The Militant Moderate

“America is a Christian nation.”  How often have we heard this?  If a polling organization were to call tomorrow, around 85% would answer in agreement.  Since about that same proportion would identify personally in some way with Christians, most believe this is a Christian nation.  The Militant Moderate is about to provoke controversy, because he is going to tell you that is a myth.  America is not a Christian nation!  

The United States was founded on the principle of separation of church and state.  In fact this country could not become the United States, i.e. could not get its Constitution ratified, until it was made clear by the addition of the Bill of Rights that there would be absolutely no official religion or church in this country.  Good, church-going, Christian citizens of several colonies, such as (Baptist) Rhode Island, would not hear to the ratification of that document until they were assured that there would be freedom of worship, and that government would never again take the side of one religion or one denomination over another.  

The Constitution under which we became a nation does not mention God anywhere in it.

The early colonies were settled by refugees from countries where there was a state religion.  The Puritans in Massachusetts were rebelling against the Church of England, the official church of the King and Parliament.  Huguenots in South were religious refugees who made a sojourn first in the Netherlands.  Catholics, persecuted in England, settled in Maryland.  Quakers, also persecuted in Europe, settled in Pennsylvania and Dutch Protestants in New York.  In an early example of the struggle for religious freedom in this country, Baptists under Roger Williams and Anne Hutchison left Massachusetts in protest to religious dictates of the Puritans to settle in Rhode Island.  

Colonial America was settled and populated heavily by those who sought freedom from the domination of another sect or religion back in Europe.  Citizens of the new world were not about to take a chance on again becoming dominated and persecuted for their faith.  They demanded that this freedom be written into the new Constitution.  They had learned hard lessons from previous situations where there existed a national religion.  They did not intend to repeat it.  

Therefore, AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION.  AMERICA IS A SECULAR NATION in which all religions have freedom to worship their God according to their own faith and beliefs.  Church and state are separate.  The Constitution says that no laws are to be made which will establish any religion or prohibit the free exercise of religion by believers.  

This nation is one which offers a free and fertile environment for all religions to function and to grow in competition for the minds and hearts of citizens.  This nation offers the freedom to each person to exercise the religion of his or her choice, or to the freedom to abstain from worship if that choice is made.  Popular religious movements, such as the Baptists and the Wesleyans, owe much of their success to this environment of freedom.  
In contrast to their traditional doctrine of separation of church and state, under which the denomination flourished, the current Southern Baptist leadership has moved to restrict freedoms of its own members and churches.  That leadership has also involved the church deeply in partisan political affairs.  This portends well for neither church nor state.  Heaven forbid that this church, or any other, seize control of our political system!  

While this may be disturbing to many, the Militant Moderate must make a couple of points.  Reason tells us that in a religiously free country it is not appropriate to display religious symbols and quotes from religious texts on the walls of government buildings.  Nor is it appropriate to insert references to God into pledges of national loyalty.  To do so endorses that religion, which our government has agreed in the Constitution not to do.  When our courts reach these conclusions, let us understand the freedom that represents.  

While most Americans may be Christian, this is still a nation fettered by no official religion.  This is a nation where religious freedom prevails for all.  Thank God!  Let freedom rule!  Let freedom rule!  

…………   Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard,    AKA  The Militant Moderate