We Are a Christian Nation

October 5, 2026

We founded the United States on Christian principles. Our founding holds that God created us as equals. He gave us each equal rights. Governments act with justice only when their actions have the consent of the governed. These principles come from God’s commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves.


Filius X. Publius
	We Are a Christian Nation.
General Ken
	That is a bit of a stretch. Only about two-thirds of us are Christian. That isn’t anywhere near all of us. What about the others?
Filius X. Publius
	You missed my meaning. I didn’t say we are a nation of Christians. Rather, we are a Christian nation. Our country’s founding principles are rooted in Christianity.
General Ken
	I am not sure which is worse. One way you’re saying one third of us are a religious minority, and don’t count. The other way you’re saying one third of us are at odds with our national principles.
Filius X. Publius
	No. As I just said, I am not talking about how many of us are Christians versus people of other faiths. Or with no faith. And our national principles do not exclude or minimize any citizens based on their faith.
General Ken
	What makes you think that your Christian commandments formed our national principles?
Filius X. Publius
	They led us to ban slavery, and let everyone have a say in writing our laws. That gave us each freedom of religion. We may each choose our own faith and practice it. Without government interference. We have no king. Rather, we all have equal rights.
General Ken
	We wrote those things into the Constitution some years after our founding. What proof is there that we founded our nation on those principles?
Filius X. Publius
	We also wrote them in the Declaration of Independence.
		WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
General Ken
	Ok. They are our founding principles. How can you say that they are Christian principles? The Declaration doesn’t even identify who we think God is. How are you certain it is Jesus, and not Allah? Or Budda? Or Brahman?
Filius X. Publius
	You’re looking at the wrong words. Our nation’s founding principles are that we are all created equal. That we all have God-given rights. And that the government’s just powers come from the consent of the governed. Those principles are based on a commandment endorsed by Jesus.
General Ken
	Which commandment? I don’t see much of a connection between the Declaration and the Ten Commandments. Where in the Bible did you find the phrases "created equal," "unalienable rights" and "the consent of the governed?"
Filius X. Publius
	No one copied those phrases from the Bible. Theologians gave a lot of thought to what it means to love our neighbor. The ideas behind those phrases developed from their inquiry over centuries. Banning slavery came out of that. The idea that good government requires the consent of the governed is very old. It was present in ancient Greece and in the Roman Republic. It has contended with the divine right of kings over the centuries. But the thoughts of those theologians also influenced the development of what kind of government we would have if we did love our neighbors.
General Ken
	That commandment seems to just tell us to love each other. How do you manage to read rules for government into that? Banning slavery? Equal rights? Consent of the governed?
Filius X. Publius
	We get there by asking what it means to love your neighbor. Let’s take slavery. If you love your neighbor, would you own slaves?
Blayden Balance
	Slow down. Shouldn’t we start by asking who is our neighbor?
Matthias
	That part is the easy part. A lawyer asked directly Jesus "who is my neighbor?" He answered that question with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
General Ken
	We had lawyers even back then?
Spawn of the Torch Lady
	My guess is that there was a lawyer slithering around in the Garden of Eden. It wasn’t Adam. It wasn’t Eve. And it certainly wasn’t God.
General Ken
	I remember the parable of the Good Samaritan. But Jesus never gave a specific answer. He left us guessing who counts as my neighbor.
Matthias
	The important part is that He didn’t put any limits on who is counts as a neighbor. In fact, the parable specifically included a Samaritan as a neighbor. This was at a time when Jews and Samaritans had no dealings with each other. If Jesus wanted to allow any limits on who is your neighbor, that would have been an easy one to add. The Jews he was teaching that day wouldn’t have had a problem with excluding Samaritans from being neighbors. Instead of giving us that limit, or any limit, He clearly avoided giving us a limit.

