dermdoc said:

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Dr. Venkman said:

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dermdoc said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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TPS_Report said:

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Is the United State A Christian Nation?

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No

Quote:

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And if so...

What is the evidence to support this belief?

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First Amendment of the Constitution

Quote:

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What does being a Christian Nation actually mean?

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The established religion of the nation is Christianity.

Quote:

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Lastly, why does it matter?

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It shows our country's feelings toward state religions.

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I believe you can be a Christian nation without having Christianity established as the national religion.

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Not if Christian nation means the established religion is Christianity.

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In my opinion, Christianity can be the "established religion"
without government mandate.

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Not if established religion is the religion officially endorsed by the government. Like above, the thing prohibited in the first amendment.

Dr. Venkman said:

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dermdoc said:

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Dr. Venkman said:

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dermdoc said:

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Martin Q. Blank said:

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TPS_Report said:

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Is the United State A Christian Nation?

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No

Quote:

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And if so...

What is the evidence to support this belief?

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First Amendment of the Constitution

Quote:

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What does being a Christian Nation actually mean?

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The established religion of the nation is Christianity.

Quote:

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Lastly, why does it matter?

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It shows our country's feelings toward state religions.

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I believe you can be a Christian nation without having Christianity established as the national religion.

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Not if Christian nation means the established religion is Christianity.

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In my opinion, Christianity can be the "established religion"
without government mandate.

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Not if established religion is the religion officially endorsed by the government. Like above, the thing prohibited in the first amendment.

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Maybe I should say the predominant religion. You guys are tough.

Which government?

kurt vonnegut said:

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Serotonin said:

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For example, are we a racist country?

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Doesn't this kind of prove the point though?

Because I think you are implying that, yes, the US is a racist country.

I don't want to put words into your mouth but I think you'd probably say something like "At it's founding the US was a racist country. We're far less racist today but unfortunately we're still a racist country, although I think it's lessening over time" or something like that.

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Racist people exist today, but I wouldn't define America as being a specifically or categorically racist country. Today's laws are meant to apply equally across racial lines and most modern values in America reinforce a value system that supports equal treatment and dignity to all races. This is in contrast to America circa 1776.

Where I was headed is to argue that what America is defined as today need not be held hostage by our founders. Just because our founders were 'x', does not mean that we are an 'x' country today.

For the record, I don't object to America being categorized as a Christian nation in the context of identifying / associating nations with the values or philosophies that were important at its founding. But, by that standard, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the most secular of European countries are all 'Christian nations' as well. This relates to the 'watered down' comment I made earlier. If being a 'Christian nation' simply refers to a nation's origin story, then it serves more as a historical category rather than an indicator of what the people of that nation value.

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But all the countries you mentioned are Christian nations, and their moral and ethical framework is decidedly Christian.

Many of the "secular" Scandinavian countries had state regions up until very recently. The populace is still predominantly Christian in its moral framework.

You know I've seen the claim that modern liberal secularists still hold traditional Christian morals quite a few times and I'm really just not convinced that it is true. There is a ever widening gap between the two on a lot of important issues and at some point we're going to have to accept that whatever their roots the two have now grown apart and just aren't the same. I don't think you can point to very general rules shared by the vast majority of moral and ethical systems across the world and across cultures such as rules against murder, rape, theft, and the like as evidence modern secular values are still inherently Christian.

The question is what moral values are uniquely Christian and still held in these countries by most non-Christians. And where are the differences.

If the USA was a "Christian Nation" why would it so willingly and eagerly allow millions of immigrants each year (legal and illegal) whom many of which belong to a different and/or radically opposed religious group?

Zobel said:

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Which government?

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I guess Congress was the assumed branch that would have had the authority at the time.

Silent For Too Long said:

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But all the countries you mentioned are Christian nations, and their moral and ethical framework is decidedly Christian.

Many of the "secular" Scandinavian countries had state regions up until very recently. The populace is still predominantly Christian in its moral framework.

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Those countries may be culturally Christian. Or their citizens may have moral and ethical frameworks greatly impacted by that culture and history. But when only 25% of your population believes in God and 5% of your population regularly attends service, then I think its fair to draw some type of distinction between cultural Christian nations and practicing Christian nations. It just feels like the situation calls for a bit more nuance than simply lumping any and all countries impacted by Christianity into the same bucket.

Good question / well put.

kurt vonnegut said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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But all the countries you mentioned are Christian nations, and their moral and ethical framework is decidedly Christian.

Many of the "secular" Scandinavian countries had state regions up until very recently. The populace is still predominantly Christian in its moral framework.

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Those countries may be culturally Christian. Or their citizens may have moral and ethical frameworks greatly impacted by that culture and history. But when only 25% of your population believes in God and 5% of your population regularly attends service, then I think its fair to draw some type of distinction between cultural Christian nations and practicing Christian nations. It just feels like the situation calls for a bit more nuance than simply lumping any and all countries impacted by Christianity into the same bucket.

