Is the USA a Christian Nation?

[Fool]

If so, then what happened to you can't serve love and money?

Study: Wealthiest 1 percent owns 40 percent of country’s wealth

 

[Estro Felino]

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs

Thomas Jefferson

 

[George-ananda]

We might have been a near defacto Christian nation at one time but certainly not anymore.

I guess I am less bothered than most by the 1% owns 40% thingy. That one percent is investing in and creating things that make the whole thing work. Communism works worse.

 

[Jainarayan]

The US is a nation made up largely of Christians but it is not a Christian nation.

 

[Vouthon]

Does America think it's a Christian nation?

In the main, Christianity is still an important feature in the American patriotic mythos.

Unfortunately, while something like 70% of the population adheres (whether devoutly or nominally) to some variation of the Christian faith, at times it comes across as a very watered-down, bastardized form of Christianity.

A prosperity gospel, the good news of reaganomics and Wall Street finance - helmed by that admirable paragon of simplicity and spartan minimalism President Donald Trump.

Out of all the world's great religions - and there are many - Christianity is the least comfortable with disparities in wealth, the most socially radical it might legitimately be argued.

Here's a challenge: open up the New Testament at a random page, twice, and I'll bet my bottom dollar that some kind of negative reference is made towards "wealth" or "the rich".

It's one of the glaring takeaways even the most casual reader will derive from the New Testament i.e.

James 5 New King James Version (NKJV)

Rich Oppressors Will Be Judged

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.

3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.

4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.
​

People with a lot of disposable income, in unequal societies, get a very bad rap from the pages of the New Testament. If a person doesn't agree with this in principle, then Christianity isn't the religion for you and it doesn't appear to be the religion best suited to American culture.

 

[Nakosis]

If so, then what happened to you can't serve love and money?

Study: Wealthiest 1 percent owns 40 percent of country’s wealth

Not a big fan of servitude myself. Either for love or money.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Well, just going by all the News commentary, or perhaps the comment feeds on Twitter?

One could make a strong case that many Americans are ... well, A-holes. When we travel overseas, we are seemingly known to be mostly rude, selfish, self-entitled and worse. When our newsies speak of other countries, it is often in a Patronizing Voice, and we frequently crow about being #1 and other patently false silliness.*

We seem to expect everyone to speak English, or be considered stupid or something.

So does that make the USA an A-hole nation?



*(fact: the USA is not #1 in anything that counts, such as education, marriage-successes, innovation, science, research, health care, reducing childhood poverty, two-parent families, average income, literacy, the ratio of the highest-paid to the lowest-paid, etc....)

 

[Audie]

If so, then what happened to you can't serve love and money?

Study: Wealthiest 1 percent owns 40 percent of country’s wealth

I'd say you are what you do.

That should take care of what kind of nation the USA is.

 

[columbus]

People with a lot of disposable income, in unequal societies, get a very bad rap from the pages of the New Testament. If a person doesn't agree with this in principle, then Christianity isn't the religion for you and it doesn't appear to be the religion best suited to American culture.

I would go so far as to say that the fundamental opposition between basic Christian values and the values that the USA was founded upon are at the heart of many of our worst problems, past and present.

You won't find anything about personal freedom, capitalism, or representative government anywhere in the Bible. Quite the opposite, those are secular values.

The resulting form of a sort of cultural schizophrenia is evident from the very beginning. The guy who wrote "All men are created equal, with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" owned a whole bunch of slaves. Which had to be sold upon his death to pay off his considerable debt.
Tom

 

[Audie]

Does America think it's a Christian nation?

In the main, Christianity is still an important feature in the American patriotic mythos.

Unfortunately, while something like 70% of the population adheres (whether devoutly or nominally) to some variation of the Christian faith, at times it comes across as a very watered-down, bastardized form of Christianity.

A prosperity gospel, the good news of reaganomics and Wall Street finance - helmed by that admirable paragon of simplicity and spartan minimalism President Donald Trump.

