Is
America a "Christian" Nation?
History
disputes the idea that this is a nation under covenant with God.
Were
it so, the Founding Fathers would have all been Christians in the
true
sense. And they would have established belief in and obedience to
Jesus
Christ as the primary criterion for holding elective or appointed
office.
But
what about the Mayflower Compact? We cannot dispute that some of the
early
settlers in this country were Christians, at least nominally. And
the
Mayflower Compact did form a body politic, one of the purposes to
honor
the king of England. Just because they had as one purpose to
advance
the Christian faith does not mean they meant to do so by
establishing
an independent Christian government. On the contrary, the
Mayflower
Compact specifically reaffirmed their loyalty to the king of
England.
Nor
were these all religious refugees on the Mayflower. True, some of
these
aboard the Mayflower were Protestant Separatists who had fled
England
to Holland to escape persecution from the Reformed Anglican
Church
prelates, but the principals were men commissioned to further the
business
of the Virginia Company. The Mayflower Compact was an
afterthought
designed to keep the colony intact after they were blown
off
course from their intended landing at the mouth of the Hudson River,
having
landed instead at what later became Massachusetts. When they set
sail,
it was not part of their original intent to draft the Mayflower
Compact
and form a Christian colony under its terms.
Although
the document that the Mayflower passengers drew up did have
some
influence on the charters of a few colonies prior to the
Revolutionary
War, it had no official bearing on the federal government
or
on any of the colonies or states created either prior to or after the
American
Revolution. If we are going to call America a Christian nation
we
must see if its founding body, the Continental Congress, purposed to
establish
it as such. Did that body, in fact, covenant with God to form
this
nation?
When
the Continental Congress drafted the Declaration of Independence
and
later, the Congress formed under the Articles of Confederation
drafted
the Constitution of the United States of America, no mention was
made
of Jesus Christ. Rather, the only references to deity in the
Declaration
of Independence were to "God"; none are in the Constitution.
(See
note at end of article.) In fact, many of the framers of these
documents
were anti-Christian, being comprised of Masons and deists of
many
persuasions.
God
does not enter into covenants that do not invoke the name of His
Son,
so there exists no covenant between the Father and the federal
government
of the United States, or with any state government.
Had the
constitutions
of all these governments, including the federal
government,
named faith in Jesus Christ as the principle criterion for
holding
any elective or appointed office, this would have had to be done
in
the name of Jesus Christ with full understanding of the true Biblical
character
of His role as Savior and Lord. This the founders of this
nation
of sovereign states failed to do.
It
is apparent that the Western European influences that shaped America
were
part of what had become known as "Christendom." But a culture based
on
the idea of "Christendom" does not of itself constitute a culture
based
on Scripture or an inviolable covenant with God. The history of
Christendom
is an ugly history fraught with tyranny and the enslavement
of
those who are less "enlightened." If God gave the knowledge and means
to
subdue the earth and take dominion in the name of Jesus Christ, then
that
privilege has been terribly abused. If, on the other hand, Satan
gave
that knowledge and means, his purposes have certainly been
accomplished.
The fruit of Western Civilization, in spite of its
enlightened
accomplishments, demonstrates that no attempt to institute
the
Kingdom of God on earth before Jesus returns can succeed.
So the
idea
of a covenant between America and God is pure fantasy.
[This
article was adapted and/or excerpted from Vengeance Is Ours: The
Church
in Dominion, by Albert James Dager, pp. 220-221; Sword
Publishers,
P.O. Box 290, Redmond, WA 98073.]
[Editor's
Note: Think about the "Christian America" myth for a moment:
If
America was truly founded as an explicitly Christian nation (as is
continually
proclaimed by "Christian" activists such as James Dobson,
Pat
Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Chuck Colson, Tim and Beverly LaHaye,
Jerry
Falwell, Bill Gothard, etc.), then why do we find no mention
whatsoever
of Jesus Christ in America's founding documents?--not in the
Declaration
of Independence nor in the Constitution of the United
States!
In fact, the Constitution does not even make a single reference
to
God! And the reference to God in the Declaration of Independence is
merely
"Nature's God," a God that is vague and subordinated to natural
laws
that everyone should know through common sense, i.e.,
"self-evident"
truths. Moreover, the Bible is never mentioned nor
alluded
to in either document! Nor is God or Jesus Christ mentioned in
the
hundreds of pages of the Federalist Papers (the "working documents"
of
the Founding Fathers). Strange stuff for a nation that some like to
say was founded as "Christian." But myths die hard, if ever.]