A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation 7OKT07 & Palin's Christian nation from On Faith / Washington Post 21APR10

A very interesting discussion on Christianity and America, click the header to go to the article. My opinion? All the words about a nation being Christian are just words....proof of faith is not so much in word as in deed, and God will determine if our actions towards the residents of this nation and the rest of the world are Christian or not.

A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/opinion/07meacham.html?_r=1

By JON MEACHAM
Published: October 7, 2007

Correction Appended

JOHN McCAIN was not on the campus of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University last year for very long — the senator, who once referred to Mr. Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance,” was there to receive an honorary degree — but he seems to have picked up some theology along with his academic hood. In an interview with Beliefnet.com last weekend, Mr. McCain repeated what is an article of faith among many American evangelicals: “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”

According to Scripture, however, believers are to be wary of all mortal powers. Their home is the kingdom of God, which transcends all earthly things, not any particular nation-state. The Psalmist advises believers to “put not your trust in princes.” The author of Job says that the Lord “shows no partiality to princes nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.” Before Pilate, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And if, as Paul writes in Galatians, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” then it is difficult to see how there could be a distinction in God’s eyes between, say, an American and an Australian. In fact, there is no distinction if you believe Peter’s words in the Acts of the Apostles: “I most certainly believe now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him.”

The kingdom Jesus preached was radical. Not only are nations irrelevant, but families are, too: he instructs those who would be his disciples to give up all they have and all those they know to follow him.

The only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated “in the year of our Lord 1787.” Even the religion clause of the First Amendment is framed dryly and without reference to any particular faith. The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God’s authority, but the effort failed.

A pseudonymous opponent of the Connecticut proposal had some fun with the notion of a deity who would, in a sense, be checking the index for his name: “A low mind may imagine that God, like a foolish old man, will think himself slighted and dishonored if he is not complimented with a seat or a prologue of recognition in the Constitution.” Instead, the framers, the opponent wrote in The American Mercury, “come to us in the plain language of common sense and propose to our understanding a system of government as the invention of mere human wisdom; no deity comes down to dictate it, not a God appears in a dream to propose any part of it.”

While many states maintained established churches and religious tests for office — Massachusetts was the last to disestablish, in 1833 — the federal framers, in their refusal to link civil rights to religious observance or adherence, helped create a culture of religious liberty that ultimately carried the day.

Thomas Jefferson said that his bill for religious liberty in Virginia was “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination.” When George Washington was inaugurated in New York in April 1789, Gershom Seixas, the hazan of Shearith Israel, was listed among the city’s clergymen (there were 14 in New York at the time) — a sign of acceptance and respect. The next year, Washington wrote the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., saying, “happily the government of the United States ... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. ... Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a “Christian party in politics.” Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed “Christian amendment” to the Constitution to declare the nation’s fealty to Jesus. Theodore Roosevelt defended William Howard Taft, a Unitarian, from religious attacks by supporters of William Jennings Bryan.

The founders were not anti-religion. Many of them were faithful in their personal lives, and in their public language they evoked God. They grounded the founding principle of the nation — that all men are created equal — in the divine. But they wanted faith to be one thread in the country’s tapestry, not the whole tapestry.

In the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast. Toward the end of his second term, Washington sent Joel Barlow, the diplomat-poet, to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty, finished after Washington left office, bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that “as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,” there should be no cause for conflict over differences of “religious opinion” between countries.

The treaty passed the Senate unanimously. Mr. McCain is not the only American who would find it useful reading.

Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, is the author of “American Gospel” and “Franklin and Winston.”

Correction: October 13, 2007

An Op-Ed article on Sunday, about the idea of the United States as a Christian nation, incorrectly described the number of the original Constitution’s religious references. Article VI forbids the use of “a religious test” for officeholders; the phrase “the year of our Lord” is not the sole allusion to religion.


In a speech last week, Sarah Palin promoted belief in God as a form of patriotism, dismissed notions that "America isn't a Christian nation," and denounced a federal judge's ruling that it's unconstitutional for government to declare a National Day of Prayer.

"God truly has shed his grace on thee -- on this country. He's blessed us, and we better not blow it. And that's why I talk about politics," Palin told the 16,000-member choir at a Women of Joy conference in Louisville, Ky., last Friday.

"Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers," she continued. "Hearing any leader declare that America isn't a Christian nation . . . It's mind-boggling to see some of our nation's actions recently, but politics truly is a topic for another day."

Here at Under God, politics is a topic for any day, especially when it's mixed with religion.

Palin's reference to "any leader" was a clear reference to President Obama, who in a 2006 speech said, "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation -- at least not just -- we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers."

Those comments -- especially the truncated sound bite "We are no longer a Christian nation" -- were deployed across the Web to depict presidential candidate Obama as a non-Christian or an anti-Christian.

Palin isn't the first 21st Century politician to proclaim America a Christian nation. In a 2007 interview with Beliefnet.com, presidential candidate John McCain said: "The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." (His campaign later clarified the remark.)

Of course, the U.S. Constitution expressly did not establish America as any sort of religious nation.

As Newsweek editor and On Faith co-moderator Jon Meacham (author of "American Gospel") and others have repeatedly pointed out, the Constitution expressly did not establish the U.S. as a Christian nation.

A treaty the U.S. signed in the 1790s declared that "the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Andrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a "Christian party in politics." Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed "Christian amendment" to the Constitution to declare the nation's fealty to Jesus.

And so on. And yet the notion persists.

According to a Newsweek Poll last year, 62 percent of Americans consider the U.S. a Christian nation (down from 71 percent in 2005).

Brent Baker, vice president for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center, says the media is making too much of Palin's comments. "(She) never said anything about an 'official' religion, so (she) could just mean that as a practical matter the nation is Christian since it was founded on Christian principles espoused (by) the majority of the Founding Fathers, that nearly all current elected officials pay homage to Christianity no matter their level of faith, and that the vast majority of Americans who are religious adhere to a Christian faith."

Maybe we're focusing on the wrong question. If a majority of Americans believe this is a Christian nation, maybe the more relevant question -- and a good question to begin the 2012 presidential debates -- for Palin or Obama or any other politician is this:

What do you mean when you say that America is (or is not) a Christian nation?

Do you mean that a majority of Americans claim to be Christians? Do you mean that America is a Christian nation in the way that Iran is an Islamic nation? Do you mean that the primary purpose of America is evangelical, that the primary allegiance of every American is to Jesus? Or do you mean something else entirely?