Out of all the world's great religions - and there are many - Christianity is the least comfortable with disparities in wealth, the most socially radical it might legitimately be argued.

Here's a challenge: open up the New Testament at a random page, twice, and I'll bet my bottom dollar that some kind of negative reference is made towards "wealth" or "the rich".

It's one of the glaring takeaways even the most casual reader will derive from the New Testament i.e.

James 5 New King James Version (NKJV)

Rich Oppressors Will Be Judged

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.

3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.

4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.
​

People with a lot of disposable income, in unequal societies, get a very bad rap from the pages of the New Testament. If a person doesn't agree with this in principle, then Christianity isn't the religion for you and it doesn't appear to be the religion best suited to American culture.

Seems fair to condemn these people, but

4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

but I am sure you can find plenty of verses about
how one should pay a person a fair wage.

My luck of the draw was to be born into what seems
to me a kind of ridiculous amount of money, though
I live very modestly.

I dont think I oppress anyone.

 

[Audie]

I would go so far as to say that the fundamental opposition between basic Christian values and the values that the USA was founded upon are at the heart of many of our worst problems, past and present.

You won't find anything about personal freedom, capitalism, or representative government anywhere in the Bible. Quite the opposite, those are secular values.

The resulting form of a sort of cultural schizophrenia is evident from the very beginning. The guy who wrote "All men are created equal, with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" owned a whole bunch of slaves. Which had to be sold upon his death to pay off his considerable debt.
Tom

Each line of the constitution,bill of rights etc was the work of committees, was it not?

 

[columbus]

Each line of the constitution,bill of rights etc was the work of committees, was it not?

Sorta, why?
Tom

 

[Stanyon]

. The guy who wrote "All men are created equal, with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" owned a whole bunch of slaves. Which had to be sold upon his death to pay off his considerable debt.
Tom

Yes and he was torn about that issue, unfortunately if he did not own slaves he would not have been able to compete in the environment at that time. From what I understand he freed quite a few during his lifetime which may have led in some degree to his indebtedness.

 

[Audie]

Sorta, why?
Tom

No particular point, you said "the guy who".

Trying to end slavery then would have meant
no nation.

Of course, from my pov the revolution was
the biggest geopolitical mistake ever made.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If so, then what happened to you can't serve love and money?

Study: Wealthiest 1 percent owns 40 percent of country’s wealth

Yes, by history
No , in practice

 

[Vouthon]

You won't find anything about personal freedom, capitalism, or representative government anywhere in the Bible. Quite the opposite, those are secular values.

Regarding capitalism in the Bible, I certainly agree (the early church advocated communal ownership of property, a bit embarrassing for many Christians today, and the market economy is only a couple of centuries old) but "personal freedom" and "representative government"?

Freedom is a huge refrain in the authentic Pauline epistles, arising from his apologetic mission to free the early Christian movement from the strictures of the Torah and ritual purity laws, so as to draw in gentile converts. He advocated conscientious decision-making with regards to diets, holy days and other matters: that is, choice.

He had to try and convince people that "religion" - understood in Roman times as an outward practice of social conformance dependent upon a person's heritage and duty to Caesar - was actually a personal, inner free-willed commitment to the Christian faith. The idea of religious freedom is a development of this, which is why the early Christians were the first to pioneer the idea, as Professor Larry Hurtado notes:


Early Christian Roots of Religious Freedom

Early Christian Roots of Religious Freedom

December 12, 2016

The first person to claim freedom of religion as a right was Tertullian, a Christian teacher in Carthage, in a Latin treatise in defence of Christianity addressed to Scapula, the Roman proconsul, written ca. AD 211. Here’s the crucial opening statement:

“It is a human law [humani iuris] and a natural right [naturalis potestatis] that one should worship whatever he intends; the religious practice of one person neither harms nor helps another.”
​

In another treatise, Tertullian’s Apology, he uses for the first time in history the phrase “religious freedom.” Earlier, of course, Roman imperial authorities had granted toleration or privileges in matters of religion to certain groups, such as Jews. But granting a privilege is one thing, and claiming something as a natural right is quite another. It appears that the latter idea arose first among early Christian apologists.[1]

In a small volume that arose from his 2014 Père Marquette Lecture, Robert Louis Wilken shows convincingly that “the roots of religious freedom in the west are to be found centuries earlier in the writings of Christian apologists who, in the face of persecution wrote to defend their right to practice the religion they wished without coercion”: The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom (Marquette University Press, 2014), 11-12.

