did not place it into a larger context.
Regarding presidential Christian greetings and addresses, every Christmas since Calvin Coolidge in 1927, the President of the United States has delivered a Christmas message. Coolidge wrote greeting cards in his own hand on official White House stationary to the people of the United States. He requested that the news media print his Christmas greeting in newspapers and circulate it to a wide audience.
Coolidge also participated in the first official Christmas tree lighting, which today is known as the Pageant of Peace.
During President Eisenhower’s time in the Oval Office, the official Christmas card has become a permanent feature of presidential duties.
Lyndon B. Johnson began his seasonal address on December 19, 1966 by stating that: “Christmas is a time for hope. It is also a season for renewed inspiration from Christ’s universal message of peace on earth, good will toward men.”
George W. Bush and other elected leaders have invoked their Christian faith as the foundation of their political ideology. While governor of Texas, Bush proclaimed June 10, 2000 as “Jesus Day.”
Before and during his presidency, Bush and other conservative Christian politicians consistently have called for voucher systems whereby students could choose to attend private parochial schools at public expense, and they have supported prayer in the public schools as well as at school sporting and other events.
Some religious, governmental, and educational leaders also push for the teaching of Creationism (reframed as “Intelligent Design”) to explain the genesis of the world and all its creatures. Others advocate for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, a position that Bush and others acknowledge stems from their Christian faith, as does their commitment to the teaching of “abstinence only” sexuality education.
The presidency of George W. Bush in 2001 marked the first year a Hanukkah lamp (a menorah) was lit in the White House residence for members of his staff and their children.
On December 21, 1999, President Bill Clinton began his Christmas address with these words, sounding much like President Biden today:
“…Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us that, on the first Christmas 2000 years ago,” he said, “a bright star shone vividly in the eastern sky, heralding the birth of Jesus and the beginning of His hallowed mission as teacher, healer, servant, and savior. Jesus’ birth in poverty proclaimed the intrinsic dignity and brotherhood of all humanity, and His luminous teachings have brought hope and joy to generations of believers. Today, as the world stands at the dawn of a new millennium, His timeless message of God’s enduring and unconditional love for each and every person continues to strengthen and inspire us.”
Clinton forgot to include the word “Christian” as an adjective to “millennium” since many people and cultures throughout the world do not mark time from the birth of Jesus.
Each year, White House staff decks the halls and rooms of the White House with several Christmas trees and enough ornaments and other decorations to sink a major battleship. And who can forget the Christmas White House display designed by First Lady Melania Trump after she lifted a diploma in interior design from a Cracker Jack Box. Her spectacle included multiple rows of flaming blood red Christmas trees that put Church communion wine to shame.
Presidents do not give specifically Diwali addresses, or Yom Kippur addresses, Ramadan addresses, or Kwanzaa addresses – as they should not. So why in a country that supposedly separates religion from government would it be appropriate for Presidents to present their annual “Christmas Addresses”?
This occurs in countries that promote Christian hegemony with its full array of privileges accorded to Christians, which further marginalizes members of other religions and freethinkers.
Christian Colonialism
Though the official terms “colonization,” “colonizer,” and “colonized” may have changed somewhat, nowhere in the world have we experienced a truly post-colonial society. Imperialism remains, though at times possibly in less visible forms.
From a series of papal bulls (decrees or edicts) beginning of the 1100s, began sanctions, enforcements, authorizations, expulsions, excommunications, denunciations, and, in particular, expressions of territorial sovereignty for Christian monarchs supported by the Catholic Church.
These bulls established what would come to be known as the “Doctrine of Discovery”: a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of territories not already inhabited by Christians.
Two of these papal bulls particularly stand out:
Pope Nicholas V issued his “Romanus Pontifex” in 1455 granting Portugal a monopoly trading status with African and authorizing the enslavement of indigenous populations.
In 1455, Pope Nicholas V called his Christian followers to “to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans,” take their possessions, and “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
And Pope Alexander VI issued “Inter Caetera” in 1493 to justify Christian European explorers’ claims on land and waterways they “discovered,” and to promote Christian domination in Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americans.
The United States justified its “Monroe Doctrine” in the 1880s by declaring U.S. dominion over the Western Hemisphere, and its claim of “Manifest Destiny” of expansionism westward as its destiny to control all land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and beyond.
In 1823, in the Supreme Court case, Johnson v.M’Intosh, the Doctrine of Discovery became part of U.S. federal law used to dispossess Native peoples of their lands.
In a unanimous decision, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, “that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands” and Native peoples certain rights of occupancy.
This edict known as the Doctrine of Discovery gives license to genocide of black, brown, Asian, and non-Christians across the world. It was the stimulus for Columbus’ travels and is based on patriarchal Christian white supremacy.
