Over at Wizbang! , blogger Jay Tea writes about the claim that the USA is a Christian nation.  He agrees with the claim despite the fact that he is not a Christian.  I, however, disagree with the claim.

Here is the response that I gave to Jay.

“Although I am a Christian (in spite of my failure to act like one), I have trouble believing that the USA was founded on Judeo-Christian principles because I have yet to read just what those Judeo-Christian principles are. Nobody that I know of has ever spelled them out.

Here is a test. Go through the Bible and find all of the rights that God has given to Man. Does the Bible say that God gave Man the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? No, it doesn't. I know of only one biblical right, and it is found in John 1:12, which reads as follows:

“Yet to all who received him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he [Jesus] gave the right to become children of God.”

It is one thing to say that the Christian faith thrives in the USA, but it is another thing to say that the USA is a Christian nation. The latter claim implies that the majority of U.S. residents behave the way that Christians are supposed to behave, which is a claim that can be disputed.”

What standard is a person supposed to use to determine whether or not the USA is a Christian nation?

Should that standard be the percentage of U.S. citizens who claim to be Christians? *Or should that standard be the percentage of U.S. citizens who claim to be Christians and who also behave the way that Jesus expects Christians to behave?

It isn't enough for U.S. citizens to claim to be Christians.  People can claim to be Christians and still act like the goats in Christ's parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46).

I would go so far as to say that a person can claim to be a conservative Christian and still be one of those goats.

It isn't enough for U.S. citizens to do things in Jesus' name, because not all people who do things in Jesus' name will go to Heaven, as Jesus indicates in Matthew 7:21-23.

It isn't even enough for U.S. citizens to attend church.  Being inside a church no more makes one a Christian than being inside a garage makes one an automobile.

In the end, there is no human way to determine if the USA is a Christian nation, because it takes an examination of the human heart to determine if one is truly a Christian, and the only one capable of making such an examination is God.  As God told the prophet Samuel, "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."**

I would consider it accurate to claim that the USA is a nation where the Christian faith thrives, where Christians have an influence on the culture.  Yet, the claim that the USA is a Christian nation is a claim that cannot be verified on this side of eternity.


*Grammatical note: Yes, I know that it is improper English grammar to start a sentence with the word Or.

**1 Samuel 16:7

 *“Dear Sponsor, I am very happy because in a far place called Oklahoma lives a person who loves me.” – Ruth, age 6

In Another Land

“Daddy, I am shivering for it’s cold outside.
The scary things in my world make me want to hide.
I know you love me, but just why I do not understand.
I’m glad to be your little child in another land.”

She was only six years old when she came into my life,
Born into a cold, cruel world full of poverty and strife.
She needed someone to love her and to point the way to God.
That is when she touched my heart and became my child of love.

“Daddy, I’m not hungry now. You gave me food to eat.
It’s easier to walk to school with new shoes on my feet.
I know you love me, but just why I do not understand.
I’m glad to be your little child in another land.”

Sickness left her. She grew strong – a miracle in her world!
It was plain for all to see that God was working in this girl.
Then one day there came the time that I had been praying for.
My little child gave her life to the Savior, Christ the Lord.

“Daddy, I’m a new girl now. Jesus gave me a brand new heart.
Even though you’re far away, we won’t always be apart.
I always knew you loved me, and now I understand.
God made you love this little child in another land.”

Other children in the world need special friends to care,
Ones willing to touch their lives and the love of God to share.
Will you be one of those to lend a helping hand?
Will you share your love with a child in another land?

*“Hello my loved Dad. I hope that your life is bright and that you have the best friendship with the best friend we can have, our good God. . . I am enjoying the project and learning from God’s word. . . Please pray that God will bring prosperity to our project as I am not the only one here. There are many other teenagers and children who receive many benefits because of the great help you are giving us. . . I have to say bye. Remember that I love you and that you are my great support.” – Ruth, age 11

*Quotes from real letters from a child sponsored through Compassion International.

“In Another Land” written by Ruth’s sponsor.

If you are looking for a way to participate in the Great Commission, if you are seeking a way to demonstrate God's love, grace and mercy in a way that is concrete and practical, then sponsoring a child through Compassion International is a wonderful way to do so.

