There is a myth about the founding of
America and a myth about the purpose of America when it first began as a
nation. This myth muddles all debate about immigration, and especially
the current debate about allowing Syrian Muslims into America. Debunking
this myth is crucial to our victory against menacing and wicked enemies who
seek our end.
America, beginning with those colonies that
would become America, was founded not to promote some general ideal of
religious freedom, but rather to specifically protect serious Christians from the religious persecution
they had suffered in Europe. Several of the colonies – Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, Maryland – were created to allow groups of persecuted Christians
like Puritans, Quakers, and Catholics to have a specific home polity.
Other
colonies like Rhode Island and Connecticut were founded to allow Christians to
practice faith as they chose outside Massachusetts. Virtually all the
colonies were populated by profoundly serious Christians. It was not the free practice of
"religion," but the free practice of Christianity that
the early Americans fought and died for. This
mystified Europe (it mystifies Europe to this very day), because Europe at its
most religious was never as religious as America.
