Baptist News Global: Was America Born as a Christian Nation?
Dr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, has just written a book entitled, America is a Christian Nation. For a pastor of one of the flagship churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, with an impressive list of degrees, including one from a credible university, he's not very capable of interpreting written history as far as his contention is concerned.
There's no question that Dr Jeffress is conservative when it comes to his theology. He's very fundamentalist Baptist in that regard, including the fact that he is a dispensationalist, like the well-known W. A. Criswell, long time former pastor of the same church. His theology degrees are from two very tightly-wound seminaries, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, which is fundamentalist Baptist through and through, and Dallas Theological Seminary, non-denominational but heavily influenced and steeped in fundamentalism, so much so that most of its graduates serve Baptist churches. His most recent doctorate, in Divinity, came from Dallas Baptist University, less conservative, perhaps, than Southwestern, but still conservative.
His undergraduate degree is from Baylor University, a school with deep, historic roots among Texas Baptists, and because it is a private school, in Texas, is very Republican when it comes to politics. But it is one of the leading universities influenced by the breakaway moderate Baptist movement known as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and has deliberately re-aligned its trustee board to get away from having its theology and academic departments, particularly the sciences, be directed by fundamentalists. The Baptists who now run Baylor are in good company with the ones who also operate Baptist News Global, which is a moderate-to-liberal publication owned by the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
So I have to conclude that he either didn't learn much about American constitutional history at Baylor, or he ignored what they taught him. But then, attending Baylor is less of a theological statement, even though its theology is quite liberal compared to the Southern Baptists who once owned it, than it is a rite of passage for rich, white Baptist kids from Texas who are more interested in the prestige that the name gives them than in anything they learn in its theology classes.
Jeffress Seems Somewhat "Woke" on a Few Issues, Anyway
Jeffress is typically Southern Baptist on most social issues. He is vehemently opposed to women serving as church pastors or ordained leaders of any kind. He is also vehemently opposed to any kind of same sex marriage or LGBTQ rights, and he is a staunch defender of the anti-abortion activist position, desiring it to be eliminated as an option anywhere in the United States.
After Charlottesville, he came out with a statement condemning racism.
"Let there be no misunderstanding," he said, "Racism is a sin." He added later on, in a separate interview, "all racism is repulsive and totally contradictory to the word of God."
He was not an anti-vax supporter. "There is no credible religious argument against the vaccines," he stated.
He loses all credibility, however, by standing with Trump. Any pastor who publicly endorses candidates for office is placing his political perspective and the power that may go with it above his ministry to his congregation. Pastors, like everyone else, are entitled to their own opinion and perspective, but ministry is a higher calling, and that's a common, Evangelical interpretation of the point.
Standing with such a morally bankrupt, corrupt, and totally unrepentant person like Trump is an inexplicable position for the pastor of one of the most well-known Southern Baptist churches in the country. Of course, among conservative Christians, there's always the "out" of a conversion experience. Even that is cheapened by using it as a means of giving a pass to a moral degenerate who happens to use political power, and money, as a bribe for favors and for getting out of trouble. In Trump's case, though, there's been no conversion experience. In fact, Trump has openly denied having committed any sin requiring God's forgiveness. And those are his words.
The value of what Trump has to attract leaders of the Evangelical far right is what he can do for them politically, and a Christian nationalist country is high on their agenda. I don't know how many of them realize how quickly he can turn on them when he's gotten what he wants and doesn't need them any more. They've given up a lot to follow them, not just their credibility, but their loyalty has shifted away from Christ and the Christian gospel, and they've given that, too, to Trump.
"It's More Complicated Than That"
According to Rodney Kennedy, author of the linked article from Baptist News Global says Jeffress' premise is flawed by a "false reading strategy." Jeffress, says Kennedy, is of the opinion that gathering snippets of sayings by founding fathers that include the words "God," "Christian," "Bible," and "belief," constitutes the proof necessary to declare their intentions to make America a Christian nation.
Another of Jeffress' flaws in making his point is his reliance on the work of David Barton, the founder of a group known as "Wallbuilders," dedicated to undoing the wall of separation that the Constitution establishes between church and state. Barton, who is not a historian, but holds a degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University, is a Fundamentalist source of misinformation and of completely re-writing history. Jeffress almost completely relies on Barton as the source of his information for his book, which Kennedy calls "an extended version of one of Jeffress' sermons." Barton's historical interpretations have been debunked, to the point where many Evangelical Christian schools won't use his stuff.
If America was founded as a Christian nation, and specifically, if the writing of the Constitution is the result of a foundation of "Biblical truth," where, exactly, are the examples of Biblical truth in the Constitution and where are the citations of references from the Bible to support those Biblical principles? Use of the term "divine Providence" does not constitute a Christian confession of faith. It doesn't necessarily indicate the users actual belief in God in the same context as conservative Christians do.
The strongest evidence against the idea that the Founders intended to establish a Christian nation is the establishment clause of the First Amendment. This ended the existence of a state church in America, and it set all churches free from state oversight, regulation, approval of the appointment of its ministers and from dictating the content of the preacher's sermons. It also created a completely secular state, in which those who were in government service, as members of a legislative body, head of state, or in the judicial system as magistrates, mayors and other political leaders, were no longer required to hold membership in a church in order to serve in office.
It was also obvious in the writing of James Madison, whose observation of the persecution of Baptists by the state church in Virginia, the Church of England, had inspired his idea for religious liberty, and of Thomas Jefferson, himself an agnostic, who also expressed this idea of religious liberty in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut. In their unique way, both of these men saw the tyranny imposed on those whose conscience led to expression of a faith different from that of the state's official church, and on those who did not desire to follow any kind of religious belief.
How "Christian" Could a Christian Nation Under Trump's Leadership Be?
I'm not curious enough about how a Trump-led Christian nationalist America would look to have any desire at all to try it out. From observation, it could not be Christian, since there is absolutely nothing in Trump or his politics that resembles genuine Christian faith. It is quite the opposite in the anti-Christian nature of the rhetoric and behavior exhibited by its leader, who demands loyalty Christians usually give only to Jesus Christ. I use the term pseudo-Christian to describe this movement. The white, Christian nationalism pushed by conservative Evangelicals is only a means to deceive people into supporting this political movement leading America toward dismantling its democratic idealism in exchange for dictatorship.
Neither Trump's MAGA base, nor the conservative Evangelicals who are part of its core bear any resemblance to the Christian faith that is laid out in detail in the New Testament. The words of Jesus himself, recorded in the four gospel accounts of his life and teaching, are the criteria by which all of Christian faith is guided. Trumpism sets all of that aside, and maybe that's too kind of a way of saying it, rejects the Christian gospel and has created one of their own.
For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:13-14, NIV
Two of the Founding Fathers actually took the step to write the establishment clause into the First Amendment, which separates the church, and by definition, all religious institutions, from the state, intentionally creating a secular government and at the same time granting all churches the freedom to conduct and regulate their own affairs without state interference. From the historical record, there was little objection to doing this among the delegates to the constitutional convention. The establishment clause is clear evidence that there was no intention among America's founders to create a "Christian nation." They'd had enough of that.
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