[Mb-hair] ³The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.²

[Michael Butler]

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MotherJones.com / News / Feature

The Great Debate of Our Season
Introducing a Mother Jones special issue on the interplay of conservative
Christianity and the U.S. government.

the Editors
November/December 2005 Issue

³The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the
Christian Religion.²

THOSE WORDS, PENNED IN ARTICLE 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, are as
succinct a statement as we have from the Founding Fathers on the role of
religion in our government. Their authorship is ascribed variously to George
Washington, under whom the treaty was negotiated, or to John Adams, under
whom it took effect, or sometimes to Joel Barlow, U.S. consul to Algiers,
friend of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and himself no stranger to the
religious ferment of the era, having served as a chaplain in the
Revolutionary Army. But the validity of the document transcends its
authorship for a simple reason: it was ratified. It was debated in the U.S.
Senate and signed into law by President Adams without a breath of
controversy or complaint concerning its secular language, and so stands
today as an official description of the founders¹ intent.

And it wouldn¹t stand a chance in the government of the country we¹ve
become.

The idea of America was always informed by the ideals of its religious
citizens, expressed, often, in religious terms. But the genius of America
was the establishment, by those same individuals, of the world¹s first
secular government. That government wasn¹t at odds with religion‹even the
separation of church and state might be construed as a policy extension of
Jesus¹ admonition not to pray as the hypocrites do, in public. And many
religious factions (among them the 19th-century evangelicals) lobbied for
secular governance, to protect themselves from the tyranny of mainstream
denominations. Yet some among the faithful, uncomfortable with America from
the start, saw secularism as the nation¹s fatal flaw, instead of its core
strength, and have fought to transform the United States into an expressly
Judeo-Christian nation.

Recently, the inheritors of this viewpoint are prevailing. The measure of
religion¹s intrusion into our government and politics can be found whenever
the White House markets a Supreme Court candidate by flaunting her religious
convictions and church affiliation, whenever liberal Democrat politicians
ostentatiously genuflect to show they can be prayerful, too, whenever a FEMA
website directs the public to contribute its hurricane-relief funds to a
right-wing ministry. Kansas senator Sam Brownback, gearing up to run for
president on a faith-based, antiabortion platform, calls the role of
religion in government ³the great debate of our season.²

The religious right didn¹t come by this prominence by accident, by casually
capturing (and capitalizing on) the desire of many Americans for a more
meaningful and spiritual life, nor even by the simple tactic of wrapping
itself in the purloined flag of the founders and in a misconstrued
Constitution. They organized, crafting a far-flung and intricate network of
political pulpits, media outlets, funding organs and think tanks, and
integrating it into the political machinery of the Republican right. The
religious right shares the conservatives¹ will to power and also, more than
previously, a conviction that it is obligated by destiny to remake the
country in its image.

This issue of Mother Jones is dedicated to illuminating the interplay
between conservative Christianity and the U.S. government. We regard the
movement¹s history, chart its arteries of funding and influence, and locate
its wellsprings of support and aspiration. And we also show how such
national issues as Intelligent Design and the death penalty are being
debated within the church. It¹s been more than 200 years since the founders
established the separation of church and state. The assault on that
principle now under way promises to alter not only our form of government
but our concept of religion as well.

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This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress,
the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like
you.

© 2005 The Foundation for National Progress

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