I agree. I’d have a ton more respect for him if he had been the renegade conscience of the Republican party, speaking out against Bush’s excesses. He allowed Rove to transform him from a knight to a toad.
I’ll say up front that the United States is a Christian nation, it was a Christian nation when it was governed by the Articles of Confederation and it was a Christian nation when we were not even a unified country, but thirteen colonies under the rule of the British.
The Constitution doesn’t establish that, it’s just a historical fact concerning the country and its people (one that is most likely not always going to be true, but it is still true now and was true in 1787 when the Constitution was written, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was written, and one that was true for the 150 or more odd years in which British colonists lived in the area before we broke away.)
Getting that out of the way, while I do not believe the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation, I think we probably shouldn’t be quoting one of John Adams’ treaties with Tripoli as conclusive proof as to whether it did or did not. John Adams was not present for the creation of the United States Constitution, nor was Thomas Jefferson.
I’d say that there is a distinction between having a Christian majority and being a Christian nation.
That’s like calling Turkey an Islamic nation. Iran’s an Islamic nation. Turkey’s a nation made up of mostly Muslims. There’s a difference.
Apparently slavery and mass murder of indigenous people. It seems blasphemous to say that 18th century American valuers were compatible with Christianity.
Turkey has a secular government but is an Islamic nation.
Nation is not synonymous with State.
The United States is a secular State, Turkey is a secular State. Turkey is most assuredly an Islamic nation.
In the sense that the United States even exists as a “nation”, it is a Christian one. In truth that’s a view without nuance, but it sums up the truth of the matter well enough. There isn’t a single nation in the United States. There’s actually many nations. The largest nations within the United States are all Christian, though, and predominantly so. So it only makes sense to call the United States a Christian nation.
With some countries it is more difficult to say. Is the United Kingdom a secular state? I’m not really sure about that. I think the United Kingdom is a Christian state. It has a Head of State who is also the official leader of the State Church, who is Crowned in a Church when their reign begins.
Now, just because a State isn’t secular strictly speaking doesn’t mean it can’t have strong protections of religious freedom (to worship how you wish or worship not at all.) But many States (like the United Kingdom) clearly have a State Church and it is patently unconstitutional for the United States Government to establish a Federal Church.
Arguably Denmark is a more religious State than the United Kingdom, since the Church of England (to my knowledge) does not receive direct financial support from the government, but is just simply the official, established Church. Denmark’s official Church receives financial support from the government and all Danes contribute to it directly or indirectly whether or not they are members of the State church. Interestingly the Danish nation may be less religious than the United States but Denmark as a State is clearly not secular while the United States Federal Government is clearly (in my mind) a secular government.
True, but that treaty was ratified unanimously by Congress, and at least some of them were at the Convention, I would expect.
Question for all: does anyone know why that language was in the treaty? Was it to play down the conflict with an Islamic nation?
From the treaty:
To give Shodan credit, what I’ve seen of his philosophy is that he’s vehemently in favor of conservative Christianity, but as opposed to any totalitarian ideology imposed on others as virtually anyone else – including what most of the theocracy advocates call for. I suspect he was simply using the Brewer opinion for what it’s worth – a SCOTUS opinion with dicta stating that we’re “a Christian nation.” (For what it’s worth, Mr. Justice Brewer’s major jurisprudential principle appears to have been that the Constitution forbids government to interfere with the sacred right to turn a profit – with a few paternalistic exceptions.)
The bottom line, though, is that yes, a majority of Americans historically have professed the Christian faith in one or another of its variants, and any reasonable unskewed contemporary sample would probably continue that trend – but the country as a whole is dedicated to the principle of freedom of religion, that no one faith, and in particular not the minor subset of Christianity that lays sole claim to being “real Christians,” has any right to define what Americans may or may not believe, say, or do on the basis of their own religious beliefs.
Since the majority of Americans are women, does it also make sense to call the United States a female nation?
That I knew. But I wonder if religion was a sticking point in the negotiations. I don’t think Adams used the term “Crusade” in any speeches.
For those who argue that the Constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it says, then the Supreme Court saying “this is a Christian nation” is the same as if it were in the text. And therefore the Constitution does say that the US is a Christian nation, in the same way that the Constitution says that the states may not regulate abortion, etc.
So, unless you are a textualist, then McCain is quite correct in what he said. QED.
Regards,
Shodan
Possibly, but doubtful. Female/male is just a biological characteristic, it’s already assumed when you use the word “nation” that we’re talking about a group of people, both female and male. The fact that because of a few various factors some nations have more females than males or more males than females (this tends to be true in many nations to this day) isn’t really significant because it isn’t a defining characteristic of the nation. All nations have a relatively close female/male split with one gender maybe having a few percentage points more than the other.
Christianity is a defining characteristic in the “Italian-American” nation, the “African American” nation, the “Hispanic American” nation, the “Irish-American” nation and et cetera. In general it’s difficult to talk about some of the nations within the United States because they have lost a lot of their identity over the years. The Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans used to clearly be their own nation, much less so today. Whereas the African Americans and Hispanic Americans are still relatively distinct nations.
Even if we view “White America” as a sort of bastardized, conglomerate nation of various European immigrant groups which have melded together, it still has as a defining characteristic “Christianity.” Whereas “female” or “male” wouldn’t be a defining characteristic of any of the nations mentioned.
I’d have to see a cite foir that. Who’re you defining as “founders,” and are you actually claiming MORE THAN HALF of them were not Christians? That would be a truly amazing thing indeed.
Arguably the “most famous” of the Founding Fathers would be:
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Adams.
Of those, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams were clearly not what we would call traditional Christians. Jefferson was possibly a deist maybe even an atheist. Ben Franklin was probably the most clearly deist. Adams was probably a Christian but a very non-traditional Christian.
People often forget there are several dozen men who we would consider “Founding Fathers” (at the very-least the 55 people who attended the Constitutional Convention and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence), and I would imagine that the majority of them were Christian. However I won’t just say definitively that they were, only that it is most likely the truth since they all grew up in Christian communities in a part of the world in which Christianity was the primary religion.
Interesting. What are these other “nations” within the United States? Everyone who’s not part of an Indian Nation is either Christian or not part of the American Nation? I see. :dubious:
Aren’t you forgetting all the SCOTUS decisions on the 1st amendment since then, including the one that incorporated it? And you’d need to establish whether that statement, by itself, is precedent or if it is *dicta *(ie, obtier dicta). IANAL, but I suspect it to be the latter. So, make your case counselor.
Don’t bother. He’s pursuing “victory by definition.” It’s not worth the effort.
I mean, unless you have lots of time to kill.
But the Supreme Court is NOT saying “this is a Christian nation” in your linked page, the way I read it. The opinion is simply saying that many others have called this a Christian state/nation:
(emphasis mine)
In short, for the purposes of the case at hand, the court is simply saying Christianity is in the fabric of our society, so why would Congress outlaw the employment of ministers. Nowhere does it say that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation.
I have no problem with McCain stating that America is a de-facto Christian nation. And I fully believe that he would prefer a Christian be President. But for someone of McCain’s experience and (assumed) knowledge to say that the US Constitution establishes the USA as a Christian nation, well - I’m amazed. Now if GWBush said it…
Are we a Catholic Christian nation? Mormon? Pentecostal? If we are going to say “We are a Christian nation!” aren’t we required to provide a bit more definition?