CH A P T E R ON E

America: A Christian Nation or a

Secular Nation?
A C on v e r sat ion be t w e e n Joh n F e a a n d
Jac qu e s B e r l i n e r bl au

Jacques Berlinerblau: Many Americans insist that the United

States is a secular nation. Yet one is more likely to hear from
the majority of the population that it’s a Christian nation. So
my first question is: what types of folks out there will claim that
the United States is a Christian nation?
John Fea: Sure. I will begin with some context. It is only recently
that the idea that America is a Christian nation has been a con-
tested one in American culture. This occurred largely in the
1960s and 1970s, with the rise of the Christian Right and the
Moral Majority.
Today, those who defend the idea that America was founded
as a uniquely Christian nation are mostly found on the Christian
Right. Figures such as David Barton come immediately to
mind. Now, I don’t know how many of you have ever heard of
Barton, but if you go to any town hall meeting or school board
meeting in the heartland of this country, David Barton’s name
will come up. He’s a very entertaining speaker and a regular
on the Glenn Beck show. He has thousands and thousands of
followers among Christian conservatives. Barton was a mem-
ber of the Republican Party Platform Committee in 2012 and

J. Berlinerblau et al. (eds.), Secularism on the Edge

© Jacques Berlinerblau, Sarah Fainberg, and Aurora Nou 2014
20 John Fea and Jacques Berlinerblau

claimed that 70 of the 71 ideas he offered at the committee

meeting became part of the platform.
Berlinerblau: Just so we really understand your thesis, you’re basi-
cally saying that up until the 1970s, there wasn’t that much
contestation about the fact that this was a Christian nation. Did
I get that correct?
Fea: I think that’s right. I think most people simply assumed it
was a Christian nation. It wasn’t a contested issue. If there were
secularists who didn’t like the idea that America was a Christian
nation, they were out of the mainstream. America’s perception
of itself as a Christian nation took on various shapes and forms.
If you read Martin Luther King’s, “Letter from Birmingham
Jail,” that letter is loaded with Christian Nationalist language.
He writes about returning to our Judeo-Christian roots and
fulfilling our mission as a Christian nation by ending segrega-
tion and racial injustice.
Berlinerblau: Now, the name of Dr. Fea’s book is Was America
Founded as a Christian Nation? I think the “was” is important. I
don’t think the claim that he is making presently is that it should
be a Christian nation, right? In that vein, why don’t we start
looking at some foundational texts of our Republic, and with
the aid of a skilled historian, let’s analyze them. Let’s start with
the Declaration of Independence. Just to be clear: what legally
binding force does the Declaration of Independence have in the
United States?
Fea: None.
Berlinerblau: Thank you. Just wanted to get that out there. The
line that we’d like you to exegete for us is the one about “Laws
of Nature and of Nature’s God.” I don’t think many understand
the degree to which natural law theories were percolating in
the minds of our founders. Very quickly, could you give us
Natural Law 101?
Fea: The Declaration of Independence states that all human
beings were created with inalienable rights. In the realm of
politics, Jefferson suggested that these natural rights included
the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All of the
founding fathers believed that these rights came from God. But
the Declaration of Independence does not describe or define
its God.
I think historical context is important here. We have fierce
debates over the “original intent” of the US Constitution, but we