Liberal British news site The Guardian asks whether the United States is a Christian nation:
Is America still a Christian country? It’s obviously full of people who call themselves Christians; and certainly full of religious believers in a way difficult for many Europeans to understand or to accept. But is what modern Americans believe actually Christianity at all? When the mainstream churches went into an apparently irreversible decline towards the end of the 20th century, this was interpreted as a decline of liberal Christianity, and its replacement by fundamentalism. But is the church of Rick Warren anything more than vaguely therapeutic moralistic deism?
The question is hardly a new one. It was raised as least as long ago as the late 19th century by Henry Adams, who wondered whether the American faith in progress and in self-improvement was really the same thing as traditional Christianity. But it’s still an interesting one. Has the evangelical movement turned itself into an entirely new religion, unrecognisable to “orthodox” European Christianity: a reinterpretation of the Christian myths almost as strange as Mormonism? Consider the YouTube video of a Nascar chaplain praying for all the sponsors of the event, from Toyota to Sunoco, and then thanking God for his “hot wife” before finishing with the doxology “Boogity boogity boogity. Amen”. Is this really anything that traditional theologians could recognise as Christian? Or is it just a wrapper round some mixture of superstition and advertising?
A Christian is one who follows the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ taught us to love GOD above all else and love each other as we love ourselves. He taught peace and love throughout his short journey on this earth and that is what we are to do also. Many people who are Christians do not go around spouting, but doing the work of the Lord on this planet. They are quiet workers who renonate love. If someone is thankful for their life, their wife, etc. and says so publicly what is the problem. He may not have used words that you would use, but he expressed love and appreciation in his own way. Give people an opportunity to not be you and you not be them and we will all be able to spread joy and love much easier. ~ Susan
I think a more important question to ask: Is the “Christian” Church Christian??? It is interesting to consider this question in light of Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, Williard’s The Great Omission, and Wesley’s Sermon The Almost Christian. Some years ago a speaker told a group of 25+ clergy at a continuing education event on Evangelism that 95% of the people we preach to on Sunday mornings have not been converted. A couple years ago the Southern Baptists heard that 85% of the people in their Churches on Sunday weren’t converted. Have we ever been a Christian nation??? I wonder!
Media coverage of this is what we present to the world. How can another country judge us by that? As a member of a small church with a great outreach ministry, I know that we are bible believing, saved by grace congregation. There are many of us around here. Of coarse we live in what is called the Bible Belt so does that make us an exception? I don’t believe so. We could turn the question around and see what comes back!