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If they contiune to operate within a Christian moral framework, which the Scandinavian countries demonstrably do, then I'm not sure why there would be any issue identifying them as such.

Also, you seem to be low-balling your numbers just a tad. 35%+ for some belief in God and 65% as some sort of spiritual or religious identification.

These aren't the countries filled with atheists that American atheists try to claim them as.

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The question is what moral values are uniquely Christian and still held in these countries by most non-Christians. And where are the differences.

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I think 'uniquely' anything is a pretty high bar since all cultures will have DNA from differing origins that will overlap and interact uniquely.

And I would say that we can point to the US having a very explicitly Christian culture (including laws and legislation at the state and local levels) through the mid-20th century, at which point that all came under attack by the Supreme Court.

But the background moral values that we've inherited from Christianity which are distinguishing?

I think you could list quite a few items that were pretty infrequent elsewhere:

- Bans on cousin marriage, polygamy, child marriage, concubines, etc. Common things in other parts of the world.
- Cultural disdain for kin-based nepotism
- Marriage based on consent of spouses as individual actors with agency
- Laws and culture holding men to the same monogamous standard as women
- Moral importance of low status people (this repeatedly conflicts with economic structures from serfdom to slavery)
- Related to that point, better treatment of foreigners and ethnic minorities due to imago dei
- Opposition to infant exposure or the killing of female babies

With the dominance of western culture many of these moral values are being imported (or imposed) on the rest of the world but it's uneven.

Deleted to avoid the political/religious bickering. But you could probably hear me rolling my eyes at your comment from across the state.

Rocag said:

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Deleted to avoid the political/religious bickering. But you could probably hear me rolling my eyes at your comment from across the state.

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Well, when your choice is Trump or God hating marxists, you hold you nose and do what you gotta do.

I'm not sure I buy many of the things on those list as uncommon in other religions / ethical systems. And some of them I question if they are widely spread within Christianity in the first place. And even within Christianity we see evidence of changing moral standards over time. How similar would the morals a of a modern American Christian be with a Christian living in Africa a thousand years ago? It's hard to separate religion from culture but they both clearly have a strong impact on how people think.

Consider one of the items in your list: the killing of female babies. One of the places known for this is China, but the practice pre-dates the rise of communism and adoption of state atheism. So do we call it cultural practice rather than a religious one?

Rocag said:

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Consider one of the items in your list: the killing of female babies. One of the places known for this is China, but the practice pre-dates the rise of communism and adoption of state atheism. So do we call it cultural practice rather than a religious one?

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It's neither. That is the default human. The default human is prideful, vengeful, and violent and will use all three to gain power and/or maintain power. It is the social constraint that stems from a belief in a high power that keeps those things in check. As we see society adopt a position that you, and not God, is the center of the universe, we see the default position rise back up.

Zobel said:

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we have (had) both a federal and a national government. the original intent of the first amendment was not to preclude state religions, only that of the federal government. we know because ten of the thirteen colonies at the time had officially established state religions or tax dollar supported churches.

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Ok, but the United States government has never established a religion. Congress theoretically could have done it, but then passed the first amendment. So in that sense, the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. What sense the OP meant is still a mystery.

Dr. Venkman said:

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Zobel said:

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we have (had) both a federal and a national government. the original intent of the first amendment was not to preclude state religions, only that of the federal government. we know because ten of the thirteen colonies at the time had officially established state religions or tax dollar supported churches.

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Ok, but the United States government has never established a religion. Congress theoretically could have done it, but then passed the first amendment. So in that sense, the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. What sense the OP meant is still a mystery.

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Yeah but the reason for that is because we were a Christian nation at the state level. The problem is that you are applying an anachronistic understanding of the situation to reach the opposite conclusion. Christians at a state and local level didn't want some powerful denomination at a federal level suppressing them.

What is the nation?

Did we become a new nation between 1776 and 1789?

The arguments about the states having established religions at the time of ratification is both factually correct and a gross misrepresentation of the attitudes and atmosphere at the time if not provided in context. Which was of rapid disestablishment after the ratification of the first amendment.

Within about 30 years after the first amendment a majority of states had removed all religious establishments and within about 40 years there were none. This wasn't a post civil war rethinking of our system, things were in motion far before that.

We like to think of the constitution as this moment of clarity, and endpoint to the bickering and fighting. In reality it was a snapshot in time during a period of transition.

If we want to talk about the ideals of the people who founded this country, it's worth looking at not only what they originally established but the directions in which they took it.

Which is nothing to say of how we as a peoples values continued to transition thereafter into what we are today.

The point of bringing up state churches is to provide background on the debates around the first amendment.

