One Nation Under God?

of the human mind." One of the most bitterly contentious "abstractions" being debated in religious circles of Jefferson's day was the Calvinist belief in predestination, the idea that God foreordains the eternal destiny of each person, before he or she is born. In Jefferson's mind, such issues brought too much division and strife to religious and social society.

Jefferson clearly did not want to see government caught up in what he considered the irrational and often violent turbulence systemic to organized religion. He believed that civil government should refrain from meddling in religious quarrels; and, likewise, competitive (often adversarial) sectarian groups should not incorporate the arm of government into their arena.

However, despite the outrageous claims of his political opponents in the 1796 and 1800 presidential elections, Thomas Jefferson was no atheist. He most assuredly believed in God, and never retreated from his prominent mention of the Almighty in the most famous portion of the Declaration of Independence: "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..." Underscoring this very religious sentiment (that our fundamental rights come from the Creator, and not government), Jefferson asked later: "And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?"

While Jefferson would've taken strong exception to the United States establishing a particular Christian (or Jewish or Muslim) denomination as a national church and while he himself was not an active member of any mainline Christian congregation, it appears he nevertheless would have agreed with the Pledge's implication that America's very identity (at least insofar as its commitment to the fundamental rights of the people is concerned) is based on God - or, in Jefferson's words - "on the Laws of Nature and Nature's God."

James Madison

Another Founder often quoted on this subject is James Madison. This makes perfect sense, as it was Madison who spearheaded ratification of the Constitution (especially in Virginia) and then shepherded the Bill of Rights through the very First Congress, in which he sat as a full voting member of the House of Representatives.

Madison, along with the forgotten Fisher Ames, penned the actual words to what is now the First Amendment to our Constitution. The phrase related to religion reads as follows: "Congress shall

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