The Christian Past That Wasn't

Mythbusting Christian America

Warren Throckmorten has been fighting this battle for a long time.

A retired psychology professor at Grove City College, Throckmorton has been on a longtime crusade to expose the falsehoods perpetuated by those promoting the myth of Christian America—most notably, David Barton.

In 2012, Barton published the book The Jefferson Lies, a book that attempted to paint the founding father as sympathetic to orthodox Christianity. But Barton’s book was itself full of lies. A number of professional historians called out these misrepresentations and fabrications, but it wasn’t until conservative Christian scholars like Throckmorton and his co-author Michael Coulter weighed in that the critiques gained traction inside Christian spaces, leading Christian publisher Thomas Nelson to withdraw Barton’s book, conceding that “basic truths just were not there.” Agreeing with Throckmorton, the publisher acknowledged that the criticisms were correct: “There were historical details—matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.”

When Thomas Nelson withdrew the book from publication, the rights reverted to Barton, and he re-published the book himself.

Fourteen years later, the controversy seems almost quaint. That historians and critics (including Christians) could successfully push back against Christian nationalist propaganda feels like a storyline from a different era entirely.

Today, one of Barton’s acolytes is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Freedom 250 is pushing a right-wing “Christian America” narrative as part of its larger efforts to recast the narrative of America’s past during the celebration of its semiquincentennial.

To his great credit, Throckmorton hasn’t thrown in the towel.

He has a new book just out, The Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths That Hijack History.

Benjamin Franklin statue in front of University Hall First Congregational Church, Ann Arbor, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Warren was kind enough to share an excerpt from his book with us. We’ll start with a brief introduction adapted from the book’s preface:

I might seem to be an unlikely person to write a history book. My doctorate is in counseling, and I taught psychology for over thirty years. So why am I writing a book about history— specifically, about the false stories Christian nationalists promote about the past?

I’m writing this book because Christian nationalism changed my life. Long before most people had heard of the term, Christian nationalism was shaping my work, galvanizing an entirely new direction for my research. This book would not exist without it. In addition to teaching psychology at a private Christian college, I took up blogging in 2005. I began writing about mental health issues but branched out into politics and current events. My gateway to writing about American history was pundit Bryan Fischer, who for many years wrote and spoke for the right-wing American Family Association. Early in 2010, Fischer wrote outrageous columns about gay people, Muslims, and Native Americans. In these articles, he claimed Indigenous people lost their rights to their land because of moral depravity, Muslims don’t have First Amendment protections, and homosexuality should be illegal. Fischer consistently claimed that only Christians have First Amendment rights and that the free-exercise clause of the Constitution was intended to fully protect the rights of only Christians, not those who adhered to other religions. These claims bothered me for many reasons, but principally because they struck me as both unconstitutional and reeking of religious arrogance. Responding to these claims required me to dig into our nation’s history. Fischer selectively quoted historical authorities, so in response I read those authorities in context. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire process, and my articles seemed to garner some influence.

Eventually, my reading and writing led me to consider the work of David Barton and his faulty historical claims. Because Barton seemed to wield immense influence, I focused on him and started to fact-check his claims. Writing about the First Amendment, the Constitution, and freedom of conscience absolutely captivated me.

By 2012, I had added part-time history fact-checker to my résumé. Along with a former Grove City College colleague, Michael Coulter, I wrote a full-length critique of The Jefferson Lies, David Barton’s book celebrating Thomas Jefferson. Michael and I believed Barton’s book was riddled with historical errors. The first edition of our book was titled Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims About Our Third President. Our efforts influenced Barton’s publisher, Thomas Nelson, to stop publishing The Jefferson Lies. The third edition of Getting Jefferson Right (now subtitled Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson) was published in 2025. I believe the separation of church and state is the best policy not only for the state but for the church. Personally, I think Christians can best fulfill the mission of Jesus when the church is separate from the state and independent from a state church. I have reorganized my life and career because of that belief. Given the administration’s current merging of state and religious activities (consider the Trump administration’s Rededicate 250 ceremony in May), the current book The Christian Past That Wasn’t could not be timelier.

And here’s more from the book’s opening pages:

“Did the founders kneel in prayer and form a Christian nation?”

June 28, 1787, dawned as a clear and pleasant Thursday in Philadelphia. Delegates from across the fledgling nation of the United States of America were assembled in the Pennsylvania State House on Chestnut Street. A columnist wrote in a local paper that the convention was “happily composed of men who are qualified from education, experience, and profession for the great business assigned to them.” If the correspondent of Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser was correct, then there was at least some public confidence in the delegates gathered in what one day would be called Independence Hall. After all, the delegates assembled in peacetime, with ample time and intellect to consider the many forms of government that had gone before them. “Under such circumstances,” the unnamed cheerleader wrote, “it will not be difficult for them to frame a Federal Constitution that will suit our country.”

