I respect Ms. Amanda Hem’s efforts to express her allegiance to the Pledge of Allegiance (Oct. 10). However, I think many Christian historians wouldn’t agree with her claim that “All of the founding fathers were Christians, no matter their denominations.”

Some very prominent Christian historians, such as Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden (The Search for Christian America [Westchester, IL: Crossway books, 1983] page 17) would argue that “early America does not deserve to be considered uniquely, distinctly, or even predominantly Christian.”

One can easily find evidence that not all founding fathers considered themselves Christian. For example, in a treaty with Tripoli, a Muslim entity, ratified in 1797, the following declaration in article 11: “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 pretexts arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Many early American Christians saw the Constitution, which nowhere mentions God, not as founded on Christianity, but as an atheistic document. Thus, Timothy Dwight, the conservative Christian president of Yale, stated in an address delivered in 1812: “We formed our Constitution without any acknowledgment of God; without any recognition of his mercies to us, as a people, of his government, or even of his existence . Thus we commenced our national existence under the present system, without God.”

In a letter written to his friend Dr. Thomas Cooper, and dated February 10, 1814, Thomas Jefferson discussed at length the question of whether the Ten Commandments are part of our common English and American law. Jefferson answered, “we may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority.” Jefferson rejected the use of these biblical precepts precisely because he found them to be too rooted in “Judeo-Christian” legal traditions.

Jefferson himself edited a version of the Gospels (sometimes called “The Jefferson Bible”) which removed all supernaturalism from the life of Jesus, and this would certainly not qualify him as a Christian by the criteria of many of today’s Christian conservatives.

Indeed, there probably were as many as eight different ideologies competing for dominance in early America. We probably do more justice to our country’s history if we acknowledge the rich and complex “Christian” and “non-Christian” ideologies held by our founding fathers.

Hector Avalos

Associate professor

Religious Studies