Is the U.S. Constitution Divinely Inspired?

The Story

A new survey finds that almost one in three white evangelicals in America believe that the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired.

The Background

“Some Americans clearly long for a more avowedly religious and explicitly Christian country,” according to a Pew Research Center survey. For example, the survey finds that about one in five Americans (19 percent) says the U.S. Constitution is inspired by God. The groups most likely to make that claim includes the highly religious (37 percent) and white evangelicals (37 percent).
What It Means

As far as this poll reflects reality, we confront a troubling dilemma: either one-third of white evangelicals don’t know what it means for a text to be inspired by God, or one-third of white evangelicals have embraced a heretical Mormon doctrine.

What does it mean for a document to be “inspired by God”? That depends, of course, on what we mean by “inspired.” Read More