Those who claim a special right to political power because they say their God gave it to them represent one of the greatest threats to modern-day democracy worldwide. Christian theocrats have infiltrated government and are siphoning off millions of tax dollars, and Moslem theocrats have put us in a constant terror alert.

Although most of the founders were spiritual in their own way, they understood the damage that organized religion could do when it gains access to the reins of political power.

Benjamin Franklin was a deist, and held that the creator made the universe long ago and had chosen not to interfere in any way. Another founding deist who resisted giving political power to those with religious power was George Washington. In fact, President Washington supervised the language used in the Treaty of Tripoli, which said “the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

John Adams talked about Christianity, “As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

On Feb. 21, 1811, President James Madison vetoed a bill that authorized government payments to a church in Washington D.C., to help the poor. In Madison”s mind, a clear violation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.

One of Thomas Jefferson’s well-known quotes is carved in stone of the Jefferson Memorial, “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny imposed upon the mind of man.” What is missing from the quote is the context from which it came.

Jefferson wrote a letter to his good friend, physician Benjamin Rush, about Christianity and the clergy’s hope of the establishment of a particular form of Christianity in the United States. The letter states, “The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, and they (the preachers) believe that any portion of power confided to me (such as being elected president), will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough too in their opinion.” The implication is that he would consider any such religious move to be tyranny over the mind of man.

It wasn’t just religious tolerance that was the issue for Jefferson. It was preventing one religion from claiming it was uniquely the American religion, and then using that claim to grasp political power.

President Abraham Lincoln said, “ I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will... I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me.”

Many religious leaders claimed that their right to influence government was legitimate because government itself was founded on the Ten Commandments.

The simple fact is that there isn’t much in common between the Ten Commandments and American legislation. Our laws do not specify a single God who we must worship, ban graven images, require us to take a day off work every week, mandate that we “honor” our parents, make it illegal for men to “covet” other men’s wives or sleep with unmarried women, or make it illegal to lie. The only things in common are prohibitions on killing and stealing.

Anyone who insisted that the Ten Commandments were the basis of American or British law was, Jefferson said, mistakenly believing a document that was “a manifest forgery.” The reason was simple; British common law on which much of American law is based, existed before Christianity had arrived in England.

It is assumed that the Founding Fathers were deists, some of them may have even been atheists. Whatever their individual religious views in their own time, the one thing they collectively were is secularists.

America is where a lot of Christians live. While religion must be safe and free from control by government, so, too, government must be free from control by religion.

Brosten is a resident of Bigfork.