Is America a Christian Nation?

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

The middle answer — not a Christian nation in the full sense, and all have sinned

• The question posed (in the host's frame): there's a debate that's going on ('that's raging', as the frame words it) in our country right now, about our founding. On the one hand, there are people who argue: that america was founded on christian principles; that our founding documents reflect biblical teachings, at least to some degree; that our founders were christian men, or that they were profoundly influenced by christianity. And so, as a result, america is a christian nation. Then there are folks who argue really the opposite. They would say: that america was founded on unjust practices, like slavery, or the violent exploitation of indigenous people. From their point of view, america is irreparably flawed. Which view do you feel like is closer to the truth? Is america a christian nation — just like our pledge of allegiance says: one nation under god? Or is our country flawed, from its founding? The answer: my answer is in the middle, somewhere. I don't think we're a christian nation, in the full sense. Yes, historically, the majority of people who came to america, who were born in america, were christians of some sort. However, from the beginning, we had jews, muslims, deists, people who weren't religious. America is not an apostolic pentecostal nation. Has always allowed freedom of religion. So it's always been diverse. So it's not a christian nation, in that sense. However, some of the founding principles came from the judeo-christian heritage — or that is another way of saying: from the bible. Now, america, like any other human institution, is flawed. All have sinned, and come short of the glory of god. So the whole human race is sinful. When you talk about slavery, when you talk about wars of conquest: that has been universal, to the human race. So every race is guilty. Every nation is guilty. If you look at the slave trade: you had evil african tribal chieftains ('chieftain', as heard) and kings, conquering neighboring tribes, enslaving them for their own good (as heard), and then selling them, to european traders. You had your evil european traders — white people — bringing them to the new world: the portuguese, the spanish, the english, so on. You had americans — north and south america — exploiting these slaves. You — at the same time, you had arab slave traders: muslims did raids, in europe. And it is estimated (they) enslaved as many as a million europeans, or white people. And then probably as many slaves — african slaves — that were transported to america: the same number were slaves in africa, internally enslaved by other africans. And a similar number were enslaved by arabs, and brought to the middle east. Where most of them died off. They worked to death. Whereas in the new world, although they were exploited, they were able to multiply, in their population. So when you look at something like that: this is in no way trying to minimize, or excuse, the evils of slavery. Or, for example, european slave traders, or slave owners in north america. It's no way excusing that, or minimizing that, in the least. It's just to say: the bible is actually true. But it says — romans (the pinpoint as he gives it): all have sinned, and come short of the glory of god.

Scriptures: Romans 3:23

The Declaration — four mentions of God, and a trajectory against slavery

• Now, when it comes to the founding of america: while slavery was introduced shortly after the founding of america, and slavery became common in the south — at the time of independence, some states allowed slavery. Some states didn't. Some had never had slavery, or abolished slavery. And many others soon would abolish slavery. From the beginning, there were free african-americans, or blacks. And some of them were allowed to vote, in some states. So i would say: america, from its beginning, was not perfect. It had problems. But america, as a nation, was not founded on a flawed premise. It was actually founded, as the declaration of independence says: that all men are created equal. All humans are created as equal. And yes, the basic principles came from the bible. It's very interesting, that the declaration of independence mentions god, no less than four times. First of all, it talks of the laws of nature, and nature's god. So it's saying: that there are laws that transcend humans. They come from god. So we judge every human society, and every human institution — including our own — by the higher law of god's moral law, natural law. Then second, it speaks of god as our creator. And says our creator has given us certain unalienable rights: rights that can't be taken away. Such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience. What it's saying is: the government cannot take these rights away. The government has no authority to legislate against them. Why? Because they weren't given by government. They were given by our higher power. Namely, by god. God has given every human being dignity. Well, you can see that is based on the bible, in many ways: the individual conscience, individual accountability (to) god. Then the declaration of independence mentions — in justifying why the colonists felt they had a right to liberty, and (to) break away from their mother country — they said they appealed to the supreme judge of the world. They said: our actions will be vindicated by god. We're not just trying to justify ourselves. We're submitting these, to the rest of the world. And we're submitting this to god. He can judge whether we're right or not. And then, finally, they spoke with (of) divine providence: we believe that what we're doing is right. And we're trusting in god, to help us. God to protect us. And god to help us fulfill what we think is right. So there was a great sense, that we are accountable to god, for our actions. And freedom is something given to us by god. That therefore we have a right, to establish a nation based on freedom. Well, as of that time, some of those authors (of) the declaration of independence, and some of those colonies, allowed slavery. Which was obviously wrong. And actually contradicted what they just said. But they established a trajectory, that would destroy it. And the founders themselves, as i said: some were abolitionists. Some were slave owners. But even the slave owners — you could see, in their speeches and private correspondence — they admitted that slavery is evil. It's contrary to our founding principles. And we hope, and think, it will soon die off.

