Christian resistance to slavery was nowhere to be found when the colonies instituted slavery in the 1600s (268)
It was used at a time of national peril and danger when people were too busy dying for the Constitution to protect it from a rear-guard assault, to promote their personal religion. (272).
Bible thumping anti-Communists
In 1954 the Pledge of Allegiance was changed. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all" became "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Since the communists were atheists, it was hoped that the communists would get the message that they were not welcome.
A year later "In God We Trust" was added to paper currency in 1955.
What better way to spread the missionary spirit within Yankeedom than by putting it on currency everyone has to use? US currency would effectively become a Christian missionary (271)
In his book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Kevin Kruse exposes the following coordinated Christian attacks on the secular world:
- 1953 National Day of Prayer - Congress agrees
- 1953 National prayer breakfast
- 1953 Congressmen propose 18 separate resolutions to add "under God" to the pledge
- 1954 "In God We Trust is placed on a US postage stamp
- 1954 Prayer room in US capital is added. It added a stained-glass window depicting the lie that Washington prayed in the snow at Valley Forge
- Congress added "Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance
- 1955 Eisenhower signs a bill placing "In God We Trust" on US paper currency"
- 1956 Cecil B. Demille movie The Ten Commandments movie is released
- 10 commandments monuments made of granite are gradually erected on government property around the country
Soon the words "American and Christian" became synonymous.
Billy Graham wedded evangelism and anticommunism in the Christian anti-communist crusade. Religious stars such as Fulton Sheen, Oral Roberts, Billy James Hargis and Norman Vincent Peale all achieved new prominence in the early and mid 1950s. They bombarded TV, making people sick with fear. 'To be an American is to be Christian. All atheists are communists'. (284)
Circulating coins, paper money and flag-waving pledges weren't enough for nervous anti-communists. Soon time off from a secular education was granted for religious instruction.
In 1952 the court decided that releasing children from public schools classes to receive religious education did not violate the Constitution. Religious release time allows churches to piggyback the machinery of the state and mandatory attendance to inculcate religion. It was meant to help religious sects get attendants presumably too unenthusiastic to go to religious class unless moved to do so by the pressure of this state machinery. (286-287)
Conclusion
Seidel's work challenges Christian nationalists to face the fact that the founding documents of the United States as a nation directly contradict the Ten Commandments and, more generally, the Bible. These Christians would have to trade their fundamentalism for a far more liberal theory of religion to square with the Constitution. On the other hand, secularists can be somewhat assured that while they are under attack by the right-wing religious forces, the Constitution with all its class biases, lack of limits on capitalism, its racism and sexism, is still an important support document, mostly for its clear separation between Church and State.
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