No one markets products like evangelical preachers and Donald Trump. While Trump sells Bibles and golden sneakers and politics, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas is selling copies of his coffee table book version of his annual July 4 sermon — America Is a Christian Nation.
What better way to spread the doctrine of America founded as a Christian nation than using a Republican mailing list? If you get on any Republican mailing list from redwaveusa.com, you will be offered a chance to make a $30 contribution and receive a free copy of the illustrated version of the pastor’s book.
“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” works perfectly for Jeffress and Trump. The two are a matched pair. Jeffress spreads lies about the founding of the nation; Trump tells lies about the stealing of the 2020 election. Lying never has been as profitable as it is today.
What exactly is Jeffress selling? What will you get for your $30 donation? You get an expanded, illustrated version of a Jeffress sermon.
But is what Jeffress preaching actually true?
It’s complicated
In Kenneth Burke’s The Rhetoric of Religion, there’s a dialogue between the Lord and Satan. Multiple times the Lord tells Satan, “It’s more complicated than that.” Maybe the question of whether America was founded as a Christian nation is more complicated than Jeffress or some of his secular opponents would admit.
Jeffress has a false reading strategy. He is of the opinion that gathering snippets of sayings by Founding Fathers that include the words “God,” “Christian,” “Bible” and “belief” is all that is necessary to prove America was founded as a Christian nation. American historian John Fea, in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation, argues, “It’s more complicated than that.”
We must realize that interpretative strategies already were at work shaping our reading as the Founding Fathers and their audiences of American citizens offered their perceptions of those texts and sayings. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says: “At the very least, we must confess that interpretation is an exercise in politics. It is not only about power and authority, but also about shared goods and judgments that constitute a history worth remembering for a people.”
For example, Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College and a friend of Franklin, always was curious about Franklin’s faith. The act of interpreting the Founding Fathers was happening in real time rather than waiting for the misinformation of Robert Jeffress and David Barton.
Historian Mark Noll observes: “What I guess I worry about is the collapsing of historical distance, and the effort to make really anybody fit directly into the category of the early 21st century evangelicals.” Noll later remarked, “History done to prove a thesis in the present is going to be bad history.”
I am convinced Jeffress has no such concerns about interpretive webs or historical hermeneutics, as he imposes his own contemporary theology and ideology onto the texts of our nation’s founders.
I have read the manuscript of America Is a Christian Nation and watched the sermon as Jeffress preached it on June 30, 2024. I found it tedious and boring. If the sermon were a building like the tower of Babel, it would fall into a million pieces of rubble.
Pastor Robert Jeffress and President Donald Trump pray after Trump signed a full pardon for Alice Johnson in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Aug. 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The sources
A speech and a speaker are no better than his or her sources. There is a thin, poorly credentialed line of succession for Jeffress claiming America was founded as a Christian nation — an array of fundamentalist to conservative leaders: Peter Marshall and David Manuel, Francis Schaeffer, Rousas John Rushdoony, D. James Kennedy, David Barton. The only history degrees among the “America is a Christian nation” gang is Peter Marshall’s bachelor’s degree from Yale and David Manuel’s bachelor’s degree from Yale. Barton has a degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University.
Any preacher using only one source and not giving him credit normally would be accused of plagiarism. Barton might as well have delivered Jeffress’ speech.
Fea says: “It is worth noting that (Jeffress’) manipulation of the past to advance his Christian Right agenda and scare his congregation into political action comes straight out of the playbook of David Barton.” Jeffress lifted almost his entire speech/book from Barton’s Wallbuilders web site.
How a person with no history degree has become the “go to” evangelical historian of America is, as religious people are fond of saying, “a mystery of God.”
It is hard to take seriously a political consultant like Barton who claims the First Amendment is the work of the devil and when the Supreme Court removed prayer from schools, SAT scores fell. Barton also had to remove sayings of the “Founding Fathers” from his material because he fabricated the sayings. And his book,The Jefferson Lies was removed from publication by Thomas Nelson Publishers because of all the lies in the book.
The text
An elementary requirement for a sermon is a text from the Bible. A sermon with no text is a spring with no water. Lectionary preachers have readings every Sunday as texts for their sermons. Baptists like Jeffress are free to roam around the Bible looking for texts to fit their conclusions.
In “America Is a Christian Nation,” Jeffress has a one-verse text — Psalm 33:12. “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.”
The verse doesn’t qualify as a sermon text because Jeffress doesn’t preach from the text. A popular conception of a Baptist preacher is his ability to read a verse of Scripture, depart from it, never mention it, and preach for 45 minutes about whatever opinions he has on the news of the day. A sermon without a biblical text is unprotected ideology. Misinformation, lies and propaganda will spread and infect participants.
“For a biblical literalist to use texts outside the sacred canon seems close to blasphemy.”
