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From: craig@think.COM (Craig Stanfill)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christian Roots of the U.S.
Message-ID: <6171@think.COM>
Date: Tue, 9-Sep-86 10:03:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: think.6171
Posted: Tue Sep  9 10:03:17 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Sep-86 05:35:02 EDT
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Reply-To: craig@godot.think.com.UUCP (Craig Stanfill)
Organization: Thinking Machines, Cambridge, MA
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Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:16 net.religion.christian:4595

I think the root of this argument lies in realizing the difference
between the PEOPLE of the U.S. and the GOVERNMENT of the U.S.  

1. The People.  The original settlers of many of the colonies, including
Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, came to the new
world to escape religous persecution (i.e. the established church).  The
settlers of other colonies, such as Virginia, came to the new world for
economic opportunity, and brought their established church (the Church
of England) with them.  Since then, people have come to America either
to escape persecution in their homeland (e.g. the Jews from eastern
Europe, the middle class from Viet Nam), or to escape economic hardship
at home (e.g. the Irish fleeing famine or the Mexicans fleeing poverty),
or to escape tyranny (e.g. Soviet and eastern block defectors today).

Without denying that Americans are, on the whole, a profoundly religous
people, or denying the importance of religion in the founding some of
the original colonies, people have not, on the whole, come to America
because it is ``a Christian Country,'' but because it was (and often
still is) the only place they could run to.

2. The Government.  When the U.S. Government was founded, Europe still
had vivid memories of bitter religous wars and of religous persecution.
One of the results of this was `The Enlightenment,' which took many (but
not all) aspects of Christian morality and packaged them in a framework
of reason.  The basic idea was that reason alone was sufficient for the
establishment of a just government.  This led to the then-radical
concept of separation of Church and State.  The hope was that, if people
could not agree on God (which they still cannot), they could at least
agree on some basic rights that men had, and on what steps were
necessary to guarantee those rights.

One problem today (as always) is that this concensus on the rights of
man and on the role of government is not universal.  In the case of
abortion, we see a case where a fundamental right is in dispute: some
think a fetus has a fundamental right to life, others think not.  In the
case of poronography, there are those who think the government should
legislate morality, rather then defend individual rights.  In the case
of school prayer, some attack the very separation of Church and State.

Some individuals involved in the above issues attempt to justify their
positions by reference to the ``Christian Heritage'' of the United
States.  They identify one position as being in concord with
Christianity (as they see it), they claim that the U.S. is a Christian
Nation, and therefore the Christian position ought to be the position of
the government.  

And this is where the issue of our Christian Heritage becomes important.
While most Americans (like most people of European ancestry) are
Christian, most immigrants did NOT come here to establish a Christian
commune, and the government was founded on strictly secular principles.