The USA Is Neither a Theocracy Nor a ‘Christian’ Nation

The USA is certainly not a “Christian nation,” although it’s a great country filled with many sincere Christian believers.

Speaker Mike Johnson, the former president DJT, and many Republican Representatives do believe the contrary: that we are indeed a core Christian nation. Speaker Johnson delivered his opinion November 14 on CNBC’s Squawk Box, stressing that “The separation of church and state is a misnomer … People misunderstand it. Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. It’s not in the Constitution.”

The First Amendment clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Johnson tries to deflect from this absolutely clear statement by criticizing an 1802 letter of President Jefferson. (Jefferson’s letter said the First Amendment builds “a wall of separation between Church & State” — as it does.) Styling himself as a Republican originalist, Speaker Johnson then needs to follow the First Amendment literally and not interpretthe third President’s private letter for his own theocratic reasonings.

Some Christians in our country would like to change the Constitution’s commitment to the separation of Church and State. I have Christian friends who assert that the Constitution (1789-1791) created a “Christian nation” — what scholars would call a theocracy, such as Iran, India, and Israel have today. These “good” folk simply won’t accept that our revolutionary American government specifically rejected any state religion or overt religious principles in its three branches of government.

Theocracy would be in direct opposition to bedrock values of our Founding Fathers.

In addition to the First Amendment, we read Founding Father James Madison in The Federalist Papers (Number 52) strongly supporting the prohibition against any religious test for office. Madison wrote that “the door of government is open to merit of every description, without regard to any particular profession of religious faith.”

Furthermore, most of our Founding Fathers cherished their own privatereligious practice, whether Deist Christian, Christian, some other faith, or no faith. Speaker Johnson coyly points out this “wall of separation” was intended to protect the private practice of religion: Yes, this is true, but of all religions not simply Christianity. The Founders did believe that personal religious practice was more sincere and spiritual when religion never soiled itself in governing.

Our Founding Fathers carefully chose not to use the terms Christian or Jesus or New Testament in the Constitution when they easily could have. Prominent Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who died in 1971, carefully wrote that “We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.” A “theocratic state” by definition has no wall between organized religion and government.

Emphatically no, then, we are not a “Biblical Republic” as Speaker Johnson and others want us to think. Praying on your knees in the House of Representatives also doesn’t make us a Christian nation, Mr. Johnson.

Our wise Founding Fathers honestly believed that the private practices of whatever (religious) faith one has are the most free and salutary method of worship. It follows then that whenever power and money come into Religion, genuine spiritual practice and deep religious spirit dissipate.

Keep religious belief truly free and pure, Mr. Johnson, by keeping “god” out of government but close to individual hearts.

We sustain a healthy democracy by not letting organized religion into government. Bringing in a theocracy, as some GOP leaders seek to do today with their “Biblical Republic”’” talk, is a recipe for disaster. Look at Iran, look at the extreme rightwing theocratic leadership of Israel, look at theocratic Hamas — how are their religion-infused theocratic politics helping their peoples?