A Judeo-Christian nation?
“First, did America ever consider itself a Judeo-Christian nation? Secondly, if it did, what was the moment or event in which it ceased to do so?” This is the question Rep. Forbes asked in the US Congress following a remark of President Obama while on visit in Turkey, in which he said that the US was not a Judeo-Christian nation.
Forbes answers to this that “While America has always welcomed individuals of diverse faiths and nonfaith, we have never ceased to be a Judeo-Christian nation” (see here and here)
If Forbes’ answer is accurate, there are however deeper issues at stake. The next questions to ask should be: “If America is indeed a Christian nation, how is it that it has failed to maintain Christianity as a cohesive social force? Why is Christianity precisely unable to maintain social cohesion? Why is it, therefore, that America stands on the same level as Western Europe–much less outspoken in claiming her Christian heritage–in having created deism, secularism, atheism, multiculturalism, etc?” As I explained in the two posts linked above, the US was born at a time in history when scientific naturalism and a new conception of man as autonomous being–themselves products of the Christianized Western European mind–were transforming even the Christian faith, thus accelerating a loss that had begun centuries earlier. The roots of this loss should be sought in our very concept of what faith is and in the relationship we have built between humanity and God.
