Christians Should Take Pride in America’s Heritage

S enator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) garnered headlines earlier this month for remarks that lent his support for “Christian nationalism.” He prefaced his comments with a nuanced observation that America is a “nation defined by the dignity of the common man, as given to us in the Christian religion; a nation held together by the homely affections articulated in the Christian faith — love for God, love for family, love for neighbor, home, and country.”

Progressives went ballistic. These enemies of religion in America attack any and all references to Christianity in American society. Such blanket attacks are yet another intellectually lazy attack against their political opponents. Some are now also resorting to anti-Catholic rhetoric.

Consider a recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled “Your Religious Values aren’t American Values.” The author criticizes a new law in Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms and a directive by the Oklahoma state superintendent to recognize the Bible as a “necessary historical and cultural touchstone.” Both are “flagrant instances” of “state laws that formalize precepts of the Christian nationalist movement.” An image of the Virgin Mary, revealing an image of the American Flag instead of her Immaculate Heart, accompanied the article.

This reveals a strain of anti-Catholic bigotry that hasn’t flourished in American public life since the end of the 19th century. It’s just so 1890s.

In the period following the Civil War, anti-immigrant sentiment against Catholics ran high. Many saw the newcomers as poor, uneducated, and loyal to a foreign power: the Vatican. Republican congressman James G. Blaine, motivated by aspirations to the presidency, pushed for a constitutional amendment that would ban government funds from going to “sectarian” schools. “Sectarian” was code for “Catholic.” Blaine’s amendment failed, but many states passed their own versions. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Kyle Duncan observed that, “by 1890, twenty-nine states in all had incorporated into their constitutions explicit prohibitions against the allocation of public funds to sectarian schools and other institutions.”

Thanks to a trio of recent decisions by the Supreme Court, the stain of Blaine amendments on our country’s heritage of religious freedom is being blotted out. But progressives bent on banishing religion from the public square won’t let guidance from this Court get in their way. As Notre Dame Law’s Nicole Garnett and the Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro and Tim Rosenberger explained in an amicus brief recently filed in the Supreme Court, Blaine amendments in states such as Michigan and South Carolina continue to frustrate religious freedom and school choice.

Today’s woke tirades against religion in America are often accompanied by unsupported historical claims. “Despite what the Christian nationalist movement would have you believe, America was not founded as a Christian nation,” the piece in the Times asserts, with no evidence to support the claim. But such bald assertions are easily disproved.

Samuel Goldman, professor of political science and director of the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom at George Washington University, provides a more accurate assessment: “Christianity and biblical religion are essential to the American political tradition.” Goldman refers to “ample evidence” of a religious interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, adding that “the ubiquity of the Bible wove Jewish stories and texts into American Christianity” and that “religious narratives of liberation and redemption became central to African-American culture and politics.”

Of course, Catholics were a small minority in the original 13 colonies, with the notable exception of Maryland, and they often faced anti-Catholic prejudice. But after the Revolutionary War, in which Catholics fought alongside Protestants, sentiment changed. George Washington wrote in response to a congratulatory letter sent by the leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church upon his election: “And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government.”

Granted, a few prominent U.S. Catholics, fed up with contemporary American culture, have recently promoted the idea of “integralism” — a political philosophy that integrates religious authority and political power. But most American Catholics easily saw that integralism demands the dismantling of our constitutional order and would involve the Church in the management of temporal affairs — a proposal for which there is zero support among voters. Nonetheless, understanding that the Church should not seek to exercise the functions of government doesn’t mean that Christians should shy away from engaging in civil society as Christians.

Christianity has played an important role not only in our nation’s founding, but also in abolitionism during the 19th century and the civil-rights movement of the 20th. Many Americans today are inspired by their Christian faith to care for the migrant and refugee, for children in need of fostering, and women facing unexpected pregnancies. It would be a great injustice to say that such pursuits are not consistent with “American values.”

On the morning of July 4, I attended daily Mass. While I’m not a fan of including secular songs in the Liturgy, I couldn’t help but join in with the rest of the congregation — all of us dressed in some variation of red, white and blue — in the closing hymn. It was “America the Beautiful,” one of our nation’s most beloved patriotic songs. It was first published on July 4, 1895, at a time of intense anti-Catholic bigotry in our country. That did not stop me or anyone else in the congregation from singing along joyfully: “America! America! God shed His grace on thee.” We know what too many forget, or outright deny: that Christianity and patriotism are not mutually exclusive and that Christianity has played, and will continue to play, an essential role in our nation.