America: A Christian Nation?

In “Atheists, Conservatives, and Christianity,” Steve Warshawsky proffers his opinion on Ryan Sager’s book, The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party. In this article, Warshawsky argues that there is currently an attack on Christianity in this country and that this “attack on Christianity…is contrary to the American tradition.” The support provided for this argument by Warshawsky is flawed to the point of being preposterous. While I will agree with Warshawsky that Christianity did play a central role in Western and American history, there is very little else in his argument that warrants any merit. One of the key premises of Warshawsky’s argument is that America is a “’Christian nation’…since it certainly is not a Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist nation.” The underlying assumption that Warshawsky makes in asserting this, is that America must be a religious nation. While it is true that the majority of Americans identify as Christian, separation of church and state insists upon keeping the religious sphere separate from the political one.

In light of his opinion that America is a “Christian nation,” Warshawsky asks “by what political, moral, or logical principle should the views of religious minorities and non-believers take precedence over those of the vast majority of Christian Americans?” By posing this question, Warshawsky makes two major erroneous assumptions. The first is that those who self-identify as Christian actually are actively engaged in being Christian; the second is that this majority of Christians is a cohesive unit.

According to an article entitled “The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong,” Bill McKibben asserts that according to a poll, “only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels.” More surprisingly, McKibben states that “three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that ‘God helps those who help themselves’” – even assuming that all non-Christians answered in the affirmative, they would only constitute a little more than a quarter of the vote. Thus almost 50% of those who responded to this question were Christians who believe that this is actually a Biblical message. If this is the standard of Christianity in America, can it truly be said that America is a “Christian nation”?

Even assuming that everyone who self-identifies as “Christian” is truly following the Christian faith, it is a mistake to see them as a cohesive unit. Although approximately three-quarters of America identifies as Christian, this bloc can be divided into several smaller groups such as Protestants, Catholics, and Evangelicals; the fact that all groups are clustered under the umbrella of “Christianity” does not directly imply alignment of interests, not even social ones. This is clearly highlighted with respect to gay marriage. Although 83% of evangelicals were strongly opposed to gay marriage as of 2003, the issue was not nearly as important to mainline Christians or Roman Catholics. In fact, over the past 7 years, the number of mainline Christians opposed to gay marriage has decreased by 20% while that of Roman Catholics has decreased by 19%. Empirical evidence shows that it is a mistake to treat all Christians as sharing the same views.

Clearly Warshawsky’s argument is riddled with errors. In addition to the errors highlighted above, Warshawsky similarly overstates the unity of purpose and outlook of American conservatives. With both of his key premises regarding Christianity and conservatism lacking any form of concrete foundation, Warshawsky presents an argument that is poorly supported and ultimately unpersuasive.