Hegemony
The concept of “hegemony” describes the ways in which the dominant group, in this case Christians in general and predominantly Protestants, successfully disseminate dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense, as “normal,” as universal, and as representing part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it.
One does not have to be Christian to advance Christian hegemony. This religious hegemony maintains the marginality of already marginalized religions, faiths, and spiritual communities.
The form of hegemony examined in this discussion is Christian hegemony, which I define as the overarching system of advantages bestowed on Christians. It includes the institutionalization of a Christian norm or standard, which establishes and perpetuates the notion that all people are or should be Christian, thereby privileging Christians and Christianity, and excluding the needs, concerns, religious cultural practices, and life experiences of people who are not Christian.
At times subtle but often obvious, Christian hegemony is oppression by neglect, omission, erasure, and distortion and also by design and intent.
Hegemony is advanced through discourses, which French philosopher Michel Foucault includes as the ideas, written expressions, theoretical foundations, and language of the dominant culture. These are implanted within networks of social and political control, described by Foucault as “regimes of truth,” which function to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as true or as the truth.
The concept of oppression, then, constitutes more than the cruel and repressive actions of individuals upon others. It involves an overarching system of differentials of social power and privilege by dominant groups over subordinated groups based on ascribed social identities and reinforced by unequal social group status.
This occurs not merely in societies ruled by coercive or tyrannical leaders; it also occurs within the day-to-day practices of contemporary democratic societies, such as the United States.
“Unpacking’’ the knapsack of privilege (whether it be Christian, white, male, heterosexual, owning class, temporarily able bodied, English as first language speakers, and others) is to become aware and to develop critical consciousness of its existence and how it impacts the daily lives of both those with and those without this privilege.
Constitutional Protections of Religious Freedom
Virginia was one of the first states following the Revolutionary War to address the issue of religion and government when Thomas Jefferson, who held deist beliefs, drafted “An Act for the Establishment of Religious Freedom” in 1786. Jefferson’s proposal passed into law in 1786 in Virginia.
Then, constitutional framers such as Jefferson and Madison negotiated a compromise with Protestant sectarians, which led to the clause written into the First Amendment of the United States Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .
Though nowhere in the Constitution does the phrase “separation of church and state” appear, it was originally drawn from a letter President Thomas Jefferson sent on January 1, 1802, to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists Association.
Jefferson held concerns over the possibility of erosion to First Amendment religious freedoms, a development later confirmed by Alexis de Tocqueville, French political scientist and diplomat, who traveled across the United States for nine months between 1831–1832 conducting research for his epic work, Democracy in America (1840).
He was astounded to find a certain paradox: On one hand, he observed that the United States promoted itself around the world as a country separating “church and state,” where religious freedom and tolerance were among its defining tenants, but on the other hand, he witnessed that:
There is no country in the world where the Christian religions retain a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.
He answered this apparent contradiction by proposing that in this country with no officially sanctioned governmental religion, denominations were compelled to compete with one another and promote themselves in order to attract and keep parishioners, thereby making religion even stronger.
While the government was not supporting Christian denominations and churches, per se, religion to Tocqueville should be considered as the first of their political institutions since he observed the enormous influence Christian churches had on the political process.
Though he favored U.S. style democracy, he found its major limitation to be in its stifling of independent thought and independent beliefs. In a country that promoted the notion that the majority rules, this effectively silenced minorities by what Tocqueville termed the “tyranny of the majority.”
If we were to ask some of the early founders of the United States whether the country is a “Christian nation,” they might voice the opinion that the United States is not a Christian nation.
They would point to what has come to be called “The Treaty of Tripoli” (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) in advance of the first war fought between the United States and Muslim states (1801-1805). The Treaty was signed in 1797 to ensure commercial rights and to protect U.S. ships in the Mediterranean from Barbary pirates.
The U.S. Congress ratified the Treaty on January 3, 1797, and then it was signed by President John Adams. Article 11 is often referenced when discussions of the role of religion in the United States government arise.
Article 11 states that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” It was worded to put at ease the delegates in Tripoli (Libya) that the U.S. did not hold animosity against member states in the Muslim world.
Fatal Cracks in the Wall
The wall of separation between religion and government has suffered several salvos resulting in a deeply cracked and crumbled ruin. Examples of ballistic missiles downing the wall include:
- The U.S. Congress, and signed into law President Ulysses S. Grant, make Christmas (December 25) and the New Year celebrated by most Christian denominations (January 1) each year as official national holidays since 1870.
- The motto “In God We Trust” first appeared on US coins issued during the Civil War.
- This was added to bills in the 1950s.
- “under God” was instituted within the Pledge of Allegiance in reaction at the height of the Cold War against a “godless” Soviet Union.
- Annuit Coeptis (He [God or Providence] has favored our undertakings) embossed on the Great Seal of the United States and printed on the back of the one dollar bill.
