Are We a Christian Nation?

Many in our society, far too many in my opinion, claim the United States is a Christian nation. Most arguments fall on history, looking at our founding fathers’ comments about god. Well, fine and good and all that, but what about today? Are we a Christian nation today?

As you may have guessed I would opine, no, we are not. Let’s look at a simple test of our Christianity from the point of view of the Bible. Do we follow the Ten Commandments? Yes, that is Old Testament, but so many Christians claim they are important; heck, they want to plaster them on every public wall they can find. How are we at following “God’s Laws”?

1. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Yeah, right! Hero worship placing celebrities above god is rampant in our nation. We worship things. We worship our lovers’ actions. We sometimes even worship ourselves. God may be somewhere on the list, but he is certainly not alone on the list of things we worship.

2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Whoa! Do we break that one, even in our churches. Crucifixes, paintings, stained glass windows, prayer cards, illustrated Bibles, and the list goes on.

3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your god in vain.” Listen in to conversations at any public or private gathering and you will hear this one being broken. But, there is hope. In recent years I have heard the blasphemous use of “the Lord’s” name diminishing in favor of “The F-word.” So, you see, there is hope!

4. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” Well, it depends on how you define “remember,” and how you define “holy.” Listen to this hypothetical person entering a Consumer Electronics Store on a Sunday, “Holy Cow! Look at those HD TV Sale Prices!” Although not a Christian, I do remember the Sabbath, and honor it. I try to do as little as possible on the Sabbath. Of course, as my wife and boss may attest, I honor all the other days the same way.

5. “Honor your father and your mother.” Any parents out there, particularly parents of teens? Honor includes many things, none of which a large number of our nation’s children are not doing. And every year we see more children being tried and convicted as adults for heinous felonies. I’ll bet their parents, if they were not the honored victims, feel honored by their child’s felonies.

6. “You shall not murder.” This is a tricky one. Obviously God meant for us to kill our enemies; he was smiting enemies of his people all the time, and telling them to do the same. And he condoned collateral damage; read it in your “good book.” But what about killing doctors at women’s clinics? What about killing unarmed suspects? What about killing people in an un-declared war (actually, plural, wars)? Wouldn’t the collateral damage killings in an un-declared war be murder? And with the FBI statistic of 15,241 murders and non-negligent manslaughters in 2009, we are hardly having luck with the 6th Commandment. But murder is down substantially from previous years, thank gun-owners, VCDL, and the NRA!

7. “You shall not commit adultery.” Dang! I could write a year-long series of blogs on this commandment! Congress itself is a virtual house of ill-repute to give just one highly-visible example. And look at the behaviors of our modern day deities, movie stars, recording artists, athletes, mayors, presidents, and so forth. Adultery abounds throughout our “Christian Nation.”

8. “You shall not steal.” We are led by a gang of thieves called Congress. Need I say more? Look to our leaders and you will see thieves, and this includes corporate as well as political leaders.

9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Again, Congress comes to mind in the telling of false stories against our international neighbors. Ever find those WMD thingies, Mr. ex-president? And our intelligence agencies lie or cause our leaders to lie to us on a daily basis. So much for this commandment, eh?

10. “You shall not coven your neighbor’s house; you hall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” Well, thanks to ad agencies and the wonderful new products coming to the market place every day, we are coveting right and left! I do believe ox and donkey coveting are down, however.

So, folks, how Christian are we, really? Not much it seems. And, considering the Old Testament was written for Jews by Jews, we are not even a good Jewish nation. Christ, in the New Testament had only two commandments. How we are doing on just those two is fodder for a future essay.

Stay tuned.