Comments on: A more important question than “Is this a Christian nation?”

By: Lady Bird Hill

Lady Bird Hill — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:33:55 +0000

I believe Thomas Paine was a deist…

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:37:55 +0000

Hey Billie, thanks for the resources!

By: Billie

Billie — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:53:42 +0000

Rich — I wholeheartedly agree with you. The significant question is our individual relationship with God, not a theoretical underpinning of a form of government. Our responsibility is independent of whatever is popular or desired by any political structure. We need to divorce the church from politics, not that it does not have a voice in politics, it just should not allow itself to be manipulated by either side.

Dan — There are a couple of starting points. One is Greg Koukl did a conversation on this some time ago. It can be found at: http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5097

Another source that lists by religious affiliation those that could be called “founding fathers” or “Founding Fathers” with appropriate links to further information on each individual can be found here: http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

Another source of information that includes an interesting video link of David Barton can be found here: http://www.creationists.org/myth-of-the-seperation-of-church-and-state.html — the video is interesting if you have the time.

Many secularists will point to Thomas Paine as an “atheist”. That is an interesting position to attribute to Mr. Paine. A read of his paper, “The Study of God” does not present Paine as such an atheist as they would want you to believe. Paine surely may not have been a fan of “Christianity” — but, he is at least a theist and not even remotely close to agnostic. Find his paper here: http://www.19.5degs.com/ebook/study-of-god/1667/read#list — It is really not that long.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:11:16 +0000

I wasn’t aware of that Billie. Thanks for sharing. I certainly believe you, but for my own benefit, could you provide a source for that information for my further research?

By: rich

rich — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:07:39 +0000

Thanks for chiming in, guys. As much as I love discussing the “Is the USA a Christian nation?” question, I wanted to remind folks that there’s a more important question for us to be asking ourselves…

By: Billie

Billie — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:59:17 +0000

The claim that “our founding fathers were deists” is somewhat problematic. If one surveys the Founding Fathers as defined by “those 55 members of the Constitutional Convention”, you will find that in that group only three were deists (Franklin most notable among them — Jefferson was not in attendance). Of the remaining “small number”, a breakdown by denominational affiliation shows: 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, and one unknown (if you count the unknown in with the deists, you get a whopping 7% as “non-Christians”).

One can claim that America is not a Christian nation, and even argue that America was not founded on Christian principles (see the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797), however, one cannot successfully argue that our Founding Fathers were not heavily influenced by Christian values and beliefs.

Personally, I am somewhat thankful we are losing the identity tag of a “Christian” nation. Too many see that identity as an excuse or justification. One day, we may even begin to remove the label of “Christian” from those churches that have abandoned (or never held) orthodox Christian beliefs.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:33:10 +0000

Amen! And P.S., I don’t believe we ever were a Christian nation, our founding fathers were deists and Thomas Jefferson was rewriting the New Testament to remove miracles and make it “rational.” Well said.