This week, Donald Trump’s righthand man Mike Pence illustrated the bizarre way that Christian Nationalists think of freedom. Appearing on a Fox TV political commentary show, the former Vice President complained that, “The radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion, but it's nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend.”

3. Americans Have Never Fought To Defend Freedom From Religion… Or Freedom Of Relgion

To begin with, let’s acknowledge that it’s true that Americans have never fought to defend freedom from religion. The larger truth that Pence neglects to mention is that Americans have never fought to defend freedom of religion either. Neither have Americans ever fought to defend freedom of the press or the right to a fair trial. Most American wars haven’t been about defending freedom or civil liberties at all, and the USA has never been in a war that was provoked by disagreements about the right of people to be free to make their own decisions about religion.

2. The Founders Of The USA Thought About Freedom From Religion Quite Often, And Designed The USA To Ensure It

People who are familiar with American history understand that Pence was just plain wrong when he claimed that the founders of the USA never thought of freedom from religion. The rampant abuses of government-established religion both in England and in England’s North American colonies were at the top of the founders’ minds when they wrote the Constitution. They included the “no religious test” clause in the original body of the Constitution and made a prohibition of government establishment of religion the very first clause of the Bill of Rights because the founders knew that a country could not be free unless it was free from religious power over the government.

American founder Thomas Paine, who was known as the voice of the Revolution of 1776, specifically addressed this subject when he wrote in Age of Reason, “All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” Later in the same work, Paine reflected on the history of Christian Nationalism specifically, and observed that “the object of the church, as is the case in all national establishments of churches, was power and revenue, and terror the means it used”. Throughout the text, Paine’s estimation of Christian Nationalism is clear: The goal of nationalist Christianity is to obtain power and money, and in order to achieve that goal, government-established churches enact campaigns of terror.

Paine was particularly interested in protecting American law from religion, regarding religion as a corrupt influence that will inevitably undermine liberty whenever it is allowed to be enshrined in law. Paine wrote, “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion, but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”

Specifically criticizing the centuries-old efforts of Christians to control national governments, Paine wrote of Christianity that, “as an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism.”

Paine’s ideas about the need to protect freedom from religion in the United States were well known in the years after independence was established. They were a part of the national conversation that informed the passage of the First Amendment and its widespread acclaim. It’s simply ignorant of Mike Pence to say that the founders of the United States never thought of freedom from religion. They thought about freedom from religion quite often, and most of them believed it was essential to democracy.

The ideology of Christian Nationalism was founded and developed outside of the tradition of American law. Christian Nationalism has historical roots in autocratic governments that predated the United States, including the Roman Empire and the British Empire. The Constitution, however, only mentions religion in order to ensure that the government of the USA remains free from religion.

1. Freedom Of Religion Without Freedom From Religion Is Nonsense

It’s generally understood that freedom in any sphere includes the freedom decide not to do a thing. Freedom of the press, for example, does not require people to be involved in the press. If people don’t want to write or publish, they’re free to do so. Freedom of speech does not require people to speak. It grants people the power to speak or not speak as they choose.

Just so, freedom of religion isn’t just a freedom to practice a religion of one’s choosing, but the freedom to make one’s own decisions about religion. That includes the freedom to not practice any religion at all. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.

When Christian Nationalists like Mike Pence argue that Americans have freedom of religion but not freedom from religion, they might as well argue that Americans don’t have freedom of religion at all. A country in which the government can force people to be religious is a country where people are not free in matters of religion, a country where religion is practiced as a matter of force.

Christian Nationalism is profoundly self-centered. Christian Nationalists think of freedom as something that only Christians deserve, because all non-Christians are wicked and not deserving of freedom. That’s not the model of freedom under which the Constitution of the United States was written. In American law, established by the Constitution, freedom is not a privilege that people have to earn. Instead, the writers of the Constitution understood that freedom is a right to which people are entitled (Originally, there were strong exceptions to this model, as women and non-whites were excluded from freedom, but these exclusions have largely been addressed through later Constitutional amendments. Remember these exceptions, though, when Christian Nationalists call themselves “originalists”.)

Christian Nationalists believe that only Christians should have freedom of religion. They believe that freedom of religion is the freedom of Christians to do whatever they want. So, Christian Nationalists believe that they have freedom of religion only when they can force non-Christians to comply with Christian religious laws, to provide money to Christian religious organizations, and to participate in Christian religious practices. When Christian Nationalists like Mike Pence say that Americans have no freedom from religion, what they mean is that Christian Americans should be granted absolute power to control the lives of all Americans, and shove Christianity down our throats.

In short, the Christian Nationalist idea of freedom of religion is the exact opposite of actual freedom of religion. Christian Nationalism seeks the freedom for itself to persecute anyone who chooses not to be a Christian.

Increasing numbers of Americans are choosing to leave Christianity behind, and totalitarian religious declarations like the one that Mike Pence made this week are a one of the major reasons people are walking out of churches and never looking back. What Christian Nationalists don’t understand is that every time they say that “there is no freedom from religion in America”, they just turn people off.

Christian Nationalist leaders like Mike Pence make people want to prove that freedom from religion exists in America… by choosing to abandon Christianity.