A majority of Americans believe the nation's founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation, a new national survey revealed.
In the First Amendment Center’s annual survey measuring attitudes toward freedom of religion, speech and press, 55 percent of Americans said they believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. Furthermore, three out of four people who identify themselves as evangelical or Republican agree while about half of Democrats and independents do.
Compared to previous years, more Americans were found to support Christian activities in public schools. Most respondents (58 percent) say teachers in public schools should be allowed to lead prayers, up from 52 percent in 2005. Moreover, 43 percent say public schools should be allowed to put on Nativity re-enactments with Christian music while only 36 percent said so in 2005, according to the survey released Wednesday and titled "State of the First Amendment 2007."
Only 50 percent, however, said they would allow schools to teach the Bible as a factual text in history class, down from 56 percent in 2000.
"While the survey shows Americans highly value religious freedom, a significant number support privileging the religion of the majority, especially in public schools," said First Amendment Center senior scholar Charles Haynes.
Amid concerns from conservative Christians about the secularism of public schools, bestselling author Stephen Prothero, who wrote Religious Literacy, has expressed support for teaching the Bible in schools, saying that it plays a major part in the nation's culture and politics.
"The strong support for official recognition of the majority faith appears to be grounded in a belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, in spite of the fact that the Constitution nowhere mentions God or Christianity," Haynes argued in the survey report. "Of course, people define 'Christian nation' in various ways – ranging from a nation that reflects Christian values to a nation where the government favors the Christian faith."
In April, some 4,000 Christians, ranging from evangelicals to Pentecostals and mainline groups, assembled in Virginia Beach, Va., on the 400th anniversary of the first landing of English settlers in America to rededicate the nation to Christ. Christians nationwide believe the nation was founded on Christian roots and pray to revive the land from what they see as moral decay.
Nevertheless, the latest poll doesn't mean a majority favors a "theocracy," said Rick Green of WallBuilders, an advocacy group that believes the nation was built on Christian principles, according to USA Today. Rather, the poll shows that most believe the Constitution reflects Christian values, including religious freedom.
"I would call it a Christian document, just like the Declaration of Independence," he says.
Nearly all Americans (97 percent) say the right to practice one's own religion is "essential" or "important." The right to "speak freely about whatever you want" and the right to "assemble, march, protest or petition the government" are also highly valued by 98 percent and 94 percent of Americans, respectively.
In other findings, 56 percent believe that the freedom to worship as one chooses extends to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme, down from 72 percent in 2000. Twenty-five percent say "the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees," a rebound from the 49 percent recorded the year after 9/11, but up from 18 percent in 2006.
Also, 74 percent would prevent public school students from wearing a T-shirt with a slogan that might offend others; 34 percent think the press "has too much freedom" – the lowest since the survey was first conducted in 1997; and 64 percent could name freedom of speech as one of the five freedoms included in the First Amendment while only 19 percent was able to name religion.
The 2007 survey of 1,003 respondents was conducted by telephone between Aug. 16 and Aug. 26 by New England Survey Research Associates.
Comments
At first when I read others comments on whether or not it made a difference whether we are a Christian nation, I felt it did. But actually who cares? We are so far away from what we profess, we need to focus on repenting for our hyprocrisy and for our perversion of the gospel of Jesus.
Our sense of Christianity is so perverted by greed for power,racism, and pride that we now have immigrant pastors who believe God has sent them to America as missionaries! I am so tired nowadays of all the bragging about our Christian roots and yet don't even speak to each other in the church especially if you are from a different side of the tracks or a different shade of skin. When we look at things from Jesus perspective, we are quite pathetic.
::begin quote::
and realize the bible was wrote 200 years after the facts. can you imagine what the constitution would look like if it was just being written???
::end quote::
This is a mighty big claim, that I believe requries you to provide evidential support.
Thank you.
this just shows how stupid american's are. they need to quit watching fox news, attend a university not ran on grants from the christian coalition/neocons, shut down all charter schools and realize the bible was wrote 200 years after the facts. can you imagine what the constitution would look like if it was just being written???
I know that many of our founding fathers were deists, but I also want to point out that the majority Americans were Christians (including Unitarian) at the time of independence.
The political scene of early America may seem like deism, but I don’t think politic is the only aspect to analyze the founding of a country.
And as for Thomas Jefferson, he changed his mind later. He was indeed a deist while he was in presidency, his religious view shifted to Christian (Unitarian) later in his life. Not that his later Christian beliefs had any effect on politic, but just wanted to defend Jefferson.
The founders could have created a constitution to establish a Christian nation. They did not.
"intended"? How can you know what the intended? All you are doing is playing a guessing game. Embrace diversity because God created all of creation, not just one group.
I disagree with you artman, and I’m not going to bother reading a 1000 pages from some obscure 19th century American preacher to try and find out. But even if it were to be “proven” that the Founding Fathers made this a “Christian” nation… so what. That was over 200 years ago, and this is to post to be a democracy… that means “we the people” can change things.
This country was founded as a Christian nation, period. Anyone who doubts this is needs to read Christian Life & Character by Benjamin Morris. It contains source documents that prove otherwise and the ACLU has yet to answer the case it makes. The establishment clause was intented to adress the church having influence(governing power) over goverment. Which by the way was what was happening at that time in England. It was no way inteneded to mean a secular country. People can think what they want to, but you can NOT rewrite history. Anyone who actually investigates this with an open mind will discover the truth.
"Most Americans," eh? And exactly where did they conduct this unbiased poll? It's sure the opposite in forums I frequent.
I have to ask: How does the idea that the Founding Fathers made this country a Christian nation really matter? (Now I personally don’t believe they did make it a Christian nation, the Constitution is more a product of the enlightenment than anything else, but for arguments sake let’s say they did.)
If the original intent of the founding father was to make this a Christian nation, so what? What does that have to do with today? Why continue living in the 18th century? The Industrial Revolution has happened. The information revolution has happened. We’ve gone through two catastrophic world wars. The world is a much smaller place than it was 200 years ago. Hopefully we have learned some things from past mistakes! Our culture has changed, men don’t wear wigs and cute little triangle hats anymore, and we have TV and telephones. Demographics have changed. There were no Chinatowns, little Vietnamese communities, or even a Hispanic community in America when the Constitution was written. Come to think of it… there wasn’t even anything calling itself an evangelical community at that time, denominational identity meant more back then!
If we don’t change and adapt with our changing world, and accommodate “the other”, we die. I don’t think the Founding Fathers had in mind to see America stuck in 18th century ideas. They knew they were in a rapidly changing world, and they tried to design a government that would change with it.
Thomas Rasmussen
http://didymuspov.blogspot.com
America, as a nation is specially blessed by God. I am sure that it is due to the Christian
heritage, our compassion to the suffering world and our solid loyalty to Israel. If we forget
God and do like the heathens do, God can take away a lot of blessings. If we turn to God
confessing our sins, He is ready to bless us abundantly. I see the great blessings of God when I land in America after visiting my native land and other countries.
Too bad the survey didn't ask how many of those who thought the constitution established a "christian nation" have actually read the document. There is no mention of christianity at all, and the only references to religion are exclusionary.
I don't think there is any reasonable basis at all, but the results do not surprise me, as roughly the same numbers of folks reject evolution, the foundation of biology. Most of you won't be happy 'till we end up back in the dark ages.