The Alabama Legislature is considering a joint resolution that would designate Easter Week as “Christian Heritage Week.” Ostensibly designed to recognize Christianity’s influence on American history, the resolution is actually an attack on religious liberty.
The resolution describes “Christian Heritage Week” as one “in which the influence of Christianity on American history is emphasized in the state of Alabama.” Yet instead of emphasizing Christian influence on American history, the resolution claims incorrectly that those who settled our nation wished to create a “Christian commonwealth.” The assertion is based on selective quotes from a number of historical figures and documents. Whether the resolution is intended to perpetuate the erroneous idea of America as a “Christian commonwealth,” or truly is an attempt to recognize Christian influence on history, it is inherently flawed.
If the goal is to spread the idea of America as a “Christian commonwealth,” or nation, the resolution is seriously misguided. Few would dispute the fact Christians and Christianity have played a pivotal role in our national and state history.
However, even though America is sociologically a “Christian nation,” with more than 70 percent Christian identification, America is not and has never been a “Christian nation” in any legal sense.
Our fundamental charter of government, the Constitution, is a secular document with its sole reference to religion being a prohibition on religious tests for public office. And the First Amendment expressly situates religious freedom as our “first freedom,” providing that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
These protections prevent government from privileging any particular religious tradition, even Christianity, and dispel any lingering doubt about whether America was intended to be a “Christian nation” as a matter of law.
If the goal truly is to honor “the influence of Christianity on American history,” as the resolution claims, the problem is not one of concept but of content. There is nothing wrong with a resolution recognizing the influence of Christians in history; indeed, the Legislature routinely passes resolutions on an array of subjects, from the admirable (“Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week”) to the arcane (“Will James Society Week”). There is everything wrong with cherry-picking quotations from a litany of persons and documents to perpetuate the “Christian commonwealth” falsehood, and then naming the resolution something different.
Assuming that the cited quotes and documents really are intended as examples of “history” and not as an argument for a “Christian nation,” they fall far short of depicting a balanced, factual survey of Christian influence on national and state history. Any such historical survey would be remiss if it did not honor the impact of Christianity in the African-American civil rights movement. The omission is especially glaring given that many seminal events of the movement took place in Alabama, led by Alabama natives and residents whose call to social justice was born of their Christian faith.
Similarly, rather than citing an 1883 decision by an Illinois court that has no jurisdiction nationally or in Alabama, perhaps the resolution should instead memorialize Alabama’s own Hugo Black, the late U.S. Supreme Court associate justice and staunch defender of religious liberty.
In lieu of excerpting an obscure congressional committee report, why not quote the First Amendment or the Alabama Constitution, which requires in Article I, Section 3 that “no religion shall be established by law; that no preference be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one be compelled by law to attend any place of worship”?
As a Christian, an attorney and a student of history, I strongly believe that if our legislators wish to enact a resolution to recognize the “tremendous and wonderful influence” of Christianity, they should not engage in disingenuous and refuted “Christian nation” arguments.
The Legislature instead should revise the resolution in a way that accurately recognizes the influence of Christianity in state and national history, and also more clearly recognizes that ours is not a “Christian nation” but one based on pluralism and religious liberty for all.
James Gibson, a member of the Alabama State Bar and a graduate of Samford University and the University of Alabama School of Law, is the staff counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C.
