We might consider the possible meanings that might be attached to the claim that America is a Christian nation.
On the one hand, it can mean that our government, by its nature, is committed to privileging the Christian religion and using the government to promote Christian worship and practice, then certainly not. The Constitution is perfectly clear when it says that Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion.
On the other hand, did people in the formation of our country, frame it the way they did because of what they believed as Christians, then it is pretty clear that they did. And this includes Thomas Jefferson, who didn't believe in the miracles of Christianity but thought that if people stopped following the moral teachings of Jesus, our country would collapse.
The French in their revolution and the Russians in theirs founded their revolutionary governments on ideas that were profoundly opposed to Christianity, even though, in the case of the French revolution, there were significant similarities between their ideas and those of the American founding fathers. Those revolutions, I contend, went quite differently from the American, because their world-views were different.
1 comment:
"On the one hand, it can mean that our government, by its nature, is committed to privileging the Christian religion and using the government to promote Christian worship and practice, then certainly not. The Constitution is perfectly clear when it says that Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion."
Acts of "privileging the Christian religion and using the government to promote Christian worship and practice" is *not* what the amendment forbids the federal government to do.
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