US Constitution v. Mayflower Compact:
Jonathan Rowe on Sep 19th 2005
Check out a comment that Dr. David Mazel left on my site comparing the wording of the Mayflower Compact and the US Constitution; the difference is like night and day. If our Founders intended the US to be a “Christian Nation” in a public or civil sense, the wording of the Constitution would have looked a lot more like that of the Mayflower Compact.
I always address the “Is America a Christian nation?” question early in my American literature classes. Instead of asking them simply to answer the question, I ask my students what “Christian nation” might mean, and which of the meanings might make sense when applied to the United States.
Does it mean “Most Americans are Christians?” Then perhaps America is a Christian nation. But then, what does it mean to be “Christian”? Do most Americans (or the nation as a whole in, say, its foreign policy) exemplify the pacifism and anti-materialism of the Sermon on the Mount? Of course not.
Or does “Christian nation” mean a nation founded upon Christian principles and toward Christian ends? This is the point at which I have the students read and compare the wording of two charters, the Mayflower Compact and the U.S. Constitution:
The Mayflower Compact (1620)–”In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten . . . having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the Ends aforesaid.”
The Preamble to the United States Constitution (1787)–”We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (I also throw in Article VI, Clause 3: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”)
The first gives us a crystal-clear example of how a charter is worded by people deliberately founding a Christian polity. We are told directly that the colony is being “undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith.” The Founding Fathers could have used similar wording, but didn’t. The rationales for creating the Union is purely secular: insuring tranquility, providing for defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty.
Certainly the United States is not a Christian nation in the sense in whic Plymouth was a Christian colony. Still, some students typically insist that it is a Christian nation in some other sense, in a way that falls short of the Plymouth standard yet means more than the mere demographic fact that most Americans identify themselves as Christians. Funny thing–they can never seem to figure out what sense that is, though.
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
It is Christian in the sense in that the secular rationales of the Revolution spring from a world ordered greatly by Christianity. The rationales are points of practical convergence whose justification depends upon the religious creed which most of the colonials shared. After all the Government derives its power from the consent of the governed. In order to ensure the prosperity of this political endeavor our first President reminded us that religion and morality are indispensable supports towards this end. This nation is Christian in the sense that this religion and morality, for all practical purposes, has been and still tenatively is dominantly Christian.
“[The American Revolution] is Christian in the sense in that the secular rationales of the Revolution spring from a world ordered greatly by Christianity.”
It this were true, then it would be true of the French Revolution as well; at that point, the utility of calling something a “Christian” event seems fairly small.
Well, that first sentence was setting up the 2nd, cuz I don’t think anyone would argue that the French Revolution was a Christian event. The American Revolution was, and that’s a big reason as to its success compared to the French. Christianity provided the impetus for two ideas central to liberty: 1) that a person, while being a part of the State, yet transcends the State, because of the inviolable mystery of his spiritual freedom & 2) that authority has its source in God and not in man, no man and no particular group of men has in itself the right to rule others.
I’m at work, so I don’t have too much time to paraphrase the hyperlink I placed above, so let me quote:
“Far beyond the influences received either from Locke or the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the Constitution of this country is deep-rooted in the age-old heritage of Christian thought and civilization. . . . This Constitution can be described as an outstanding lay Christian document tinged with the philosophy of the day. The spirit and inspiration of this great political Christian document is basically repugnant to the idea of making human society stand aloof from God and from any religious faith. Thanksgiving and public prayer, the invocation of the name of God at the occasion of any major official gathering, are, in the practical behavior of the nation, a token of this very same spirit and inspiration.”
The language used is not expressly Christian, for these are secular rationales which are being laid out in the Constitution, but the thoughts expressed were incubated in the Christian worldview. “The Founding Fathers were neither metaphysicians nor theologians, but their philosophy of life, and their political philosophy, their notion of natural law and of human rights, were permeated with concepts worked out by Christian reason and backed up by an unshakeable religious feeling.” Adhering to Christian tenets, for many of our Founders and for many today, is necessary to make our political endeavors prosperous.
I am familiar with the Novak article. At best, I think, Novak’s point of Truth is that the American Revolution is more consistent with (and was certainly less hostile to) Christianity than the French (but then again, the French had an official Church to disestablish).
Also, Novak’s article is peppered with statements like:
“In the remainder of the Remonstrance, Madison gives several expressly Christian arguments for the natural right of religious liberty. He calls Governor Henry’s bill, against which he is remonstrating, ‘a contradiction of the Christian religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world.’”
Well, sort of. 1) What Madison and Jefferson were pushing really had nothing to do with traditional Christianity as it was understood over the hundreds or thousands of years, or orthodox Protestantism, ala Luther and Calvin. They were pusing the notion of “the rights of conscience” which was a doctrine that developed out of both the dissident Protestantism (because these Protestants were persecuted) and Enlightenment rationalism camps. 2) They had to convince a Christian public that Christianity, properly understood, was consistent with, nay, even demanded “the rights of conscience” doctrine. So of course they are going to make statements like “your illiberal idea contradicts Christianity.” It’s just like when liberal democrats pushing human rights in Islam argue, “Bin Laden does not represent true Islam; true Islam is a religion of peace that is compatible with democracy.”
well i think all your information is wrong T_T
[...] As Dr. David Mazel put it: The [Mayflower Compact] gives us a crystal-clear example of how a charter is worded by people deliberately founding a Christian polity. We are told directly that the colony is being “undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith.” The Founding Fathers could have used similar wording, but didn’t. The rationales for creating the Union is purely secular: insuring tranquility, providing for defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty. [...]
[...] He could have also reproduced the Constitution’s humanistic preamble. This is exactly what Dr. David Mazel did where he compared the US Constitution’s preamble with that of an earlier colonial document whose preamble (unlike the Constitution’s) clearly establishes the government as on a “Christian” mission. As Mazel wrote: I always address the “Is America a Christian nation?” question early in my American literature classes. Instead of asking them simply to answer the question, I ask my students what “Christian nation” might mean, and which of the meanings might make sense when applied to the United States. [...]
If one wishes to define Christian nation to decide if america was founded as one then the same criterion should be appled to what the Pilgrims believed Christians to be. To them the only true Christians were PURITANS. Not quite our modern idea of Christianity nor that of the founding fathers in 1787. Pilgrims wanted, and were determined, to build a society for themselves with privileges specified for Puritans and nobody else. Non-Puritans did not have the same rights and freedoms as Puritans - voting, office holding, etc. They also established the Puritan Church meaning that is was supported partly by the tax money of non-Puritans living in the colonythus forcing them to support a religion that they did not accept as their own. By 1787, many in America had come to believe that our political rights should not be bound by our religious beliefs. Established churches were on the way out or were already out in the colonies. Some 160 years after the Mayflower Compact, ideas about religion had broadened to the point that the founding fathers didn’t even want to bind people coming to America or those already living here to being Christian. They wanted political freedom for all. Labeling America specifically as a Christian nation would have compromised that position.
To maintain that were not founded on Christian principles simply because we didn’t explicitly claim to be is ludicrous. Christian values, Christian traditions, and Christian references were embedded in the founding of our government from the very beginning and continue to be.