Wilken tracks this emphasis forward from Tertullian through other early Christian figures, including Lactantius (a Christian apologist and contemporary of Constantine), who insisted that “Religion must spring from a free act” and cannot be coerced. Similarly, Alcuin, an advisor to Charlemagne, wrote forcefully to Charlemagne opposing his efforts to Christianize the Saxons by force.

Wilken then briefly explores likely biblical notions that influenced these writers, such as Paul’s statements about “conscience,” portrayed as an inner voice that urges action, even against the views of others (e.g., 1 Cor 10:23, 29).

​

If I might quote some more scholarship on this front:


Time, Freedom, and The Common Good

The second, and certainly most influential version of individual inner freedom emerged from the tradition of biblical thought by way of the new Christian dispensation.

Enunciated by St. Paul, a contemporary of Seneca who enjoyed a Hellenic education as a Roman citizen, the notion of personal freedom was finally sanctified. Eschewing the bondage of ritualistic obedience, St. Paul...assuring his adherents that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," admonished them to remember that "for freedom, Christ has set us free"...Freedom seems to have been proclaimed as an obligation to think for oneself, commit oneself to the conclusion of one's thought

​

Freedom is a somewhat nebulous term but one cannot deny its prominence in Pauline theology.

It was for this reason that St. Thomas Aquinas could write in 1265–1274 in his influential Summa:


SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: Things that are contained in the New Law (Prima Secundae Partis, Q. 108)

There are works which are not necessarily opposed to, or in keeping with faith that worketh through love. Such works are not prescribed or forbidden in the New Law, by virtue of its primitive institution; but have been left by the Lawgiver, i.e. Christ, to the discretion of each individual.

And so to each one it is free to decide what he should do or avoid...Wherefore also in this respect the Gospel is called the "law of liberty" [Cf. Reply to Objection 2]: since the Old Law decided many points and left few to man to decide as he chose.

Accordingly the New Law is called the law of liberty in two respects. First, because it does not bind us to do or avoid certain things, except such as are of themselves necessary or opposed to salvation, and come under the prescription or prohibition of the law. Secondly, because it also makes us comply freely with these precepts and prohibitions, inasmuch as we do so through the promptings of grace. It is for these two reasons that the New Law is called "the law of perfect liberty" (James 1:25)....

And therefore, since these determinations are not in themselves necessarily connected with inward grace wherein the Law consists, they do not come under a precept of the New Law, but are left to the decision of man
​

As for representative government, the ancient Israelites start off without a centralized monarchy and this system of tribal proto-democracy is praised in the text:

22 Then the Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also; for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian.” 23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” (Judges 8:22-23)​

And reiterated in the New Testament:

25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that among the Gentiles, those who appear to be their kings lord it over them, and their 'great' men are tyrants over them. 26 But it shall not be this way among you, rather whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

​

The Old Testament book of Samuel actually contained a prophetic warning about the exploitative nature of royal authority, which sounds quasi-republican:

1 Samuel 8:10-22

Samuel's Warning Against Kings

And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you...

He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and you shall be his slaves, and you shall cry out in that day because of your king which you shall have chosen.

Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.

​

Thomas Paine is often singled out as America’s true philosophical founder. Paine’s Common Sense put forth arguments for independence from Great Britain that proved influential. In this seminal text, he claims to have been inspired by the above biblical passage.

