Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? pt 1.

Well folks its finally time!  My first blog post on Was America Founded as a Christian Nation, is finally here!  I've been waiting a long time for this book, and so far it hasn't disappointed me.  This first blog post is intended as an introduction to the main ideas of the book and give you a taste of the overall tone of the book.

In the book's preface, author John Fea introduces the question "Was America founded as a Christian Nation?" He shares his experiences in dealing with this question in his academic career by illuminating a very important problem that our culture has.  We live in a culture that would rather have 30 second sound bites than sit and listen to the full story.  We look to "experts" who can grab a handful of facts and spit them at us, and we graciously and eagerly swallow them up and use them as ammunition in our next volley in the culture wars.  Dr. Fea lets his readers know that this situation only leads to more problems than solutions in our quest for truth.  Dr. Fea then highlights a very important point one needs to consider while dealing with this problem.  A key piece of this origin problem lies in our failure to define our terms.  Dr. Fea shows the complexity of this point by listing three definitions for the word "Christian."  In our search, are we to think of the word Christian as orthodox doctrine?  He writes, "Such an approach would require us to examine either the nation's founding documents or the religious beliefs of the founders to see if those beliefs measure up to the standards of Christian orthodoxy as found in ancient formulations of faiths such as the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed."  Or should we look at Christian through the lens of orthopraxy?  Should we look at the behavior and practices of the founders to see if they lined up with Christian values and teachings found in the Bible.  How about a third option? When looking at the question of a Christian Nation, should we examine the character and devotion of the people who make up that nation?  Do you see where the problems arise?  With just one word in our question, we are presented with three more questions.  Dr. Fea looks at some of the other words next.  When we say founded what do we mean?  Are we talking about the year 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed?  Or how about 1787, when the Constitutional Convention drafted the Constitution?  At what point did we become a nation?  All of these questions that Dr. Fea poses to his readers hopefully sheds some light on the complexity of this question, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?  I'll leave you guys with an excerpt from the book that shows Dr. Fea's intentions in writing this fascinating book.

One of my goals in writing [this book] is to get Christians to see the danger of cherry-picking from the past as a means of promoting a political or cultural agenda in the present... Over the past five years I have given several talks about Christianity and the American founding to all kinds of audiences -- both secular and Christian.  What I have found is that most ordinary people come to a talk on this topic with their minds already made up.

Stay tuned for part 2!