Faith and Politics Question:

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Amanah

Aquila, our problem is that we are not a Christian nation. Any political philosophy without Christianity is doomed.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Amanah

Aquila, our problem is that we are not a Christian nation. Any political philosophy without Christianity is doomed.

I don't believe America has ever been a "Christian nation". A nation of Christians, perhaps. But not a Christian nation.

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
- John Adams

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
- Thomas Jefferson

"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
- Thomas Paine

“Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion.
The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal and entire freedom; and a continuance of their example since the Declaration of Independence, has shewn that its success in Colonies was not to be ascribed to their connection with the parent Country.”
– James Madison

America is a nation founded upon the holy notions of justice and human liberty. While liberty may allow for men to sin, liberty itself is a holy and sacred thing. For only in a truly free nation do men discover the liberty of conscience. And it is only through the free exercise of a man's conscience that a man can come to a true and saving faith. All efforts of coercion and or the subjugation of individual conscience only stand to produce in man a hollow religiosity void of heart and soul, or worse - a backlash of animosity against religious faith that only stands to feed the rabid and depraved nature of a fallen man.

[Amanah]

America was a nation based on Christian morality:

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor without faith.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.
Benjamin Franklin

The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
John Adams

Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
Alexis de Tocqueville

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly in adequate to the government of any other.
John Adams.

[Amanah]

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of a peculiar structure, reason, and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles
George Washingtron

[Aquila]

As I said, America was never a "Christian nation", but rather a "nation of Christians". All statements regarding the Christian faith from our Founding Fathers stressed the VALUE of Christianity and Christian morality as it relates to the well being of the nation. None of these statements were intended to support the notion that our nation was to be founded upon religious law or was to embrace a codified body of laws that favor a given religion, religious belief, or religious interpretation above any other.

In fact, men fought and died to resist the British Empire and their forced adherence and recognition of the Anglican church in violation of conscience.

Thus we can reconcile all statements made by our Founders praising Christian religion and morality and those statements made that speak to resisting the impulse to entangle religion with government.