The three-fifths compromise, and the Constitution's doctrine of sinfulness

• In fact, the constitution never actually mentioned slavery. Because i think they felt it was an evil, and we shouldn't mention evil. But they indirectly mentioned it, in a couple (of) ways. To provide that they would, in 20 years, (provide) that the congress could end the importation of persons — to end the slave trade. Which they did. And also they said that, when they were trying to decide representation — what would be the population they would base the house of ('house or') representatives, for example, on: your population, of your state. So how would you count slaves? And how would you count indians? So they took an economic approach. Indians weren't taxed. So they were looking at what the federal government had a right to control, and right to expect. So it's based on the economic output, of each state. And so they estimated that a slave — because of the nature of slavery — was not as efficient, as a free economy. So a slave would only produce 60 (percent) of the economic value, of a person who's self-employed, or who had freedom. And so they said: we're going to calculate the population of those who are in servitude, as three-fifths. And some people have said: oh, how horrible. The slave is only three-fifths of a person. Actually, in that context — i think, of course, slavery is evil — but in a backhanded way: first of all, they were saying they're real human beings. And there was no debate over whether we're going to consider representation for animals. But we're considering representation for slaves, even though they couldn't vote. And the three-fifths ('the three fists', as heard, at the later point) was a way of limiting the power — of the slave-owning states, where slaves could not vote. In other words, if they had given a full (count), they would have actually given more power, to the slave owners. So it was a way of simultaneously recognizing: slaves are human. They have to be considered. But we don't want to give too much power, to slave owners. So — and the slave states — so we're going to do a compromise, based on economic output. And so, in a backhanded way, they're also saying: slavery is not as efficient a system, as freedom. Because the economic output isn't as good. And so, in their minds, they were thinking: this is a detrimental system, that if we establish a new nation, it will die a natural death. What they couldn't understand is the invention of the cotton gin, would dramatically improve the efficiency of cotton production. And so that gave new life to slavery, which it didn't have before. And i think (they) probably underestimated the evil of people who own (owned) slaves — that would (have) wanted slaves, no matter what, even if it wasn't so economically profitable. So it was a great tragedy. But my point, in going through all this, is saying: the declaration of independence was definitely established, on some biblical principles. It wasn't a christian document. But it was a document that recognized god, and sought to be accountable to god. Likewise the constitution. The constitution is based on limited government. Government has limited power ('limited a power', as heard). It's not all-powerful. And we have to remember: at that time in history, every major nation (in) the world was a dictatorship, or a monarchy. There was no democracy. This was a radical new experiment. This is the first time that a major nation — now, there were experiments: the ancient greek city-states, and what have you. But those were limited. The swiss confederation, etc. But this is the first time a major nation decided to be formed, on the basis of the freedom of each individual. And that the people would be the sovereign. That they would be the supreme authority. Now, it included many checks and balances. It's a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. Because they felt like (the) majority should not have total control. The rights (of) minorities should have rights — like freedom of religion — even if the majority votes that america should outlaw judaism, or islam, or protestantism: they can't. Because the rights of the minority must be preserved. There — they also had a system of checks and balances: three branches of government, two branches of the legislature, and so on. These are all attempts to say: that no one would have absolute power. And that is based on the christian doctrine, of the universal sinfulness of humans. So people that don't believe in god: they believe that humans are capable of perfecting themselves. And it sounds good in theory. But it's led to the worst tragedies, in human history: fascism, nazism, in the 20th century. Communism and socialism, in the 20th century, (have) killed millions of people. In fact, communism (is) responsible for a hundred million civilian deaths, in the 20th century. Because the problem is: there are no checks and balances. People, governments, get absolute control. Because they think they're the supreme authority. They've got the right answers, for everybody. And even though they might have the best of intentions, they can't fulfill it. Because humans are sinners. James madison — or the (?) — said it best ('james madison's or the said it best', as heard at the attribution). He said: if men were angels, we wouldn't need government. But the reason why we have government is: because we're sinners. Humans are sinners. So when you really dig into it: our system of government was founded on a profound understanding: of one true god, who's supreme, who's the judge of the world. Humans are sinners. They need to be controlled. And that the rights of minorities need to be protected.

