America was founded on. . .

Many people, particularly progressives, reject the claim that America was founded on Christianity. At the same time, many people, particularly progressives, support the claim that America was founded on racism.

For each claim, there is probably a different sense of how people are understanding the term “founded.” Prima facie, one might try to treat the term univocally and claim that racism was legally encoded in America’s founding documents (the Three-Fifths Compromise) in a way that Christianity wasn’t. But typically the claim that America was founded on racism is much broader — hence the 1619 project.

In this broader “1619” sense, I don’t see how it would be possible to endorse the claim that “America was founded on racism” and reject the claim that “America was founded on Christianity” — not because Christianity and racism go hand in hand (though no doubt an internet atheist will want to claim otherwise), but because if racism was sufficiently present in the culture and social structures of America’s founding such that the claim “America was founded on racism” is justified, then, a fortiori, Christianity was sufficiently present in the culture and social structures of America’s founding such that the claim “America was founded on Christianity” is justified.

Again, I’m sure some would love to jump in here with a point of moral condemnation of Christianity and its relationship to slavery, but my point is simply that those who want to make the broad, 1619-type of claim that America was founded on racism should also accept the claim that America was founded on Christianity. The same should go for other similar claims: if we accept the claim that “America is racist” then there’s a strong case to be made that we should accept the claim that “America is Christian.”

As indicated by the a fortiori, my position is that Christianity played a more significant role in people’s overall lives and in their social structures than racism did. So the point would not necessarily go in reverse, such that if we support the claim that America was founded on Christianity, then we should support the claim that it was founded on racism.