The Abolition of Christian Test Oaths

According to Kelleigh Nelson, “The real core of communism is the hatred of God and that’s why the majority party in the House of Representatives in the U.S has removed God from as many Congressional proceedings as possible, including the swearing in of witnesses.”

When Congressman Mike Johnson (R-LA) raised a point of parliamentary inquiry as to why witnesses did not say, “so help me God” during their swearing in, Rep. Johnson asked Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) to please have the witnesses do it again including the “so help me God.” Cohen said,

I don’t think it’s necessary and I don’t want to assert my will over other people. 

Then Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) pipes up with,

If any witness objects, he should not be asked to identify himself.  We do not have religious tests for office or for anything else and we should let it go at that.

Well, excuse the daylights out of me Reps. Cohen and Nadler, but we have used this swearing in for over 200 years.

As Rep. Johnson said, “It goes back to our founding history and it’s been part of our tradition for more than two centuries, and I don’t know that we should abandon it now.”

Watch the two-minute video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLi6eYMtwww]

The Webster’s American Dictionary defines an oath as:

A solemn affirmation or declaration, made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed.

The appeal to God in an oath implies that the person imprecates God’s vengeance and renounces His favour if the declaration is false, or if the declaration is a promise, the person invokes the vengeance of God if he should fail to fulfil it. A false oath is called perjury.

Traditionally, states required candidates to be biblical Christians in order to take the oath of office. They were not required to affirm to any kind of denomination in particular, but they had to at least be Christians. What kind of oath did they have to take to enter into political office?

The Bible says that the oath must be taken to God; it must call down on the oath-taker eternal as well as temporal sanctions. But the humanist says that the oath must be taken for the state, the people, the Constitution, or to some other natural authority, which are all man-made deities.

Most everyone understands that citizenship requires an oath. The question is, To whom is the oath made? Is it made to God or to some other authority?  For instance, when people are taking an oath of allegiance to the Crown to become British citizens, they are required to affirm and take this oath:

I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law…

Likewise, in every country where an oath of office is required, as is required in the United States by the Constitution, the oath has reference to swearing by Almighty God to abide by His covenant, invoking the curses and blessings of God for obedience and disobedience to the government.

The problem is the oath of the president of the United States excludes the name of the Supreme Being. When the president is inaugurated into office, he shall either swear or affirm that he will uphold the Constitution. It does not appeal to God at all. It contains nothing by which presidents can be held accountable by the Supreme authority. It states,

I do swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Jesus Christ is the supreme and ultimate authority, the ultimate appeal of all things. But in America’s Constitution, “we the people” have arrogated themselves this prerogative.

A True Oath

A true oath of office, according to Timothy Baldwin, comes from the notion first that there is a Creator God who implements justice on earth and in life thereafter; that He rewards good and punishes evil.

It comes from the belief that humankind has a tendency to be evil and will use power at the expense of the people and the individual’s freedom and rights. It comes from the notion that constitutions, elections, and even threats of revolts do not adequately prevent politicians from abusing power.

Therefore, an oath of office is required to ensure that political leaders will bind themselves to the supreme law of the land.  More specifically, an oath is a solemn promise made by the politician to God Almighty, where if the politician breaks his or her promise, they are calling the wrath of God’s punishment upon their life in whatever proportion God deems justified.

It is no wonder that federal politicians ignore their oath of office—they have no fear of God before their eyes, and they have no fear of the people either. How can we expect a person to fear people if they don’t fear God?

Every president after George Washington and before R. B. Hayes, who took the oath of office, never took an oath without an appeal to God, which was the very essence of the oath.

The Constitution Removed Religious Test Oaths

Rev. A. M. Milligan wrote President Lincoln in 1861, asking why he would not take the presidential oath in the name of God. He replied:

The relations between the Northern and Southern States are so strained I would not dare violate the letter of the Constitution. The name of God is not in that instrument.

President Lincoln took the oath without an appeal to God, omitting the very essence of the oath. The Bible says, “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and swear by His name” (Deuteronomy 6:13 KJV).

M. Foster claimed that the framers of our Constitution took this Bible oath, and with the penknife of Jehoiakim, cut off the name of God and introduced the mutilated oath into that instrument.

In 1844 Daniel Webster testified before the Supreme Court regarding the pluralism of constitutional oaths: “What is an oath?” he asked. “It is founded on a degree of consciousness that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues or punish our vices.

