Is America a "Christian" Nation?

It's been a while since my last musings post. This one comes out of a discussion the Gent and I had recently on a football road trip. We were talking about the upcoming election, and then that morphed into "what are we going to teach Lil Bit about patriotism?" Then it became an exploration of what we believe about America, Christianity, our nation's founding and heritage, does God bless and judge nations the way He does people, and so on. Cause we're intellectuals like that and we actually really enjoy these types of discussions. More interesting than a book on cd, anyway. :)

I definitely don't have this all figured out yet. To try to explain the basis of my thought processes, I start with a lesson on the different spheres we interact with in life (courtesy of Dr. Del Tackett, a truly inspiring intellectual). Picture the spheres set up like Olympic rings - parts of them interact/overlap with other parts, but parts of it are separate.

Sphere 1 - God and man. (This sphere only has these two components.)
Sphere 2 - Family. Husband, Wife, Children.
Sphere 3 - Church. Christ, Leaders, Saints.
Sphere 4 - Labor. Owner, Worker, Material Things.
Sphere 5 - State. God, King, Citizens.
Sphere 6 - Community. Christ, Neighbors, Needy.

Here are two presuppositions we decided on.

We believe God, through His Son Jesus Christ, saves individual people (the God and man sphere). (John 1:12)

As told in the Old Testament, God had a special relationship with His chosen people, the Jewish nation. Because the Jews could not keep God's Law, they were separated from Him until God sent Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, all who accept Christ's atonement on our behalf are one in Him (1 Corinthians 12:13).

These two presuppositions led us to this question: does God save nations?

While we are still studying what Scripture has to say about this, our initial answer is no. Nations are made up of people, but it is people that God saves, not nations. This does not mean that God is not sovereign over the nations.

His Word makes that clear. God is sovereign over all nations, and He can intervene in the affairs of a nation. He can extend judgment and mercy over nations, just as He does people.

Psalm 33:12 says "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."
Psalm 2:1-6 says "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One. Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters. The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. Then He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying, I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill."
Psalm 99:1-2 says "The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; He sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion; He is exalted over all the nations."

So . . . God is sovereign over the nations. He has designed the "State" sphere. God is a God of order, not disorder. Government is part of His design for order. As Christians, we are called by the Lord to be subject to our rulers and leaders. We are to respect and pray for our nation's leadership, whether we agree with them or not. We can work to change leadership, but our attitude should always be civil.

Which leads us (not really, but follow me, here) to America. Is America God's chosen nation? And is America a Christian nation? We say no on both counts.

Here's what we'll be teaching our little girl: America is a wonderful country and we are blessed to live here. The majority of the people who founded our nation were Christians. They came to America because they wanted to be able to worship God freely, without being dictated to by a king or a specific denomination. They were brave people and they trusted the Lord. They relied on God's teachings when they created America's government. They asked Him for His help and guidance. We are proud of our country and we support it 100%, though we may not agree with every decision our government makes. That's why we work to change some things in our nation - because we love it so much, we want it to be the best nation it can be, the best in the world, because it is our homeland.

Whew, okay, enough for today! Still to come . . . a discussion of America's civil religion, and the role of morality in a nation.