Spinning history
Dec. 6th, 2007 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournRomney's religion speech annoys me because he invoked the writers of the Constitution's use of "God" as evidence that we are supposed to be a "religious" nation, and then immediately connected it with the statement: "He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, ...". This is all very nice and comforting to the religious right, except that it is misleading at best. The text of the Constitution doesn't invoke God or religion at all. God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence in non-denominational tones, which is not surprising given that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists rather than Christians (I wouldn't call the phrase "Nature's God" or "their Creator" to really speak of a Christian perspective). The phrase "IN GOD WE TRUST" wasn't on the currency until 1863 and even then that was just coins. It wasn't on paper until 1957. The phrase "Under God" wasn't present in the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.
It's a modern fiction to say that the United States of America is a "Christian Nation". We had and have many Christians here, but that's not exactly the same thing. The persecution complex the Christian right like to use to make it seem like they are "under attack" even when they are already well-represented in the majority might feel assuaged by this kind of rhetoric, but it's historically misleading if not an outright lie.
It's a modern fiction to say that the United States of America is a "Christian Nation". We had and have many Christians here, but that's not exactly the same thing. The persecution complex the Christian right like to use to make it seem like they are "under attack" even when they are already well-represented in the majority might feel assuaged by this kind of rhetoric, but it's historically misleading if not an outright lie.
