Dennis Prager poses the question:
“Are we a Judeo-Christian country with liberty for people of every, and of no, faith? Or are we a secular country that happens to have within it a large number of individuals who hold Judeo-Christian values?”
His answer is the former. He also notes:
“…the Founders regarded America as a Second Israel, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, the “Almost Chosen” People. This self-identification was so deep that Thomas Jefferson, today often described as not even a Christian, wanted the seal of the United States to depict the Jews leaving Egypt at the splitting of the sea. Just as the Jews left Egypt, Americans left Europe.”
Some may have thought that way, but is it theologically accurate? I prefer Dr. Albert Mohler’s take:
“America is not Christian by constitutional provision or creedal affirmation — but its people are overwhelmingly Christian by self-affirmation. Thoughtful evangelicals will not overestimate the convictional character of this self-identification. Secularists ought not to overestimate its superficiality.”
In other words, America is not a religious state per se. However, many of its inhabitants hold to values which flow from a Judeo-Christian framework and therefore Christmas trees and “Merry Christmas” greetings are entirely appropriate. After all, secularists ought not to understate the pervasiveness of religion’s influence among Americans (see my post on charity, for example). Nevertheless, committed evangelicals (“Christians” who believe that Jesus is the only way to God and that the Bible is entirely trustworthy) ought to also recognize that there is a difference between external submission to a religious milieu and a deep-seated, internalized, biblical worldview flowing ought of a regenerate heart and lifestyle.
Also relevant is Darryl Hart’s latest book, which I am still reading.
Feel free to push back. I’m trying to grow in the clarity of my convictions on these matters.