The Myth of Christian America
The Myth of Christian America: How Historical Oversimplification Weakens Democracy
The United States of America, as an inherently and traditionally benevolent Christian nation, is a pervasive narrative shared among many political and religious circles today. But how accurate is it? Over the following pages, I would like to explore four assertions that pertain to such beliefs: that the U.S. is a Christian country, that the U.S. was founded on religious ideals, that Christianity once united the U.S., and that Christianity made the U.S. a force for good. Drawing from historical evidence spanning from the North American Colonies to modern times, I will challenge these claims by demonstrating that our country’s identity, history, cohesion, and performance are far too complex for such oversimplified interpretations. Furthermore, I will consider how building one’s faith or patriotism on the foundation of such principles may contribute to weakening the fabric of a democratic society.
Before exploring America's foundational history, I want to address the contemporary assumption that the United States is an inherently Christian country. The current demographic reality shows a nation of increasing religious diversity. While Christianity remains the largest religious group, recent Pew Research data reveals that the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian has steadily declined over the centuries, currently landing between 60-64%. Meanwhile, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans has grown significantly, and non-Christian faiths continue to increase their presence in American society.
Our constitutional framework was deliberately built to hold such shifts and diversity as it was created to preserve religious neutrality rather than religious establishment. James Madison, one of the principal architects of the Constitution, explicitly rejected the idea of an official state religion, writing: "The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate". This perspective was formalized in the First Amendment.
What exists instead, as sociologist Robert Bellah observed, is what he coined as a distinctive American civil religion. "While some have argued that Christianity is the national faith...," Bellah wrote, "few have realized that there actually exists alongside of and rather clearly differentiated from the churches an elaborate and well-institutionalized civil religion in America." In his influential 1967 article "Civil Religion in America," Bellah explored why this coinciding religion deserves as much understanding, care, and attention as traditional faiths. One might argue that if traditional religious affiliations are declining—or at the very least demographically shifting—perhaps civil religion deserves even more care than ever before as a unifying force in American society. This is especially important to consider when examining claims that America's identity is fundamentally Christian, as the civil religion has provided a way for Americans of diverse religious backgrounds to participate in a shared national identity. This, however, is not the founding narrative that often gets shared.
The popular narrative of the United States as being founded on Christian ideals deserves a critical eye considering its layered origin story. The American experiment being entered into by multiple countries and varied religious institutions, inspired by a plethora of hopes, and executed by a spectrum of tactics, muddies the landscape of a universal identity. For many, the “foundational myth”—as Dr. Johnson named it— has been distilled and passed down as that of a monolithic Puritan movement which escaped the evils of a distorted church-state to establish a life of freedom for all as the city on the hill example for the world.
Complicating this myth however are the wide and contradicting examples of those who colonized and pioneered for the primary purposes of wealth and power, the inequitable and unjust treatment of Native Americans and enslaved peoples, and the ironic examples of “religious freedom for me but not you” spirit that sometimes surrounded the Puritan experience. “The destruction of the original population in what eventually became the United States was much more thorough than that perpetrated by the Spanish in their colonies,” Gonzalez wrote of the Spanish who desired Indian labor while British colonizers wanted their land for economic reasons. Of course, to squeeze all of the wealth and power available out of said land, our largely-Christian forefathers not only ramped up the activity of the transatlantic slave trade, but they refused to convert and baptise the enslaved individuals in order to avoid contradicting principles against enslaving fellow Christians—manipulating the faith to maintain the institution of slavery.
To further make the point of a complicated foundational myth, I find the story of Roger Williams and Rhode Island fascinating. Williams “was convinced that magistrates should be granted authority to enforce only those commandments that had to do with the ordering of society. He also declared that the land the colonies occupied belonged to the Indians, and that the entire colonial enterprise was unjust and illegal. These and other ideas, which at the time seemed radical, made Williams unpopular in Boston,” and Roger was expelled from the Massachusetts colony in the mid-1630s when he left to establish the colony of Providence, Rhode Island on the principle of religious freedom. Two years later, a similar expelling would happen to Anne Hutchinson, demonstrating two examples of a larger and more harried narrative: religious freedom may have been a vehicle for many Christians in the colonies and eventual revolution, but it was not the destination and identity for all.
Having examined the demographic complexity of America's religious identity and the contradictory nature of its founding narrative, I’ll now turn to the equally problematic claim that Christianity once served as a unifying force across our country. In addition to the Rhode Island exiles given as examples of disunity above, it can be noted that the pre-revolution colonies were often established separately to serve varying purposes. Some served as refuges to particular religious groups, such as Maryland as the main hub for Roman Catholics. Some, like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, served as no particular religious refuge. Many were established according to the settling country/company and their respective denomination, as with the New York Dutch/East India Company and the reformed movement. Dividing lines abounded, yet “although at first some of [the colonies] were intolerant of religious diversity, with the passage of time all tended to follow the example of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, where religious freedom had existed from the beginning and was shown to be a viable option to the religious tensions that had repeatedly bled Europe.” As the colonies moved through the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States, it can be argued that it was religious freedom that unified them more than Christianity, while Christianity would go on to contribute both to unifying and dividing realities throughout the following centuries.
