There is a myth about the founding of America and a myth about the purpose of America when it first began as a nation.  This myth muddles all debate about immigration, and especially the current debate about allowing Syrian Muslims into America.  Debunking this myth is crucial to our victory against menacing and wicked enemies who seek our end. 

America, beginning with those colonies that would become America, was founded not to promote some general ideal of religious freedom, but rather to specifically protect serious Christians from the religious persecution they had suffered in Europe.  Several of the colonies – Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland – were created to allow groups of persecuted Christians like Puritans, Quakers, and Catholics to have a specific home polity. 

Other colonies like Rhode Island and Connecticut were founded to allow Christians to practice faith as they chose outside Massachusetts.  Virtually all the colonies were populated by profoundly serious Christians.  It was not the free practice of "religion," but the free practice of Christianity that the early Americans fought and died for.  This mystified Europe (it mystifies Europe to this very day), because Europe at its most religious was never as religious as America. 

It is a stunning fact, almost always ignored by secular historians, that before the twentieth century began, writers were noting the profound irreligion or even atheism in much of Europe.  This was most pronounced in Germany, where books published during this period consistently note that even clergymen often did not own Bibles or believe in God.  This cavalier attitude toward Christianity permeated nearly every nation in Europe. 

America was intended to be the Israel of Christianity, and commitment to that ideal explains the obstinacy of the rebelling colonists, who shed blood, lost treasure, and risked everything for freedom.  The purpose of America was never to protect its citizens from Christianity, but instead to protect Christians from the oppression of the state.

This is the reason why, until the middle of the twentieth century, no one in America even dreamed for many decades that the First Amendment could in any way have prevented the established state churches, which half of the new states had, all of which were gradually disestablished by the state government on their own. 

This aim included from the very beginning a subordinate purpose.  Americans intended their land to be not only a haven for Christians, but also a haven for Jews.  This new land was, from the earliest English settlements, welcoming to Jews.  Anti-Semitism in America, unlike everywhere on Earth, was condemned and repudiated.  Jews were elected to colonial and state political offices from the very beginning.

Christianity was the very soul of the anti-slavery movement (as it was in Britain).  The words in the Battle Hymn of the Republic, "…as He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free, our God is marching on," showed the clear Christian character of America.  The official hymn for our centennial, "God of Our Fathers," likewise shows a close intertwining of Christianity and American government.

The goodness of America flowed directly from that Christianity, and it is this profoundly Christian nature of America that leads Europeans to scorn her – and also to the deep and close friendship between America and Israel, which is most strongly supported by Christians in America.  It is also a principal factor in Islamic hatred of America, Christianity's Israel, just as the Jewish homeland itself appalls Muslims just as passionately.

Every malignancy in modern world affairs is ultimately rooted in hatred of Judeo-Christianity.  Although it seems odd to us, the angry of this world see all devout Christians of every denomination as being more or less the same and see Christians and Jews of every variety as also being more or less the same.  That is the real explanation for Iranian leaders calling America the "Great Satan" and Israel the "Little Satan."  Those two nations have never warred upon Iran or occupied Iran.  These hate our country not for anything wrong that it has done, but for being what it is.