 I used to enjoy blogging on a daily basis, but during the past few months I haven't been blogging like I used to. The main reason for my inactivity is depression. I have it, and I have to take medication for it in order to function normally.

During the past three months, depression has gotten the better of me. One thing fueling my depression is my separation from my wife and my six-year-old son. While I live and work in Oklahoma, my wife and son are in California, where my wife is an out-patient at a cancer hospital. I haven't been with them since last November, and I won't get to be with them again until some time this coming Summer.

I am also separated from the young woman who calls me Dad.

Her name is Ruth, and she lives in Colombia. When Ruth was age 6, I began supporting her after her earthly father abandoned her. I cannot forget what she put in her first letter to me. Her letter began with these words: "Dear Sponsor, I am very happy because in a far place called Oklahoma lives a person who loves me. I was sad because my father doesn't think about my needs."

Over the years, I encouraged Ruth to trust in Jesus and to grow in the Christian faith. One day, Ruth decide that I was her real earthly father, and from that time on she constantly told me that she was my daughter.

Well, I lost contact with my daughter when she turned 18 and left the child sponsorship program through which I supported her. Ever since then, I have been searching for her. Recently, I made contact with an evangelist who speaks English and who lives in Ruth's city. The evangelist is helping me to locate Ruth. Thus far I have received no word about Ruth. There is still hope that she will be found, since the evangelist can make contact with Ruth's pastor. Yet, as I wait, my heart yearns to be reunited with Ruth, as well as with my wife and son, and often I feel depressed.

Having depression doesn't mean that there is something wrong with my faith. A person can be a Christian and still have clinical depression, which is a medical problem, not a spiritual one.

Granted, depression can have a spiritual cause, such as not knowing about the free gift of eternal life that we can receive through faith in Jesus. It is easy to feel depressed if you don't know where you will spend eternity. It is easy to feel depressed if Jesus isn't your anchor during times of trouble.

Yet, you can have clinical depression (such as I do) even if Jesus is your anchor. Having clinical depression isn't a sin, and neither is seeking medical help for depression.

I do wish that pastors would address this issue more often. There is no need for a Christian to suffer from clinical depression when medical help is available.

  In a TownHall article titled "Why Liberals Hate Christians" , Kevin McCullough writes, "Liberals in America despise Christians of true faith."

How does McCullough explain the existence of Christians who are liberals?  Does he deny that they are true Christians, or does he believe that they hate themselves?

McCullough's statement is based on what he saw and heard when he watched Alexandra Pelosi's documentary "Friends of God" , which aired on HBO.

In regards to the documentary, Mc Cullough writes, "Pelosi's work is largely un-narrated. Yet even in the selection of the cuts used Pelosi's point is clear: cause Christians to appear as goofy, somewhat odd, and backwards as possible."

I hate to be the one to break the news, but there are Christians who are goofy, somewhat odd and backward.

Yes, it is goofy for a man to attempt to place five giant crosses in every state of the union.
 
Yes, it is somewhat odd for a truck stop to have chapel services.

As for being backward, a  recent TownHall story titled Evolution Memo Prompts Call for Apology refers to a man named Marshall Hall.  He is someone who believes that the Sun revolves around the Earth.  Having read some of Hall's rantings, my guess is that he would consider himself a Christian.
 
In all fairness to Mr. McCullough, his assessment of  Alexandra Pelosi's motive could be correct, that she is trying to present to the public a negative depiction of Christians.

Even if that assessment is correct, do all liberals hate Christians?

I think not.

Would it be correct to say that there are anti-Christian liberals who hate Christians?  Yes, it would be correct to say that, as bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan have demontrated.

Still, the title "Why Liberals Hate Christians" is misleading, because McCullough doesn't cite any evidence of liberals hating Christians.  Instead, he projects hatred into a film maker whom he admits to pre-judging: "In that Alexandra is the daughter of the nation's first feminist, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi it was all too easy to pre-judge where Alexandra's work would land."

McCullough ends his article by proclaiming that liberals are going to Hell: ". . . it is the reality in seeing the joy, peace, and contentment that we have and that they do not - that drives liberals to draw angry conclusions. Conclusions that will send them to a Godless eternity... "

Again, what about the liberals who are Christians?  I don't think that U.S. Senator Barack Obama (a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ) considers himself a person going into a godless eternity.

It would be wise not to paint liberals with such broad strokes.

