No, Christianity is not basis of our government

I would like to add my perspective to Larry Tanzer’s comment (letter to the editor, Dec. 19, 2018) that the USA “was founded on a Christian basis.”

While there were many Christians in the colonies and early United States, many of the “founders” were Deists who did not believe in supernatural events and organized religion in general. Even at that time, like now, there were many different churches which had different methods of worship. The Constitution writers saw the religious intolerance that many colonies had, and did not want the new government to have these biases.

Besides the well-debated First Amendment to the Constitution, there is also the third clause of Article 6 in the Constitution: All members of Congress, the state legislatures, executive and judicial officers “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.”

Thus government office holders had to affirm to support the Constitution, but could not be required to be a member of a church or prohibited because of not attesting to any religious belief structure.

To me, the “no religious Test” clause speaks pretty clearly about their intent to keep religion out of the government. That does not mean that people don’t have religion, or that religious people cannot work in government. It means that there is no “Christian basis” for our government.

While at the time the Founders may have been more concerned about all of the different Christian sects instead of Jewish or Muslim believers, they had the foresight to not make Christianity the basis of our government.

While Mr. Tanzer may have taken a “Bible as literature” class, to require such a course in high school (or college) would be a very slippery slope. Casual use of the Bible in literature or world religion classes is fine, but any more use of it can get out of hand. Disputes between Protestants and Catholics about school teachings and fundings were big issues in the late 1800s. So important, that these issues were addressed in many state constitutions.

Look at a piece of the Idaho State Constitution, adopted in 1890, Article IX, Section 6: “… No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools …”

Now again it’s likely that the motivation for this section was disagreements between Catholics and Protestants, but those guidelines are even more important today since we now have a much more diverse population.

The importance of religious tolerance and freedom is a much better topic in schools than the false notion that we were or are a Christian nation.

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James Fulton is a Post Falls resident.