Why America can NEVER Have an Official Religion

With the dangerous rise of “Christian” Nationalism in the United States I suppose there are going to be more and more yahoos yammering about how the US is supposed to be a Christian country.

The first problem with that idea is that it can’t be true unless we throw out the Constitution.
Which is a pretty serious problem, you have to admit!
The very first clause in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Obviously, if Congress cannot make any law respecting an establishment of religion, then our national government cannot make one religion the “official” religion for the country.
And if our government cannot make one religion the official religion for the country then what does it even mean to say that we are supposed to have a Christian nation?

If it just means that lots of Americans are Christians then that is fine.
Americans can belong to any religion they choose.
But if it means the government is supposed to establish, or protect, or promote, one religion, or one religion’s doctrines, over others, that is WRONG, and that is a direct violation of our Constitution.

Now, it is true that some STATES had established religions at the time the Constitution was ratified.
This was a holdover from colonial times when, often, there was very little freedom of religion in the United States.
(Massachusetts Puritans used to hang Quakers on Boston Common after all!)

{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

The Constitution of 1789 was a fresh start for America in many ways, not least of which was by providing a guarantee that the new Federal government would not meddle in religious matters, or elevate one religion to a preferred status over others.

The fact that states could still have established religions was a serious gap, though.
What good is talking about freedom of religion if states can take it away from you?
To be fair, most states had protections for freedom of religion in their own state constitutions and state laws, it is just that the Federal government had no authority to FORCE states to respect freedom of religion if they decided to go rogue and start hanging Quakers again….
Or forcing people to go to church on a certain day of the week.
Or killing witches.
Or whatever.

Fortunately for freedom, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Federal government was given important new powers over the states.
The Supreme Court used those new powers in a 1947 case called Everson v. Board of Education to apply the establishment clause of the First Amendment to state and local governments.

From the very beginning of the United States the Constitution has guaranteed that there cannot be a NATIONAL religion.
Since 1947 the Federal government has also guaranteed that there cannot be any STATE, or COUNTY, or CITY, or TOWN religions either.

So, if you hear someone saying that anyone in the United States can be a Christian, or even that everyone in the United States can be a Christian - if that is what they choose - that is absolutely true.
But if you hear some yammering yahoo saying that the United States is supposed to be a Christian NATION that is absolutely false.

Please remind people with such dangerous ideas of the very first clause of the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Thank you!

Wikipedia has some good information on the establishment clause here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

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{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

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