Kerby Anderson

During this year of the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration, it is essential that we understand the founding of this country and the framing of the Constitution. Many secular writers assure us that the Constitution is a secular document. In fact, there is even a book with the title, The Godless Constitution.

Mark David Hall addresses this myth in his book, Did America Have a Christian Founding? He reminds us that America’s first constitution, The Articles of Confederation, invokes the “great Governor of the universe.” Many state constitutions of the era also contained references to God and Christianity. And it is worth mentioning that the Constitution claims it was framed “in the year of our Lord.”

The Constitution also assumes many Christian practices. The fourth commandment admonished believers to remember the Sabbath day (Exodus 20:8). States and localities prohibited work on Sunday. And the Constitutional Convention met every day except for the Christian Sabbath.

There was an encouragement from some delegates to add an amendment to the Constitution acknowledging God. One writer, however, wrote a newspaper essay arguing that God is not “like a foolish old man, [who] will think himself slighted and dishonored if he is not complimented with a seat or a prologue in the Constitution.”

The Constitution prohibits a religious test for office, but that does not suggest a godless Constitution. On the contrary, the founders recognized the diversity of denominations even though America was populated mostly by Christians at the time. And some even suggested that voters may prefer a competent and reasonable candidate of a different faith than an incompetent, unreasonable member of their own tradition.

Contrary to some of the secular commentary, the framers did not adopt a godless Constitution.