Sarah Palin made a challenge to the people of America earlier this week–and for once, we should all take her words seriously.  She said that we as Americans should  “go back to our founding father’s early documents and read what they have to say about this being a Judeo-Christian nation.”

So I did what Sarah asked.

Palin’s statement comes off the heels of a federal ruling against the National Day of Prayer by judge Barbara Crabb.  She wrote that “it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual’s decision whether and when to pray.”

Crabb ruled the National Day of Prayer (which began in 1952, NOT the summer of 1776) unconstitutional.  Here’s what Bill and Sarah had to say about that:

After reading the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, I think someone slipped Sarah has a bogus copy.
The constitution and God
The Constitution of the United States of America makes absolutely no reference to God or Judeo-Christian precepts: there is no mention of God or Jesus, no mention of a heavenly creator, or a divine spirit.

The preamble of the Constitution clearly states that the document is made by “We the people”–poor Sarah, the evidence here is overwhelming; Our country’s Constitution has nothing to do with Christianity.
The Declaration of Independence
Now we get to have some fun, because The Declaration of Independence DOES mention a Creator.  I challenge Sarah however to prove that the Judeo-Christian God–and ONLY that God–was being referenced in the quote below:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Now we need to unpack the phrase “nature’s God”.  Why would a Christian refer to Jesus or his father as “nature’s God?”  I’ve never heard a Christian replace Christ’s name with such a statement in traditional religious texts, or in modern speeches, writings and sermons.

Given the avenue for misinterpretation here, one would think the Founding Fathers–who were so adept at clear and precise writing– would make clear that their God is not the God of “nature” but the Christian God, and his lovely baby Jesus.

The second phrase that mentions God says that
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This statement is so vague (purposely so if you ask me) that “their Creator” can encompass anything from Deistic beliefs–which many of the Founding Fathers ascribed to–polytheistic interpretations of God.  It simply doesn’t pin down who this God is and which faith he belongs to.  Again, given the incredible intellect of the Founding Fathers, their need for preciseness when speaking to the public about the creation of their new nation, why leave Jesus out?

Since most of the Founding Fathers were indeed of various faiths: Deists, Agnostics, and Christians, one can conclude that there was no consensus on who or what that Creator represented.  “Their Creator” is all encompassing; anyone with spiritual beliefs, on any level, could find their God in the word “Creator”.

I am an Atheist, and my “Creator” reflects those natural forces which made my existence possible–I see myself in that statement, too.  It’s a far stretch however to say that 2 of the 1,322 words in the constitution means that our country is a Christian land–especially since neither of those two words were Jesus Christ.
They could have done it
The Founding Fathers could have easily added Jesus to the Constitution.  In fact their were many arguments about the lack of  God in the founding documents during the time of their creation.

However reason won.

The Founding Fathers as a whole realized that it was through the tyranny of the “divine right of Kings” that George III had been allowed to usurp their freedoms and human rights in the first place.

They did not want faith to have such power in their new country, and so they chose (not without opposition) to keep the Christian God out of our founding documents.  I also took some time to skim some of the Federalist Papers–the 85 essays that explain the rationale for separating from England and creating America.  The need to be a Christian country is not mentioned in any of them, not once.  This oversight could not have been accidental.

And while no one disputes the role of faith in the lives of SOME of our Founding Fathers, many of them, like Thomas Jefferson (who created the doctrine of the separation of church and state) saw the damaging effects of religious law, and sought to minimize those by creating laws that were not bound to the stringent–and oftentimes misguided–rules of faith.

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As an Atheist, I find it necessary to remind myself of the bias I have toward religion.  From where I sit, faith hampers the efforts by the rational to solve the problems that ail our country–our lack of REAL environmental reform being one of them.  But a lesson in perspective will tell you that within every faith, there lies a faction that can see clearly the opposite side of the debate.  I owe my evangelical neighbors a big apology–well, some of them.

When it comes to issues that affect our planet–climate change, deforesting, the melting of the polar regions–those in the Christian faith have traditionally been taught (either directly or indirectly) that life on earth is short, and the planet is only a temporary home.  Now, you don’t want trash in the walkway of your temporary home, but there certainly is no reason to spackle, paint and repave the driveway either; after all, you don’t own the house, you’re just renting.

Now shift the analogy to climate change.  Here in the Midwest, a vast majority of the faithful actually believe that climate change is a hoax; a ploy by the secular world to distract Christians from the fact the they will soon be with their father, in Heaven; there are no species going extinct as a result of our abusing of the natural world.

Global warming?  The planet gets hot naturally and our centuries of spewing carbon into the air has nothing to do with its rapid progression.  And besides, our true home in Heaven is perfect, so why waste time fixing the apartment?

In Heaven, recycling doesn’t matter.

In Heaven, climate change is a mute discussion.

In Heaven, conserving energy is unnecessary.

What’s worse, many in the nation’s heartland presume individuals myself to be rather off–the irony.  Taking care of our planet: recycling, energy conservation, natural resource preservation, are just not major issues for the vast majority of devout Christians in America.

So when I find precious religion-filled naturalists, I get excited.

I’m talking of course about leaders of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.   Dubbed by  Michelle A. Vu in her recent article as the “Hispanic version of the National Association of Evangelicals,”  these Christians have been rethinking the whole why care about our planet? question.

The group is joining with the Evangelical Environmental Network to get the message out to Hispanic churches that “creation care” is the way to go.  Vu quoted one religious leader taking part in the effort.  The Rev. Charlie Olmeda believes that ” This is so crucial to us because more than just climate change it is a pro-life issue.”

Wow–church doctrine that makes sense to my rational pores!

There’s no doubt that as long as droughts continue to spread, and as long as natural disasters continue to increase in intensity and frequency, the planet’s dominant life-form will suffer in large numbers.  If God, in her wisdom, gave humans the ability to know such an omnipotent being as herself, surely she gave us the common sense to stop needless suffering.  Right?

The Evangelical Environmental Network will gain “22,000 churches…and 16 million born-again Christians” from the new partnership, all working toward climate change reform.  These brave souls have the power to reshape Christian thought on the subject of environmentalism:

* No longer would Christians elected to public office find it necessary to curtail legislation specifically aimed at fixing the problem that human arrogance has exacerbated.

* Little children of evangelicals will begin to move away from the misconceptions they’ve been taught, as their parents find ways to square helping the planet with God’s will

* Christian schools and churches will slowly pull themselves from a pit of self-fed untruths and

* the evangelicals of America will no longer be deemed willfully ignorant.

The evangelical network is doing great work–peppered with the blood of the Lord of course.  But, I’ve always maintained that religion is not a bad thing–the flowers that grow from it’s roots however are poisonous.  They infect our thoughts on sexuality and relationships, on politics and government, and on laws and educational instruction.

Finally however, I see a honey-filled violet sprouting amongst the weeds.

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