A Christian Nation

This is cross-posted from the Mobius Forum and SSMB. It got very little interest on the Mobius Forum and I don’t think the replies on SSMB really yielded any answers, so I’m re-posting it here (not that I anticipate anyone will read it here).  

In the more than ten years since I first became interested in global politics, I have been involved in quite a few discussions (or perhaps, more accurately, arguments) over the internet about all kinds of issues. I have learnt a lot in that time about different political philosophies, not only through my formal education at university, but also through my own research out of personal interest. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on any particular issue, but I do think of myself as an informed layman, certainly more informed than the average person, who generally shows little to no interest in politics at all. That said, there are still things in politics that I don’t understand; there’s always more to learn and I welcome the opportunity. One thing that has been puzzling me a lot recently is the concept of “a Christian nation”.

This concept has arisen in quite a lot of the discussions I’ve participated in since 2001 and not only in purely theological discussions; I’ve seen people assert that their country is a Christian nation as part of their argument in topics that one would not necessarily expect to have any religious angle. That said, I’ve been involved in these discussions long enough to know that just about any political topic can have a religious angle to some people. Online, I tend to see people (usually American conservatives) asserting that the United States is a Christian nation and my response has typically been a refutation of that. After all, unless you’re talking about demographics, the United States is most certainly not a Christian nation. It was not founded upon biblical principles; it was founded upon enlightenment principles, many of which fly in the face of Christian values. The founding fathers were not uniformly conservative Christians; they were enlightenment thinkers and, while some of them were Christians, many of them were deists (i.e. they believed in a creator god or “prime mover”, but not in a personal or interventionist god who requires worship), some of them professed no theological opinions at all, and some were publicly very critical of the Christian faith (Thomas Paine, for instance). Jesus Christ is not mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; in fact, the only references to anything religious are to an unspecified creator in the Declaration and Article VI, paragraph 3 and the First Amendment of the Constitution, which respectively establish that there will be no religious test for public office and that the government may not create any laws favouring any one particular religion over another or religion over irreligion and vice versa—in other words, it establishes religious neutrality where the government is concerned. Indeed, constitutionally, the United States has a separation of church and state, which is enumerated by the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment, as explained by former president and founding father, Thomas Jefferson in a letter he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 (in fact, that’s where the phrase comes from). Furthermore, the Treaty of Tripoli, which was unanimously ratified by both houses of Congress in 1797, explicitly states that the United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion, and court decisions have generally given rise to a legal precedent supporting separation of church and state. Christianity may enjoy a majority status in the United States, but that does not make the county a Christian nation; indeed, the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights in particular were written in part to protect minority groups from the tyranny of the majority.

That’s the kind of information I’ve drawn upon to argue against the myth that America is a Christian nation when I’ve been confronted by people making that assertion. Much of the information that conservative Christians in the United States will present is flawed or outright false; many quotes, ostensibly from founding fathers, have been incorrectly attributed to them or can be traced back to compulsive liars like David Barton of the conservative Christian group, Wallbuilders and no further. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to persuade people who are determined to propagate this myth (or perhaps, more accurately, this lie) that the United States is a Christian Nation (Judeo-Christian if they’re being charitable or if they want to avoid angering the Anti-Defamation League), that it was founded upon biblical principles, and that it is right, necessary, or both for religion and government to be intertwined. Like arguing against a religionist’s theological beliefs, you often won’t get very far arguing against this lie; indeed, it is something they seem to cling to in much the same way that they cling to their faith, continuing to believe it in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the lack of any real evidence in support of it.

But, while I anticipate the possibility of some discussion about this claim, it’s not what I’m really interested in. I’ll come to that shortly, but first I’d like to briefly describe the situation on the other side of the Atlantic, here in Europe. Quite a few European nations have established churches (mostly the ones that still have monarchies), but in practice, we are much more secular than the United States; religious belief is much lower as is the level of religion in politics. For instance, while an atheist has very little chance of getting elected to high public office in the United States without lying about their beliefs, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg is openly agnostic and said as much during the televised debates last year; while it would be an issue in America, considering the frankly disgraceful displays of religious interrogation by the major networks during the 2008 election cycle, it simply isn’t an issue for most voters here. Nevertheless, I have occasionally heard people assert that the United Kingdom is a Christian nation in order to provide an argument for their positions (which are almost exclusively positions of prejudice and bigotry). When civil partnerships were being legalised in 2005, I heard a woman on the radio arguing against giving gay couples similar legal rights to married straight couples on the basis that “this is a Christian nation” and that homosexuality is condemned in the Bible. Some Conservative MP’s have occasionally argued that Christianity needs to be given “primacy” in Britain, former Prime Minister, Tony Blair has become a conservative Catholic and an attendee of the National Prayer Breakfast in the United States since resigning from office, and far-right extremist parties like UKIP and the BNP favour more Christianity in the public square, in education, and in politics (usually in order to contest Islam). Nevertheless, it is an oversimplification to assert that the United Kingdom is a Christian Nation. It is not, either constitutionally or demographically. While most people will put themselves down as Christians on the census, less than ten percent of the population ever attends church outside of weddings, funerals, and other such occasions (if they do it even then); most people are what has been described as “cultural Christians”, where religion is not a significant part of their lives and really only plays a ceremonial role, but they themselves are not sincere believers and they simply identify with the religion of their parents or grandparents. As far as the establishment of religion is concerned, however, it’s complicated, which is why it’s an oversimplification to say that “Britain is a Christian nation”. Britain itself does not, as a whole, have an established church; however, England and Scotland do have established churches, whereas Ireland disestablished its church in 1871 and Wales did the same in 1920. The established church in England is the Church of England (known as the Anglican Church outside the United Kingdom), whereas in Scotland it is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. A lot of people mistakenly assume that the Church of England is the established church of the entire United Kingdom, but it isn’t; it’s just England. Constitutionally, there is no overt protection of religious freedom in the United Kingdom, but the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the Equality Act of 2010, not to mention the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union all provide similar protections of religious freedom to those enjoyed in places like Germany and the United States that would otherwise be lacking.

But, as I indicated, the question of whether or not a particular country is a Christian nation is not what I’m interested in discussing in this topic. What I’m interested in is why people feel the need to propagate this idea, whether it’s true or not. What do the religionists who believe that theirs is a Christian nation hope to accomplish by either making it so or by convincing enough people that it is? I’ve spent enough time arguing against the claim that the United States is a Christian nation, but I’ve never really took the time to ask the predominantly conservative Christians who think otherwise why it is that they think this. What do they want and why do they want it? What is so potentially good about America’s recognition as a Christian nation? If there are Christians on this forum who identify with this position—that America is a Christian nation—then I invite you to answer these questions. The same applies to Christians elsewhere in the world who are similarly interested in the same kind of establishment of the Christian faith in their own countries. Of course, anybody’s input is welcome.

This is not intended as flame bait. I am genuinely interested in why people want to the propagate the idea of a Christian nation, because in all the arguments I’ve had about whether or not a particular country is a Christian nation, the question as to why people want that idea to be accepted is the one thing that’s never really been answered, at least not for me. So, please, if you’ve taken the time to read this, share your thoughts.