The Freedom From Religion Foundation is expressing its strong opposition to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves’ recent “Christian Heritage Week” proclamation.
FFRF has learned that Reeves proclaimed Sept. 22-28, 2024, as Mississippi’s “Christian Heritage Week.” The proclamation twists American history to paint a false narrative perpetuating the myth that America is a Christian nation, using deceptive, distorted and debunked quotes. The proclamation misleadingly claims that Founders Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and others used Christian tenets in forming the United States.
“While Benjamin Franklin was a somewhat religious man, the private religious views of the Founders are irrelevant to the actions of the Constitutional Convention that adopted our Constitution,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line has written to Reeves. “The real significance in terms of the historic precedent is the fact that after Franklin called for prayer, he was ignored.”
FFRF reminds Reeves that Franklin was a man of science and the Enlightenment. Thanks to his work, citizens, religious groups and churches are free to promote their so-called “Christian heritage,” but the government is not. Its role is terrestrial and temporal, but not sacred.
In a letter responding to Presbyterian ministers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Washington replied “that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the [Constitution] of our country.” During Washington’s presidency, the Treaty of Tripoli was drafted, declaring that the “government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
Inserting into a Christian Heritage proclamation a quote by Jefferson, the historic figure who was most adamantly opposed to uniting church and state, is ironic and adds insult to the historic injury of the proclamation. Jefferson emphatically was not a Christian; he was a Deist in the classical sense of the Enlightenment. Because he rejected so much of the New Testament, including miracles and the resurrection, he literally took a razor to it to excise its supernatural teachings and produced what is known as the “Jefferson Bible.” Finally, Jefferson as president famously explained the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, advising that it built “a wall of separation between Church & State.” Rather than celebrating Jefferson, this proclamation eagerly dismantles the wall of separation he supported.
And the James Madison quote is altered and used out of context, deliberately distorting the meaning. Madison, the architect of the secular U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, authored the 1785 “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” whose purpose was to argue that religious liberty requires that the government cannot support religion in any form.
Gov. Reeves’ proclamation is a clear breach of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By issuing this proclamation advancing the debunked myth that we are a Christian nation, Reeves is ironically violating the country’s true heritage of religious liberty based on a secular government. Cherry picking facts, many of them distortions of the truth, does not change the fact that the United States was founded as a secular nation.
In addition, the proclamation alienates nonreligious and non-Christian citizens in Mississippi by turning them into political outsiders in their own community. Mississippi has a diverse population with diverse religious beliefs. As many as 20 percent of Mississippi’s citizens are unaffiliated with religion and another 2 percent belong to non-Christian faiths.
Every reference to religion in the U.S. Constitution is exclusionary, including prohibitions on religious tests for public office, implicitly in the godless oath of office prescribed for the presidency and in the First Amendment’s historic bar of any congressional establishment of religion (a bar extended to state governments under the 14th Amendment). The United States was first among nations to invest sovereignty not in a deity, but in “We the People,” FFRF emphasizes. Keeping religion out of government has in fact allowed religion to flourish in America, because it protects freedom of conscience. Keeping divisive religion out of the government is a fundamental American ideal, is essential for true religious freedom, and has been a tremendous asset to our society. This is a principle to revere, not tarnish or destroy.
FFRF asserts that as governor, Reeves has been trusted by Mississippi’s citizens, including those who may not share his religious viewpoints, to uphold America’s secular democracy. He must rescind the “Christian Heritage Week” proclamation and refrain from issuing similar proclamations in the future.
“Gov. Reeves is misconstruing U.S. history to shape a narrative that pushes his Christian nationalist beliefs,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “The Founders wrote a godless and secular Constitution in order to protect American citizens from theocratic rule.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country, including members in Mississippi. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
