"Christian" Nation in Danger?

I am not sure why, but people still send me annoying chain letter emails; particular those of the "evangelical" variety. Ones that advise me to boycott our currency if they stop printing "In God We Trust" on the currency, or to make sure we protect this "Christian nation" by not letting Congress remove "one nation under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, and so on. The most recent chain email I received was an argument to prove that the United States is indeed a Christian nation, by listing the preamble to all the state constitutions; they all mention "god" or "almighty god" in their preambles (they really do, look them up).


I have been doing quite a bit of reading lately on "public religions" and the role of religion in the public sphere, so after receiving this email I felt like I was able to think about their claim through a different lens and produce a response.

First, after reviewing the utter absence of "Jesus" or "Christ" from all fifty of the state constitutions, I am faced with the prospect that, perhaps the United States of America really isn't a Christian nation (go figure).

There are many problems in proclaiming America to be a Christian nation. Principally among them is the problem of a "nation" being Christian. People can be Christian, but nations cannot make a personal decision to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. But obviously there are people that think otherwise.

But due to liberal thinkers, feminists, the homosexuals, and modernity, America's Christian nation status is in danger. According to some writers, America is liable to collapse like the mighty Roman Empire. However, comparisons of the decline of America to the decline of ancient Rome become laughable in this context: Ancient Rome was never a Christian empire, until after Constantine -- and, actually, that was when it began to collapse. See Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1779) if you have questions on what led to the Fall of the Roman Empire -- for Gibbon it was because the Empire adopted and followed Christian principles, like "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" -- Rome had done just fine four-hundred years earlier when it was an autocratic, slave-based economy that promoted the sexually promiscuous kind of society portrayed in Ovid.

The term "Christian" possesses many different meanings and understandings to different groups of people; it always has and always will. So if America is a Christian nation, whose idea and understanding of Christianity is the right one that should guide it? And what about other understandings of Christianity? Lets work with an example:  The Amish refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance, they exercise their right to vote by not voting in elections, or participating in politics whatsoever. Are we really that righteous enough to say that they are not Christian based on how it is they practice their socio-political freedoms? And if the Amish are deliberately refusing to do such things that many evangelical Christians see as their, according to Jerry Falwell, "moral imperative" (and which the Amish view as sin and idolatry), should the Amish be condemned as unChristian?

Frankly, I do not want to live in an America where one religious group has the power and the self-appointed righteousness to dictate exactly what God says. If the Amish want to refuse to vote, I say, in my nation known as America, let them. Si un joven Católica quisiera rezar a la Virgen para su familia, en mi nación, yo digo, ¡déjalo!  If a Muslim student wants to step outside during class at noon to face towards the Kaaba in Mecca and pray, in my nation, I say let them!

I feel that we endanger both our country and religion when we try create parameters of what is right and what is wrong, what is in and what is out. I want the freedom to have my own personal relationship with God without the state telling me I have to have one; and without Christians telling me whether my relationship is legit or not, because they have the supposed moral superiority to know better than I do. I cannot settle for anything less, and I won't.