After watching Mike Johnson’s speech the other night (the one he gave after being elected Speaker of the House), I did a little bit of research. He made some statements that sure made it sound like the US was founded on a religion.

He first pointed to the motto, “In God we Trust”. Good for him for at least pointing out that the founders didn’t install this motto; rather it was in 1956, when Eisenhower gave in to a popular Christian Nationalist effort, and signed a law making it our official motto.

Speaker Johnson then referred to a well-known phrase, which he lamented that more children in the US haven’t learned by heart,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Johnson points to the word “Creator”, and makes the leap that yes, our country was indeed founded on a “creed” (a religion, specifically, Johnson’s religion, Christianity). That’s quite a leap. But wait, it gets better.

This phrase is from the Declaration of Independence. It’s not in the US Constitution.

The constitution is our founding document. And nowhere in the constitution is there any mention of a “creator”, or a “god”. Indeed the first and only place that the word “religion” is found is in the first amendment, which begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. This established the US as a country where each person could decide, individually, if and how they choose to worship. If the Bible is your jam, that’s cool. If the Koran is your jam, that’s cool. And if you just don’t like jam, that’s cool too.

So why would the Declaration of Independence be so free wheeling with its language?

Remember that at the time it was written, we were a British colony, and not everyone here wanted to be part of a revolution. The declaration was written to stir up support; to get people angry enough to fight. And boy did it ever make a promise to the thousands of slaves that were building our roads and towns, and producing our food at the time.

It promised Liberty!

Eventually the constitution was adopted, the document that says how we’re going to do things around here in this new experiment in democracy. And guess what? Slaves were given the worth of 3/5 of a person. Apparently not all persons were “created equal”, according to the founders, and “Liberty” for slaves would have to wait for a civil war to be fought.

So Speaker Johnson, don’t go using the Declaration of Independence to say anything about how our country was founded, or how it’s designed to function. Marketing documents just aren’t the same as user manuals.

The United States of America was not founded on any religion.

For further study, check out this video by Seth Andrews.