P.S.: In case you are wondering, I am not a liberal Christian.  Instead, I am a member of the Christian Middle.

 In Matthew 15:1-3 we read the following:

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?"

Clearly, the Pharisees of antiquity highly valued traditions, even if those traditions conflicted with what was in the Tanak (a.k.a. Old Testament).

Modern religious people also tend to defend their traditions even if evidence suggests that those traditions are flawed, as illustrated by what many people claim about the authorship of the Pentateuch.

On a website produced by the Alpha Omega Institute, David Demick, MD, writes, “For many years now, the traditional authorship of Genesis has been under attack.”

Dr. Demick is correct about the authorship of Genesis. The belief that Moses wrote Genesis is a tradition.

For at least eight centuries, Bible scholars have been taking a close look at the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Pentateuch. Orthodox Jews claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in its entirety. Yet, not all rabbis have agreed with this claim.

In the 12th Century CE, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra observed that the Pentateuch contains information that would not have been known when Moses was alive. In the 13th Century, Rabbi Hezekiah ben Manoah made the same observation.

During the 15th Century, Rabbi Yosef Bonfils wrote the following in reference to a part of the Pentateuch:"Thus it would seem that Moses did not write this word here, but Joshua or some other prophet wrote it. Since we believe in the prophetic tradition, what possible difference can it make whether Moses wrote this or some other prophet did, since the words of all of them are true and prophetic?"

In 1998, Israeli Rabbi Simchah Roth wrote the following:
“Thus we have arrived at one of the most meaningful differences between orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism. Orthodoxy sees Torah as a document delivered from Heaven on a once-only basis whose validity is unchangeable for all time. Some Conservative Jews share this view. Many other Conservative Jews see Torah as a document in which is revealed for us the practical results of the ongoing attempt to ascertain the divine behest over a long period of time.”

So, it would be safe to say that certain Jews started the traditional claim that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, and certain other Jews have been challenging that tradition since the Middle Ages.

The alternate theory about the authorship of the Pentateuch is something called the Documentary Hypothesis, which says that the Pentateuch is a combination of different documents having different authors, instead of being a single document with just one author.

Although there is ample evidence to support the Documentary Hypothesis, the Moses-Only tradition is so ingrained among Christians that a number of them are performing all sorts of mental gymnastics in order to defend the tradition. Typically, they start with the conclusion that Moses is the only author of the Pentateuch and then try to make the data fit the conclusion. Thus, they are begging the question.

So, what motivates people to cling to a tradition about the Pentateuch’s origin when the data within the Pentateuch doesn’t support the tradition?

My guess is that the people clinging to the tradition believe that the authority of the Pentateuch depends on Moses being its only author.

I consider this belief to be the result of flawed logic. Rabbi Yosef Bonfils said it best when he said, “Since we believe in the prophetic tradition, what possible difference can it make whether Moses wrote this or some other prophet did, since the words of all of them are true and prophetic?”

We Christians know that the Pentateuch is authoritative simply because Jesus quoted from it whenever he taught.

Furthermore, since the 3rd Century CE, the New Testament Canon has contained a book that has an unknown author, that book being the book of Hebrews. In spite of the fact that author of Hebrews is unknown, Christians believe that the book of Hebrews is authoritative.

So, if a book in the New Testament can have an unknown authorship and still be authoritative, then why can’t a book in the Old Testament have an unknown authorship and still be authoritative?

The Bible scholars who support the Documentary Hypothesis aren’t denying the authority of the Pentateuch. They are denying a tradition about who wrote the Pentateuch. To fight tooth and nail to defend this particular tradition isn’t necessary.

Still, like the Pharisees of antiquity, some people will continue to cling to a tradition even if that tradition is flawed. That is the trouble with traditions.

Whether or not we are willing to admit it, our beliefs are shaped by traditions, and it isn’t unusual for our disagreements with others to be the result of clashing traditions.

It has been my observation that people tend not to be willing to have their traditions examined for accuracy. We humans – including we Christians – have a subconscious fear of having our traditions invalidated because an invalidation would reveal a flaw in our thinking, and a flaw in our thinking would reveal that we aren’t as great we pretend to be. The carnal person says, “I am great. Therefore, what I believe has to be correct because I am the one who believes it.”

