Is America Christian?

“Hodgepodge of Thoughts about early America”……………………………….A short reading of the facts

I was listening to a news program the other night and I heard an alarming statement made by a “Reverend” who said that America was not founded as a Christian nation. I don’t know much about the minister’s credentials other than what was flashed across the screen. It seems he was a former employee of the ACLU and was opposed to Christian emblems being placed on government property. He gave the same old song and dance about “separation of church and state” (gag me) and the need for America to sterilize her government agencies of Christian symbols. I was thinking about this absurdity this morning, and thought I would help set the record straight. America was founded on Biblical principles and has been declared Christian by its institutions of law all the way up to the 1950s. Let me present some facts.

Fact: Terry Eastland, publisher of The Weekly Standard, has confirmed after his in-depth study of the history of America. “Protestant Christianity has been our established religion in almost every sense of that phrase…The establishment of Protestant Christianity was one not only of law but also, and far more importantly, of culture. Protestant Christianity supplied the nation with its ‘system of values.’” James Billington, Liberian of Congress, said in a news conference on the opening of the exhibit, “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,” that “the dominant role religion played in the earliest days of this country is largely ignored by media, academics, and others.”

Fact: In 1931 the U.S. Supreme Court noted that the United States is a Christian nation. In a mid-Atlantic summit with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the darkest hours of World War II, President Roosevelt—who had described the United States as the “the lasting concord between men and nations, founded on the principles of Christianity”—asked the crew of an American warship to join him in a rousing chorus of the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” President Woodrow Wilson, in his famous address, “The Bible and Progress,” delivered in Denver, Colorado, on May 7, 1911, told his audience that, “America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelation of Holy Scripture.” I might add that President Wilson was a devout Presbyterian.

Fact: The claim that America has a distinct Christian heritage does not mean that every American is now or ever was a Christian. Moreover, it does not mean that either the Church or the State should force people to profess belief in Christianity or attend religious services. Furthermore, a belief in a Christian heritage for America does not mean that non-Christians, and for that matter, dissenting Christians, cannot hold contrary opinions in a climate of a general Christian consensus. An honest study of America’s past will show that a majority of Americans shared a common religion and ethic. America’s earliest founders were self-professing Christians and their founding documents expressed a belief in a Christian worldview.

Fact: John Winthrop’s sermon aboard the Arabella in 1630 states in part: “For the persons, we are a Company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ…For the work we have in hand, it is by a mutual consent through a special overruling providence, and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ to seek out a place of Cohabitation of Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and ecclesiastical…”

Fact: In 1892, the Supreme Court declared, in the case of The Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States, that America was a Christian nation from earliest days. After examining a full range of historical documents, Associate Justice David J. Brewer concluded that Americans are “a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.” In 1931, Supreme

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Court Justice George Sutherland reviewed the 1892 decision and reaffirmed that Americans are a “Christian people.” As late as 1952 the Supreme Court was affirming and reaffirming this fact.

I thought you might like some facts to help you reach your own conclusion about America’s religious heritage. The facts are there. They’re overwhelmingly in support of the notion that America was founded on the principles of Holy Scripture. What say you?

May God bless America !

Terry Dashner

About the Author

Writes articles about America's early history. 918-451-0270