Wednesday, October 18, 2006

America as a “Christian nation”

Often discussions about whether the United States is a "Christian nation" fail because the participants have neglected to define the term. They mean entirely different things when they affirm or deny that the nation is "Christian." The author of "Religion, politics and semantics" defines his terms:
"America is a Christian nation in that it contains more Christians than most nations do–it has always been more Christian than its progenitors in Europe, and that is more true today than it has ever been ....

America is a Christian nation in that you can generally convince us to do the right thing by appealing to Christian notions–the civil rights movement, for example, prospered as long as it demanded that white Christians behave like Christ, then foundered as it left its religious roots. America is a Christian nation in that we have done more than any other nation to secure the rights of Christians around the world to worship God.

America is a Christian nation in that we were the first such nation that applied Christ’s teaching to “do unto others” even to those in power (for what else is democracy but that?).

On the other hand, America is not a Christian nation in the sense that America is a conglomeration of many different people, some of whom know Christ and some of whom don’t.

It is not a Christian nation in the sense that our government, being a system of laws written down on paper, has no relationship with Christ."

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