The audacity of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick only scratches the surface of the lies generations of Christian nationalists have been telling in order to remake America in their own religious image, according to Warren Throckmorton, author of The Christian Past that Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths that Hijack History.
Throckmorton, a retired psychology professor, also hosts “The Christian Past that Wasn’t” podcast.
Patrick, who chaired President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, recently declared the U.S. was created to be a Christian nation and “the separation of church and state is the biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.”
Christian nationalists like Patrick “don’t really distinguish between faith and nation. They typically put loyalty to the country and patriotism on the same level as core beliefs like salvation, and for them believing America was founded as a Christian nation is on the same level as a lot of doctrinal issues,” Throckmorton said.
The Trump administration has promoted this idea through the Religious Liberty Commission and the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. State laws mandating Ten Commandments displays in public schools, banning abortion rights and targeting Muslims often are couched in the language of Christian nationalism.
Fear and a desire for power drive the effort for many conservative Christians, Throckmorton wrote in The Christian Past that Wasn’t: “Trump has been successful with white evangelicals because he has made them feel that he understands their fears, that he is on their side, and that he will use political power for their advantage against their mutual enemies. Political power is a critical aspect of Christian nationalism.”
But the desire to remake America as an officially Christian country is nothing new, Throckmorton explained. “Not long after the Founders died off, there was a group of Americans who really wanted to see the founding as much more Christian than it was. So, they started to reframe the events of the founding era as being inspired by God and it a more Christian twist.”
Then as now, Christian nationalists interpreted the religious writings of the Founders as proof they never wanted the separation of church state, he said. “They look for any signs or indications that maybe they didn’t mean what they said.”
Revisionist historian David Barton embodies that approach, including with his claim that Thomas Jefferson’s mention of a “wall of separation” in his 1801 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association actually promoted Christian influence over the country.
Warren Throckmorton
Throckmorton took on this subject directly in his 2012 book Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President, and related podcast.
“Christian nationalists have worked to change the meaning and importance of the letter from the Danbury Baptists to Jefferson and then his return letter to them. In essence, Jefferson told the Danbury Baptists that the First Amendment was an act of Congress to separate church and state,” Throckmorton wrote in his book.
Focus on the Family was one of the evangelical groups to disseminate Barton’s false assertions on its website despite knowing they were false, Throckmorton added in an interview.
“They were very reluctant to do anything about it, in fact resorting on one occasion to misleading a reporter who asked about it,” he said. “They knew the material was off but just decided to leave the material on the website because it was ‘beneficial.’ That was the term that was used.”
But real history and the U.S. Constitution are simply against those who claim America was founded as a Christian nation, he said.
American colonies began pushing for religious freedom after gaining independence from England. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was passed in 1786, guaranteeing freedom of religion and church-state separation.
“That started a snowball rolling, and by 1833 all these state churches had been disestablished. So, the trend was not toward establishment (of religion),” he said. The trend continued when American leaders gathered to create a constitution.
“The Christian nationalists like to quote George Washington talking about ‘Almighty God’ and any of the Founders talking about their religious beliefs. But what matters is what happened when they went into Independence Hall in Philadelphia and voted for a Constitution that didn’t mention God and banned any religious test for office.”
While it’s true many of the framers were religious, “you take all those guys and what do they come up with? They come up with what essentially is a godless Constitution.”
Claims that the nation should be officially Christian are a threat to the Constitution, Throckmorton said.
“It endangers the Bill of Rights. That the case when somebody wants to say, ‘Hey, my religion’s better than all the others and I think my religion should be the state religion. That’s a direct threat to our First Amendment rights.”