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Recently there was a letter titled Not a Christian Nation. This letter rightly pointed out that the first amendment forbids the establishment of a national religion in the United States while trying to claim that America is not a Christian nation. While the Government may not be able to recognize American as a Christian nation and had the opportunity to in 1894 when they had the choice to add an amendment to recognize Jesus as the supreme authority of human affairs.
The founders envisioned a nation build on Judeo-Christian values. What makes America a Christian nation is not the government but the people. The pew research center found in 2024 that 63% of Americans are Christian while in 2007 they estimated 78% of Americans to be Christian. When Thomas Jefferson wrote 250 years that we are given certain unalienable rights by our creator he was not thinking of Allah or Buddha but we can only reasonably assume he was thinking of the Christian God. Christianity is woven into almost every aspect of America, America's first European settlers were Christians fleeing persecution, God is mentioned in almost every patriotic song like God Bless America, the president goes to a Christian church every inauguration day., etc.
Even with the nation not having an official religion it would be inaccurate to say we are an Islamic nation or another religion other that a Christian nation. Before independence Thomas Paine used the Bible in Common Sense trying to convince Americans of independence saying that America has the chance to start the world anew for the first time since the days of Noah, a comparison to the story of Noah's Ark. The idea that Church and state should be separated, while not in the constitution, should not be thought of as keeping the Church out of government but as keeping government out of the Church.
While America's founding documents may not explicitly claim America as a Christian nation the people for more that 250 years have made America into a Christian Nation.
God Bless America.
LUCAS BOWER
Williamsport
Submitted by email