That prediction, as they say now, didn’t age well.

After declaring independence from England in 1776, the former colonies united around Articles of Confederation in 1781. Experience had shown, however, that those articles were inadequate for the task of governing a growing nation. Thus, delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies (Rhode Island declined to send delegates) convened in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 to craft an improvement.

Outside the state house, at least some members of the public, including the Poulson’s columnist, had confidence that the delegates would easily sort through the complexities of political history and form a satisfactory American government. Inside the convention, conditions could not have been more at odds with that vision.

Even though the weather was pleasant outside, it was hot and stifling inside. Because the heavily suited delegates wanted to keep their deliberations private, they closed all the windows and doors. In contrast to the newspaper columnist’s ebullience outside the convention, the interior of that meeting was heated in more ways than the temperature. The delegates didn’t agree on much.

The Poulson’s correspondent did get one thing right: The delegates were indeed mulling the strengths and weaknesses of governments of other nations, current and past. That Thursday afternoon, they were arguing over how the states should be represented in the new government. Toward the end of the session, elder statesman and Pennsylvania Governor Benjamin Franklin signaled his desire to speak. Rising to address the delegates, Dr. Franklin first reflected on the “small progress” that the group had made after weeks of discussions. After acknowledging that the delegates had searched “ancient history for models of government” as well as “modern states all round Europe,” Franklin lamented their “imperfection of human understanding” to form a constitution “suitable to our circumstances.”

Franklin told his fellow delegates that they were “groping as it were in the dark to find political truth” and, addressing convention president George Washington specifically, asked, “How has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings?” He reminded his colleagues that they prayed daily for divine protection during the war with Great Britain and that their prayers were “graciously answered.” The elder gentleman said they were deliberating on that hot Thursday after noon because of the providence of God and asked, “Have we now forgotten that power ful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?”

Franklin continued, “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth— that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this.”

Franklin struck an ominous note of warning: “I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.”

Then he brought his message home: “I therefore beg leave to move— that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that service.”

Here we see Franklin exhorting his colleagues to call on God as they had done during the revolution. One of the least orthodox dele gates, Franklin had, by this time in his life, come to a firm belief in providence. As if to counter public sentiment— that the delegates were making progress due to their wisdom and education— Franklin acknowledged that they had been “groping as it were in the dark to find political truth.” He acknowledged the delegates were not trying to craft a Christian government, but he thought they needed some heavenly assistance.

So what happened? Did the delegates get on their knees and pray? Or did they soldier on and keep quarreling and seeking and groping around to find political truth? Those invested in the myths of Christian America whom we will examine in this book will tell you one thing. Let’s look at the notes from the day to find out what really happened.

MYTHS THAT FOUNDED CHRISTIAN AMERICA

According to the minutes, Roger Sherman, an orthodox Christian from Connecticut, seconded Franklin’s motion. After Sherman’s second, discussion ensued. Some delegates, led by Alexander Hamilton, were worried the public would be alarmed by the spectacle of clergy arriving at the state house. Hamilton thought the public might “believe that the embarrassments and dissentions within the convention, had suggested this measure.” Recall the confidence of the columnist? Bringing in ministers might have disrupted their public image of progress inside the hall.

Those in favor of prayer had an answer: “It was answered by Docr. F. [Benjamin Franklin] Mr. Sherman & others, that the past omission of a duty could not justify a further omission— that the rejection of such a proposition would expose the Convention to more unpleasant animadversions [criticisms] than the adoption of it: and that the alarm out of doors that might be excited for the state of things within. would at least be as likely to do good as ill.”

Franklin, Sherman, and unnamed like-minded delegates replied that one cannot undo a wrong by failing to do good. Indeed, they warned that the public might later question why they failed to call on God. Former Presbyterian minister and physician Hugh Williamson had another, more practical theory about the lack of prayer: “The true cause of the omission could not be mistaken. The Convention had no funds.”

Perhaps that was an excuse. It is hard to imagine that someone in the Convention Hall could not have offered a prayer. If Christians who believe America was founded as a Christian nation are correct, surely one of those devout founders could have simply prayed for free, right?

Then delegate Edmund Randolph from Virginia offered a compromise: “Mr. Randolph proposed in order to give a favorable aspect to ye. measure, that a sermon be preached at the request of the convention on 4th of July, the anniversary of Independence,— & thenceforward prayers be used in ye Convention every morning. Dr. Frankn. 2ded. this motion. After several unsuccessful attempts for silently postponing the matter by adjourning, the adjournment was at length carried, without any vote on the motion.”

Randolph offered a motion to jump- start matters with a sermon on the upcoming July 4 holiday recess. Then, after that proposed religious ceremony, the delegates could begin their deliberations with daily prayers for God’s help.

