As Right Wing Watch has noted in the past, one of the defining characteristics of Christian nationalist activists is a willingness to misrepresent history, as time after time they spread blatant falsehoods in defense of their right-wing ideology
One of the most egregious offenders is Christian nationalist and Trump cultist pastor Rob McCoy, who has a history of making demonstrably false statements about the Founding era, as he did during a recent episode of his "Faith Forward" podcast.
McCoy—who has long urged conservative Christians to get more involved in politics and himself served on the city council in Thousand Oak, California, for several years only to resign in opposition to the state's COVID-19 restrictions—has deep ties to Christian nationalist activists Dan Wilks, David Lane, who attends McCoy's church, and Charlie Kirk, whom McCoy was instrumental in transforming into a full-blown Christian nationalist.
During his recent podcast, McCoy and his co-hosts were discussing efforts to post copies of the Ten Commandments in public schools across the country. McCoy insisted that such efforts were perfectly constitutional because, he said, "in the Northwest Ordinance, you couldn't become a state in the union unless you taught the Bible in schools."
The Northwest Ordinance required nothing of the sort.
Adopted by the Confederation Congress in July of 1787, before the U.S. Constitution had even been completed, the Northwest Ordinance laid out a framework for admitting new states to the union out of territory that had been ceded to the United States as part of the treaty with England ending the American Revolution.
The territory included lands that eventually became "the current states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota," and the Northwest Ordinance stipulated the process for governing the territory and for admitting states formed in that territory to the union, as well as protecting the rights of those living in the territory.
The document made various mentions about protecting religious liberty, and included Article 3, which stated that "religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Notice that nowhere in Article 3 is there any mention that states must teach the Bible in schools. In fact, the Northwest Ordinance doesn't even say that states must teach religion in schools; it simply says that the establishment of schools is encouraged, which is a far cry from the claim that McCoy made.
Over and over again, McCoy and other Christian nationalists lie about the founding of this nation, misrepresent history, and promote baseless myths because they know that such fictions are useful in creating the false impression that their modern right-wing political agenda is rooted in our national history.
