Is America (Still) A Christian Nation?
To ask this question is to suggest that we began as a Christian nation but are losing, or have lost that status. Those who energetically debate the issue tend to polarize along either red (Republican) or blue (Democrat) political lines. Republicans consider themselves successors to our early Christian patriots, and the Democrats are spoken of as the less spiritual liberals. In The Left Hand of God, Jim Wallis characterizes the political “right” as having commandeered God for themselves, and the “left” has allowed it.
Simplifying religious integrity by political alignment only muddies the water. To truly understand our national past one needs to realize that real Christianity is not based on westernized theological church history, but rather on Jesus’ teachings. What makes America Christian is not the socio-cultural-religious environment of our revolutionary years. With our new nation in place the populace wasted no time dividing into political factions. That’s the nature of the Democratic beast. In the national election of 1800, with George Washington no longer alive to lionize and Ben Franklin also dead, the next two most prominent founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, ran against each other for the Presidency. They represented a polarization as severe as at any time since then. The two camps in that presidential campaign traded reciprocating accusations that the opposing candidate epitomized a betrayal of the Spirit of ’76.
Interestingly neither Adams nor Jefferson were Christians in an evangelical sense of the term. The reason conservative Christians unthinkingly include non-Christian Jefferson, Deistic Adams, and ex-Quaker Franklin as high ranking “Christians” is because the freedom they helped institutionalize can then be stamped as a gift God gave to those who boldly challenged ungodly tyranny. Our first patriots commonly claimed that the New World was divinely reserved as a Garden like Eden for European exploration and immigration. We boasted that the United Sates was the New Israel; in similar fashion God awarded us with lush and fertile territory wherein to enjoy our Christian blessing. But to claim America is a Christian nation cannot be determined by quoting hero type politicians making obligatory, formal references to a Divine Being.
Nor can knowledgeable students of history attribute plenary piety to the general population in those revolutionary years. Historians have noted that the American Revolution instanced a drop in general morality, along with a decline in church attendance. Wars tend to do this to fighting countries. I would make a case for the realization that as politics has played itself out over the years in the United States, much that was starkly unchristian in our national record has been sanitized and described as God blessing America. If there is danger, or evidence, of falling away from our Christian roots, let’s dig below the surface of election campaign posturing and pious pronouncements.
If American politics and culture are to be characterized as “Christian,”--and do not misunderstand me, I think they can be--it will not stand or fall on the rhetoric of public debate. Let’s ask what the colonialists held most dearly, and whether their deepest wishes arose from motives rooted in Scripture. The telling question is, “What does the name ‘America’ stand for?” I suggest we examine how the answer lines up with the gospel of Jesus—politics completely aside.
My answer: America stands for freedom and equality. The word “democracy” sums up and supplies the most adequate synonym for America, and is strikingly in perfect theological alignment with the teachings of Christ.
I am tempted to say, “Case closed,” but as a longtime U.S. history teacher I am well aware that freedom and equality are a set of much bruised ideals needing salve, bandaging, and body building nutrients. Let’s deal with the politics of it first. The earliest, best know settlements in colonial America were a mix of spirit. The Puritans sought freedom to worship in a healthier spiritual environment than under the “corrupted” Anglican state church. On the other hand, the Jamestown endeavor was profit motivated, seeking a return on investment for its stockholders. The colonialists quickly came to understand that they needed colonial charters if they were to govern as they pleased, and human bodies to populate their region in order to prosper. Freedom was a priority in matters both spiritual, civil, and economic.
Equality, too, was held as a premium standard for building a community that lacked peerage and established elites. In wilderness experience, he who did not work did not eat. Attracting settlers was a major activity. Descriptions of the New World as a Garden of Eden, promises of land grants for immigrant voyagers, even jail time release of convicts and imported slaves helped fill the need for workers. America has always been a place for a new start for the desperate, the impoverished, and the rebellious (and for a time for the enslaved, but that is another story). Background checks were not a procedure; one’s past was neither any advantage nor anyone’s business. Onetime scoundrels often made good Americans. Of course, every generation has had its complaints about pushy immigrants with strange habits and foreign speech, but the Statue of Liberty is our official position (if only after the fact), and those coming (freely) from abroad cherished this spirit of acceptance as it worked well for them.
