The Founders, Faith, And The American Nation: An Interview With John Fea

Editor's Note : Two Patheos columnists converse about the Founding Fathers, contemporary political debates, and the nature of historical study. Visit John Fea's latest column here. Was American Founded as a Christian Nation? It's one of the questions ricocheting around our national discourse, and it has strong proponents of both "no" and "yes." Those who argue that we should do X because we are a Christian nation are assuming an answer. Those who argue that we have no responsibility to do X—or must not do X—because we are not a Christian nation are likewise assuming an answer. But as Professor John Fea explores American history in his fine new book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? , his intent is to complicate this dualist debate by doing his job as a historian. The question, he says, cannot be simply answered, and has to take into account not just a handful of Founding Fathers, or the language that is or isn't present in formational documents. It has to consider state constitutions, and popular sentiments, and the very fact that even the characters in American history about whom we know the most—George Washington, for example—are almost perfectly opaque to us when we try to determine what they believed and what that belief impelled them to do. Professor Fea, who teaches American history and is chair of the History Department at Messiah College, argues that most of the time when people try to argue from history, they are making simplistic and even mistaken assumptions about what history is good for. "The past," he writes, "can be messy, complicated, and not easily summarized in a neatly constructed paragraph or two" (xxv). Historians don't work like polemicists do, a useful reminder. Instead of entering history with a preconceived purpose, as many of us do when we attempt to argue from history, historians note change, context, causality, contingency, complexity. In terms theologians and preachers might find familiar, politicians, talking heads, and Tea Party activists alike use tend to use scraps of history as proof-texts. They know what they want to say, and then they search the letters of George Washington or the writings of Thomas Jefferson for something that supports it (or lift something off internet sites, which may or may not be quoting accurately or in context). People conceive of history as simple; in a story Professor Fea repeats, broadcaster Rush Limbaugh describes history as simply "what happened," although Professor Fea goes on to assure us that Mr. Limbaugh could not be more wrong about how historians approach history: "They are not only interested in facts, but always ask why a particular event in the past happened the way it did" (xxiv). History as a discipline is much richer and more powerful than we see when each side cherry-picks the facts or quotes it needs, and Professor Fea reminds us that the question framed by his book's title does not have a simple answer, no matter what you may have heard. And that history shouldn't be so easily reduced; that's not what history is for. Encountering the past on its terms instead of ours, he tells us, has the potential to teach us empathy, humility, selflessness, and hospitality. By listening to the voices of others—the same thing we're called to do in the here and now—we learn to set aside what we know and think to hear what others know and think, and we begin to see our relationship with the past not in a simple linear fashion, but in all its beautiful complexity (xxxvi). Professor Fea closes his Introduction with a challenge: Are we willing to allow history to "educate" us—to lead us outward? We need to practice history not because it can win us political points or help us push our social and cultural agendas forward, but because it has the amazing potential to transform our lives. The passion of the historian for history radiates out from this book, and whichever side of the question on which you may believe yourself to be, you will find much in the book to challenge, stimulate, and engage you. Many thanks to Professor Fea for the research and writing that went into Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?— and for being generous enough to talk about the book with me. Greg: In researching, writing, and, now, talking about your book, what historical misconceptions or factual errors have you encountered in the contemporary debate about faith and our founding that most surprised or alarmed you? John: To be honest, I came into this project with the perception that it would be easy to show that the Founding Fathers were not out to create a Christian nation. But then I read the state constitutions written between 1776 and 1780. Almost all of them had very strong Christian qualifications for office-holders. For example, in the state of Pennsylvania civil rights were afforded to anyone who, among other things, upheld the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. This led me to wonder how we define nationhood in the 1780s—the time between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is clear that during this period political power was invested in the states (under the Articles of Confederation), and most of these states (Virginia was a big exception to this rule that cannot be ignored) had Christian religious establishments or Christian qualifications for office-holding. Did the founders want to create a Christian nation? It depends where you look and how you define your terms. Greg: How do the current attempts to use American history in the Christian nation debate (by conservatives and progressives alike) violate the tenets of historical inquiry you discuss early in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? John: Most of those engaged in the Christian nation debate are not interested in historical inquiry. Historians do not primarily cherry-pick from the past to find evidence to make a political or ideological point in the present. Such a practice, which Harvard historian Bernard Bailyn has called "indoctrination by historical example," often results in propaganda or a distorted, one-sided view of the past. Greg: What exactly seems to be at stake in this Christian nation debate? Why is the discourse so heated? John: It is our natural impulse—or as historian Sam Wineburg has said, our "psychological condition at rest"—to find something useful in the past. The Christian Right has made the history of the American founding a battleground in the culture wars and in the process has blurred the differences between Christianity and nationhood. Today, Christian nationalist "historians" have a powerful voice in the Republican Party. They have managed to convince many legislators that the United States needs to return to some kind of lost golden age in which Christianity was privileged over all other religions. It is bordering on a new form of nativism. Greg: Given the complexity you mention that always pervades history, which of the founders would you say approximate contemporary understandings of Christianity? And what founders are sometimes called Christian but don't seem to express orthodox beliefs—or perhaps orthodox Christian practices? John: Most of the major Founding Fathers were not orthodox. John Adams was a Unitarian who rejected the Trinity. Thomas Jefferson rejected the resurrection. Benjamin Franklin did not believe in the deity of Christ. George Washington is a tough one to nail down. He was probably an orthodox Christian, but did not spend much time reflecting on matters pertaining to religion and theology. But there is a larger issue here. It is illogical to assume that the personal religious beliefs of a founder automatically translate into his understanding on the role of religion in government. Recently Peter Lillback wrote a 1000+ page book defending the idea that George Washington was not a deist. Fair enough. I agree with him that Washington was not a deist. But I am not convinced that Washington's personal faith meant that he wanted to create a Christian nation. Greg: Often when we write a book we wind up somewhere we didn't expect to be when we conceived it. Were you surprised by any of your conclusions? Did any of the founders shift from your early conceptions of them as you dug more deeply into their lives and beliefs? John: The more time I spent working on this book, the more I realized that the founders rarely spoke with a unified voice and hardly ever spoke with a unified voice on the relationship between religion and government. Jefferson and Madison clearly advocated what we might today call the "separation of church and state." John Adams was the author of the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 that included a Congregational establishment of religion. Samuel Adams was an evangelical Christian who came close to rejecting the United States Constitution. In the end, I became more convinced that the past is a "foreign country" and as a result we cannot easily make the founders fit into our contemporary models of understanding church and state. Greg: I particularly admired the way Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? sifts the facts to discover it can't solve this question to the satisfaction of dogmatists on either side. What responses have you received to the book so far? John: Most people who read the book expect me to jump headfirst into the political debate. About 90 percent of the interviews I have done have asked me to offer a "yes" or "no" answer to the question in the title of my book. It has alerted me to the fact that our schools have failed to teach good historical thinking. Historians listen to people in the past. They empathize with them and try to understand them, even if they do not agree. They show intellectual hospitality to people in the past. The people historians encounter may be dead, but they have left us with documents to help us better understand them. I firmly believe that mature historical understanding can be an antidote to the culture wars because it decenters us. It forces us to go beyond our brief life and see ourselves as part of a larger human community created in the image of God. I realize that it is very unnatural to think this way, but I will continue to hold out hope that this kind of thinking about the world has its merits.

The Founders, Faith, and the American Nation: An Interview with John Fea