What do some people mean when they call the United States a “Christian Nation?”
First of all, let’s look at the statistics. In 2008, a U.S. Census Bureau survey estimated that 173,402,000 adult American residents voluntarily identified themselves as Christian. For a more recent estimate, the Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of Americans identified as Christian in 2012.
These numbers certainly do sound impressive. But, let’s go deeper than the numbers.
What do some people mean when they call the United States a “Christian Nation?”
First of all, let’s look at the statistics. In 2008, a U.S. Census Bureau survey estimated that 173,402,000 adult American residents voluntarily identified themselves as Christian. For a more recent estimate, the Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of Americans identified as Christian in 2012.
These numbers certainly do sound impressive. But, let’s go deeper than the numbers.
After all, Christian is a somewhat generic term. It includes many different kinds of people with many different beliefs. Some Christians follow the Pope. Some may be pro-choice. Some may follow the Pope in theory but still be pro-choice in practice. Some may prefer Pope Francis to the previous title holder (I know I do).
Some Christians may be pacifists while other Christians serve in the Army. Some believe in gay marriage, and others don’t. Some believe in salvation through good works, while other Christians concentrate on “spreading the word” (i.e. evangelizing). Some Christians believe in predestination, and some don’t.
Some take Genesis literally, and there are Christian scientists (not to be confused with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist) who say that the Big Bang and evolution do not conflict with their beliefs. Some Christians go to church every Sunday, some go to church on Saturday and still others may take Emily Dickinson’s advice: “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church; I keep it, staying at Home; with a Bobolink for a Chorister; and an Orchid, for a Dome.”
I could go on and on, but you get the point. American Christianity is a confusing and complex mixture of beliefs and denominations. Some Christians may not consider Mormons to be “true” Christians, but the 2008 survey mentioned above included 3,158,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints under the Christian umbrella.
Clearly, the notion of a single, unified set of “Christian” political issues, positions or values is patently ridiculous. Any political agenda that anybody could develop would have to apply only to a smaller subset of religious voters — and certainly could not be applied across the board to all Christians, let alone all “faith voters.”
We haven’t even gotten into all of the non-Christian religions in the United States — Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and so on. Nor have we considered those who don’t fit comfortably into either Christian or non-Christian religious categories — the unaffiliated believers who belong to no church, the atheists, the agnostics and the independent free thinkers.
Certain conservative religious political groups — those interested in banning abortion or in censoring books, movies or music, or in replacing science with religion in schools — have a vested interest in distorting the statistics. Ignore the differences between a Baptist, a Lutheran, a Catholic and a Methodist, and you can claim widespread support for even the most radical of proposals.
In the long run, efforts to censor blasphemy will fail in the face of free speech as guaranteed under the First Amendment. The First Amendment also prohibits bringing Biblical Creationism or its “Intelligent Design” variations into public school classrooms.
We also must not allow attempts to marginalize or demonize non-Christians to succeed — at the airport security line, for example. America is too diverse for discrimination. When the United States was founded, we dedicated ourselves to principles of equality which did not exist in society at the time, but which we have strived to achieve. The very notion of a “Christian Nation” is anathema to those high ideals.
James Fujita is a former GVN news editor. He works as a copy editor for the Visalia Times-Delta in California’s Central Valley. Fujita can be contacted at jim61773@yahoo.com.
