{"id":344,"date":"2007-10-10T23:08:13","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T23:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html"},"modified":"2007-10-10T23:08:13","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T23:08:13","slug":"what-exactly-is-a-christian-na","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html","title":{"rendered":"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In thinking about Senator John McCain\u2019s comments in his interview with Beliefnet<\/a>— that America is a Christian nation–I spent some time online trying to figure out what the substance of the label is. Certainly \u2018Christian nation\u2019 sounds like it should be a clear concept, but I\u2019m not sure that it is. And the various evangelical websites I explored didn\u2019t shed much light on the question either.<\/p>\n


\nIs it a historic statement, referring to the orientation of our Founding Fathers? Certainly, many of them were practicing Christians who took their religion seriously. But, as John Meacham points out<\/a>, they were at great pains to explicitly keep religion out of our Constitution\u2013for either its specific provisions or the rationale for its implementation. Steve Benen observes<\/a> that the fact that the founders were Christian doesn\u2019t make America a Christian nation any more than them being male makes America a male nation.
\nIs it a statement about specific policies we should be upholding? Certainly there are certain policy positions that are common to those who hold that America is a Christian nation, from anti-abortion to anti-gay marriage, to prayer in schools. These are clearly positions most evangelicals support. But other positions that garner strong support<\/a> in these groups are tax cuts, small government, and “strict Constitutionalist” judges. What\u2019s Christian about any of those? It sounds like conservatives are claiming the Christian banner to unite under, but given how few of the positions they take are explicitly Christian, it throws their claim of operating from Christian concerns into real doubt.
\nDoes it refer to specific values or principles? McCain alludes to this when he says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We were founded as a nation on Judeo-Christian principles. There’s very little debate about that. And I think the noblest words ever written are, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all, all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as Rabbi Stern correctly points out<\/a>, these “principles” are so broad that it is both meaningless and divisive to label them “Christian.” McCain stops quoting before the end of the sentence from the Declaration of Independence: “\u2026are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These certainly are American values, but I defy anyone to tell me what is explicitly Christian about them. Christians also support love, compassion, and generosity but that doesn\u2019t mean these are uniquely Christian qualities.
\nMcCain\u2019s statement strikes me as a particularly awkward and incoherent statement of a position that may sound compelling in theory but has no meaningful basis or substance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In thinking about Senator John McCain\u2019s comments in his interview with Beliefnet— that America is a Christian nation–I spent some time online trying to figure out what the substance of the label is. Certainly \u2018Christian nation\u2019 sounds like it should be a clear concept, but I\u2019m not sure that it is. And the various evangelical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jewish-issues"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway? - Virtual Talmud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway? - Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In thinking about Senator John McCain\u2019s comments in his interview with Beliefnet— that America is a Christian nation–I spent some time online trying to figure out what the substance of the label is. Certainly \u2018Christian nation\u2019 sounds like it should be a clear concept, but I\u2019m not sure that it is. And the various evangelical…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Virtual Talmud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-10-10T23:08:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Joshua Waxman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway? - Virtual Talmud","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway? - Virtual Talmud","og_description":"In thinking about Senator John McCain\u2019s comments in his interview with Beliefnet— that America is a Christian nation–I spent some time online trying to figure out what the substance of the label is. Certainly \u2018Christian nation\u2019 sounds like it should be a clear concept, but I\u2019m not sure that it is. And the various evangelical…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html","og_site_name":"Virtual Talmud","article_published_time":"2007-10-10T23:08:13+00:00","author":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html","name":"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway? - Virtual Talmud","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-10-10T23:08:13+00:00","dateModified":"2007-10-10T23:08:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/2007\/10\/what-exactly-is-a-christian-na.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Exactly Is a Christian Nation, Anyway?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/","name":"Virtual Talmud","description":"Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, where politics and pop culture meet 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/b2c907457be70b05b78f556cde42041f","name":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/6ea\/6eaad0ba16ec89046c9580c3b08d2e4cx96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Joshua Waxman"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/author\/jwaxman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/virtualtalmud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}