Why Is the Bible Used for Swearing in Presidents and Witnesses in Court, etc.?

Friday, 15 March 2024. FFP#57

About the Friday Freethought Perennials in general: This subset of my blog is to answer questions, nearly always already answered by me and by many others but posed again and again—over many years and in many places—on freethought, atheism, secular humanism, secularism/church-state/”This is a Christian Nation,” and similar topics. These answers are mostly not intended to be original analyses, breaths of fresh air, so much as just putting a whole series of things on the record (I’d say “forever,” except I know better). One source for many of these answers is the 2012 Prometheus Books book by me and my son (Michael E. Buckner), In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty—and that is where footnotes and careful citations of sources can be found. It’s available in many libraries and pretty readily in the used book after-market. I’ll cite writings of others that answer these things in more depth if I’m aware of them when I post these.

Why Is the Judeo-Christian Bible Used for Swearing in Presidents and Witnesses in Court, etc., if This Isn’t a Christian Nation?

The premise of this question is false. As is made clear in Article VI (quoted in full below) of the US Constitution, no one is required in the United States to swear to any God or to add “so help me God” to any oath of office—or to swear at all (“affirmation” may be substituted). Where such things do occur, including when the president of the United States is sworn in, religious oaths are sometimes added by tradition.

In 1901 President McKinley died and Teddy Roosevelt was sworn into office, at the Wilcox House in Buffalo, NY

But not always. For example, when Theodore Roosevelt was first sworn in as president, after the death by assassination of president William McKinley in Buffalo, New York, on September 14, 1901, Roosevelt was not sworn in using a Bible and he did not add “so help me God.” (He added, emphatically, “I do so swear!”) And Roosevelt was not alone in this—Thomas Jefferson and Calvin Coolidge did not use a Bible in their oath-taking ceremonies. And John Quincy Adams swore on a book of law, indicating that he was symbolically swearing on the constitution.

The relevant constitutional article—

Article VI: Supreme Law

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

One of the enduring conventional conclusions about George Washington and religion is that he was the American official who began the unofficial but supposedly consistent practice of adding “so help me God” after taking an oath of office. But that well-known and widely accepted story may be false:

Washington is widely credited with first adding the words “so help me, God” after the presidential inaugural oath, but none of the detailed contemporaneous eyewitness accounts of the first inauguration supports this belief. These words are not part of the Constitutional oath. The first authors to state that Washington added the words were Rufus Wilmot Griswold in 1854 and Washington Irving in 1857, and neither cited a source.

George Mason University Professor of History, Emeritus, Peter R.Henriques has weighed in on the side of those who say Washington likely did not add those words. Those interested in this aspect of the George Washington story would do well to read the American Atheist article (Fourth Quarter 2011) that Michael and I wrote on Washington and then to follow up on the sources cited there.

Courts throughout the US still often ask potential witnesses to place a hand on the Bible and then to “swear or affirm” to tell the truth—but putting one’s hand there is not required. And the “or affirm” part of that—which derives from the Constitution— allows Quakers, atheists, and other unorthodox people (in terms of religious belief) to fully participate.

The United States is not in any formal or official sense a Christian nation—and has never been since our founding 1n 1787-1789.

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