We all know that the doctrine of the law is that there must be in every person who enters court as a witness, he be Christian or Hindu, there must be a firm conviction on his mind that falsehood or perjury will be punished either in this world or the next or he cannot be admitted as a witness.”

Eighteenth-century America was still predominately Christian in its religion, but its national government was neither Christian nor biblical.

In 1808 President Jefferson was petitioned by the New England ministers to proclaim a fast throughout the land. He refused, saying,

I am interdicted by the Constitution from doing anything that pertains to religion.

Although it was inevitable that Christian influence affected government in 1788, as evidenced by all the other national days of fasting, prayer, and humiliation proclaimed by George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and others, unfortunately that influence has diminished significantly as time passed.

The American government has become more strictly constitutional since that time. Most believe the Constitution is Christian in nature but, unfortunately, the document has also been exploited by secular humanists.

Here Gary North comments:

The Constitution removed religious test oaths as judicial requirements for judges and officers of the new national government. This, in and of itself, delivered the republic into the hands of the humanists. Nothing else was necessary after that. From that point on, the secularization of America was a mopping-up operation. This operation is still in progress. Those being mopped up are unappreciative, but they cannot seem to identify when the turning point came. It came in 1788.

In setting up this government, they ignored the claims of the King of kings. The Constitution does not contain the name of God. It is silent as the grave respecting the authority and law of the reigning Mediator.

It is a secular instrument. Morally, it is a compact of political atheism. Insofar as it is the people’s right to make the Constitution, elect their own officers, and determine the policy of the administration, civil government is “an ordinance of man.”

But it is also an ordinance of God. Jesus Christ says (as wisdom personified),

By Me kings reign, and rulers decree justice. By Me princes rule, and nobles, all the judges of the earth (Proverbs 8:15–16).

Gary North argues that two features of the U.S. Constitution mark it as a humanist covenant. What are they? “The Preamble and the religious test oath clause of Article VI.”

While the famous phrase of Jefferson’s regarding “a wall of separation between church and state” is not in the Constitution in this familiar form, it is nonetheless judicially in the Constitution.

In order to protect the Constitution from biblical condemnation, some constitutionalists attempt to neutralize its moral implications. The Constitution contains little moral prescription. It does not address ethical issues. At best, it is a written set of political rules that will implement whatever moral precepts the people generally hold at any given time.

While serving as president of the United States, George Washington declared that the United States government protects all in their religious rights. This is similar to what President Barack Obama said after declaring that America was no longer an exclusively Christian nation:

I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism. Whatever we were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers…. When we’re formulating policies from state house to the Senate floor to the White House, we’ve got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community.

President Obama is essentially advocating a world religion. American Christians should not criticize or be angry with President Obama for telling the truth. Instead, they should be angered at the origin of Obama’s statements: the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

So how could presidents swear by God’s name since they don’t have it in their conscience that God governs the nations and leaders are accountable to Him?

The no religious test clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, paragraph 3, and states that:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution; but “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

This has been interpreted to mean that no federal employee, whether elected or appointed, career or political, can be required to adhere to or accept any religion or belief system.

Moreover, the First Amendment—“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof”—prohibited Congress from establishing any religion and thus permitting all religions to participate as equal citizens on the federal level.

By 1820 most state constitutions eliminated religious qualifications that had kept people of other religions from participating in public affairs or offices.

But the Bible says,

Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens (Exodus 18:21). 

A talent for politics, integrity, and a heartfelt regard for the will of God are required to hold office according to God’s standards, but the Constitution sets aside these qualifications and makes way for the enemies of truth and righteousness.

The goal of humanists, atheists, and communists is to eradicate Christianity from every area of public responsibility and authority. The goal of humanists since Jefferson’s day has been to intrude every area of public life, and, while the state gets bigger, it also gets less and less restrained by biblical law.

The myth of separation of Christianity and the state led inevitably to the secularization of every area of life and the centralization of power in the national government. There can be no freedom without Christ.

Take Christ and the Bible out of any institution of government, and we thereby lose our freedoms. Self-government without the modifier ‘Christian’ in its full biblical meaning is nothing more than self-will regardless of initial intent to be or do good.

Man without Christ cannot succeed in producing lasting good.