“CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP DAY.”
By W. N. G.
The proposition to make Washington’s birthday (February 22) do duty as “Christian Citizenship day” is being agitated by certain enthusiasts of the Christian Citizenship movement. This movement has for its object the enforcement of nominal Christianity by civil law, the placing in office of men who believe in compelling the minority to at least outwardly adhere to the religious tenets of the majority—that is, after the Christian Citizenship advocates shall have become a recognized majority. Of course they would not want such a doctrine enforced while they are in the minority; that would not be Christian citizenship of the order that is now being popularly agitated as a religio-political measure. But one of the most illogical features of this movement is the attempt to drag the name of George Washington into it, as tho that great patriot ever countenanced in any way such an unchristian, un-American idea. Washington emphatically avowed the doctrine that “every man who conducts himself as a good citizen is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, and should be protected in worshiping God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” Again, Washington, as President of the United States, signed a treaty with Tripoli, in which was the plain declaration that “the government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion.” The claim that this is a “Christian nation” is a radical departure from the design of its illustrious founders; yet under no government has Christianity found a more congenial atmosphere, until within the past decade efforts have been made to limit its free exercise by religious legislation. And consonant to the attempt to change the original character of the government5to that of a religious autocracy, is this proposition to force upon the record of George Washington the imputation that he stood for any such scheme as the present Christian Citizenship movement. It is as far from Washington as the east is from the west. Every patriot should protest against this aspersion of the name and political character of Washington. Every Christian should protest against this misrepresentation of practical Christianity, this going back to the bondage of Church and State union, from which Washington and his compatriots set the country free. “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” Gal. 4:9-11.