McCain sees Constitution establishing a ‘Christian nation’

September 29, 2007

I’ve always thought the constitutional language was fairly straightforward: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Constitution is entirely secular — there’s no mention of God, the Bible, the Ten Commandments, or the Judeo-Christian tradition.

With this in mind, one wonders what Constitution Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been reading.

A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn’t say, “I only welcome Christians.” We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

John McCain has been in Congress for several decades, and he’s sworn to uphold the Constitution on more than a few occasions. One would like to think he’s read it enough times to know this is nonsense.

Indeed, what BeliefNet did not mention in the question is that the poll was conducted by the First Amendment Center, which released the results on Constitution Day. The accompanying report noted that far too many Americans are confused about the Constitution.

Apparently, it’s not just the electorate that’s mistaken.

The same interview, by the way, touched on the recent controversy surrounding McCain’s denomination.

For years, you’ve been identified as an Episcopalian. You recently began referring to yourself as a Baptist. Why?

[It was] one comment on the bus after hours.

I see. Unprompted, McCain told a reporter two weeks ago, “By the way, I’m not Episcopalian. I’m Baptist.” This, despite years in which McCain identified himself as an Episcopalian. What prompted the switch? Apparently, it was talking on a bus “after hours.”

How very odd.

Where exactly in the Constitution does it specify that this country is a Christian country?

“But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.”

Which are what?

  • C’mon, 2Man, you know the answer to

    “But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.”

    Which are what?

    Killing non-Christian people (even better if they are non-white!) under false pretenses, hypocritically condemning people for offenses to ‘family values’ that moralizing Christian Republicans commit more than anyone, and making the rich richer at the expense of the less fortunate.

    You know, those Christian principles.

  • Why don’t they ever ask exactly what in the Constitution forms the basis of their (ignorant) opinions? Why is every controversy treated as a matter of he said/she said opinion, when many can be resolved by facts and evidence?

    The U.S. Constitution is completely secular. Even when it comes to the “oath” of office for the president in Article II, Section 1 and others in Article VI, an affirmation (without reference to some deity) is expressly permitted as an alternative to an oath.

    Even the preamble starts out “We the people . . . ” There is not even acknowledgment of a deity here.

    It makes you want to tear your hair out that pollsters and media go out of their way not to expose and correct public ignorance and misconceptions.

  • Note to CB: “How very Odd” should be the headline everytime you write about one of the seriously misguided Republican candidates for the next few months.

    How Very Odd: McCain Sees Constitution Establishing Christian Nation

    How Very Odd: Rudy Calls His Third Wife Because of 9/11

    How Very Odd: Thompson Knows Nothing

    How Very Odd: Mitt Romney Changes Yet Another Invioble Truth

    How Very Odd: Tancredo Hates the Brown People

    How Very Odd: Ron Paul Hates the Government.

    Ad infinitum, ad absurdem, ad naseum.

    See, it’d just save you some time to have that as a default headline.

  • Yeah, McCain really ought to try reading that Constitution thing some time. He doesn’t seem to have soaked up much of it via osmosis in all his years in govenrment. I said the same thing a couple of weeks ago when he was going around claiming it was unconstitutional for Congress to regulate tours of military duty, when in fact Article 1, Section 8 unambiguously gives Congress complete authority over every aspect of military affairs short of actually commanding troops in battle (the only military powers it reserves for the president.)

  • The Constitution never once mentions a deity, because the Founding Fathers wanted to keep their new country “religion-neutral.” Our Founding Fathers were an eclectic collection of Atheists, Deists, Christians, Freemasons and Agnostics.

    George Washington, the Father of our country, and John Adams (Second President of the USA) CLEARLY stated in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: “The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion.”

    George Washington rarely attended church and instead followed a popular 18th century philosophy called Deism—a philosophy that believed in a cosmic energy or universal “Force.” The dictionary says that Deism is “a system of thought advocating natural religion based on human reason rather than revelation,” that had nothing to do with Christian principles.

    James Madison, original mastermind of our Constitution, was an Atheist to the core who loved skewering Christianity. In 1785 he wrote, “What have been fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

    Thomas Jefferson, who authored The Declaration of Independence, rarely missed an opportunity to laugh at Christianity. In a letter to John Adams in 1823, he wrote: “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

    In 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote about the Bible’s Old and New Testaments, “The whole history of these books is so defective and doubtful — evidence that parts have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds.”