Lincoln's trajectory, the amendments, the native tragedy — and the Christian close

• And obviously, slavery was a great flaw. But embedded in the declaration of independence was a principle, that would lead to the abolition of slavery. And that's what lincoln said, at the gettysburg address. He said: we need a new birth of freedom. We need to go back to the declaration of independence. The constitution couldn't do everything, at that point in history. It couldn't end slavery. Although it started setting in motion — by proposing the elimination ('the illumination', as heard) of the slave trade, and other things — it set in motion ('said in motion', as heard) some things. But he says: now it's time to go back, and finish the job, that the declaration of independence started. Go back to our founding document — which is supremely the declaration — and we need a new birth of freedom, to ultimately — now, not ultimately, but now — to end slavery, and give the rights of citizenship to everyone, including african-americans. You know, if you're interested, there's some very good books, on this discussion. But eric metaxas ('eric mataxis', as heard) has a book, that describes how the constitution was written. Gary wills has a book, on lincoln at gettysburg, which talks about lincoln's philosophy, and the gettysburg address, and the principles i've just mentioned. Harry jaffa also has a book, about lincoln, called a new birth of freedom, which goes into great detail, about these things. And of course, we did have the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery. The 14th amendment, which gave everyone state and national citizenship rights, specifically to include african-americans. The 15th amendment: voting for everyone, including african-americans. The 19th amendment, which extended the vote to women. And then of course the civil rights movement, and legislation, primarily in the 60s, which in a practical way extended various rights, to everybody. It's still a work in progress. And we should also talk about the native americans. It's a national tragedy. But again, we have to understand the historical context. Every nation of the world was founded by conquest, and wars, and so forth. And there were many people, including the pilgrims, who did try a peaceful (path) — and it's also a myth, just to say that all the indigenous tribes (were) peaceful. If you study the aztecs: they — it's estimated that they executed over a million people, in human sacrifice. So when the spanish came to conquer them, they were regarded as liberators, by the various tribes the aztecs conquered ('the ad texas conquered', as heard) — and even by the common people. Then sadly, of course, the spanish conquistadors established their own dictatorship. And so maybe it was trading one evil, for another. But my point is: there's no pristine nation, in human history. And the real tragedy — which nobody really understood, at the time — but native americans did not have natural immunity, to many diseases, that were in europe and africa. And so it is estimated that at least 90 percent of the indigenous population, of north and south america, died because of diseases. So while there were terrible wars, and while there were massacres on both sides, and while the european settlers are responsible for much of the wrong that was done: you do have to take in context, that 90 (percent) weren't killed by warfare. But 90 (percent) were killed by diseases, that were little known. And nobody even knew what germs were. They did not know how to prevent diseases. They did not even understand immunity. And so again, i'm not trying to justify any evil, or wrongdoing, in history. We can say: slavery is unmitigated evil. Wars of conquest are ('or', as heard) unmitigated evil. Massacres are ('or', as heard) unmitigated evil. Etc., etc. But that does not mean we have to say: america is uniquely evil. In fact, compared to the rest of the countries of the world, america probably has less of a history, of those kind of things. In part, because we're younger. But also because we're deliberately founded on some principles. And so our constitution is actually the oldest written, functioning constitution, in the world today. So we don't understand that america was the only country trying to do this, as little as a couple hundred years ago. And so, while we're thankful for the progress we've made — especially the civil rights movement, even some things in recent years, that have helped us increase our understanding of justice, and implement it more perfectly — i think we can say: that america was founded, on some good principles. And we need to go back and renew those principles, and extend those principles. Of course, i will say, as a christian: our ultimate solution is not any political system. No country is perfect. Our ultimate citizenship is not an earthly nation. Our supreme allegiance is to god. And the ultimate solution, to the problems of the human race, are found in the gospel of jesus christ. And there will be no perfect system, and no perfect kingdom, until jesus christ comes, to establish his kingdom on earth. So (while) we're thankful to live in a wonderful country, with unprecedented opportunities and freedoms — compared to all of human history, and the rest of the world at the same time — our supreme trust, and our faith, is in the lord jesus christ.

Scripture index: Romans 3:23.