Not a Christian nation

The Prayer Breakfast Presidency

Yet the Founding Fathers knew they would be governing a pluralistic nation. In 1790, his first full year as president, George Washington wrote a powerful letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., underscoring the American commitment to religious liberty: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights," Washington said. "For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. . . . "

And a treaty with the Islamic nation of Tripoli of Barbary begun by Washington, finished by Adams, and unanimously ratified by the Senate in 1797, said: "As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion . . . it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

It is my humble opinion that if the present group of right wing Christians gain the upper hand in control of government ... America is doomed!