{"id":1124,"date":"2007-10-09T09:23:12","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T09:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1124"},"modified":"2007-10-09T09:23:12","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T09:23:12","slug":"a_nation_of_christians_is_not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1124","title":{"rendered":"A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

JON MEACHAM, Episcopalian, and the editor of Newsweek magazine, wrote an opinion piece in Sunday’s New York Times about this nation being or not being “Christian.”
\nA good read! Click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\nOp-Ed Contributor
\nA Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation
\nBy JON MEACHAM
\nPublished: October 7, 2007
\nJOHN McCAIN was not on the campus of Jerry Falwell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Liberty University last year for very long \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the senator, who once referred to Mr. Falwell and Pat Robertson as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153agents of intolerance,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was there to receive an honorary degree \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but he seems to have picked up some theology along with his academic hood. In an interview with Beliefnet.com last weekend, Mr. McCain repeated what is an article of faith among many American evangelicals: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAccording to Scripture, however, believers are to be wary of all mortal powers. Their home is the kingdom of God, which transcends all earthly things, not any particular nation-state. The Psalmist advises believers to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153put not your trust in princes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The author of Job says that the Lord \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shows no partiality to princes nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Before Pilate, Jesus says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My kingdom is not of this world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And if, as Paul writes in Galatians, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then it is difficult to see how there could be a distinction in God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes between, say, an American and an Australian. In fact, there is no distinction if you believe Peter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words in the Acts of the Apostles: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I most certainly believe now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThe kingdom Jesus preached was radical. Not only are nations irrelevant, but families are, too: he instructs those who would be his disciples to give up all they have and all those they know to follow him.
\nThe only acknowledgment of God in the original Constitution is a utilitarian one: the document is dated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the year of our Lord 1787.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Even the religion clause of the First Amendment is framed dryly and without reference to any particular faith. The Connecticut ratifying convention debated rewriting the preamble to take note of God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s authority, but the effort failed.
\nA pseudonymous opponent of the Connecticut proposal had some fun with the notion of a deity who would, in a sense, be checking the index for his name: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A low mind may imagine that God, like a foolish old man, will think himself slighted and dishonored if he is not complimented with a seat or a prologue of recognition in the Constitution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Instead, the framers, the opponent wrote in The American Mercury, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153come to us in the plain language of common sense and propose to our understanding a system of government as the invention of mere human wisdom; no deity comes down to dictate it, not a God appears in a dream to propose any part of it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nWhile many states maintained established churches and religious tests for office \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Massachusetts was the last to disestablish, in 1833 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the federal framers, in their refusal to link civil rights to religious observance or adherence, helped create a culture of religious liberty that ultimately carried the day.
\nThomas Jefferson said that his bill for religious liberty in Virginia was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindu, and infidel of every denomination.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d When George Washington was inaugurated in New York in April 1789, Gershom Seixas, the hazan of Shearith Israel, was listed among the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clergymen (there were 14 in New York at the time) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a sign of acceptance and respect. The next year, Washington wrote the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happily the government of the United States … gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. … Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAndrew Jackson resisted bids in the 1820s to form a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christian party in politics.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Abraham Lincoln buried a proposed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Christian amendment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the Constitution to declare the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fealty to Jesus. Theodore Roosevelt defended William Howard Taft, a Unitarian, from religious attacks by supporters of William Jennings Bryan.
\nThe founders were not anti-religion. Many of them were faithful in their personal lives, and in their public language they evoked God. They grounded the founding principle of the nation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that all men are created equal \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in the divine. But they wanted faith to be one thread in the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tapestry, not the whole tapestry.
\nIn the 1790s, in the waters off Tripoli, pirates were making sport of American shipping near the Barbary Coast. Toward the end of his second term, Washington sent Joel Barlow, the diplomat-poet, to Tripoli to settle matters, and the resulting treaty, finished after Washington left office, bought a few years of peace. Article 11 of this long-ago document says that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153as the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d there should be no cause for conflict over differences of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153religious opinion\u00e2\u20ac\u009d between countries.
\nThe treaty passed the Senate unanimously. Mr. McCain is not the only American who would find it useful reading.
\nJon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, is the author of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American Gospel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Franklin and Winston.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JON MEACHAM, Episcopalian, and the editor of Newsweek magazine, wrote an opinion piece in Sunday’s New York Times about this nation being or not being “Christian.” A good read! Click here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicsculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}