Herb Silverman vs. Ray Moore
Is America A Christian Nation?

In November of 2009, Dr. Herb Silverman PhD., Secular Coalition For America debated Rev. E. Ray Moore, Jr. Th.M., Frontline Ministries on the topic "Is America a Christian Nation?" The scene of the debate was Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Herb Silverman is notorious for getting the religious test oath stricken from the Constitution of South Carolina after being disqualified from the office of Notary Public because he did not believe in God. Rev. Moore is a valiant crusader for the cause of getting Christian children out of the godless government school system.

Summary of Ray Moore Argument

Rev. Moore argues that the purpose, law, culture, schools, and institutions of American civil government were Christian in principle and practice. He maintains that most of the founders claimed to be Christians.

Rev. Moore takes as his starting point the Holy Trinity Supreme Court case of 1892, which "sits astride American history as a benchmark." In this case Justice Brewer reviewed American history from Columbus to his own day and concluded that, "this is a Christian people." Brewer cited original colonial charters such as that of King James I which was established in part for "propagating the Christian religion to those who live in darkness…" He also pointed to the Mayflower Compact and the many colonial institutions that were explicitly Christian.

A long period of historical revisionism has erased this case and this evidence from our collective memory, according to Rev. Moore. The Constitution is not godless because it is linked to the Declaration of Independence, which mentions God many times and concludes with a prayer. He asserted that the Constitution reflects a Christian world view and has two Biblical references 1) in the date, and 2) in the provision for the pocket veto.

Sadly, Rev. Moore stated that he agreed with the exclusion of a religious test in Article VI, Sec. 3. He noted that the Baptists in Virginia had also pushed for its exclusion at the time of the convention. As explained in the Analysis below the religious test oath is the single most important defining characteristic of a Christian government. Although he surely did not realize it, Rev. Moore here admits that the United States is not a Christian nation and thereby concedes the debate.

He offered a variety of excuses to explain away the admission of the Treaty of Tripoli that "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Summary of Herb Silverman Argument

Dr. Herb Silverman countered that the original Puritan settlers established a Christian nation with religious freedom for their own religion, but no others. "Those of the wrong religion were excluded from government office," he noted, "and required to pay a tax to the Puritan church."

However, things began to change in 1776 when the people we call our founders exchanged government by the authority of God for government by "consent of the governed." "They wisely established a secular nation based on the authority of "we the people," he explained.

Herb Silverman further noted that a minority faction sought some recognition of Christianity, but "more enlightened founders like Pinckney disagreed and recommended exclusion of religious tests." He noted that the Framers were thoughtful writers and that if they had wanted a Christian nation it is unlikely they would have neglected to mention it in the supreme law of the land. But there is not a single mention of God or Jesus in the entire document.

He complained that the Bible has been used to keep women in their place, blacks in subjection, and gays and lesbians suppressed. The Constitution also formerly condoned these injustices, but has been amended, unlike the Bible. Herb Silverman quoted Sinclair Lewis who said, "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in an American flag and a cross."

Referring to the Holy Trinity case, Herb Silverman noted that "one obscure supreme court justice does not amount to a decree that the United States is a Christian nation. He also observed that the Declaration does not represent the law of the land, but rather was a call for rebellion against the British crown. The phrases "laws of nature and nature's god" agree perfectly with Jefferson's philosophy which was deist, not Christian.

Herb Silverman trivialized use of the phrase "year of our Lord 1787" as proof that the Constitution is a Christian document. He noted that Rev. Moore does not worship the god of thunder, Thor. Thus, Rev. Moore's use of the word "Thursday" (ThorsDay) "does not make Chaplain Moore a believer in the god of thunder any more than those who signed the Constitution would call themselves part of a Christian nation."

Analysis

"Is America A Christian Nation?" In order to answer the question of this debate, we must first answer the question "How Does the Bible Define a Christian Nation?" Since this question was never answered by either debater, the entire exchange was somewhat ambiguous and inconclusive. Arguments were tossed back and forth, but there was no standard by which to measure them.