    In fact, it was President Jefferson himself who first wrote (to a Baptist church group in 1802), “The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between Church and State.” Therefore, when Jefferson talked about “Nature’s God,” the “Creator” and “divine Providence ” in the Declaration that he wrote, he was referring to a general cosmic energy– not the Christian God.

    America is not a Christian nation. Period. Our Constitution derived from the post-Christian Enlightenment values of reason and truth.

    There is a good film out on Google Video called “Zeitgeist” that does a good, basic job of explaining the true foundations of christianity in the western world. The film is divided into three parts, watch Part I.

  • Those same “Christian” principles are also Muslim, Jewish, Budhist,…you name it. Calling them Christian when they basically are just moral principles shared by the world at large is just catering to religious sects. It would be a better fit if McCain would have said …”based on certain moral principles such as…” and then named what those are supposed to be. I doubt if McCain can even name a principle since his are so arbitrary.

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  • Yeah. Early colonists really wanted to go back to being dragged off to torture chambers depending on whether it was Catholic Day or Protestant Day. It was so much fun they traveled thousands of miles in tiny sail boats so they could do it all over again.

    If the framers of the Constitution had stood up and said “Hey, let’s make this a Christian nation, but first we need to decide what sort of Christian nation,” there would have been a second revolution and there’d be different faces on our cash.

  • McCain needs a refreshment course in American history. There is absolutely NOTHING in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights about America being a Christian country.

    This country is run by ignorant morons.

  • It’s also apparently news to McCain that the Statue of Liberty hasn’t been there since 1789 either. Apparently he thinks the poem inscribed at its base is the Constitution.

    Oh, and the irony of a Republican mentioning welcoming the tired, poor, and huddled masses! Who’s insisting on building a wall to keep them out?

  • Devils Advocate,
    Shucks, you left out the defining adjective: LYING ignorant morons. . . . .
    Check out ‘The Authoritarians’ by Bob Altemeyer. The would-be leaders of Right Wing Authoritarians consider lying, pretending to be religious or any other deviant behavior that will gather power to themselves to be perfectly proper. Tom Delay is a classic example of the low misbreed.
    DC

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  • How about Article VI, section 3 of the Constitution : “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Much simpler and more straightforward than the First Amendment, and in there before the First Amendment.

  • The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

    United States Constitution, Article VI, Paragraph 3.

    Nothing more need be said.

  • As a Native American, I get rather annoyed, to say the least, at these “Christians” who say that this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles. They seem to forget that we had our own religions and worshipped our own deities, before these Christian Europeans came to our land and forced their religion onto us, destroying our religions in the process. I have recently converted to the Pagan religion of my ancestors, renouncing all acknowledgement whatsoever of the validity of Christianity. To think that once again, we may have yet another Christian evangelical in the White House is beyond my simple ability to comprehend. McCain’s boneheaded comment that America is a Judeo-Christian nation again forces everyone to ask the rediculous question, “Is America a ‘Christian nation’?” The answer, which anyone with half a brain should know, is “No! America is not a Christian nation! America is a secular nation whose population is 80% Christian, but that in no way makes America a ‘Christian nation’.” How dare these people to lump me into their religious category. With such a large population of ignorant Americans who want to force their religion onto me, it’s obvious that America has some serious problems, and I don’t see solutions to them.

  • Well NEWWORLDMAN……I guess you will eventually find out the penalty for opting for Pagan religions. Say hello to the heat and when you die you’ll wish you believed in the True Christ and the True God……How sad

  • Hey BELIEVER IN THE TRUE GOD. Get OVER yourself. People who believe those of other faiths are automatically destined for hell when they die are DELUSIONAL. Do you even know what Christians (and others) DID to the indigenous people of this country? Does mass genocide ring a bell? It was all in the name of “Manifest Destiny”- their “God given right” to conquer, enslave, and massacre. Yeah, I’m suuuuure that’s something Jesus would have approved of. Why don’t you take some history. FYI I’ve taken classes on Native American religion and let me tell you, a good deal of them make a LOT more sense then Christianity. People like you= EW. How dare you even condemn someone? What ever happened to “Judge not lest ye be judged”? Funny how people like you seem to think this applies to everyone but yourself.

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