Is the U.S. a Christian Nation? (moral, Creator, virgin)

[The Seeker]

Many people in U.S. believe it to be a Christian nation that was founded on the principals of Christianity. Do you believe this to be true? Why or why not.

[Reverend Rick]

Originally Posted by The Seeker

Is the U.S. a Christian nation?

Not any more. It was founded on Christian principles under the guise of separation of church and state. You have to realize that freedom of religion was one of the biggest reasons they came here, so total separation would be unrealistic for them although they tried.

Good thread by the way!

[MaddLlama]

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

Not any more. It was founded on Christian principles under the guise of separation of church and state. You have to realize that freedom of religion was one of the biggest reasons they came here, so total separation would be unrealistic for them although they tried.

Good thread by the way!

But, the Pilgrims weren't the first to get here. The first US British settlement was in Jamestown Virginia (or, what would become Virginia) in 1607. And, the first settlers came here looking to make a quick buck.
The Pilgrims didn't get here until 1620, and they weren't looking for religious freedom in the modern, romanticized view of "let everyone have thier own way", they were separatists who wanted to break away from the Church of England because they believed that the church hadn't completed the work of the Reformation. And, before they came to the Colonies, they went to Holland. But, they hated the Dutch, so they left and came to the Colonies. As far as I know, they were the original Puritans, who have a nasty reputation.
Also, these two groups of settlers were not the ones who founded America. The Revolutionary War didn't start until 155 years after the Pilgrims arrived, and nearly 170 years after the first settlement of the Colonies. America was founded in 1776 by the first Congress. The men of the congress were religious, but had no intention of putting religious values into laws. However, John Adams defined a set of core republican ideals that became central to the political value system in the US. But, these are the first Republicans, hundreds and hundreds of years before the GOP and the involvement of the "moral majority", and even before the existence of the Democratic party.

Thomas Jefferson defined a republic as:
“ "a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority; and that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens. Such a government is evidently restrained to very narrow limits of space and population. I doubt if it would be practicable beyond the extent of a New England township. The first shade from this pure element, which, like that of pure vital air, cannot sustain life of itself, would be where the powers of the government, being divided, should be exercised each by representatives chosen...for such short terms as should render secure the duty of expressing the will of their constituents. This I should consider as the nearest approach to a pure republic, which is practicable on a large scale of country or population ... we may say with truth and meaning, that governments are more or less republican as they have more or less of the element of popular election and control in their composition; and believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies of the people, are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents, I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most of this ingredient."[8] ” The Founding Fathers discoursed endlessly on the meaning of "republicanism." John Adams in 1787 defined it as "a government, in which all men, rich and poor, magistrates and subjects, officers and people, masters and servants, the first citizen and the last, are equally subject to the laws."[9]

[Terrywoodenpic]

Just about every one was a Christian of one sort or another, from the first settlers to Independence.
It would have been a brave man to say he was not.

To say anything else would have have people thinking you might follow the Devil or be a witch.... not a good idea in those days in new England.

The Idea that separation of religion and state, meaning that any religion was OK came much later.

All the separation meant was that there was to be no established Church; like there was in England.

The Church of England was into throwing its weight around big time in the colonies,
And it had the force of law... Much like Muslims do in some countries today.

Every one in those early times, would have been scandalised if you had suggested America was not Christian.

[Sunstone]

So far as I know, the US was never a Christian nation in any legal and meaningful sense. The Constitution certainly doesn't set up the Christian religion as the religion of the US, and yet, if the US was ever intended by the Founders to be a Christian nation that's precisely what we could expect the Constitution to do.

[MaddLlama]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

Every one in those early times, would have been scandalised if you had suggested America was not Christian.

Nobody seemed to have a problem with the Treaty of Tripoli at the time.

[Reverend Rick]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

The Constitution certainly doesn't set up the Christian religion as the religion of the US, and yet, if the US was ever intended by the Founders to be a Christian nation that's precisely what we could expect the Constitution to do.

Care to comment on "endowed by their creator" or "In God we trust"?

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

Care to comment on "endowed by their creator"

Are you seriously suggesting that's Christian?

or "In God we trust"?

That was put on the currency in the 1950's, and does not appear in the Constitution.