Christian Nation? First Criteria

Using the first of three criteria laid out in the previous article let us consider if there are Articles in the constitution that are specifically Christian.

There are two sections of the constitution where religion is mentioned;

Article 6

….but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. 

And the first amendment ;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Obviously these sections do not promote Christianity or reference it as a guiding principle.

The 7^th amendment is interesting in that there has been much debate as to weather it refers to laws based in Christianity. The 7^th amendment states:

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Common Law was understood to be a body of laws which were common to many states and were laws that governed interpersonal issues as apposed to issues between the state and its citizens. In these cases a body of precedence would be built over time by making the decision of one court, under the same case circumstances, become the de facto law for future cases.  

Common Law has become synonymous with that body of  precedent. However, in the context of the constitution, Common Law referred to the historical or inherited concepts of English Common Law. By the nineteenth century English Common Law had come to mean any laws that were not statutory or regulatory laws. Basically laws that did not interest the king or parliament. 

Some have contended that English Common law had its origins in English Church law, and therefore in Christianity.   

In a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper in 1814,  Jefferson refutes the idea that the origins and or progressions of common law had their basis in Christianity.  

“For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced
by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time
by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta,
which terminates the period of the common law…But none of these adopt
Christianity as a part of the common law. If, therefore, from the settlement
of the Saxons to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of
religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians,”

Later in 1824 Jefferson wrote his famous “wall of separation” letter to major John Cartwright. Again Jefferson claimed that English common law had no roots in ecclesiastical law.

In response to Jefferson’s 1824 letter, Joseph Story a Harvard professor, and devout Unitarian, wrote a rebuttal. In this rebuttal, Story cited 22 statutes enacted in parliamentary law that specifically enforced Christian rites or doctrines. For example it fixed the death penalty for heresy.

One can find many quotes from the founding fathers that uphold the notion that the foundation of our laws are ecclesiastical. One can also find many quotes even by the same author that state that our laws are completely secular.

Some light can be shed on the subject by looking at case law history (using the spirit of the 7^th amendment).

In the case of Updegraph vs. The Commonwealth (the case Jefferson wrote Cartwright about) where the rights of free speech were brought to trial in the supreme court of Virginia the defendant did;

…with contriving and intending to scandalize and bring into disrepute, and vilify the Christian Religion, and the Scriptures of Truth; and that he, in the presence and hearing of several persons,.

In rendering its judgment the court ruled:

No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country… No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion, no more than it would to break down its laws… Christianity is a part of the common law … not Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."

In People v. Ruggles 1811, Kent speaking as chief justice of the supreme court of New York, said: "The people of this state, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the author of those doctrines in not only, in a religious point of view, extremely impious, but, even in respect to the obligations due to society, is a gross violation of decency and good order.

There are many cases that were brought to state supreme courts and even to the U.S. supreme court such as Vidal v. Grard’s executors. Where the decisions included a pronouncement that “Christian religion is a part of the common law”

Laws from particular states were given passive acceptance within the framework of the constitution unless specifically overridden.  

In many cases the laws of individual states may have reflected specific Christian principles. For example; many state’s had laws which prohibited certain activities on Sunday. These were specifically based on a reverence for the Christian Sabbath. These laws have become known as “blue laws”. These laws were originally enacted in the states to allow for church attendance, or just a general reverence for Sunday. In North Carolina it is still against the law to hunt on Sunday. In Michigan it is against the law for pawn shops to be open on Sunday. These laws have stood up to many assaults claiming they violate the establishment clause of the first amendment. In 1961 the Supreme Court tackled 4 cases regarding blue laws and upheld the state’s laws in each case.  In those rulings the majority report noted that the Sunday laws were originally based on the Christian Sabbath, but are now based on a universal day of rest not necessarily tied to any religion. However the minority report emphatically stated that these laws were specific to Christianity and violated the establishment clause. So these laws were considered by some justices to be specifically Christian. And these laws have remained on the books of many states through the years. So in the early days of the United States these state laws where understood to be Christian and were not seen as being in conflict with the constitution.

While the founding fathers did not want to specifically establish the “Religion” of Christianity as the religion of the United States. It is apparent that the majority of the founders did not see contradictions between specific Christian based laws and the constitution.