Recently President Barack Obama, during an official overseas trip, declared that the United States is not a Christian nation. To my knowledge, this is the first time in our nation’s history that a president made such a statement. Meanwhile, numerous presidents throughout our history have said the opposite. Most importantly, our founders declared that our rights come from God. That is the essence of the American experience.

           
The same week President Obama made his declaration, Newsweek magazine had a cover story---just in time for Holy Week 2009---on the decline and fall of “Christian America.” In fact, on the first page of the article itself, they have a large sidebar with large words: “The End of Christian America.”[1] The article quoted one of my modern heroes, Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said: “The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.”[2] Jon Meachem of Newsweek adds this comment to Mohler’s insight: “There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. That is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory.”[3] The reason Newsweek sees the demise of “Christian America” is the growing numbers of non-religious Americans, at the expense of a shrinking Christian population. Yet still about three-quarters of Americans claim to be Christians, but many profess faith, while not possessing it.

           
There is an irony to the statistics this magazine cites. John Rabe, my colleague at Coral Ridge Ministries-TV, who serves as the host for the “Learn 2 Discern” commentaries, points out: “The Newsweek cover story, entitled ‘The Decline and Fall of Christian America,’ noted that the percentage of professing Christians in America had fallen to 76%. If we had a basketball game where the final score was 76-24, somehow I doubt that we’d describe the team with 76 as having ‘declined’ or ‘fallen.’”[4]

           
Well, is “Christian America” dead? Sean Hannity had a round-table discussion on this on his Fox News program, and guest Steven Mansfield observed, “We’re living on a borrowed legacy.”[5] I agree, but the legacy is still there. Just because President Obama or Newsweek declare we are no longer a Christian nation does not change our origins. We are still one nation under God because of our roots---despite what some liberal politicians, activist judges, or the secular media may say. Until the Declaration of Independence is no longer our nation’s birth certificate, America will always be one nation under God.

           
Anybody familiar with the true facts of American history has no other reasonable conclusion than that we began as a Christian nation. But if you say that America is or was a Christian nation, you will have quite a controversy on your hands.

· Our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, mentions God four times---and not in any minor way. God is the source of our rights, according to this document. The Declaration also argues that the British king is guilty of trying to take away something that God has given us; therefore, King George III ought not to be obeyed. If the ACLU interpretation of strict “separation of church and state” (really, the separation of God and state) were correct, then the Declaration would be unconstitutional (even though the founders said the Constitution is predicated on the Declaration as its foundation). Children would not be allowed to read it in school.

· The very same men who gave us the First Amendment also wrote the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 (and in 1789). This was one of our nation’s four most important founding documents---along with the Declaration (which mentions God four times), the Constitution (which was signed “in the Year of our Lord,”[6] ie., Jesus), and the Articles of Confederation (which mentions God this way: “whereas it has pleased the Great Governor of the World…”[7]). In the Northwest Ordinance, the founders’ goal was that they would retain a certain degree of uniformity as new states were being added to the new nation. Article III of the Northwest Ordinance states: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.”[8] Religion and morality, according to our founders, were to be driving forces in school; they were not to be systematically censored as they are so often today.

· The Treaty of Paris of 1783, negotiated by Ben Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, acknowledged the Trinity as it made official our separation from Great Britain. This was the peace treaty that formally ended the Revolutionary War, which had ended unofficially at the Battle of Yorktown two years earlier. How does it begin? “In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity.”[9] I suppose this too would be unconstitutional. Does that mean we will have to go back to being British subjects? That is absurd, but so also is the driving out of anything Christian from the public arena from a nation with such thorough Christian roots.

· Chaplains have been in the public payroll from the very beginning. This is true for both the Congress and the military. They would have to go. (In fact, the ACLU has unsuccessfully challenged chaplains.) Before we were even a nation, our government allocated public funding for congressional and military chaplains. The entire chaplain system absolutely violates the current, popular, and totally wrong view of strict “separation of church and state.” If the ACLU interpretation were correct, then the founding fathers were grossly violating “church and state” on this matter, as in many others.

· The Constitutions of all fifty states mention God in one way or other. Every single one of them, usually in the preamble. We pointed this out earlier with a few examples; here are a few more instances:

·        “We, the people of Alaska, grateful to God…”[10]

·        “The People of Connecticut acknowledging with gratitude, the good providence of God, in having permitted them to enjoy a free government…”[11]

·        “We, the people of the State of Florida, grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty…”[12]

·         “We, the people of Missouri, with profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and grateful for His goodness…”[13]

Each of these constitutions would be unconstitutional according to the ACLU’s logic. So would the other forty six.

           
We could go on and on. In fact, this a short portion of my new book coming out in July of this year: The Book That Made America: The Role of the Bible in the Founding of America (Ventura, CA: Nordskog Publishing, 2009).