America Is a Christian Nation

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
—Psalm 33:12

You are likely aware of the increasing instances in which our government forbids any acknowledgment of God or religious expression in the public square. These efforts range from banning nativity scenes in town squares to prohibiting prayers using Jesus’s name at high school football games. All these efforts are built on the principle of the “separation of church and state.”

If you listen long enough to the American Civil Liberties Union or other left-wing groups like the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, you may become convinced that the bedrock principle of this nation was that America must be protected from religion. We are told that our country’s founders were secularists and deists, sprinkled with only a few Christians, who came to this nation seeking above all other things to build a wall between the government and Christianity. We are told the founders did not want Christianity to have any influence on public policy. Now that version of American history belongs in the same category as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. It is complete fiction. I realize it is politically incorrect to say this, but it is true. America was founded as a Christian nation. This week we will discover that truth from history and learn how that truth ought to impact our decision on election day.

Of the founding fathers who framed our nation’s constitution, only a few were deists. The vast majority of those who founded our nation were evangelical Christians. In fact, 52 out of the 55 signers of the Constitution were evangelical believers. These same men formed organizations like the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society. These men were hardly neutral toward Christianity. Just look at the requirements a person had to meet in order to attend the constitutional convention. For example, Article 22 of the constitution of Delaware says, “Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house or appointed to any office or place of trust shall make and subscribe to the following declaration: ‘I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.” Many state constitutions said the same thing.

This is significant because the people who crafted those requirements are the same people who attended our constitutional convention. They were not neutral toward Christianity.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “America Is a Christian Nation” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.