America's founders never intended to create a white Christian nation

Christian-nation idea fuels conservatives, but historians say it misreads Constitution and the founders’ intent.

The notion of America as a uniformly Christian nation (“Christian US concept misreads Founders, historians say,” Page A8, Feb. 18) flies in the face of the longstanding view of the United States as a multicultural society. 

For more than a century, our country has been viewed as a “melting pot,” a confluence of immigrants from diverse cultures blending together to create a shared American culture. 

More recently, critics of the melting pot concept proposed a “salad bowl” metaphor to more accurately reflect a heterogeneous society where members retain many of the unique characteristics of their culture, while coexisting as Americans.

We can debate whether melting pot or salad bowl is a more fitting description of current American society, but let’s hope future generations will not be left to debate the relative merits of “a loaf of white bread” or a “bowl of cream soup” as metaphors for a Christian American nation.  

From Elizabeth Tragash in Amherst, New Hampshire