Later on in the OT, in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles (not the Protestant) the Roman Republic is valorised for its (relatively, in the context of the period) more representative system of government:


1 Maccabees 8 (NRSV)

A Eulogy of the Romans

8 Now Judas heard of the fame of the Romans, that they were very strong and were well-disposed toward all who made an alliance with them, that they pledged friendship to those who came to them, 2 and that they were very strong...

They also subdued the kings...

Yet for all this not one of them has put on a crown or worn purple as a mark of pride, 15 but they have built for themselves a senate chamber, and every day three hundred twenty senators constantly deliberate concerning the people, to govern them well. 16 They trust one man each year to rule over them and to control all their land; they all heed the one man, and there is no envy or jealousy among them.​

The above description is sacred scripture for Catholics, part of our deuterocanon Old Testament.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

No.

 

[columbus]

Yes and he was torn about that issue, unfortunately if he did not own slaves he would not have been able to compete in the environment at that time.

He was torn because the slavery, a remnant of the Christian culture he was a product of benefited him so much he couldn't let go of it. Despite the obvious contradictions with his Enlightenment secular values.

From what I understand he freed quite a few during his lifetime which may have led in some degree to his indebtedness.

I will stand to be corrected, but I don't believe that is true. Other Founding Fathers did so. But Jefferson only allowed a few to escape and those were his own children. He never set any Free.
Tom

 

[Vouthon]

He was torn because the slavery, a remnant of the Christian culture he was a product of benefited him so much he couldn't let go of it. Despite the obvious contradictions with his Enlightenment secular values.

Aaarghhh...so you believe the myth spread by Voltaire yet not supported by the most recent consensus among scholars, that "enlightenment secular values" were a reaction against Christianity rather than a development of it.

That is most unfortunate. Where do I begin in rebutting this demonstrably inaccurate belief?

The basic picture is that:

(a) the theory of subjective, inviolable natural rights inhering in every person emerged in the medieval church

(b) the understanding of history as a progressive arch inevitably tending towards the decisive triumph of the forces of good and truth over evil and ignorance, rather than a cycle of endless repetition, is an outcome of Zoroastrian-Jewish-Christian eschatology

(c) experimental science, reliant upon testability, is an outgrowth of the Christian belief in pre-existent, immutable “physical laws” or the “laws of nature” courtesy of an underlying mathematical order designed by God, which displaced an earlier belief in nature as divine and static

(d) moral universalism, as opposed to relativism, is a concept strongly rooted in Pauline Christianity

(e) the idea that governmental power is not absolute but must be constrained by consent of the governed, the rule of law and above all respect for individual rights owes much to medieval Christian ethical precepts

(f) the concept of natural equality, rather than natural inequality, in Western thought is again rooted in Christian universalist ideology about redemption

(g) the separation of religion from politics is a peculiar outgrowth of the 11th century Investiture Contest between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire

(h) as explained by the legal historian Harold Berman, that same "Papal Revolution gave birth to the modern Western state, so it gave birth also to modern Western legal systems, the first of which was the modern system of canon law".

If you'd like to discuss any of these points, and see mountains of scholarly references and evidence substantiating them, I'd be more than happy to oblige.

 

[columbus]

My luck of the draw was to be born into what seems
to me a kind of ridiculous amount of money, though
I live very modestly.

Me too, at least by global standards.

Here's a bit of irony.
I was raised in a conservative Christian home, with years of Catholic education. I was in my 20s before the message of Jesus made any sense to me.
Before I came out of the closet as gay, I was a healthy, white, tall, educated, male, US citizen, with a good family and basic financial security. I was amongst the most privileged human beings to ever walk the face of the Earth.
Coming out suddenly made me a pariah to a ton of people (early 80s) and a danger to the children. I suddenly started appreciating Jesus' Teachings in a whole new light.

I dont think I oppress anyone.

I try not to, and try to do the opposite. Not having children, I have had a lot more free time and disposal income than most people. I have tried to invest that in Peace and Justice and Charity.
Tom