Are we a Christian nation?

A friend of mine was in a bookstore the other day and wished a Jewish friend of hers a ”Happy Holiday”. This set off the man in line behind her, who grumbled loudly about why she hadn’t wished her friend a Merry Christmas, acknowledging Christ’s birth. When she explained that her friend was Jewish, the man went into a tirade about how that didn’t matter, because America was a Christian nation.

A lot of people think that, though most aren’t as boorish and insensitive as that man.

In fact, we are not a Christian nation, despite having a Christian majority. We are very explicitly a nation of religious freedom. We were founded by people who felt strongly about religious freedom, and for good reason. They had lived through the centuries of religious wars and persecutions in Europe, and wanted no part of such strife here. And lest we forget, we can look around at the massacres and religious wars going on every year around the world and see why they didn’t want them here.

Our Constitution explicitly prohibits us from become a nation of any religion. The First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…..”. Separation of church and state has been a fundamental guiding principle of our government up until recently, when there have been ill-conceived attempts to scrap it.

Protestant Christians may think that it would be a good idea to have more religion in the government, so long as it is their religion and not someone else’s. If they breach the church-state separation when they are in the majority, are they prepared to have the government controlled by some other religion when they become the minority, as they probably will eventually?

If Catholics eventually outnumber Protestants are they prepared to have the government acknowledge the Pope’s control over government policy? I doubt it.

If Muslims eventually become the majority (a real possibility, given the current demographics), are they prepared to have Sharia laws imposed by the government on everyone? I doubt it.

If secularists eventually become the majority are they prepared to have church’s tax-exempt status revoked? I doubt it.

If those who are pressing for more religion in government would just step back and think about it, they would recognize that separation of church and state protects their religion just as much as it does other religions, and they would be foolish and shortsighted to abandon that protection.