Yeah the state churches dissolved but that's because we were moving from tax-supported sleepy Congregationalist churches to a more diverse array of churches.

But the Christian background and foundation was just as strong after the last state church devolved. Just read Tocqueville.

"Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed."

"Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle, by universal consent."

And many other similar observations.

I was answering a direct comment about the first amendment.

Again some context. If you are arguing for America as a religious people at the time, absolutely. If you are arguing that they wanted the government involved even at the state level you should remember what else he wrote:

"They mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of Church and State."

" Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society"

"The empire of religion is never more surely established than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength."

Serotonin said:

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Dr. Venkman said:

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Zobel said:

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we have (had) both a federal and a national government. the original intent of the first amendment was not to preclude state religions, only that of the federal government. we know because ten of the thirteen colonies at the time had officially established state religions or tax dollar supported churches.

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Ok, but the United States government has never established a religion. Congress theoretically could have done it, but then passed the first amendment. So in that sense, the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. What sense the OP meant is still a mystery.

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Yeah but the reason for that is because we were a Christian nation at the state level. The problem is that you are applying an anachronistic understanding of the situation to reach the opposite conclusion. Christians at a state and local level didn't want some powerful denomination at a federal level suppressing them.

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You could say Connecticut was a Christian state and Maryland was a Christian colony, but the U.S. has never had an established religion and so in that sense has never been a Christian nation.

Aggrad08 said:

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Again some context. If you are arguing for America as a religious people at the time, absolutely. If you are arguing that they wanted the government involved even at the state level you should remember what else he wrote:

"They mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of Church and State."

" Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society"

"The empire of religion is never more surely established than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its native strength."

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That is fair, Americans clearly did not want a clerical government or a federally established denomination. Or even state established denominations by the 1830s.

But it doesn't negate the description of America as a Christian nation.

Because you have to parse out three different things:

1. Government should be controlled by a church.
2. Government should officially privilege a denomination.
3. Public law, governance, society operate within a Christian moral framework.

No to 1 and 2 but yes to 3.

So yes, if Christian nation is narrowly defined as 1 and/or 2 then the answer is "no".

But Christianity clearly directly influenced morals, customs, family life, education, public opinion, etc.

Dr. Venkman said:

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Serotonin said:

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Dr. Venkman said:

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Zobel said:

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we have (had) both a federal and a national government. the original intent of the first amendment was not to preclude state religions, only that of the federal government. we know because ten of the thirteen colonies at the time had officially established state religions or tax dollar supported churches.

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Ok, but the United States government has never established a religion. Congress theoretically could have done it, but then passed the first amendment. So in that sense, the U.S. has never been a Christian nation. What sense the OP meant is still a mystery.

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Yeah but the reason for that is because we were a Christian nation at the state level. The problem is that you are applying an anachronistic understanding of the situation to reach the opposite conclusion. Christians at a state and local level didn't want some powerful denomination at a federal level suppressing them.

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You could say Connecticut was a Christian state and Maryland was a Christian colony, but the U.S. has never had an established religion and so in that sense has never been a Christian nation.

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That is fair as far as it goes, but see my post above...this focuses too narrowly on formal governing structure.

Analogy: Every year I go on a hunting trip with old Aggie buddies from A&M. We have written rules about planning, timing, gate codes, cleaning, expenses, where to send the Venmo payments, etc. None of those rules mentions anything related to A&M.

So you could say that it's not an Aggie group. But is that really the case?

Sure no disagreement with that. Which is why we circle back once again to the meaning of "Christian nation". And even within those confines I think "Christian" is probably broader than it needs to be. The US under your third category was a Protestant nation. There were maybe 2% of the population that was Catholic and no notable orthodox population.

Again, the nation is not its government. This is a category error.

Have the social and communal structures in America or its legal and business system been exceptionally Christian?

i dont know what "exceptionally" means. what is the rule that defines exception?

Sapper Redux said:

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Have the social and communal structures in America or its legal and business system been exceptionally Christian?

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I would also like to know how you define "Christian" in this context.

Anyway it doesn't matter, until Hart Cellar began to change the demographic makeup of the US some 90-95% of American adults self-identified as Christian. Just on that basis alone defending the idea that the US wasn't a Christian nation (in any sense one way or the other) is absurd.

Zobel said:

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Anyway it doesn't matter, until Hart Cellar began to change the demographic makeup of the US some 90-95% of American adults self-identified as Christian. Just on that basis alone defending the idea that the US wasn't a Christian nation (in any sense one way or the other) is absurd.

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So is your definition of a "Christian nation" just self identification of religion? Because that's not how anyone else is using the term and it seems pretty meaningless.

Zobel said:

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i dont know what "exceptionally" means. what is the rule that defines exception?

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What would you point to as explicitly Christian in these institutions?