According to the Bible, a Christian nation is one that has entered into covenant with God to make His law the foundation of its legal system. At every election new officeholders are required to reaffirm that covenant by swearing to govern according to the law of God. This was the religious test oath.

This is the standard we see repeated over and over in the Old Testament. Israel initially swore covenant to obey the law of God at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 20-24). Her subsequent history was a series of breaking and retaking that covenant, until God finally divorced her as a nation with the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Thus, there are many things of a religious nature that would not qualify as defining a Christian nation. With the above Biblical definition firmly in mind it is easy to eliminate them. This would include things like the phrase "year of our Lord 1787" and exclusion of Sunday from the 10-days required for a pocket veto. These have absolutely nothing to do with the religious test oath requirement to govern by the law of God that we find in the Bible.

Neither does the subsequent pronouncement by a Supreme Court Justice Brewer, Christian colleges, religious symbols on public buildings, nor the proclamation of Presidential Days of Prayer. These are all Christian trappings that have nothing to do with whether or not a nation is pledged to govern according to the Bible.

In accordance with the First Commandment, a Christian nation would not allow for the propagation of competitive belief systems, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or Wiccan. However, a Christian nation would be fiercely protective of the freedom of conscience of individual unbelievers and protective of their rights under the law.

"Strangers" (resident aliens/non-citizens) are mentioned repeatedly in the Bible with widows and orphans as worthy of special consideration and legal protection. "The same law shall apply to the native as to the stranger who sojourns among you," declares the Lord (Ex. 12: 49).

Thus, Dr. Herb Silverman is justified in asserting that the colonial state churches were oppressive in taxing unbelievers and other denominations for the benefit of the established church. Thus, Baptists were persecuted in Anglican Virginia, which prompted Jefferson and Madison to push through the Virginia Bill For Establishing Religious Freedom in 1786. This Bill dis-established the Anglican Church in Virginia. That was a good thing.

The problem with the Virginia Bill was that it went on to dis-establish God Himself by declaring "that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." The bill also stated that "…the proscribing any citizen … by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges … he has a natural right."

The bill states that religious opinions are no more important than opinions in physics or geometry in determining our civil rights and qualification for public office. This declaration of religious neutrality in qualification for public office is a declaration of war against Christ who declared that "He who is not for me is against Me."

These provisions went beyond dis-establishing the Anglican Church, to transforming Virginia from a Christian Commonwealth to a pluralistic state, open to the law of any and all religions. One year later Madison carried this same pluralistic/polytheistic principle into Article VI, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution: "No religious test shall ever be required for any office or public trust under these United States."

The First Amendment bolstered this pluralistic principle and as Herb Silverman perceptively observed, "the First Amendment contradicts the First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." These two provisions alone disqualify America as a Christian nation and there are many others.

Under the First Commandment, it is the duty of a Christian government to suppress the free exercise of all religions that worship other gods before the God of the Bible. Bear in mind that suppressing public worship of idols is not the same thing as coercing individual belief, which is strictly forbidden by the Bible.

Thus, it is evident that the atheist, Dr. Herb Silverman, having the historical facts on his side clearly won the debate by proving a negative answer to the question, "Is America A Christian Nation?" Christians like Rev. Moore are gaining nothing for the Kingdom of God by trying to prove that the covenant-breaking United States Constitution is a Christian document.

Rev. Moore should stick to his courageous efforts to wake up churches and Christian parents to the dangers inherent in government education. Defending the U.S. Constitution as a Christian document undermines these efforts. He should quit trying to defend the indefensible.

On the other hand, Dr. Silverman's conclusion that a secular, supposedly neutral Constitution is any guarantee of civil liberty is even more incredulous. The ubiquitous encroachments of an out-of-control federal leviathan provide abundant evidence that religious neutrality in government is a prescription for tyranny. All law is an expression of somebody's religion and liberty is only possible under law – the law of the Bible.

So from that standpoint Herb Silverman also lost the debate. Thus, the contest ended in a draw – both men losers in their failure to grasp God's covenant requirement for civil government.

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