The theory of government presented in the Declaration of Independence,
then, represents a radical break with Judeo-Christian traditions that
went back thousands of years. Government, it asserts, derives its
powers not from the will of God but from the consent of the governed.
From being an instrument of God's wrath, government is demoted to an
invention of human beings, to be altered at the will of its creators.
Our Constitution goes even further than the Declaration in its
godlessness, not even bothering with a ceremonial invocation of God or
"Divine Providence" in vesting ultimate authority in "We, the people."
As James Madison, principal drafter of the Constitution, said,
"religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less
they are mixed together" (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822;
excerpted in Quotations That Support the Separation of State and
Church). John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote that
"Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is
at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in
America....[i]t will never be pretended that any persons employed in
that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under
the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses,
or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be
acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use
of reason and the senses" ("A Defense of the Constitutions of
Government of the United States of America," 1787-1788; excerpted in
Quotations That Support the Separation of State and Church ).

This country went on not only to found what is likely the first
entirely secular government in human history but also to guarantee
religious liberty for all in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Article VI of the Constitution, in barring any religious test or oath
for federal office, and the First Amendment, in protecting freedom of
religion and the separation of church and state which guarantees that
freedom, ended the long "Judeo-Christian" tradition of persecution,
torture, and death for differences of opinion in matters of religion-a
tradition that began with the Bible itself, which calls on the
faithful worshippers of God to denounce even their own parents and
children and to cast the first stone in putting them to death if they
deviate from the "true" religion (Deuteronomy, 13:6-11). That we do
not have a government based on the Bible-or "God's law"-or
"Judeo-Christian values"-is something that all Americans can be
grateful for every Fourth of July: grateful not to any god, but to the
human beings who established this country as a free country, and not a
Christian nation.


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