"Was America founded as a Christian nation?" Topic

"That question has served a variety of political causes since July 4, 1776, from legalizing persecution and aiding runaway slaves to fighting Nazis and Communists.

The scholars below have spent years reflecting on the intersection of American religion and nationalism. Their answers to the question invite us to examine the motivations behind the controversy: Why do so many people think the country's Christian history is so important?…"

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Armand

Oh, here we go again. Let the Usual Suspects rant away, but do it without me.
So, I'll ask, pro forma, "What does this have to do with miniature gaming?"
"Why, nothing at all! But continue."

Maybe so we can justify a Crusader army fighting the British?

Your brush strokes are too wide. Any talking point made would have as many negative exceptions as verifying samples.

First tell us what you mean by "nation" and by "Christian" and by "founded".

But go read John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity"; based on that the answer would be yes.

.Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are
entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken
out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our
own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those
accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon
besought Him of favor and blessing.

Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace
to the place we desire, then hath he ratified this covenant and
sealed our Commission, and will expect a strict performance of
the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us; be revenged of such a [sinful] people and make us know the price of the breaches of such a covenant.

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for
our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as
his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our
ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power,
goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted
with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten
of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he
shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it like that of New England.

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.
The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the
mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of
God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into
curses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land
whither we are a going.

Since the first great awakening the people of the English American colonies was divided by Christianity. The greatest indicator of which side people rallied too, loyalists or patriot, in the American War of Independence was by which church they attended.

See what I mean? 😄
We've only been over this a dozen times a year.
So, I'll once again add "What does this have to do with miniature wargaming? Or miniature golf?" Not that I expect anything out of that. 😄
Hey this ain't Ultramodern, but…

But we do have Awakenings.

Now John, the title makes it clear what this is about. If it disturbs you why not just read something else? We do address it from time to time because it is an interesting and important topic. But no one is obliged to participate.

Winthrops Sermon – was given as he was crossing the Atlantic for the first time in 1630 – looking to set an example or hope for the Mass Bay Colony.

Roger Williams and the Rhode Island area among others didnt agree

History.com has a review that covers the diversity of religion
link

Yes, so "Christian" is a broad term.

Now John, the title makes it clear what this is about. If it disturbs you why not just read something else?

And I might say the exact same thing to you. "What does this have to do with miniature wargaming?"
Answer: Not a darn thing.

It doesn't disturb me at all. It simply annoys me to see topics like this on a wargaming forum.
Are you going to assume that ALL Boards are eligible to have religious threads?

History threads.

Lincoln called Americans "God's almost-chosen people."

This topic is totally irrelevant

I'm with the OFM on this one. Toss a wallet with a string attached on the sidewalk and watch the fun. Kittens and laser pointers etc.

Since some of the topics covered have been covered and re-covered and we are now in "tired re-run territory, I am thinking of posting a few for discussion. Here are some ideas.

1: Lee finds information indication that the Union Army has stored vast amounts of peanut butter and jelly in warehouses at Gettysburg. Does Ewell's attack on the first day push harder since he knows that RE Lee prefers his peanut butter creamy as opposed to Longstreet and the late T. Jackson who preferred crunchy?

2: The Battle of Waterloo is settled by a dance off. Who is on each team? (Four max), and what music do they use?

3: Winston Churchill as an aspiring blues guitarist. How would this have affected the transition of power from Chamberlain in 1940?

What say you?

And I might say the exact same thing to you. "What does this have to do with miniature wargaming?"
Answer: Not a darn thing.

However, it is an historical discussion, and that is allowed by forum rules.

Please note that forum rules do not allow anyone to tell others not to speak. If you don't like the topic, don't read it.

Was America founded as a Christian nation? Not explicitly. The founders certainly embodied their understanding of certain Christian principles in the founding documents, but by the same token, they followed Greek democratic principles too – would that make us a pagan nation?

Please note that forum rules do not allow anyone to tell others not to speak. If you don't like the topic, don't read it.

I'm certainly not telling Doc not to speak. I know that would be fruitless. 😄
And as pointless as telling others not to read or comment.

Bill, yes, and in fact Christianity is itself an amalgamation of Hebrew and Greek, Which is like, today, sayng an amalgamation of the KKK and the Black Panthers. The God of Job is transcendent; Zeus is immanent. Christ is Emmanuel, God With Us, so combines the two. The Hebrews had Messiah, God's savior of the Jews. "Christ" is a Greek word, everybody's savior, and Logos an important Greek idea. So all of that in a fermenting brew.

