Freedom to Worship

President Obama's comment in Turkey: “America is not a Christian nation.” How could he?!? Of course we're a Christian nation! One nation under God! Read the Constitution!

I appreciate the concern here, given the President's, and his party's track record, and I wonder about the thought process that led him to saying it, but once again he's got the Right spooled-up over non-issues and looking a bit like fools. I do wish more of our laws were guided by Christian values, but appreciate having a government that prohibits itself from telling me how to worship. (At least in theory.)

The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution clearly says: “We the people of the United States, in order to … secure the blessings of liberty” but somehow neglected to mention Jesus, or God in any specific manifestation. Why is that? I love reading history, but am no historian, so I can't easily answer that question, but I can tell you those men thoroughly debated those four pages. If God was omitted, it was likely not an oversight.

The Constitution was written to outline how the government would operate, not how the citizenry would live their lives. Some of the founding fathers even opposed the Bill of Rights, not because they opposed the rights, but because they felt it was not necessary and feared rights might be misinterpreted as coming from the state. (Sound familiar?)

By not establishing a religion, the people were left to worship as they please. This was clearly important, since the very first item in the very first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” In this very amateur historian's opinion, if the founding fathers intended to establish America as a Christian nation, they would have at this time. Instead, the freedom of the individual was protected and Caesar was left to manage what was Caesar's.

Having said that, the founding fathers were nearly all Christian men, guided by their Christian values. They applied those values to the nation they were building and prayed those who followed would do the same. America is a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, but America is not a Christian nation. And history tells us this is a good thing.

A blessed Easter to all.
Mr. Huey