Was America Founded on Christian Principles?
Virginia, founded in 1607, became the first American colony in what is now the United States. Although unsuccessful at first, tobacco was soon grown and slavery began shortly after. Virginia was backed by wealthy investors and there was nothing Christ-like about it.
The Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. They were called “separatists” because they wanted to separate from the Church of England. About half of them died in less than a year and their voyage was also backed by wealthy investors looking for an economic return.
The Puritans first established a colony in Boston in 1629. They did not want to separate from the Church of England but rather, to reform it. Life was so miserable living under the religious tyranny of the Puritans, that colonists soon began spreading upward, outward and downward away from them.
Maryland was founded by Lord Baltimore, along with a large tract of land given to him by the King of England. Baltimore was a Catholic who later converted to Protestantism to protect his power and wealth interests. None of these three have anything in common with Jesus of Nazareth.
The most successful early colony was Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn, who was one of those highly dissatisfied with life under the Puritans. Penn was a Quaker, was against slavery and a pacifist. Although very far from his real teaching, Pennsylvania was the early colony most like the words and deeds of Jesus, as it allowed all manner of immigrants and common people in and its founder like Jesus, was a pacifist.
Virginia and the colonies below on the map were soon enthralled in the slave trade, using them to harvest cotton, rice, sugar beets and tobacco. Georgia was originally founded as a free state, but that soon changed when enough settlers complained about their inability to enslave, beat, rape and buy and sell their fellow human beings.
Not surprisingly, the colony most like Jesus was hated by the Puritans and other religious folk of the time, in particular because of Quaker pacifism and aversion to human slavery. Christians today who call themselves “evangelicals”, are no less hypocritical than the Puritans when it comes to the actual words and deeds of Jesus, who came to set the slaves free and who was a strong pacifist.
Being against slavery and in favor of pacifism was downright unAmerican in the eyes of many of the other colonists, as it is today among the majority of evangelicals, who continue to teach the obvious lie that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles. From slavery to the revolution and forward, there is nothing particularly Christ-like about the United States compared to other nations. The real god of the U.S is wealth, followed by military might.