	Everyone is our neighbor.
Filius X. Publius
	So we have to ask, what does it mean to love someone? If you loved someone, would you force them to do all the work? Would you take all the benefits that their work earned, and leave them only some scraps? Would you make a person you loved into a beast of burden? Would you do those things so that you could live in comfort? While they live in squalor?
General Ken
	I agree that slavery is wrong. But how did anyone figure out slavery is a sin? There isn’t any commandment that says anything against slavery. The Gospels don’t say anything about banning slavery.
Blayden Balance
	There are even things in the New Testament on how masters should treat their slaves, and how the slaves were to act.
Matthias
	I don’t know what the process of inquiry the theologians followed. They didn’t land on our current understanding right away. The Church’s teachings didn’t address slavery at first. It was over 1,000 years before it started limiting slavery. It took over another 400 years to completely reject slavery.
General Ken
	Why not just ban it outright?
Matthias
	This was a new idea. And new ideas are always difficult to accept. Especially for the people who didn’t come up with the idea on their own. Accepting a new idea that calls for a major change to society is even more difficult. Slavery was almost everywhere. The leaders of the Church probably had divided opinions. The first step for the Church, the Church leaders must first agree it is a sin. Deciding that requires answering some difficult questions. Is slavery always a sin? Maybe some practices are not always sins. Maybe some other practices are always a sin.

	Also, getting the faithful to comply would also have been quite a problem. All of the slave owners would not want to give up the benefits their slaves produced. The slave owners would surely have offered arguments why it was holy for them to continue keeping slaves.
General Ken
	What arguments could they have made?
Matthias
	I didn’t say they would have had good arguments. Only that they would have offered some justification for themselves. Remember Senator John Pettit of Indiana. In 1854 he claimed that "all men are created equal" was a "self-evident lie". When men fear losing their "property," they will say anything to keep it.
General Ken
	But that still leaves us with a big jump to get to the American Revolution.
Blayden Balance
	There is also another problem. How do republics in ancient Greece and Rome relate to the "love your neighbor" commandment?
Filius X. Publius
	Since the birth of Christ kings or emperors ruled most of the Mediterranean world. But there were exceptions. Some city-states and monasteries governed themselves as republics. Although republics were uncommon, they did exist.
General Ken
	Why didn’t everyone change their government to a republic?
Blayden Balance
	Few dictators willingly give up power.
General Ken
	Who said anything about dictators?
Blayden Balance
	Kings and emperors are dictators. They may have come to power through hereditary succession, or by conquering a land. But their word is law. Their usual response when anyone wishes to take away their power is to have the rebels killed. That qualifies them as dictators.

	Dictators resist giving up power. It doesn’t matter if the new ruler would be a new dictator or a republic.
General Ken
	Ok. You said there were some republics. How did they work?
Filius X. Publius
	Many republics were "merchant republics," governed by some collaboration between the merchants and some nobles. These republics modeled themselves on the Roman Republic, rather than the Athenian Democracy.

	These republics kept alive the ideas that no one was born to rule. They didn’t necessarily go as far as holding that everyone was equal. But decision making wasn’t in the hands of a single ruler.
General Ken
	So how did we get to be so fortunate? How did America get our government of the people, by the people, and for the people?
Filius X. Publius
	We had governed ourselves for over 100 years. Officially the King ruled us. But we handled the day-to-day governing ourselves. We wrote our own laws. We elected people to our colonial legislatures. And we had over a decade developing our ideas about the rights of the people and the proper role of government.
General Ken
	What? Was there suddenly an outbreak of deep thinking about government?
Filius X. Publius
	Yes. By necessity. As a result of the French and Indian War. That war was part of the Seven Years War, a wide ranging war between France and England. England won. After winning, the King and Parliament needed to raise money to pay for the war. They needed to raise taxes. Taxes were unpopular among taxpayers everywhere, as always. Those living in Britian had a vote in Parliament. We didn’t. Their solution was to tax the colonies. To tax us.

