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Is America a Christian Nation? This Answer May Surprise You

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Was America founded as a Christian nation? Is the United States a Christian nation?

The latter question made headlines after then-Sen. Barack Obama stated his position when campaigning for president.

"Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers," Obama told CBN News then in an email.

Dr. Russell Moore, with the Southern Baptist Convention, recently weighed in on the issue when asked about it by The Gospel Coalition.

"Sometimes people ask whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation, and one has to say, 'Well, what do you mean by a Christian nation?'" he answered in a video posted on his website.

"If what you mean by that is a nation in which most of the people profess to be Christians, then certainly, the United States of America was and is a Christian nation based upon that sociological definition of a Christian nation," he continued.

Moore adds that's not what most people mean, however, when they use the words "Christian nation."

"What they mean is the idea that God was in covenant with the United States of America in order to bless the United States of America as a special people, as a new Israel, as a group of people covenanted under Christianity. And the answer to that is clearly, 'no,'" Moore said.

Moore says Christian ideas deeply influenced America's founders, but "they did not found the country as a Christian nation, which is why there is, for instance, no religious test for office holders and why there is a separation between the responsibilities of the State from the responsibilities of the Church or of worshipping communities in the United States."

"I think that the confusion often comes in when people assign to the United States of America a Providential place in history that the Bible never assigns it," Moore said.

"This shows up in people taking, for instance, Old Testament passages and applying those passages directly to the United States," he said.

Moore then quoted as an often-cited example: "If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

"God did not promise that to a political body. He did not promise that to anyone apart from the mediation of Jesus Christ," Moore said.

"Those passages were given to the covenant people of Israel in relationship with God through the covenant promises made to Abraham, and then to Moses and then to David," he said. "And those covenants are fulfilled in Jesus Christ."

"So the idea that we're living in a Christian nation in that sense is really a form of theological liberalism. It assumes that a person or a nation can be a Christian apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, apart from new birth," Moore continued.

"That is contrary to the Gospel that we have received in Jesus Christ," he said.

"Instead we must say we are Christians who live in a nation among many people who profess to be Christians, some of whom are and some of whom aren't. And we must be the people who give a faithful Gospel witness in those days," Moore concluded.

Watch Moore's response to the question below:

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