I’ll give an example of a flawed tradition that Christians are reluctant to let go of. It is the belief that Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea. What Western Christians teach about the Exodus of the Israelites is based on this particular tradition.

Folks, in the languages that it was originally written in, the Bible doesn’t say that Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea. It says that Moses led the Israelites across a body of water that is called in Hebrew Yam Suph. The literal translation of Yam Suph is Sea of Reeds. Yes, ancient Egypt did have a body of water known as the Sea of Reeds, and it wasn’t the Red Sea.

In one of his commentaries, Rabbi Sam Shor writes, “The parting of the Sea of Reeds left such an indelible mark on the Jewish conscience, that even after the Jewish People had traversed the Sea and had seen the cessation of this supernatural event, they were acutely aware of the presence of G-d, even in the subtle, less obvious miracles that occur each and every day.” [Quote Source]

During his tenure at Florida State University, geologist William Tanner wrote a paper for the American Scientific Affiliation, in which Tanner uses both biblical and geological data to explain why the correct translation of Yam Suph is Sea of Reeds instead of Red Sea. Tanner concludes his paper with the following commentary: “One of the most interesting aspects of this discussion is not whether "Sea of Reeds" is correct (it is, as is easy to verify), but rather why translators continue to use "Red Sea," when the manuscripts provide a totally different identification, and when the additional details in the available sources require "Sea of Reeds" and do not permit "Red Sea." How is it that, in many versions, the correct rendition can be given in footnotes, but not in the main text? How does a scholar justify a deliberate switch? And how does the reader, who has no access to the ancient languages, know which version is correct?” [Quote Source]

I think I know the reason for the switch (as Tanner describes it). Translators continue to mistranslate Yam Suph as Red Sea because the correct translation would clash with the tradition that Western Christians have become accustomed to.

If Bible translators started giving the correct translation of Yam Suph, then Western Christians would accuse the translators of changing the Bible, when the accusation would be the opposite of the truth.

We Western Christians are more carnal than we are willing to admit, and our carnality would have us deny the truth rather than admit that a centuries-old traditional teaching is flawed.

 It has been said that Politics creates strange bedfellows.  Well, Religion can also create strange bedfellows, as indicated in a TownHall story titled Evolution Memo Prompts Call for Apology .

According to the story, a man named Marshall Hall wrote a memo on behalf of Georgia state lawmaker Ben Bridges, in which Hall claims that teachings contradicting creationism are the product of Rabbinic writings.

Now, the Anti-Defamation League is demanding that Bridges apologize for the memo.

Bridges has a problem bigger than that of having an anti-Semitic memo attributed to him.  He is also linked to a religious extremist who insists that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

That's right.  Marshall Hall insists that the Earth doesn't revolve around the Sun, but that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Not even Protestant Pharisees opposed to Evolution Theory make that claim. 

Recently, I read a commentary in which its author criticizes the belief that some people want to turn the USA into a Christian theocracy. Indeed, some recently-published books directly promote that belief.

Well, I just read in my local newspaper an article which reveals that the authors of those books are not too far from the truth.

The newspaper article describes what took place at a convention of the Tulsa County Republican Party. This particular Republican group adopted a political platform that includes the following planks:

- A Statement of principle that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge” and support for the teaching of creationism and the posting of the Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” in all public schools.

- Repeal of the Oklahoma lottery and banning of casino gambling.

Although I am currently registered as a Republican in order to vote in primaries (because Oklahoma doesn’t have open primaries), I am opposed to what the Tulsa County Republican Party is doing.

First, the Bible doesn’t say that gambling is a sin. Christian Pharisees say that gambling is a sin.

Second, creationism is a purely religious doctrine that is promoted by Christian Pharisees, who are also the ones who insist that the Ten Commandments be prominently displayed on public property. As for posting the motto “In God We trust” in public schools, that would be a waste of resources because that motto is already on all U.S. currency.

Folks, it is clear to me that it isn’t Christians who want to turn the USA into a theocracy. Instead, it is Protestant Pharisees who want to turn the USA into a theocracy, starting in Oklahoma, and they have succeeded in taking over the Tulsa County Republican Party.

Forget voting in primaries. As soon as I can, I am changing my voter registration back to “Independent”.

[Information Source: Tulsa World, Sunday, February 18, 2007, A23]