Pause for a moment. Does this spirit of freedom and equality, the promise and respect, sound familiar to us church goers? Yes, of course, this is what Jesus is all about too. Of all political forms of government, Democracy resonates most splendidly with the heart of Jesus’ sermons and lifestyle. If America is a land of freedom and equality, it is rightfully considered copacetic with religion. The issue then is as many accusingly ask: Have we lost what we once had? I say, Not as long as freedom and equality remain. The problem is that the same folk on the “right” who pronounce that we no longer are religious as a nation are too often the ones who sabotage equality, and who see freedom as the entitlement of only those who have earned its blessings on their personal merit. Is it a sign of religious blessing that one percent of the population has cornered more than ninety percent of the nation’s wealth? Is it religious to consider freedom valid for only those lucky enough to be born here? In what sense are we a “religious nation”? Is declaring unprovoked war on other countries--something we have done a number of times--a religious act? Is hijacking and enslaving foreigners to do unpaid farm labor something Jesus encouraged?
I think it is entirely appropriate to inspect our national history and ask if we are less Christian today than the slave owners of the past (including several founding fathers and eighteen Presidents), less Christian than the Indian slaughterers (Presidents among them), less Christian than the militaristic jingoists who led us into at least 5 unjustifiable wars. Are we less Christian than the admired “robber barons” of the 19th century who considered accumulation of personal wealth the singular, Christian reward of free enterprise, less Christian than the well reported pre-union factory owner who locked his workers in his building to keep them working, all of whom then died en mass when the building caught fire. Tell me when the moral degeneration began?
Yes America is a Christian nation to the extent that we uphold the standards of freedom and equality that Christ exemplified--spiritual ideals we planted in our constitutional seedbed. If we honor this legacy, we are following the footsteps of our Founding Fathers who institutionalized democracy and displayed how to make it work (on the books at least).
Don’t judge me as cynical; I am just a student of history. At the end of the day I am optimistic about America’s potential as a beacon of spiritual light. Still, the proof is in the practice; potential has to be regularly brought to bear. And neither the “right” nor the “left” has a corner on it. As long as America loves and promotes freedom and equality, we stand tall as a Christian nation.
Understanding by what standards to measure Christ likeness, now ask, “How are we doing?”
Doug Good
Simplifying religious integrity by political alignment only muddies the water. To truly understand our national past one needs to realize that real Christianity is not based on westernized theological church history, but rather on Jesus’ teachings. What makes America Christian is not the socio-cultural-religious environment of our revolutionary years. With our new nation in place the populace wasted no time dividing into political factions. That’s the nature of the Democratic beast. In the national election of 1800, with George Washington no longer alive to lionize and Ben Franklin also dead, the next two most prominent founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, ran against each other for the Presidency. They represented a polarization as severe as at any time since then. The two camps in that presidential campaign traded reciprocating accusations that the opposing candidate epitomized a betrayal of the Spirit of ’76.
Interestingly neither Adams nor Jefferson were Christians in an evangelical sense of the term. The reason conservative Christians unthinkingly include non-Christian Jefferson, Deistic Adams, and ex-Quaker Franklin as high ranking “Christians” is because the freedom they helped institutionalize can then be stamped as a gift God gave to those who boldly challenged ungodly tyranny. Our first patriots commonly claimed that the New World was divinely reserved as a Garden like Eden for European exploration and immigration. We boasted that the United Sates was the New Israel; in similar fashion God awarded us with lush and fertile territory wherein to enjoy our Christian blessing. But to claim America is a Christian nation cannot be determined by quoting hero type politicians making obligatory, formal references to a Divine Being.
Nor can knowledgeable students of history attribute plenary piety to the general population in those revolutionary years. Historians have noted that the American Revolution instanced a drop in general morality, along with a decline in church attendance. Wars tend to do this to fighting countries. I would make a case for the realization that as politics has played itself out over the years in the United States, much that was starkly unchristian in our national record has been sanitized and described as God blessing America. If there is danger, or evidence, of falling away from our Christian roots, let’s dig below the surface of election campaign posturing and pious pronouncements.
If American politics and culture are to be characterized as “Christian,”--and do not misunderstand me, I think they can be--it will not stand or fall on the rhetoric of public debate. Let’s ask what the colonialists held most dearly, and whether their deepest wishes arose from motives rooted in Scripture. The telling question is, “What does the name ‘America’ stand for?” I suggest we examine how the answer lines up with the gospel of Jesus—politics completely aside.
