Thoughts on All That ‘Christian Nation’ Talk

I would not classify Steve Bouser as a progressive.  I would not classify Steve Bouser at all, which is what makes him a good editor.  But as a progressive and as a person of faith, I do appreciate the sentiments expressed in this editorial. - Kevin Smith

By Steve Bouser - Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Are we a Christian nation?
I hate it whenever this question rears its head, as it increasingly has been doing lately amid the comments on ­thepilot.com and in other forums, because I know things are always going to get ugly and polarized and unreasonable. I hope you read the thoughtful June 27 essay on a related topic by my erudite minister friend Bill Smith.
Our republic, as far as I know, has managed to sail along pretty well for two centuries and more with a secular government that still puts “In God We Trust” on its coins and has chaplains in its Army and ­usually looks the other way in toleration when somebody says a prayer at a ­public meeting or puts up a Christmas tree on a courthouse square.
That’s the way it should be. An attitude of civil coexistence, with inconsistency and ­perhaps even a small measure of hypocrisy around the edges, is much to be preferred to a pitched battle that must have a winner and a loser, with no subtle grays in between all those blacks and whites.
So are we a Christian nation? Hard to say. Obviously there are more of us who sprang from some kind of traditional Christian background than anything else, unless you count nonbelievers. But as one of our Web commentators so succinctly pointed out a while back, “Even if we are a Christian nation, that doesn’t mean we have a Christian government.”
To which I can only say — you should ­pardon the expression — thank God.
I’m writing here as one who has gone to church all of his adult life, sings bass in an Episcopal choir, loves the Bible and once read the whole thing in a year. But I grow alarmed when I see the dangerous and mine-filled road down which some believers would lead my beloved country.
You can drag out or distort all the quotes about God from the Founding Fathers that you want to, but there are more compelling ones on the other side of the argument. The inescapable truth is that our Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written by 18th century men whose attitudes sprang from the Age of Reason and who felt contempt toward all forms of superstition and myth — and especially toward the kind of established state church that they or their fathers had fled from in Europe.
They rightly envisioned a republic whose government would be neutral on matters of religion, serving a country that welcomed believers in other creeds — and nonbelievers as well.
I find it ironic in the extreme that this ­outcry that we are supposed to turn ourselves into a Christian nation with a Christian government has intensified when it has — in many cases as a reaction against 9/11 and all things Islamic. Having witnessed the evil that can result from things like the Taliban’s imposition of religious government on Afghanistan, how can we then react by deciding that the proper response would be to impose a religious government on America?
But Christianity is different, we may say. It’s more benign and peaceful and respectful of individual rights. I would like to think so. But tell that to those who had their tongues ripped out and otherwise suffered and died in the torture dungeons of the Inquisition or were roasted at the stake for believing, contrary to the Bible story, that the Earth revolved around the sun. Good movements have a way of going bad when they find themselves in power.
Our recent military ventures into Iraq and Afghanistan have been primarily reactive or defensive in nature. But I cringe when I imagine how even thoughtful Muslims abroad (never mind the fanatical fringe) must react when they see Americans invading Islamic lands on the one hand while portraying themselves as a Christian nation on the other. To people raised from childhood on fears of another Crusade from the West, that must bear a frosty sound.
Again, the Web commenter was right. We may be a Christian-majority nation, but we don’t have — nor should we want — a Christian government. Or a Muslim one or a Jewish one or even a nonbelieving one.
At the same time, that shouldn’t keep us all from hoping (dare I say praying?) that the attitudes and actions of the secular leaders we choose reflect courage, charity, tolerance, compassion — and all the other attributes we have come to think of as Christian virtues.