Our Secular Nation

The United States is a secular nation, not a Christian nation, and this blog post is an explanation why this is OK and even necessary, even if you are a Christian.

If we were a Christian nation, what would that look like?  According to latest (2020) estimates, 69.7% of us are Christian. 

“See, that proves we are a Christian nation!”

But that 69.7% includes 21.8% who are Roman Catholic (the largest Christian denomination by far in the United States), 7.3% who are Black Protestant, 3.9% who are Hispanic Protestant, 1.3% who are Mormons, but only 14.5% who are white Evangelical Christians, the primary group that claims that we are a Christian nation.  And we are 23.3% unaffiliated and 7.0% other non-Christian, among which are 1.4% who are Jews and 0.8% who are Muslim.

So, if we are a Christian nation, just whose kind of Christian nation are we?  And are we OK dismissing the equality of our Catholic friends, our Jewish friends and even our unaffiliated friends?

The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The notion that we are a Christian nation flies in the face of the “establishment clause” of the 1st Amendment; that is, it “establishes” us as a Christian nation.

As to our being a secular nation, many believe that secular means anti-religious.  It does not.  Merriam-Webster defines secular as: a) of or relating to the worldly or temporal; b) not overtly or specifically religious; c) not bound by monastic vows or rules.  In other words, secular is not anti-religious, it is just not “overtly or specifically religious.”  For example, the institution of government, which defines the relationship that connects the rulers to the ruled, is a secular idea, even if a government is a theocracy, where the rulers are clergy.  Indeed, most institutions in the world are secular, that is, not-religious.  NOT anti-religious.

Paragraph 3 of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution reads:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be Required as a Qualification To any Office or public Trust under the United States.

So, when Marjorie Taylor-Greene suggests that we are a Christian nation, she is suggesting that her oath is to the Bible, not the U.S. Constitution.  You are free to agree with her, but that only shows you are willing to scrap the Constitution as our nation's Holy Writ.

Our Founding Fathers – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine – were all “deists” (believers in a creator God, but not a personal God who answers our prayers).  They were all nominal Christians (except Paine) – Protestant Christians even – but more like today’s Unitarian Universalists, which most Evangelicals would consider close to atheists.  In addition, they were all educated men and they were painfully aware of European history with all its religious wars; they wanted to avoid bloodshed over whose God is the true God.  But the only way to avoid sectarian bloodshed is by instituting a secular government, one where there is a “wall of separation between church and state.”

In order for a national of another country to become an American citizen, he must take this oath: 

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

Note that he swears to support and defend our Constitution, not the Christian church or the Christian Bible; note also that “so help me God” is an optional part of swearing the oath of allegiance.

Most of us are religious, but we have various religious beliefs; most of us are even Christians but of very different stripes.  If we were ever a Christian nation, you have to ask yourself: “what kind of Christian, whose kind of Christian?”

The word secular feels like anti-religious or non-religious to some, and that is an unfortunate misunderstanding.  But all it really does is establish that we are a people with many different belief systems, and that we have room for all of them.  Even atheists, even Satanists if it comes to that.  We are free to hold whatever religious or non-religious or anti-religious beliefs that we want; it is our unlawful behavior only that can get us in trouble in these the great United States of America.