Reading the Culture: Is America a Christian nation?

Midterm elections are upon us. Once again, we hear that America was founded as a Christian nation. For perspective, I turned to The Search for Christian America by Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch and George Marsden. Although nearly 30 years old, this exploration by three of America’s finest church historians proved fascinating.

The argument that America is explicitly a Christian nation has been advanced through three claims. The first: America was the New Israel, called by God to settle this Promised Land for his kingdom.

Puritans under John Winthrop clearly came to establish a New Israel. Winthrop instituted a strict moral covenant for his entire colony. His government required church attendance and banished dissenters. Voting and public office were restricted to church members. The Puritans viewed Native Americans as Canaanites, occupying land promised to them by God. America was founded on the rule of law. As God’s word stood over the kings of Israel, so American law would stand over elected officials. However, religious law soon became legalism. Fallen people cannot fulfill biblical morality in human strength.

The second claim: The Great Awakening produced the American Revolution, both of which were initiated and blessed by God. The Great Awakening of the 1740s produced remarkable spiritual results. However, the Awakening was opposed by many of America’s political and religious leaders. And its advocates did not connect their movement to the Revolution, insisting the nation needed spiritual renewal whatever its political allegiances.

The third (and most popular) claim: Most of the Founders were Christians who believed they were creating a Christian nation. We often hear that 52 of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were “orthodox” Christians, and 24 held seminary degrees. But their personal spiritual commitments actually are hard to determine. We can characterize only about 20—half were biblical Christians, while the rest were deists or nonorthodox.

The Supreme Court, in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States, declared in 1892 that America is “emphatically a Christian nation.” However, the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated under George Washington and ratified under John Adams, stated, “The government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

The authors conclude there cannot be a “Christian nation,” since the New Testament does not prescribe a specific governance and economic model. A free church in a free state was the ideal advocated by early Baptists and adopted by the Founders. Abraham Lincoln warned: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Spiritual renewal is critical to the future of our democracy. Our greatest need today is not to make America a Christian nation, but to help America be a nation of Christians (Matthew 28:18-20).

Jim Denison is president of the Center for Informed Faith (www.informedfaith.com) and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.