Last Sunday, a letter appeared on this page under the headline “Be a Christian or get out.” The letter, which was a response to three earlier letters, prompted still more letters, but the author, Heidi Jo Pearse of Post Falls, strongly objected to the headline. She stressed that she didn’t say, and doesn’t believe, that everyone in the United States should be a Christian. The readers who replied with their own letters have been notified of Pearse’s concern and have been sent a copy of her original letter, as submitted by e-mail. It read:

WE ARE A CHRISTIAN NATION. PERIOD.

Ms. Tarbox, Ms. Buckley, Mr. Shroll: Were you all sleeping during grade-school history? Separation of church and state means that our forefathers did not like being forced by King James I to attend his nationalized church. The separatists believed that the church of England was not being true to the Bible. Our founders were defining that the new American government not form a nationalized church … (1st Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.) It does NOT mean that our government should not be involved in Christianity! We were founded by Christian leaders who wrote our Constitution! Each and every state constitution refers to our God Almighty as well. Patrick Henry wrote, “this great nation was founded … on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” Thomas Jefferson said, “The Bible is the source of liberty.” George Washington stated, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.” Even Newsweek (Dec. 27, 1982) admitted that “historians are discovering that the Bible, perhaps even more than the Constitution, is our founding document.” I tell my children: our house, our rules. If you three don’t like our country’s heritage, move.

The letter writers were invited to withdraw or revise their own letters if they felt the headline had unduly influenced their comments. None exercised that option. The following are their responses.

Only in Philly

My Quaker forefather, Valentine Hollingsworth, came to this country in 1682 with William Penn. Without the Quakers of Philadelphia this country would have been stillborn. Christians, Jews and non-believers shared the streets and thriving marketplace of goods and ideas in this quintessential America city.

“The City of Brotherly Love” was the only place in the colonies where there existed tolerance enough for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to be hammered out among diverse interests, regions and beliefs. It could never have happened in Puritanical New England or the Anglican South. Nor, it appears, in contemporary Spokane if Heidi Jo and her ilk held sway.

Simplistic and triumphant history taught in grade school is not sufficient knowledge to justify deporting anyone who does not share Ms. Pearse’s views. Grow up!

Although Quakers, my ancestors fought at Brandywine and Yorktown. They didn’t sacrifice blood and treasure to be scolded by ignorant, religious bigots. I don’t share your theology, Heidi Jo, but I am as American as you are. If you want religious control of the government, perhaps it is you who should leave. May I suggest Iran as a nice religious oasis.

Jim Hollingsworth

Veradale

Centuries of harassment

Love it or move?

I am provoked by Ms. Pearse’s challenge that: “If you three don’t like our county’s heritage, move.” She implies a knowledge of “our county’s heritage” and of the Constitution, but seems to have no understanding of the reasons why the framers erected a wall of separation between church and state or why there is no reference to a specific religion or deity within the Constitution.

Christian bigotry has plagued humanity for almost two millennia. Christians have harassed, persecuted, tortured, hanged, burned and, yes, exiled anyone who denied belief in their particular God or their interpretation of scripture. The founders were intimately and immediately aware of that fact. Although religious, most of the founders were committed to building a nation based on reason and natural law, not religious dogma.

My family has lived, fought, bled and died for America in every conflict that threatened our home since 1648 A.D. They have been at the forefront of the expansion of our country. We have paid for our rights with our blood and sweat. I am weary of religious zealots who declare that my natural and civil liberty should be subject to their dogma and ignorance.

I choose to stay in my country.

Jim Lanham

Cheney

Quotes not credible

Ms. Pearse’s letter makes false assertions about the United States’ supposedly Christian identity and unabashedly cites quotes that are either false or taken out of context.

Researchers have shown that the cited quotes from the Founding Fathers have been falsely attributed to them.

And Ms. Pearse leaves out the second part of the quote from the Newsweek article that she cites: “(the Bible is) the source of the powerful myth of the United States as a special, sacred nation, a people called by God to establish a model society, a beacon to the world.” Taken in context, this quote refers to the fact that the Bible has, unfortunately, frequently been used to justify the myth of American superiority. It says nothing in support of the assertion that ours is a Christian nation.

Before publishing letters, the editor should determine the veracity of cited quotes. Dishonest arguments reflect poorly on both the writer and the newspaper.

Miranda Hale

Spokane

No marching orders

So Heidi Jo Pearse wants to make the rules for the rest of us if we live in the United States. Sorry, but we make the rules in our house and we don’t take our marching orders from the Christian Taliban. What’s next if we don’t subscribe to her fatwa? Throat-slitting or beheading?

Ted Wert

Sagle, Idaho

Where are Christian values?

Perhaps Heidi Jo Pearse could apply her great resolution and certainty to answering questions her assertion raises. If the founders and framers intended the nation to be a corporately Christian nation, were Christian ideals expressed in the displacement of Native Americans, whose lives and land were taken?

Similarly, the enslavement of Africans brought to the New World to toil for professed Christian slave owners – what form of Christian love is found in this history?

And what Christian dictate is at work in compelling soldiers of many different creeds to fight the nation’s battles? Is “for God and country” the same as “for Christ and his nation”?

Furthermore, what Christian equity is found in denying the opportunity to enjoy the same rights and privileges as the rest to those citizens who seek romantic affiliation within their own gender? And they pay taxes for this, often serving in the military, to preserve the liberties of a Christian nation?

The political opportunists who promote this perennial canard have no answers, nor Christian virtue. And that is the great tragedy of our time: when people adopt the mantle of Christianity to cloak their selfish motives, when Christians fail to reflect Christ.

Rick Thornton

Spokane Valley

Why so angry?

This is in response to Heidi Jo Pearse’s letter in the Sunday paper. Wow, if we aren’t Christians we should leave this country. My, Ms. Pearse, please tell me if this is how Jesus would think and talk and react to those who are not believers. I wish you well and hope that you will find some compassion, love and respect buried in your heart somewhere.

I’m not sure why you are so angry or upset at us Buddhists, Muslims, atheists. … May you be well, may you be happy and may you come to respect and love the diversity that life offers us all.

Mary Naber

Spokane