I first wrote the following over fifteen years ago, after a conversation with a Christian brother who was convinced that the concept  of separation of church and state was somehow a private invention of Thomas Jefferson.  I am republishing this slightly edited version for the readers of TheGreaterWe.blog.

Far too often well-meaning Christian folks chafe at the concept of separation of church and state and reply, “But we are a Christian nation…”  You’ve heard it, maybe even said it.  But it’s just not true.

What is true is that this nation was settled by various groups of people who claimed a Christian identity.  To whatever degree we were comprised of Christians, to that degree we were Christian.  However it was never, and never will be 100%.

Furthermore, a careful look at the “Christian identity” of the first settlers will reveal “Christian identities.

The first, the “pilgrims” were separatists from the Church of England, who had been forced out of their motherland because their beliefs were inconsistent with its  state church.

Now my question is, were these folks migrating to a Christian nation, or migrating from one. Do you see my point? England had a state religion, which claimed to be Christian. (Factor in the religious faiths of the various Native Americans whose land the European Christians invaded, and the point becomes a bit more potent.)

Yet I don’t hear too many USAmericans speaking of England as a Christian nation. They reserve that for their own country, not the country whose ideals of democracy influenced us greatly, and who gave us our language.

Yet “freedom of religion” was not initially practiced in all the colonies. The history of the state of Rhode Island tells of another group of separatists who had to flee the separatists.

In 1636, Roger Williams, after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, settled at the tip of Narragansett Bay, on land granted to him by the Narragansett tribe. He called the site Providence and declared it a place of religious freedom. Detractors of the idea of liberty of conscience sometimes referred to it as “Rogue’s Island”.
5/18/2010 edit:    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhode_Island&oldid=362857051
Current version:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island

In fact, this concept, the separation of church and state, is one of the great contributions of certain Christian people who had been persecuted by other Christian people.

There’s another interesting example from our colonial history.

Freedom of religion was first applied as a principle of government in the founding of the colony of Maryland, founded by the Catholic Lord Baltimore, in 1634. Fifteen years later (1649) the Maryland Toleration Act, drafted by Lord Baltimore, provided: “No person or persons…shall from henceforth be any waies troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof.”

 

The Maryland Toleration Act was repealed with the assistance of Protestant assemblymen and a new law barring Catholics from openly practicing their religion was passed.

 

In 1657, the Catholic Lord Baltimore regained control after making a deal with the colony’s Protestants, and in 1658 the Act was again passed by the colonial assembly.

 

This time, it would last more than thirty years, until 1692, when after Maryland’s Protestant Revolution of 1689, freedom of religion was again rescinded. In addition in 1704, an Act was passed “to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province”, preventing Catholics from holding political office. Full religious toleration would not be restored in Maryland until the American Revolution, when Maryland’s Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the American Declaration of Independence
5/17/2010 edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freedom_of_religion&oldid=362706689
current version:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion#United_States

So the twin concepts of freedom of religion and separation of church and state were practiced inconsistently until clearly established by the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, specifically in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting the 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.

Now the point here is simply that Constitutionally the United States cannot ever be a Christian Nation. WE can never have a state religion.  For example how can it be Constitutionally more Christian than Jewish?

The newly elected President George Washington made an interesting reference to religious pluralism following a visit to Newport, Rhode Island on August 17, 1790. On behalf of the Jewish Community Moses Seixas had written:

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a government erected by the Majesty of the People–a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to All liberty of conscience and immunities of Citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great governmental machine.

https://ajhs.org/wp-content/uploads/Letter-To-George-Washington.pdf

In his reply, President Washington echoed Seixas’s words:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. …while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135

Washington’s main point can easily be lost within the beauty of his language. The Jewish citizens, or any others for that matter, are not enjoying their religious freedom as a special bequest of Christian folk who are somehow in charge. Rather, we United States Citizens — Christians (Catholic and non-Catholic), Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others of any or no particular religious identity, we all are guaranteed –by the same US Constitution– the safety of shelter under our own respective “vine and fig trees.”

And this, my friend is why I am so proud to exercise my own Christian faith in this wonderful non-religiously affiliated country.