	They tightened control over us, and raised our taxes without our consent. We repeatedly made our case for our rights as Englishmen. In making those arguments we sharpened our views on what is a proper government. We pled our case for over a decade. The King and Parliament continued squeezing us for more taxes. The results were the "shot heard round the world" and the Declaration of Independence.
General Ken
	So we summarized that view on proper government in that quote from the Declaration. But how can you be sure that is a Christian view of good government?
Filius X. Publius
	Well, it was Christians pleading for our rights. And that wrote the Declaration. The principles they declared are for the kind of government for those who love their neighbors as themselves.
General Ken
	Perhaps it would help if you connected the dots. How does "love your neighbor" and "no one is born to rule" get to be "consent of the governed"? Or "inalienable rights"? Or "created equal"?
Filius X. Publius
	Connecting those dots is easy. Especially if we look at all the words in that commandment. It says more than just that we love our neighbor. We must love our neighbors *as ourself*.

	The best starting point is to recognize Who created us, and gave us the commandment to love our neighbor as well as we love ourselves. Also, God made us all equal.
Blayden Balance
	WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal
Filius X. Publius
	If no one is born to rule with everyone else born to serve, then we must be free. If we love our neighbor as ourself, then we want our neighbor to be free, also. And to have equal rights.
Blayden Balance
	[A]ll Men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Filius X. Publius
	Of course, when we argued with the King and Parliament about our rights, we couldn’t let them tell us they were taking back some rights that they had given us. It is our position that our rights don’t come from King and Parliament. Our rights come from God. King and Parliament could not take those rights away from us. No one can.

	Not everyone agrees that no one is born to rule. History shows us that there are always people around who want to be king. So we form governments to protect our freedom and our rights.
Blayden Balance
	That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men
Filius X. Publius
	But if no one can decree laws, how can we make laws forbidding crimes such as theft and murder? The only way we can outlaw those crimes is if the government makes laws that apply to everyone, and that everyone agrees to.
General Ken
	Everyone? Is there anything you can get everyone to agree to? Even something as important and obvious as outlawing murder?
Filius X. Publius
	Justice doesn’t require that each and every person agree with any particular law. But we need general agreement on how we make our laws. We can get by with majority rule. But the laws passed by the majority must apply to everyone. To be just, the laws must also apply to the majority. We must all have equal rights, even those in the minority on any issue. Even the majority cannot take away anyone’s rights.
Blayden Balance
	Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed
Filius X. Publius
	Our experience with the King and Parliament showed that even a government that once respected the people’s rights might change. It might start to limit or disregard our rights. When that happens, that government has failed to act with justice. Then we have the right to change the government, if we can. If we cannot make the government change, then we have the right to replace it.
Blayden Balance
	That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
Filius X. Publius
	When we rid ourselves of a government that abused our rights, then we must make a new government. One that we will demand respect and protect our rights.
Blayden Balance
	[I]t is the Right of the People to . . . institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
General Ken
	Ok. That connects the dots. But all of those connections depend on all men being equal.
Matthias
	Yes, it does. That rule guided all of that protesting for our rights as Englishmen. It guides all of the ideas about what government should be. That rule is the logical conclusion from "love our neighbor as ourself."
General Ken
	Ok. Our founding principles are all based on the second greatest commandment.

	We haven’t always lived up to those principles. In fact, it took us 90 years and a bloody civil war before we ended slavery.
Matthias
	Yes, it did. Earlier you wondered about the Church’s delay in banning slavery. We declared our independence just as Christian countries were starting to restrict the slave trade. Banning slavery came later. Both for those other countries, and for us.
Blayden Balance
	The original draft of the Declaration of Independence condemned slavery. It called slavery a cruel war against human nature. Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, wrote that. The Second Continental Congress removed the entire paragraph. Probably to avoid losing the support of the slave states.
General Ken
	So we figured out some of what it means to love our neighbors. But we failed to live up to it.
Matthias
	Unfortunately, that is a common story throughout history. It remains a challenge for us today.

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