My answer: America stands for freedom and equality. The word “democracy” sums up and supplies the most adequate synonym for America, and is strikingly in perfect theological alignment with the teachings of Christ.
I am tempted to say, “Case closed,” but as a longtime U.S. history teacher I am well aware that freedom and equality are a set of much bruised ideals needing salve, bandaging, and body building nutrients. Let’s deal with the politics of it first. The earliest, best know settlements in colonial America were a mix of spirit. The Puritans sought freedom to worship in a healthier spiritual environment than under the “corrupted” Anglican state church. On the other hand, the Jamestown endeavor was profit motivated, seeking a return on investment for its stockholders. The colonialists quickly came to understand that they needed colonial charters if they were to govern as they pleased, and human bodies to populate their region in order to prosper. Freedom was a priority in matters both spiritual, civil, and economic.
Equality, too, was held as a premium standard for building a community that lacked peerage and established elites. In wilderness experience, he who did not work did not eat. Attracting settlers was a major activity. Descriptions of the New World as a Garden of Eden, promises of land grants for immigrant voyagers, even jail time release of convicts and imported slaves helped fill the need for workers. America has always been a place for a new start for the desperate, the impoverished, and the rebellious (and for a time for the enslaved, but that is another story). Background checks were not a procedure; one’s past was neither any advantage nor anyone’s business. Onetime scoundrels often made good Americans. Of course, every generation has had its complaints about pushy immigrants with strange habits and foreign speech, but the Statue of Liberty is our official position (if only after the fact), and those coming (freely) from abroad cherished this spirit of acceptance as it worked well for them.
Pause for a moment. Does this spirit of freedom and equality, the promise and respect, sound familiar to us church goers? Yes, of course, this is what Jesus is all about too. Of all political forms of government, Democracy resonates most splendidly with the heart of Jesus’ sermons and lifestyle. If America is a land of freedom and equality, it is rightfully considered copacetic with religion. The issue then is as many accusingly ask: Have we lost what we once had? I say, Not as long as freedom and equality remain. The problem is that the same folk on the “right” who pronounce that we no longer are religious as a nation are too often the ones who sabotage equality, and who see freedom as the entitlement of only those who have earned its blessings on their personal merit. Is it a sign of religious blessing that one percent of the population has cornered more than ninety percent of the nation’s wealth? Is it religious to consider freedom valid for only those lucky enough to be born here? In what sense are we a “religious nation”? Is declaring unprovoked war on other countries--something we have done a number of times--a religious act? Is hijacking and enslaving foreigners to do unpaid farm labor something Jesus encouraged?
I think it is entirely appropriate to inspect our national history and ask if we are less Christian today than the slave owners of the past (including several founding fathers and eighteen Presidents), less Christian than the Indian slaughterers (Presidents among them), less Christian than the militaristic jingoists who led us into at least 5 unjustifiable wars. Are we less Christian than the admired “robber barons” of the 19th century who considered accumulation of personal wealth the singular, Christian reward of free enterprise, less Christian than the well reported pre-union factory owner who locked his workers in his building to keep them working, all of whom then died en mass when the building caught fire. Tell me when the moral degeneration began?
Yes America is a Christian nation to the extent that we uphold the standards of freedom and equality that Christ exemplified--spiritual ideals we planted in our constitutional seedbed. If we honor this legacy, we are following the footsteps of our Founding Fathers who institutionalized democracy and displayed how to make it work (on the books at least).
Don’t judge me as cynical; I am just a student of history. At the end of the day I am optimistic about America’s potential as a beacon of spiritual light. Still, the proof is in the practice; potential has to be regularly brought to bear. And neither the “right” nor the “left” has a corner on it. As long as America loves and promotes freedom and equality, we stand tall as a Christian nation.
Understanding by what standards to measure Christ likeness, now ask, “How are we doing?”
Doug Good
Labels: Ben Franklin, Christian nation, Christianity, Equality, Founding Fathers, Freedom, Jamestown, Jesus Christ, John Adams, New Israel, Political polarization, Puritans, Red and Blue politics, Thomas Jefferson
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