'Entirely false': Republican pushes debunked Christian nationalist history

The progressive watchdog group Right Wing Watch took aim at Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith on Tuesday for his comments last week pushing a Christian nationalist falsehood regarding the Founding Fathers.

Appearing on the Christian nationalist radio program “The Truth & Liberty Show,” Beckwith said that the writing of the US Constitution was precipitated by a three-hour prayer service at the behest of Ben Franklin, an anecdote often shared by those who reject the separation of church and state.

“Because of that, you started to see the footings of the Constitution take hold and within a few weeks, (and) after that they began to see what we now know as one of the greatest governing documents this world has ever seen, maybe second only to the Bible,” Beckwith said.

“And it was because Benjamin Franklin got up and called for prayer and that's why we open every day in Congress, every day at state legislative level and in local governments, we open with prayer because Ben Franklin said we can't do this unless God helps us."

That story, however, is “entirely false” as Right Wing Watch pointed out, and is a common conflation with a prayer led during the First Continental Congress in 1774 by Pastor Jacob Duche, who would go on to oppose American independence.

“Of course, the actual facts don't really matter much to Beckwith and the other Christian nationalist activists who spread these myths because misrepresenting American history serves primarily to promote their modern-day right-wing political agenda,” writes Kyle Mantyla with Right Wing Watch.

The radio program is produced by The Truth & Liberty Coalition, a Christian nationalist organization that mobilizes conservatives to reform all areas of society to one based on a biblical worldview. The organization advocates for all scientific and technological progress to align “with God’s design,” to eradicate “messages of immorality” from arts and media, and to condemn socialism in all forms as “unbiblical.”