The Book I Wish I Wrote:

At Reason, Cathy Young reviews a book, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby, that makes many of the points that I, Timothy Sandefur, Ed Brayton, and other secularists have been making on our blogs in recent times. Young writes:

The history in Jacoby's book is fascinating. She makes a convincing argument that, contrary to the assertions of many conservatives today, the Founding Fathers did in fact intend to create a secular government. The Constitution's lack of any reference to God or divine sanction was not an accidental oversight, or an omission of something that everyone implicitly took for granted anyway. On the contrary, the godlessness of the Constitution, along with its rejection of a religious test for public office, was a source of major controversy during the ratification debates. Religious traditionalists warned that the Constitution's irreligiousness would bring God's wrath down on American citizens—in language reminiscent of claims by some of their modern-day descendants after Sept. 11 that God withdrew his protection from America because Americans have turned away from him.

Jacoby also cites evidence that Thomas Jefferson championed religious liberty not only for different religious denominations but for nonbelievers, and that James Madison wanted not only the federal government but the state governments to be prohibited from making laws that would either interfere with or promote religion.

There is no doubt that those who claim that this nation—that is our public institutions—are founded on “Biblical Christianity” are perpetrating a fraud. This nation’s political institutions are founded on Enlightenment teachings, posited by philosophers who undoubtedly denied the (orthodox) Christian God, (and yes, this includes John Locke—who never came out and stated he was a deist—he protested that he was in fact a Christian [an orthodox one]—and had good reason for doing so. Heresy could get you killed back then). And one of the cardinal insights of the Enlightenment was that “religion” was a matter of “opinion,” not “knowledge,” and thus belonged in the private sphere of life. One only needs to view Jefferson’s Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom to see this point of view in action.