"Was America founded as a Christian nation?"
De facto or de jure?
Were the colonists overwhelmingly Christian?
Yes.
Did some colonies have an established church?
Yes.
Did the Constitution establish a national religion?
No, but it did not prohibit the various States from having an official religion.

carne, yes. Of course "nation" is distinct from "state." The first is a culture, the second has a government and territory. So we have "nation-states" that are both. The US today is a secular state, and has been so at a national level since 1791.

Thanks

Armand

I'll go with the short answer which is no. The US Constitution makes no mention of God other than saying "the year of our Lord" when confirming the date. this is very different from some modern Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia for example where Islam is the official state religion and the public practice of other relgions is prohibited.

The First amendment also clearly states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…"

State constitutions however pretty much all make reference to a Christian God. This is only my opinion, but I think the Founding Fathers didn't want the leaders of a state religion challenging their power as was sometimes the case in European history. I think they intentionally wrote a secular constitution for this reason.

There were three main denominations, each dominant in one part of the country. Congregationalists in NE, Presbyterians in middle, Anglicans in south. All wanted one church — theirs. Toleration was their fallback position at the national level.

So yes, a secular STATE, but very much a Protestant nation.

The founding of the US predated the Constitution by more than 100 years. It was founded as a number of separate colonies, of different Christian sects. Doc has 3 different Protestant nations and that was, I suspect, after some amalgamation. So of course the Constitution was secular, no toleration would have resulted in a number of different states.

And of course those three particular churches fought bloody wars against each other 1630s and 1640s in England and Scotland..

This is not appropriate topic

Thanks also…

Armand

"Not appropriate" 🤔

I've read multiple things in TMP that have nothing to do with miniatures. Some at best are loosely based on history.

One in utter drivel is
"Most underpants pulled on in 30 seconds"

Ok, it happened in the past, since it's a record… but??

But I ignored it and went on to others I found interesting. I'm not upset and not complaining. Just do the same. 😉

If think people get upset about topics that don't agree with their personal beliefs. But only my opinion. 😇

I've read through this, it does not really interest me, so I'll move on. Have fun.

The point of the 1st Amendment is not to prevent religion from influencing the state— that is an utter impossibility, as all men have beliefs of some sort (even if that belief is to entirely reject what they call "religion). Every man will vote based on these beliefs he holds. That is unavoidable, and indeed is necessary to a truly free society— if one cannot vote one's conscious, then one is not free, and neither is the nation.
The purpose of the 1st Amendment is thus to keep the state from influencing religion. If Congress were to establish a religion, then it would necessarily require Congress to pass laws to eliminate other religions' potential influence on the state. This would necessitate the prohibition of other religions and the silencing of unaccepted religious discussion and behavior. It would thereby steal the right of each man (or woman) to influence their government according to the principles each holds. In short, it would deny them free will!

That above all the framers sought to avoid, because they knew from their own history how dangerous the forced compliance with a specific religion would be.

And thus the Constitution is secular— not because the state cannot have religion guide its actions, but because the state has no business attempting to control the belief of anyone.

But that state of affairs does not mean that the nation was founded as some purely secular machine. In fact, quite the opposite. It was their collective faith, and where it agreed, that guided the composition of the Constitution. The founders were steeped in Christianity— even those who were not devout or who expressed no specific creed. Their language was Biblical in nature; their metaphors were as well. Their speeches called on the aid of Providence, seen through a Christian lens. Yes, there were other faiths, and those who professed no faith at all, and the Christians themselves were divided on doctrines both trivial and profound— yet the nature of the culture, the society in which they moved and lived and worked and loved, it was formed from Western European Christianity, and all knew it. They would have looked at the central question of this topic with utter befuddlement as to how such a question could be asked— what other sort of nation was even possible to spring from them? To them, it would appear to be a rather silly question. The government being secular in structure they would acknowledge as being true, but the nation being Christian they would also see as true. The two are not mutually exclusive, and in reality the notion that they can be separated in function is an impossible one, men being creatures of their own beliefs, no matter what structures they may make.

Parzeval, yes, exactly so.

I'm going with the Constitution which was adopted, "the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven"

If Christ is your lord, you're a Christian nation. My tongue is only slightly in my cheek.

Article I Section 7, "If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him,"

Reserving Sunday as the Sabbath

And the Declaration "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,"

And:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…"

In my eyes you can argue that we're not founded explicitly a Christian nation, but we are founded implicitly

Good points…

Armand