“We are no longer a Christian nation . . .” is a quote that has circulated the web in all its glory. Some quotes include Senator Obama’s slightly extended quote claiming America as a nation defined by many religions.
Why does a politician get to define what kind of nation we are? Why does a presidential candidate? Senator McCain has responded to Senator Obama by saying that we are a Christian nation. Who put them in charge of the nation’s pulpits?
It would be so much simpler if we could appeal to the grand patriarch of the Christian religion in this nation to get a clear ruling. Except that we don’t have one. Let us appeal to the association of the churches in our country and allow them to gather a General Assembly from which they could issue a proclamation on the religiosity of this country.
Except, we don’t have one of them either. Oh, there are Councils of Churches, but large segments of the Christian population are not represented and would never be represented by the voices they speak with.
As I was going through the emails and the google searches and some blog commentary about the question of the religious nature of our country, a book prodded my memory and I pulled “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs” off my bookshelf (and I think that title is a misnomer). The first two chapters, about fifty pages, are early church, Christianity versus the pagan religions.
But the next 350 pages are all about Christians killing Christians-and that barely finishes the Reformation.
We don’t seem to learn the lessons of history. ‘Christian’ nations have a bloody history of wars and executions and killings. I don’t even want to call these killings martyrdoms. A Christian martyr is one killed for their Christian beliefs. When it is done by those outside of invisible church of Jesus Christ, that is martyrdom. When it is done by those inside the invisible church of Jesus Christ, that is fratricide, killing one’s brother or sister.
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