McKnight reviews Warren Throckmorton's book The Christian Past That Wasn't, which debunks myths that America was founded as a Christian nation. He praises the book, dismisses David Barton's historical work, and presents an example of a misattributed Madison quote used to justify Louisiana's Ten Commandments law. He adopts Throckmorton's definition of Christian nationalism and concludes that American law does not support it.
Reviewed
Its text teaches none of the positions Doxa lists.
David Barton's work on American history and its relationship to Christianity does not pass scrutiny and is full of falsifications and exaggerations; he is not a genuine historian.
- Endorses a source· Warren Throckmorton, The Christian Past That Wasn't
Warren Throckmorton's book successfully debunks the Christian nationalist myths that distort American history and is well worth reading.
- Adopts· Warren Throckmorton
The myth that America was founded as a Christian nation, along with its component myths (a Protestant covenant homeland, state churches, orthodox Christian founders, a Christian government, a Bible-based charter, virtues justifying sins, and promoting Christianity in public schools), is false.
Colonial state churches existed in some ways, but they arose from charters formed with England before the Revolution and so do not make the United States a Christian nation.
- Adopts· Warren Throckmorton
Bad history is often needed to convince people America was founded as a Christian nation; for example, the quote attributed to James Madison about the Ten Commandments was never said or written by him but is folklore.
- Adopts· Warren Throckmorton
Christian nationalism is the belief that America is a Christian nation and government should keep it that way, an ideology combining a belief about origins, a culture of true Americans as Christians, and a political theology favoring Christianity officially.
American laws do not support Christian nationalism.
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