From: kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie)
Subject: What is a "Christian Nation"? (was History Test)
Summary: This is an easy term to equivocate on.
Keywords: Christian, nation, principles, founders, states, `Woof!'
Organization: Wheaton Alumna With Boopy Noses, Inc
Disclaimer: Brandy the WonderDog wants a carnivorous nation -- he's happy.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:58:17 GMT


Michael Kline writes:
> Some time ago, there was a conversation on if America was founded on
> Christian principles.  Some documents came to light that might answer
> them, but I doubt if anyone will know more than 1 or two of them.

And then goes on to quote some court rulings and state Constitutions.  I'm
not going to get directly involved in a thread on this topic, because it's
more appropriate for a history newsgroup and because these discussions have
been marked by a lot of confusion.

One big problem is defining a `Christian nation'.  Depending on exactly what
you mean by "is the US a Christian nation?", the answer varies.  Is this a
country with a lot of Christians?  Yes.  Is it a country that has always lived
up to Christian principles?  No.

Suppose you have a country with a Christian federal government and secular
state governments?  How about Christian state governments and a secular
federal government?  Suppose you have Christian founders who found a country
on secular principles?  Suppose some founders are Christians and others are
not?  Suppose some founders use Christian principles and others don't?

There's more to this than just "were there a lot of Christians?" and "did
people claim they were Christians?"  Suppose someone said he was a Christian
because he followed `Christian principles', but he didn't believe Jesus was
the Son of God, and he paid no attention to the Bible -- would we accept him
as a Christian?  Suppose the founders of a country did the same thing; would
that make any difference?  Right now we have some politicians who claim they
are Christians and who do things that I have problems with -- it looks to me
like they are just using Christ as a way to get votes.  I don't think this is
an innovation of 20th century politics.


As Mr Kline (and some others before him) have observed, several states had
rules requiring religious belief -- but he left out Article 6 Paragraph 3 of
the US Constitution, which reads "...no religious test shall ever be required
as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

The question of whether the United States is a Christian nation varies a lot
depending on what parts of the nation you are interested in, how you define
"Christian nation", and how picky you are about whether Christian principles
have been observed.


We could have a long discussion about all these questions, but it would take
many thousands of lines of posts to fully examine all the details, and it
would involve many hours of reading and writing.  AND, I already said I wasn't
going to participate in such a thread.

Instead, I want to recommend two essays by Mark Noll, who is a history
professor at Wheaton College in Illinois (a conservative Evangelical school
that requires all faculty to sign a statement of faith saying that they
believe several standard Christian doctrines).  It would take much less time
for people to go look these essays up, and there is no chance that the lot of
us can improve on Dr Noll's research or analysis.  The essays are:

    "The Bible in Revolutionary America", which can be found in  _ The Bible
	in American Law, Politics, and Political Rhetoric _.
and
    "The Image of the United States as a Biblical Nation, 1776-1865", which
	you can read in _ The Bible In America _.

These essays are carefully-reasoned, looking at the question in several ways
and avoiding overly-simple answers.  At the same time, they are direct and
well-written, so just about anybody should have no trouble following them.  It
should take about an hour to look up and read both essays.

However, they only cover about 40 pages of text, so there is stuff that is not
addressed.  If anyone is really interested in reading more on this topic, I
will happily mail you a list of books that will take months to finish.  8-)


Should you decide to have a discussion anyway, I encourage everybody to state
clearly what issue they have in mind.  Previous discussions on this topic
have been long and unpleasant affairs because the participants were talking at
cross-purposes.  They were arguing over the answers without first agreeing on
what the answers were supposed to be about.


Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.glassboro.edu
"I checked it very thoroughly, and that quite definitely is the answer.  I
 think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually
 known what the question is.  [...]  So once you do know what the question is,
 you'll know what the answer means." -- Deep Thought