Not One Nation Under God
The United States is not One Nation Under God, nor was it ever meant to be. The Bible is not the law of the land. The Constitution is – and the First Amendment of the Constitution reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Founding Fathers not only specifically did not establish a state religion, they specifically forbade The government to do so. They knew what they were doing; they were the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of men and women who had left their mother countries in Europe, fleeing religious persecution. They knew firsthand the tyranny that comes about when a government sanctions one religion in preference to any other.
The Puritans came to America because they felt they were being oppressed by the Anglican Church. So did Roger Williams and his colonists, Catholics, who settled in what became Rhode Island. Many of the Dutch who came to what became New York came to escape what they felt were unreasonable strictures being placed upon their beliefs.
Worship as you please, but you have no right to shove your religion down the throats of your fellow citizenry… and the day that this country nullifies the First Amendment is the day that I start making plans to leave – because it will no longer be the America created by Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin; it will no longer be the America reunited by Lincoln; it will no longer be the America defended by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and both Bushes; it will no longer be the America which came to recognize the worthiness and rights of those it originally marginalized – blacks, women, Native Americans, and eventually every immigrant population who came to our shores to build this country.
It will be a lie, and it will be a betrayal of every member of the citizenry – and every foreigner who ever admired us from afar. It will be the destruction of the noblest dream ever created on the face of the planet.
All for the ego of the worshippers of a God which, by all accounts, is entirely beyond such things.
Want to love your country? Love your neighbor, even if – particularly if – that neighbor doesn’t worship your god. George Washington would. Thomas Jefferson would.
Hell, even Jesus would.
Understand this: if you want the United States to be a governmentally-defined Christian country, you are the American Taliban; you are the American ISIS; you are Lucifer, the Shining One, the Fallen One.
You have no understanding of what this country was meant to be, should be, or can be; you are a false prophet, and your religion is a false god.
Jesus Christ gave you an example. Follow it, and not your – or your pastor’s or your politician’s – ego.
