The Constitution's Christian Preamble?

   I am still amazed both those people who attempt to deny that America has a Christian heritage, who assert that her political founders were virtually irreligious and had seemingly no favorable dispositions towards Christianity (let alone a passionate faith in Christ), who proclaim that all that makes America great can be boiled down to a few creedal statements which are the results of logic and reasoning and not the outgrowth of an historic Christian moral tradition.  Inevitably they drag out Franklin and Jefferson and misrepresent much of their works regarding the matter, or they overly-promote Thomas Paine’s influence as though he single-handedly engineered our break with Great Britain (in fact, Paine’s anti-Christian, radical egalitarian views were so far outside the mainstream that Washington passed him up for an appointment to his administration).  It seems as though every person that they utilize to support their proposition was either never an orthodox Christian or strayed from the orthodox faith later in life, as in the case of John Adams.  They almost never cite passages within their context or supplement their assertions by producing supporting documentation, such as quotes from other members of the Constitutional convention, for example.  Let me provide just one sample that reveals to us some of the inner-workings of what happened in the discussions and debates surrounding the adoption of our Constitution.

   William Williams was a signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as a member of the Hartford convention that approved the Constitution.  After the debates had ended, there were some who had objected to the elimination of “religious tests” for prospective office holders under the new Constitution.  Here Williams addresses their concerns and sheds light on how the Connecticut delegates might have preferred the preamble to look:

“When the clause in the 6th article, which provides that "no religious test should ever be required as a qualification to any office or trust, &c." came under consideration, I observed I should have chose that sentence and anything relating to a religious test, had been totally omitted rather than stand as it did, but still more wished something of the kind should have been inserted, but with a reverse sense, so far as to require an explicit acknowledgment of the being of a God, his perfections and his providence, and to have been prefixed to, and stand as, the first introductory words of the Constitution, in the following or similar terms, viz. We the people of the United States, in a firm belief of the being and perfections of the one living and true God, the creator and supreme Governour of the world, in his universal providence and the authority of his laws; that he will require of all moral agents an account of their conduct; that all rightful powers among men are ordained of, and mediately derived from God; therefore in a dependence on his blessing and acknowledgment of his efficient protection in establishing our Independence, whereby it is become necessary to agree upon and settle a Constitution of federal government for ourselves, and in order to form a more perfect union &c., as it is expressed in the present introduction, do ordain &c., and instead of none, that no other religious test should ever be required &c., and that supposing, but not granting, this would be no security at all, that it would make hypocrites, &c. yet this would not be a sufficient reason against it; as it would be a public declaration against, and disapprobation of men, who did not, even with sincerity, make such a profession, and they must be left to the searcher of hearts; that it would however, be the voice of the great body of the people, and an acknowledgment proper and highly becoming them to express on this great and only occasion, and according to the course of Providence, one mean of obtaining blessings from the most high.

But that since it was not, and so difficult and dubious to get inserted, I would not wish to make it a capital objection; that I had no more idea of a religious test, which should restrain offices to any particular sect, class, or denomination of men or Christians in the long list of diversity, than to regulate their bestowments by the stature or dress of the candidate, nor did I believe one sensible catholic man in the state wished for such a limitation; and that therefore the News-Paper observations, and reasonings (I named no author) against a test, in favour of any one denomination of Christians, and the sacrilegious injunctions of the test laws of England &c., combatted objections which did not exist, and was building up a man of straw and knocking him down again. These are the same and only ideas and sentiments I endeavoured to communicate on that subject, tho' perhaps not precisely in the same terms; as I had not written, nor preconceived them, except the proposed test, and whether there is any reason in them or not, I submit to the public.

I freely confess such a test and acknowledgment would have given me great additional satisfaction; and I conceive the arguments against it, on the score of hypocrisy, would apply with equal force against requiring an oath from any officer of the united or individual states; and with little abatement, to any oath in any case whatever; but divine and human wisdom, with universal experience, have approved and established them as useful, and a security to mankind.”¹

   Secular society, huh?  It would appear that at least there were some men in Hartford during that convention who rightly thought the national charter should at least acknowledge its dependence on God.  How much better would our country be if our political leaders and our communities at large lived as though Williams’ proposed preamble were reality?  Father, may we your people live our lives in the firm belief of those words!

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

            1) “William Williams to the Printer”, The Debate on the Constitution, Pt. II (New York, NY: Library Classics of the United States , 1993), p. 193-95.