Thank God for secular Constitution

By Dr. Peter Jauhiainen

Editor's note: Sept. 17 is U.S. Constitution Day

In 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention met to hammer out a remarkable document that became the blueprint for a new experiment in democracy that has drawn worldwide admiration.

It is striking how secular the U.S. Constitution is. At a time when many state constitutions established favor upon a particular church, or coming on the heels of a Declaration of Independence that invoked “Nature's God,” the “Creator,” and the “Supreme Judge” in support of the Revolutionary cause, the absence of even a single reference to God is extraordinary. You might expect it in the Preamble, but nope, it's not there. No mention of the Bible either. The source of our laws? “We the people ... .” In fact, the only explicit reference to religion in the original Constitution is found in Article VI: There should be no religious test for federal public office.

Why this avoidance of religious affirmation? Well, the delegates were political pragmatists. They knew it was going to be a tough sell getting all 13 states to ratify this document in the first place. Introducing any religious element into the Constitution, given the diverse religious groups already dotting the landscape, may have been political suicide.

Many of the delegates were also strong believers in the states' rights to legislate in matters of religion. They did not want the national government to intrude in this arena. So they left religion alone.

Two years later, in 1789, the Constitution was amended to include a Bill of Rights, which would, at the very least, guard against the founding of a national church or religion and guarantee basic religious freedom. The opening of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

This was a bold and audacious move. Europeans had long been accustomed to state-established churches, and many Americans wondered how their churches would survive without government support. But survive - and thrive - they did.

In a short time, the states followed the way of the federal government, dismantling their cozy church-state ties. Religious institutions, relying strictly on the voluntary efforts and financial support of their members, flourished.

Note the irony. The secularization of government created space for full-throttled religious participation. Secular principles helped stimulate religious growth.

The tide of history has a way of obscuring foundational principles and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. In 2007, a poll by the First Amendment Center indicated that 55 percent of American adults believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. Even the Republican candidate for president, John McCain, said that he believed this to be the case.

How can we explain this glaring deficiency? One factor is certainly Americans' general deficit in historical understanding. Another is the privileged place that Christianity has unofficially enjoyed throughout most of U.S. history, a status that has been slowly eroding through court decisions, immigration and societal secularization.

This has created the conditions for a third factor: the mythmaking of the Christian Right. Republicans and evangelicals are most susceptible to this propaganda. Three quarters of their respondents believe Christianity to be encoded in the Constitution (as opposed to half of Democrats and Independents).

Why does this matter?

A true understanding of our Constitution reminds us that the atheist and the evangelical are equally American, that openness and tolerance trumps religious bigotry. It should also guard us against politicians who preach otherwise.

Dr. Peter Jauhiainen is an associate professor of Religion and Humanities at Kirkwood Community College. His academic specialty is American religious history.