Did the delegates go for that? No. In the end, neither Randolph’s nor Franklin’s motion carried. The session was adjourned for the day without a vote, and neither motion was ever reconsidered. In Franklin’s journal, he later wrote this about his call to prayer, “The Convention, except three or four persons, thought Prayers unnecessary.”7

That is what was recorded in the minutes on June 28, 1787, in the Pennsylvania State House during the Constitutional Convention: Ben Franklin offered a proposal to pray that was never voted on (see the appendix for Franklin’s full speech).

But you wouldn’t know these facts if you listened only to those who circulate the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Listen to former Donald Trump administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson tell the story:

You know the founders of this country were really some terrific people. And they were studious. And they studied every government system that ever existed in the history of the world because they wanted to take the good things and leave the bad things out and give us the kind of country that would last and would have freedoms for our people. But it was a rough go. And in that last Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the whole thing almost broke apart because there were so many disagreements about how it should be done. And then the elder statesman, 81- year- old Benjamin Franklin, came up and he said, “Gentlemen, stop. Let’s get down on our knees and let’s seek wisdom from God.” And they knelt and prayed. And they got up and they put together the Constitution of the United States, which I think is a God- inspired document if we will follow it.

Huh? They knelt and prayed? No, they didn’t do that. Their problems were solved? No, the delegates resisted Franklin’s motion and adjourned without a vote. And the next day, there in that hot room, they got right back to arguing. (1-6)

There are many stories like this that invent a grand narrative about the Christian past of our nation— a Christian past that, put simply, wasn’t. Some of these stories are false. Some contain a measure of truth, but they are exaggerated in such a way that they become mythical. Those who believe America was or is or should be a Christian nation use these fabrications to create myths about America from the days of the first European arrival to the present.

Americans are divided about their history. A 2022 Pew Research poll found that 60 percent of Americans think the founders intended to create a Christian nation. Among respondents, there was a wide divergence of opinions. By far, white evangelical Christians were the most convinced, with 81 percent saying the United States was intended to be a Christian nation. Black Protestants were less persuaded, with 57 percent believing in a Christian founding. Seventy- six percent of Republicans concurred versus 47 percent of Democrats.

In the main, historians are not divided about the founding. The scholarly consensus is that the separation of church and state is what the founders wanted and is a distinctly American innovation. While most founders were religious to varying degrees, they took concrete steps to prevent the establishment of Christianity. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention declined to include a test of religious belief for public service in the new Constitution. The founders did not dedicate the nation to God in the document. They did not set out to create a Christian form of government.

Yet in contrast to this consensus, many conservative Christian writers teach what I refer to in this book as a Christian past that wasn’t: a collection of Christian myths, folklore, and stories relating to our nation’s past that exaggerate the truth and hijack history. Many of these writers use the stories as a form of propaganda in the service of Christian nationalism, an ideology that combines Christian rhetoric and American nationalism. They teach another founding of America, using myths to claim America was founded as a Christian nation predominantly for white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

These storytellers believe the early European emigrants established a covenant with God, which made Protestant Christianity the preeminent religion in law and culture. Because of this supposed covenant and their belief that Indigenous people were savage, uncivilized heathens, Europeans believed they were justified in taking the land. They preach that the founders were godly, orthodox Christians who believed government should support Christianity. Believers in Christian America claim these godly founders used the Bible and Christian principles to craft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Because the charter documents were based on God’s word, they say, separation of church and state is a myth. With such a Christian past, the United States is an exceptional Christian nation, with an exceptional Christian story that should be taught in America’s schools. Some challenge the idea that race-based chattel slavery was an entirely evil institution with claims that enslavers were often kind to the people they owned. They minimize the nation’s history of discrimination and violence toward racial and religious minorities. Others whitewash the racism of the founders and their actions that permitted slavery to flourish. In other words, these mythmakers maintain that America has a godly Christian heritage and should return to it in public spaces in these dark and evil days. Without a return to America’s Christian roots, they warn, God will judge America and allow it to fall into condemnation.

With this book, I challenge these myths.

From the Christian Past That Wasn’t: Debunking the Christian Nationalist Myths that Hijack History (© 2026 Salem Grove, LLC and published by Broadleaf Books, 2026, pp. 1-6, used by permission )

As we approach the 250th celebrations this next week and if you’re looking for a little clarity in the midst of pomp and propaganda, consider ordering a copy of his book, or listen in on one of his many podcast interviews. (Here’s a short one with Rick Pidcock, and a slightly longer one with Brian Kaylor.)

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Also, please join us for a special LIVE episode of The Convocation Unscripted this Thursday, July 2, at 5:00 PM ET. We’ll be discussing SCOTUS and looking ahead to July 4th, reflecting on the state of our nation, and taking your questions, and…per Robby’s request—sharing something that gives us hope for the future.

It’s free, but you need to register to get the link. Fair warning, though. I said something positive and hopeful last time, so I think it’s asking a lot for me to do it twice in a row.