While the First Great Awakening offered a sense of commonality regarding human rights and new ideas, the Second Great Awakening on the frontier led to more emotional/less intellectual practices of faith, demonstrating divergence rather than unity in religious expression. There existed a cross-denominational collaboration during the Civil War followed by a unifying notion that the nation “would play a providential role in the progress of humankind. Usually that role was understood in terms of racial, religious, and institutional superiority-that is, the superiority of the white race, the Protestant faith, and democratic government based on free enterprise.” It is no surprise that shortly thereafter, protestant denominations split on the issue of slavery, with Methodists splitting in 1844, Baptists in 1845, and Presbyterians in 1856. Eventually, in another example of Christian disunity, mainline churches would go on to abandon inner city communities and their rural roots for suburbia.
Further demonstrating the juxtaposing unification and divisions created within and by Christinity, the centuries of America’s faith history have showcased the formation of societies/missions whose work continue to inform some of our greatest justice efforts today while also contributing to some of our more notable discrepancies in injustice. In cases of the former, foreign humanitarian efforts, the women’s rights movement, and racial justice work largely were birthed by the church. In a case of the latter, Dr. King criticized the white moderate "who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice." These complexities make it clear that Christianity's role in American unity has been deeply ambivalent, sometimes drawing communities together while sometimes creating or reinforcing profound divisions along lines of race, class, geography, and interpretations of theology and scripture.
Given Christianity's complex role in unifying the nation, I’ll now challenge the claim that Christianity has been the primary driver behind America's assumed moral authority and benevolence in the world. While one would not have to search long in our history to identify the faith-fueled goodness that has been contributed to both the United States’ and the world’s wellbeing and progress, one also would not have to search long to find a trail of biblically-justified bloodshed in America’s past.
In addition to the aforementioned Native near-obliteration and the horrendous slave-trade combined with refusal to baptise in order to manipulate the system, also revealing was the case of Mexico abolishing slavery in 1829, while American Christians in Texas "who depended on slavery for their wealth responded by conspiring to secede from Mexico to join the United States.” In these instances, economic interests clearly trumped Christian moral principles. The relationship between American Christianity and colonial expansion presents another contradiction. While missionaries often opposed and/or criticized colonialism, the broader American society often justified territorial expansion through the concept of "Manifest Destiny” from a racist posture. While missions contributed significantly to humanitarian efforts, education, and healthcare around the world, they also often reinforced cultural imperialism. The Protestant mission movement of the 19th century carried both cultural supremacy in its perpetuation of the "heathen" while simultaneously challenging the exploitation of colonized peoples. The complex legacy outlined only makes it impossible to characterize Christianity's global influence as simply benevolent or harmful, but it can clearly be traced to ongoing realities today.
Having examined these persistent and fraught claims about America's Christian identity, founding, unity, and moral authority, I’d now like to consider the broader implications of building one's faith or patriotism upon such oversimplified narratives. It is my perspective that the movement of Christian nationalism plaguing our society, churches, and politics today is largely rooted in a distorted history that upholds only bits and pieces of who we’ve been, how we’ve benefited (or not), and what we’ve done in the name of God as a country. Without a clearer understanding of the rich and complicated diversity that permeates each aspect of the American experiment—from reasons for immigrating from Europe and justifications for oppression to manifestations of missions and church splits over baptism and race/sexuality—we run the risk of having one interpretation (usually held by those with the most privilege and power) of who God is and who we should be being weaponized against all who do not fall within that description.
Believing and endorsing a narrative of an intrinsically Christian nation affected our Native and enslaved communities in the past; it will continue to affect our Muslim communities in the future. Believing and endorsing a narrative of America being founded upon and united by Christianity allowed for a plethora of divisions and violence in our past among protestants and catholics; it will continue to allow for division and violence for the same reason in our future among traditionalists and progressives. And believing and endorsing a narrative of a strictly morally good United States rooted in Christianity permitted the white-washing of injustice within our colonizing missions efforts and segregating politics; it will continue to contribute to the overlooking of migrant endangerment and the oppression of women and the LGBTQIA community and communities of color. Our history would suggest that the oversimplified version of such a massively complex story has never served the common good well or for long. Rather than strengthening our democratic society, the evidence, I believe, makes the case that these distorted historical interpretations may actually undermine the very foundations they claim to uphold.
In exploring the myths of America as an inherently Christian country, founded on Christian ideals, united through Christianity, and motivated by Christian benevolence, we can see how each claim proves to be little more than fictional without an in depth understanding provided by the history which dissolves the monolith. What surfaces when we consider the intricacies and layers is the story of a country whose most profound identity may lie in its ability to hold religious diversity through the glue of a civic religion. Rather than clinging to oversimplified narratives that corrode our history and divide our present, maybe we would be better served by exploring and embracing the complex, contradictory, and ongoing experiment that is American democracy and Christiainty within it. In this more nuanced understanding, we may find not only historical truth but also a firmer foundation for our collective future.
Bibliography
Ahlstrom, S., & Hall, D. D. (Eds.). (2004). Documents on Religious Liberty. In A Religious History of the American People (2nd ed.). Yale University Press, p.232
Bellah, Robert N. (2005). Civil religion in America. Daedalus, 134(4), 40–55. https://doi.org/10.1162/001152605774431464
González, Justo. (2010). The Story of Christianity, Volume II: The Reformation to the Present Day, p.276.
King, M. L., Jr. (1963, April 16). Letter from Birmingham Jail. Retrieved from https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Pew Research Center. (2025, February 26). Religious Landscape Study: Religious Identity.https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religious-landscape-study-religious-identity/