Are We A Christian Nation?

While most of us were busy eating hot dogs and watching fireworks this last Fourth of July, a few people were using the occasion to try to convince Americans that we are not, and never were, a "Christian Nation."  Putting aside the question of what being a "Christian Nation" actually means, I have to agree that we are not a Christian Nation today.

Some time ago President Obama went on record to say that the United States is not a Christian Nation.  (I have included a link below).  Like I said, I have to agree with the President on this one.  I just don't think that most Americans hold a Christian worldview anymore.  In fact, I am not sure that most Americans really appreciate what a Christian worldview even looks like.

As far as history goes, if by "Christian Nation" we mean that Christianity was at one time the "official" religion of the United States, obviously that was never the case.  So, we never were a "Christian Nation" in that sense.

But, to suggest that we were never a "Christian Nation" in a deeper sense is really just silly.  The vast majority of the founders of this country believed in the God of the Bible.  To deny that faith impacted everything they did, and particularly the ideas that became the foundation for this country, is pure folly.  I  have included a link to the prayer that opened the First Continental Congress in 1774 just to provide a little support for the point.

The so-called historians who want to deny or downplay the impact of Christianity on the founding of the United States like to quote Thomas Jefferson.  (I have included a link to a CNN blog by one of these so-called historians.  If you are irritated by this guy's take on the founding of the United States, you probably don't want to see his views of the Bible, which he also tries to clothe as objective "history").  I would too if I were them.  Jefferson was not a Christian in a sense recognizable to most of us.  Among other things, he did not believe in the deity of Christ.  However, Jefferson's view of religion was hardly reflective of the views of the great majority of early Americans.  But let's put history aside and get back to the here and now.

In the speech by President Obama that I mentioned earlier, after stating that the United States is not a Christian Nation, the President went on to say that we are a nation of citizens "bound by ideals and a set of values."  Here is where I have to disagree with the President.

Again, I believe that the ideals and values on which this country was founded were at root Christian ideals and values.  But, as those ideals and values have eroded what has taken their place?  Yes, we Americans still have some common values -- I think most of us still believe in democracy for example.  But, it seems to me that Americans are more polarized today than at any time since our founding.  I am not sure that ideals and values bind us together anymore.  In fact, I think they may be tearing us apart.

Over the last ten or twenty years a war has been waged against Christian ideals and values (and, indeed, on Christianity itself!!).  In my opinion the casualties of this war have mostly been marriages and families.  And now, as a country, I think we find ourselves largely without any real identity -- without any real ideals and values.  It seems to me that the predominate moral view is that everyone should do what they want as long as no one is directly harmed.  Maybe I'm wrong.

Do you think we are a Christian Nation?  Do you think the United States has turned her back on God?  Feel free to weigh in.  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVd7YT0oWA

http://chaplain.house.gov/archive/continental.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/04/davis.jefferson.other.words/