Jeffress, instead of biblical texts, uses extrabiblical texts for his sermon. He seems to be following the homiletical advice of Michael Flynn for preachers to use texts from the Constitution for their sermons. Jeffress uses as texts a few sayings of the founders. He then conflates sayings of the founders, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as sacred texts. For a biblical literalist to use texts outside the sacred canon seems close to blasphemy.
In any event, history is not made or verified by a group of sayings. Jeffress, facing a people hungry for the word of God, feeds them scraps of paper with sayings of the Founding Fathers. It is like asking Christians to accept Q, an ancient collection of the sayings of Jesus, over the four Gospels, or expecting voters to believe the nation can be saved with slogans and enemies dispatched with nicknames.
In homiletical terms, this is not a sermon. Listening to Jeffress, I had the strange sense I had wandered into a lecture at the University of Texas Law School as he piled up case study after case study to make his point. In his dreary recitation, Jeffress uses state court decisions more than Supreme Court hearings. These state court decisions have no bearing on decisions about the First Amendment or religion in the public sphere of the nation.
Jeffress insists the test oaths and Christian establishments in state constitutions still apply today, and this is a false assumption. More specifically, the main citation in the sermon, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States is an immigration case and has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
(123rf.com)
The body of the speech
In the first main point of his speech, “Let the Record Speak,” Jeffress considers the spiritual belief of the Founders. He considers only Benjamin Franklin. Whether or not Franklin was a Christian is more complicated than Jeffress can admit.
The congregation at First Baptist Dallas would have been confused if Jeffress had quoted Franklin’s summary of his religious beliefs:
Here is my Creed, I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them. As for Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts to his Divinity; tho’ it is a Question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, where I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble.
This renders problematic the Jeffress assumption: “The majority of our nation’s founders were deeply influenced by biblical thoughts and were devout Christians. Our Founding Fathers believed in a God who intervened in human affairs and wanted Christian principles taught and promoted in the public square.”
“Franklin did not believe Jesus was the Son of God.”
Franklin did not believe Jesus was the Son of God. Instead, Jesus was the greatest moral teacher who ever lived, but he was not God.
Jeffress grasps for a straw to stir his impotent argument when he declares with no backing, evidence or warrant, “52 of the 55 men who attended the Constitutional Convention and formulated our nation’s guiding document indicated some adherence to orthodox Christianity and personal support of biblical teaching.”
It’s more complicated than that. Historian David L. Holmes carefully catalogs “the faith of our fathers.”
Ethan Allen, for example, appears clearly to have been a non-Christian Deist. James Monroe remained officially an Episcopalian but may have stood closer to non-Christian Deism than to Christian Deism.
Founders who fall into the category of Christian Deists include Washington, John Adams and, with some qualifications, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was more influenced by the reason-centered Enlightenment than either Adams or Washington.
Orthodox Christians among the Founders include the staunchly Calvinistic Samuel Adams. And John Jay (who served as president of the American Bible Society), Elias Boudinot (who wrote a book on the imminent Second Coming of Jesus) and Patrick Henry (who distributed religious tracts while riding circuit as a lawyer) clearly believed in evangelical Christianity.
George Washington’s refusal to receive Communion in his adult life indicated Deistic belief to many of his pastors and peers. Thomas Jefferson’s rejection of the resurrection and the miracles puts him at odds with the Apostle’s Creed.
Benjamin Franklin doesn’t help Jeffress here either
Jeffress makes a big deal out of Benjamin Franklin saying the Continental Congress should begin their session seeking the favor of God. He said, “I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that ‘except the Lord build they labor in vain that build it.’”
“Our Founding Fathers incorporated religion into the fabric of our nation while also holding it at arm’s length.”
But once again, it’s more complicated than that. Ignoring the context of the fierce debates, Jeffress fails to note Franklin had a political purpose for wanting to engage in prayer. Franklin thought a prayer might cool emotions as the group argued over the number of representatives and senators for each state. Franklin concluded, “The Convention, except three or four persons, thought Prayers unnecessary.”
Our Founding Fathers incorporated religion into the fabric of our nation while also holding it at arm’s length. They used God language that was generic. They presented to the nation a generic God who was not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They didn’t’ establish a theocracy or a Christian nation. They established a nation and its primary religion — America.
Rulers always want God on their side, and American politicians are no different.
That doesn’t mean America was founded by the secularists, the humanists, the atheists and the infidels. Nor does it mean America was founded as a Christian nation. Those looking to make the case for a secular nation will be as disappointed as those desiring a Christian America.
The problem with “America Is a Christian Nation” is clear. It is not a sermon; it is a political speech. It is riddled with inaccurate and misinterpreted facts used to fuel the emotions of the religious right. The extrabiblical texts are insufficient to make the case for Jeffress’ claim of America being founded as a Christian nation.
We would be better served if God whispered in the ear of Robert Jeffress, “It’s more complicated than that.”
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.
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