Not In Any Sense

By Stephen Tuttle | July 25, 2026

“This is a Christian nation. This is a Christian state.” That’s what Texas State Representative Brent Money posted on his social media platform back at the end of May. Rep. Money is a little weak on his history.

This debate as to whether or not we are a Christian nation should have ended a very long time ago. The Treaty of Tripoli, the first ever agreed to by the new United States, signed by then President John Adams and unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate in 1797, says clearly, “...the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”  

(It was an agreement with Tripoli, now Libya, to help stop Barbary Coast pirates from plundering our ships.)

There is nothing vague about that language, but 229 years later, politicians are still making claims that are legally, historically, and constitutionally false. 

Many of us were taught the myth that the first Europeans came to this continent fleeing religious persecution and seeking religious freedom. They did, but not like most of us were told. The Puritans, who first arrived a decade after the Mayflower Pilgrims, came seeking the opportunity for their religious freedom but not that of anybody else—fleeing persecution so they could inflict it on others.

There was no freedom in the Puritan approach to religion, a kind of oppressive group-think they brought with them, a wholly theocratic society with no room for alternative opinions. In fact, dissent was actually punished, and Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were, at various times, persecuted and banished. According to the Free Speech Center, the Puritans actually executed non-believers, especially Quakers. 

It was the Puritans who initiated and drove the Salem witch trials, which basically murdered 20 people, 19 by hanging and one by being crushed under rocks. And this is the same group that once outlawed Christmas, complete with fines for anyone celebrating it. Religious freedom wasn’t really their thing. 

That reality was still on the minds of the Founders, who less than a century later were crafting a first-ever constitution for a democratic republic. While much of their efforts would travel along uncharted trails, they knew they wanted to keep religion out of it entirely. 

It was a fairly easy decision since there was no religious unanimity among the Founders, and several would not qualify as what we would define as Christian today. According to the Center for the Study of the American Constitution, Samuel Adams, John Jay, and Patrick Henry identified as traditional Christians. George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin identified as Christians but did not accept the idea of miracles or the Trinity. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were more closer to deists than Christians; they believed in a Creator but not a divine Jesus. 

It would have not been easy to cobble together a religious doctrine from that amount of belief diversity, and they were anxious to avoid the pitfalls of competing religious dogmas they had witnessed in Europe and in the early European occupation of what would become the United States. 

Our Constitution assiduously avoids any mention of Christianity or Jesus Christ. The First Amendment prohibits the government creation—or, by implication, endorsement—of any religion. The government cannot prohibit our free exercise of religious belief and practice of our choosing. Article VI of the Constitution bans any kind of religious test for office seekers. It seems pretty clear our founders were trying to avoid religion altogether. 

All of which makes it a bit of a mystery why Representative Money and others continue to insist otherwise. Legislatures in Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas have all passed laws mandating the placement of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The Texas State Board of Education has gone a step further and added the teaching of stories from the Bible as part of the mandatory reading curriculum.

Since public schools are part of the government, you might reasonably wonder why these mandates don’t run afoul of a U.S. Constitution that says the government “...shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...” Some courts have already declared legislation in Alabama and Arkansas to be unconstitutional, but appellate courts have also ruled legislation in Texas and Louisiana is just fine because of the “historical” nature of the commandments. 

(If history is going to be the guide then we need to back up. The first known legal code, the Code of Ur-Nammu, dates back to 2100 BCE, and the Code of Hammurabi, which bans perjury, stealing, murder, and adultery, dates to 1750 BCE. Why ignore those truly foundational codes?)

We might be a country with a majority declaring themselves Christians—about 65 percent according to Pew Research—but that does not, and should not, make us a Christian nation. Our history and tradition tell us we never were.