How Christian Nationalists Stretch the Truth

Things aren't always as they seem

David Barton is the founder of Wallbuilders, a nonprofit group which promotes history stories with themes of America as a Christian nation. They often do a lot with a little bit of material. Let’s take for example a Facebook posting from January 10.

The caption on their posting was “A powerful statement from one of the Ratifiers of the Constitution.”

Barton and many Christian nation advocates assume many Founders were orthodox Christians. They also like to expand the category of Founders to include other influential people who were alive during the Constitutional era. However, in my view, the personal beliefs of the Founders and their peers don’t tell us what we need to know about the meaning of the charter documents (Declaration and Constitution). What matters is what those documents say and what the Framers said about them. I will grant that many of the men who drew up the documents believed some form of Christianity and some were orthodox by today’s standards. However, that makes what they did even more interesting.

For instance, it is remarkable that so many orthodox Protestant men put together a document that requires no religious test for public office. Furthermore, they didn’t deliberate about the Bible. They didn’t engage in daily prayers during the Constitutional Convention. All those religious men hardly talked about religion at all. And they didn’t create a Christian or religious governmental structure. Amazing.

In the case of Iredell, it gets even more amazing. First of all, in contradiction to Barton’s graphic, Iredell did not ratify the Constitution. Although he was a strong supporter of the Constitution and he voted for it during the 1788 North Carolina ratification convention in Hillsborough, NC., it did not pass at that time. It was not ratified by a vote of 184 to 84. The next year North Carolina’s ratification delegation met in Fayetteville and ratified the Constitution after it had already been approved by a sufficient number of states. Iredell was not in attendance at that meeting. While he supported the Constitution, he was never able to ratify it. This is an embellishment applied by Barton.

But, it gets even more amazing. James Iredell may not have been an orthodox trinitarian Christian. Like Jefferson, Iredell was, for awhile at least, a big fan of Joseph Priestley. Iredell listened to him preach at the Universalist church in Philadelphia in February of 1796. About Priestley, Iredell wrote to his wife:

Yet this man, who has written more and with greater ability than any man in America in defence of the Christian Religion, is excluded from all the Pulpits in this city, but the above, because he has had the manliness to express a different opinion from many prevailing ones, in regard to some unessential doctrines, which may either be believed or disbelieved without prejudice to a sincere faith in the divine authority of the Christian Religion.

The quote Barton used came from an essay Iredell wrote when he was “very young” according to his papers. It is not possible to say whether he held orthodox views then or whether he changed them later. Concerning his praise for Priestley, either Iredell didn’t know Priestley well, or he considered the virgin birth, resurrection and the trinity “unessential.” Priestley didn’t believe in any of those supernatural doctrines. In 1782, Priestley published a major theological work in two volumes titled a History of the Corruptions of Christianity. The reason Priestley preached in the Universalist Church in Philadelphia is because the orthodox churches wouldn’t allow him to speak. Iredell later found Priestley preaching risqué and stopped attending, but he didn’t criticize his theology. Whether Iredell came back to orthodoxy or not, I don’t know, but in his correspondence to his wife in 1796, he liked Priestley’s heterodoxy just fine.

And now for something even more amazing: James Iredell was a strong defender of religious liberty for all religions, not just Christianity. In his defense of the Constitution, he was an especially able defender of the no religious test clause. What became a clause in Article VI reads: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” Some delegates in the North Carolina ratification convention worried that the no religious test clause would permit the election of non-Christians or even non-theists to federal office. Iredell agreed with that analysis but defended religious liberty guaranteed by that clause of the Constitution. During the debate, Iredell answered Henry Abbott, who questioned the no religious test clause. Iredell said:

Mr. Chairman, nothing is more desirable than to remove the scruples of any gentleman on this interesting subject. Those concerning religion are entitled to particular respect. I did not expect any objection to this particular regulation, which, in my opinion, is calculated to prevent evils of the most pernicious consequences to society. Every person in the least conversant in the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been committed by religious persecutions. Under the color of religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centred in themselves; that they alone had a right to dictate to the rest of mankind; and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and impious. The consequence of this intolerant spirit had been, that each church has in turn set itself up against every other; and persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably--that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own, without being a bad member of society.

He added:

But it is objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices. But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for? This is the foundation on which persecution has been raised in every part of the world. The people in power were always right, and every body else wrong. If you admit the least difference, the door to persecution is opened.

Iredell made a clear statement that the Constitution called for religious freedom for citizens of all religions and no religion. Otherwise, the Constitution would open the door to persecution which Iredell rejected. The Founders wanted to avoid the European example of persecution and bloodshed over religion.

Nor would it answer the purpose, for the worst part of the excluded sects would comply with the test, and the best men only be kept out of our counsels. But it is never to be supposed that the people of America will trust their dearest rights to persons who have no religion at all, or a religion materially different from their own. It would be happy for mankind if religion was permitted to take its own course, and maintain itself by the excellence of its own doctrines. The divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority. Has he not said that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it? It made much greater progress for itself, than when supported by the greatest authority upon earth.

Iredell pledged his support for both liberty of conscience for all and for his own faith. He saw no contradiction. James Iredell affirmed his own support for Christianity but rejected any state support for it. He said “the divine Author of our religion never wished for its support by worldly authority.” If only Christian nationalists could grasp this simple but important understanding.