Is the United States a “Christian nation”?

No, neither literally or figuratively. It’s multi cultural which means multi religious. Despite the ravings of the “Christian” Right.

No, although Christianity (or some form of it) has an inordinate amount of power and influence in the US.

Only in the eyes of the alt-right !

Several of the American Revolutionary leaders were Jewish ! Mordecai Sheftall, Colonel Solomon Bush and Dr. Philip Moses Russell was General Washington’s surgeon

If we didn’t have Christian missionaries spreading smallpox to the indigenous populations, we’d still be living in Jamestown and Plymouth…

One can certainly make the case that Christians opened the door to the West (by massacring the existing inhabitants).

Nope, it’s just a nation.

No. Nor was it ever intended to be. Indeed, rejecting any explicit endorsement of a specific religion was very important to the founders, many of whom were Deists, not Christians.

But we are a nation that is pluralistic. Meaning whether you are Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi, or whatever else… you should be allowed to practice your religion without interference as long as you’re not hurting others.

It depends on who you ask, but here are the opinions of a few prominent Americans:

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
—Thomas Jefferson

“Religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
—James Madison

“The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
—The Treaty of Tripoli (as negotiated under George Washington, signed by John Adams, and ratified by Congress without objection)

In my understanding the United States was created specifically not as a “Christian nation” and should have no state religion. “United States” and “Christian nation” are incompatible with each other.

The Founding Fathers all had Judeo-Christian values. I’m quite certain their ideals carried over a little bit into the Constitution. However they also recognized how religion could be corrupted and specifically forbade the government from “creating” a national religion. They specifically allowed freedom of religion and the right to practice religion which does not mean only Christianity.

But the question needs another definition resolved: what are Christian values? Answer that one first and then you can more easily determine if the US of A is a Christian nation or not. If so, you should be easily able to identify why and if not, you should also be able to identify why not.

If it’s not a Christian nation, then why did God inspire the writing of the US Constitution? A text second only in its sacredness to the Bible itself.

@Kropotkin

So Moses the Second come down from the Mount with the US Constitution ?

@flutherother If “Christian nation” simply means most citizens are Christians and Christianity is more a part of our founding than any other religion, then sure, I guess the U.S. is a “Christian nation”. But I don’t think that’s what most people using that term mean. Likewise, Saudi Arabia and Bosnia are both majority Muslim countries, but I don’t think anyone could claim that they’re “Islamic nations” in the same way.

Au contraire !! @Demosthenes
Saudi law prohibits alcoholic beverages and pork products in the country as they are considered to be against Islam. Do not arrive in Saudi Arabia under the influence of alcohol.

Generally speaking, yes. Since being a Christian is simply being a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ, by exact definition.

The avowed purpose of the United States is to increase happiness on this earth. Christianity promises happiness in the afterlife. That is one big difference.

@seawulf575 “The Founding Fathers all had Judeo-Christian values.”

Not unless we’re using the term in a way that is so broad as to be meaningless. Some practiced Christianity in an orthodox way, some were deists who expressly rejected the Judeo-Christian paradigm, and some were aligned with Christianity as an approach to ethics while rejecting everything supernatural about it.

“I’m quite certain their ideals carried over a little bit into the Constitution.”

Sure, but an overlap between the values of Christianity and the values of a nation and/or influence of the former on the latter aren’t really what people mean when they talk about a country being a Christian nation. A Christian nation must be, at least in part, explicitly based on the tenets of Christianity because they are the tenets of Christianity. Otherwise, nations that had nearly identical laws to the US but were populated and founded by people who were not themselves Christian in any way would count as Christian nations (which would be patently absurd).

@kritiper “Generally speaking, yes. Since being a Christian is simply being a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ, by exact definition.”

But then the answer would be no, because a nation is not a living, thinking being and thus cannot follow the teachings of anyone. We could say that the US is a nation with a Christian majority, but that’s not what “Christian nation” means (though we might describe it using the similar, but importantly different, phrase “nation of Christians”).

@SavoirFaire I think you’re being too literal.
If what you say is true, the question would be meaningless.

@kritiper The question isn’t meaningless because the adjective “Christian” means something different when applied to a thing (like a book or a nation) than when applied to a person. The Passion of the Christ is still a Christian film even though it doesn’t fit your definition of “a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

@SavoirFaire “Not unless we’re using the term in a way that is so broad as to be meaningless.” That is sort of my point. The founding fathers were all raised with some version of Christianity, mainly some version of Protestant teachings. Some later moved into other areas such as Deism (Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin e.g.). Even many of the Deist beliefs mirrored the teachings of Jesus except they didn’t believe that God ever actually communicated with man directly. But my post also went on to point out that they specifically avoided pushing any religion when they wrote the Constitution.

The second part of my post pointed to the definition of the term “Christian value” which goes right back to what you stated here. The original question asks if we are a Christian Nation, but fails to actually define that. That lack of definition is why there is such an argument about it.

Yes.

The United States of America is a country in which the current majority is Christian; because of it, Christian holidays and Christianity kind of permeate the country.

We are not a Christian Nation, we are a country that protects the separation of church and state, and because of it Christianity has been able to thrive. It is in my opinion that because the founders had the ideal to have a secular government and allow freedom of religion, that the US present day is more religious than many other western countries.

@seawulf575 I’m starting to wonder about the term “Judeo-Christian.” What does that mean vs. Christian? Are Christians really ok with Judaism being considered part of the founding and direction of the US right now?

@JLeslie I use the term Judeo-Christian to describe the entire view of morals. Christianity really is an off-shoot of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. He never said the teachings of Judaism were wrong. On the contrary, he showed many times how his beliefs were right in line with those teachings. The biggest difference between the two is that the Hebrews predicted there would be a messiah, they just didn’t believe Jesus was it. But the moral teachings were very much aligned.

The U.S. is in the process of becoming less Christian and less of every other religion. Currently 30% of the country has no religion, which is more than the number of Catholics and the number of Evangelicals.

@seawulf575 “That is sort of my point.”

Now I understand. Thank you for clarifying. I think we are mostly in agreement, except that I don’t think we need a definition of “Christian values” to define “Christian nation.” But I do think we would need a definition of “Christian values” to evaluate whether any particular Christian nation is doing a good job of sticking to its stated creed, so the area of disagreement is pretty small.

I’ll just add that I think Christian Nationalists push the term Christian Nation.

Christian Nationalists are not to be confused with Christians. The CN are basically a renaming of groups like the KKK of the past and other White Supremacists groups. It’s all basically the same.

They are trying to change the country into a theocracy; they outright say it. They want to get rid of our vote and get rid of checks and balances. You can see it in black and white on bills they draw up. It is the opposite of what our founding fathers wanted. The opposite of what we fought for when breaking with Europe.

The very thing the average Republican thinks they fear the most for our country, is exactly what they are supporting—dictatorship and removal of personal freedoms.

I have a Christian Republican friend who lives in the Bible Belt who recently snapped out of it. We can only hope she can help lead others out.

@SavoirFaire I think I can remove the mystery. No particular Christian nation is doing a good job of sticking to its creed.