- Religious Invocations presented at Presidential Inaugurations.
- Government supported forced Christian conversions of Indigenous tribal communities and enslaved Africans.
- Several attempts by legislators to impose adherence to Christianity in its many denominations as the official religion of the nation.
- Imposition of the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”: the mandate supposedly commanded by God to Anglo-Europeans to expand westward throughout the entire expanse of the continent.
- Chaplains hired at taxpayer expense to open sessions in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives each day.
- And the list continues ad infinitum.
The chaplains in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives open each session with a prayer, they coordinate religious programs, reside over funerals and memorial services, and they provide pastoral care for members of Congress, their staffs, and their families.
They are hired by majority vote of the members in each chamber. Though they serve as individuals and are not meant to represent any specific religious denomination, to date, all elected chaplains come from Christian traditions, though on occasion, guest chaplains from other religions are invited to give invocations.
One of the initial actions taken by the first U.S. Senate in 1789 was to select the Right Reverend Samuel Provoost, Episcopal Bishop of New York to serve as the first Senate Chaplain. The first Chaplain elected in the House of Representative was William Linn on May 1, 1789.
The tradition of opening each day’s sessions with a chaplain’s prayer was established by Rev. Jacob Duche who led the first opening prayer at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on September 7, 1774.
Congress justifies as its Constitutional right the hiring of religious chaplains by invoking Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5:
The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers.”
One of the founders and framers of the United States Constitution, James Madison, disputed Congress’ interpretation by arguing against the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress, which he did in his “Detached Memoranda,” circa 1817:
“The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion,” he asserted. “The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes….The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles….”
“If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries,” he continued, “as well as their Constituents should discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expense,” wrote Madison. “Why should the expense of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be paid by the public….”
The Supreme Court settled the matter of the constitutional right of legislatures to hire chaplains at public expense in its Marsh v. Chambers (1983) decision. The case involved whether the Nebraska legislature had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by opening each session with a prayer directed by a chaplain paid for with public funds.
The Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the practice does not violate the Establishment Clause using precedent as justification. This ruling, however, went against the Supreme Court’s previous Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) decision, which set out a three-pronged test for the constitutionality of statutes by which a statute is constitutional: (1) if it has a primarily secular purpose; (2) if its principal effect neither aids nor inhibits religion; and (3) if government and religion are not excessively entangled.
Chief Justice Warren Burger writing the majority opinion in Marsh v. Chambers stated in part:
In light of the unambiguous and unbroken history of more than 200 years, there can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society. To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an ‘establishment’ of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.
Hmmm, de Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority”?
The Supreme Court, however, disregarded the issue of precedent when it recently overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) unraveling the legal right to abortion for nearly the last 50 years in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Several organizations are now suing the government for access to reproductive care including abortion. Some of these organizations, for example, Jewish and Muslim, are suing on religious grounds since their respective faith communities allow abortion.
For example, from a press release of Muslim Advocates:
“The Supreme Court’s radical decision to overturn Roe v. Wade represents a dangerous Christian nationalization of American law and kicks open the door to future reversals of the right to contraception,” beings the press release, “the right to marry whomever you want and even the right to teach your children a language of your choice.”
“By upholding a law that defines life as beginning at conception,” it continued, “the U.S. Supreme Court has enshrined the religious doctrine of one minority religious community into law — violating the First Amendment principle of religious freedom. Moreover, by ruling that the court will recognize a fundamental constitutional right only if it is ‘deeply rooted in history,’ Justice Alito’s decision threatens to send us back to a time when it was commonplace for rich, white, Christian men to hold the full panoply of essential rights (such as bodily integrity, fair wages and voting rights) while they enslaved, oppressed and conquered others.”
“And Jesus said:”
If the government is to celebrate/promote certain selective religious holiday ceremonies and enshrine in law selective religious doctrines, it should then celebrate all of the estimated 5,000 religions of the world. The only reason our government at least acknowledges Hanukkah is because it falls each year around Christmas. In fact, however, Hanukkah is a very minor historical commemoration, rather than a major religious holiday.
Rather than twisting themselves into virtual pretzels in attempting to justify the imposition of Christianity upon the U.S. population, its institutions, its currency, and its public proceedings such as Presidential inaugurals and other official events, government officials should acknowledge openly and honestly the actual text they obediently follow:
And Jesus said: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28: 19-20)
But the historical Jesus, as it is told, appeared as a compassionate, just, and holy man, a spiritual leader, and a teacher. Unfortunately, though, for the next two thousand plus years, his words have been misrepresented and weaponized to condone the most atrocious brutalities perpetrated upon humankind, upon creatures great and small, and upon the Earth.
Now is the time to learn from history and not repeat the horrors of the past by constructing a durable wall of separation.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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