Christian Nation?

In the week following the celebration of our nation’s birthday, I am hearing quite a few folks hating on America; its president, legal-system (the jurors who handed down a not-guilty murder verdict for Casey Anthony), and our country’s straying from its founding principles. I’m finding it a little discouraging. Just a couple of nights ago I was gazing at fireworks and listening to “God Bless America” being played over loud speakers at a football stadium and now I’m hearing television reporters declare that “the devil is dancing” as he celebrates all that America has become.

I have always found it interesting that people refer to this country as a ‘Christian nation’. To be honest, I wonder if it ever was. I appreciate those that have gone before us and been committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. However, has this nation ever really been “Christian”?

Please take a few moments to look at the following quotes from some of this nation’s founding fathers and others who’ve helped, or seem to be helping to, shape this country:

“Mystery [the divinity of Jesus Christ] is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.” – John Adams

“The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.” – Abraham Lincoln

“If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false sentiment, I could never stay there five minutes.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This story of the redemption will not stand examination. That man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple, by committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of religion ever set up.” – Thomas Paine

“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.” – George Bernard Shaw

“But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Every other sect supposes itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on either side, but near him all appears clear, tho’ in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.” – James A. Michener

“The need for religion will end when man becomes sensible enough to govern himself.” – Francisco Ferrer Guardia

“The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” – John Adams

Why are we [Christians] so surprised when our nation, its government officials, or any of its inhabitants act in a way that is contrary to God’s Word? Is it because there are a few vague statements in our founding documents that refer to God? Is it because the very first inhabitants of this land came here from England seeking a place they could worship freely? [Wait a minute… they weren’t really the first inhabitants of the land, were they? Some would say that we sorta stole it from the ‘first inhabitants’, in our effort to ‘worship freely’,… but let’s not talk about that.]

I would suggest the thing we have been calling ‘Christianity’… isn’t really very ‘Christ-like’ at all. Former slave, Frederick Douglas, said it perfectly, “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference – so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked… I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land ‘Christianity’.” – Frederick Douglas, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845; New York: Signet, 1968), 120.

Has anything changed? How authentically ‘Christ-like’ is America today? How genuinely ‘like Jesus’ are those who profess to follow Him?

According to their web-site, The 700 Club can be seen in 96 percent of the homes in the U.S. and is carried on ABC Family cable network, FamilyNet, Trinity Broadcasting Network, plus numerous local U.S. television stations, and is seen daily by approximately one million viewers. CBN WorldReach broadcasts, which include international editions of The 700 Club, have aired in more than 100 languages, can be seen in over 200 countries, and are accessible throughout the year to more than 1.5 billion people around the world. On August 22, 2005 Pat Robertson bluntly stated, “We have the ability to take [Hugo Chavez] out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability.” That is an interesting opinion, and one that I do not share. Why? Because it doesn’t exactly seem to be something Jesus would do.

Ann Coulter, a radio/television talking head who claims Christian beliefs and is praised by numerous conservative Christian personalities, states, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”

Jerry Falwell, an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States , stated, “You’ve got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops. And I’m for the President to chase them all over the world. If it takes ten years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord.” What ever happened to turning the other cheek, and much of Jesus’ message in Luke 6?

Why do Christ-followers concern themselves so deeply with the kingdoms of this world, but seemingly ignore the Kingdom of God? Listen, I’m not saying that we rise up and revolt against our American government, because they are not Christian. Absolutely not. I am saying that many of the voices that supposedly represent ‘Christianity’ are saying things that aren’t necessarily all that Christ-like. Are we not called to be “in the world, but not of this world”? We submit to Christ first, and as we live as aliens and strangers to the powers of this world, we submit to our governing authorities second.

Someone much wiser than me has said, “You can’t blame a sinner for sinning”. I believe that is true. I can’t go to Chic-Fil-A and complain that they don’t make good tacos. They don’t make tacos! That’s not their thing! In much the same way, I can’t complain about my government or country for acting like something they simply aren’t. All I can do is submit to my God-given authorities, always understanding that my life is woven into a larger tapestry of being a Christian who lives as an alien and stranger to the ways of this world.

I was listening to someone talk about how dreadful it would be if America ever elected a Mormon into the White House, or God-forbid, a Muslim. My response is, “Why?” What difference is there between them and any other person who isn’t sold out for the cause of Jesus Christ? None. What difference is there between them and someone who claims a belief in Christ, but finds no problems with lying, cheating or some other ‘sin’? None.

It’s a country… that’s it. Ever heard the saying, ‘a house is just a house, but, the family within that house is what makes it a home’? So too, this country is just a country. This planet of ours has lots of countries… and Jesus died for the people that reside in all of them. What truly matters is our God, and His eternal, unseen Kingdom. It would be nice if the supposedly ‘Christian-talking heads’ spoke about that Kingdom a little more often, and stopped dramatizing how awful America is.

Jesus isn’t American… Chic-Fil-A doesn’t make tacos… the United States isn’t a Christian nation… but I’m still darn lucky to live here and proud of those who've made that possible. However, what I'm most proud of is not my nationality, but the fact that I've been adopted into God's family and am called a child of God. My first desire will always be to see "His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven".