Christian Nation and Presidential Elections (Book Notes: American Jesus)

It's become common in America for religion to be used as a political football. Implicitly or explicitly, there are many who argue that a person should receive or be denied people's votes based upon the candidate's religious beliefs. There is actually a long tradition of this in America - but it's not one that anyone should want to be part of.

In American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, Stephen Prothero writes about the rancorous 1800 presidential election between Federalist Thomas Jefferson and Whig John Adams:

According to the Federalists, [Thomas] Jefferson was an infidel and a Jacobin whose damnable flirtations with the French goddess of reason were sure to bring down the country. The election “of a manifest enemy to the religion of Christ, in a Christian nation, would be an awful symptom of the degeneracy of that nation, and... a rebellion against God,” warned the Reverend William Linn, a Dutch Reformed minister from New York. It would “destroy religion, introduce immorality, and loosen all the bonds of society.”

[In “Notes on the State of Virginia (1782)], Jefferson attacked religious establishments and defended religious freedom, arguing in a now-famous passage that “it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Seizing on this passage, partisans of [John] Adams insisted that heterodoxy and anarchy were the closest of kin. “Let my neighbor once persuade himself that here is no God,” Linn fumed, “and he will soon pick my pocket, and break not only my leg but my neck. If there be no God, there is no law.”

So, American religious leaders who attack politicians based upon their supposed failure to adhere to some religious orthodoxy can be counted with those who did the exact same thing with Thomas Jefferson. As Prothero makes clear — and as anyone who knows much about history should already realize — Thomas Jefferson was not the least bit orthodox in his beliefs. A person holding Jefferson’s position would be considered radical even now.

It’s unlikely that he would stand a chance of getting elected in today’s political environment, and we should all stop to think for a few minutes about what that means. America owes a tremendous debt to Thomas Jefferson. He was by no means perfect, but he is the author of some of the most important ideals upon which American political institutions are founded.

We can be absolutely confident, however, that the America which he helped to create would, today, hound him and attack him mercilessly. In particular, the Christian Right would engage in unremitting attacks of all sorts — they would stop at nothing to ensure that a person with his unChristian beliefs would not hold public office, especially that of president.

What does this say about us Americans today and, in particular, what does it say about the Christian Right? It would be entirely legitimate for someone to question whether they would vote for Jefferson because of what they know about his tax policies, for example, but accepting a situation whereby he would become the target of vicious attacks simply because of his lack of traditional religious beliefs is something else entirely.

 

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