Obama says America not a Christian Nation; Dr. Dobson Responds
I read this heading from a Focus on the Family action newsletter this morning and was appalled. Apparently, he said the USA is not a Christian country while he was in Turkey last week and this is the second time he’s made such a strong statement. I cannot believe that a president of this United States of America would have the audacity to say such nonsense! This country was founded on the very principles of Christianity and though the world is slowing trying to steal it from us, we will not be shaken. We need to stand up for Christ no matter how many powers that be try to knock us down! And then check out the Newsweek video that Dobson responds to at this web address below where they jump on the Christian America is dead bandwagon:
After you watch that, please come back here to respond. We have GOT to stick together as sisters and brothers in Christ!
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I watched this video. It is really sad that people will twist Dr. Dobson’s words in such way to make it sound like he is defeated when in essence this is NOT what he said or meant.
And here is the video where Obama actually says WE don’t consider ourselves a Christian nation. Wow, speak for yourself, Mr President. This great nation was founded on Christian values and although we have certainly been accepting of other religions living side by side with us, WE still consider ourselves a great CHRISTIAN nation!
I find his statment so totally wrong….our nation was founded upon Christian principals and it just sickens me that he could say such a thing…My iniital thoughts of him are just simply being proven right the more i see and hear of this man….
Oh the nerve of that man.
I don’t like that he speaks for me.. how dare he!!! (burns my rump he does)
Woodrow Wilson, in his election campaign for President, made the same point: “A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about…. America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”
The crucial role of Christianity in this nation’s formation is not without dispute, although as Revolutionary leader Patrick Henry said: “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship.”
John Ashcroft was roundly criticized for his “No King but Jesus” speech at Bob Jones University, but he was only reminding us of our colonial and Revolutionary War heritage. In a 1774 report to King George, the Governor of Boston noted: “If you ask an American, who is his master? He will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ.” The pre-war Colonial Committees of Correspondence soon made this the American motto: “No King but King Jesus.” And this sentiment was carried over into the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain ending that war, which begins “In the name of the most Holy and Undivided Trinity… .”
Samuel Adams, who has been called ‘The Father of the American Revolution’ wrote The Rights of the Colonists in 1772, which stated: “The rights of the colonists as Christians…may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of the Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.”
It is frequently asserted by those seeking to minimize Christianity’s central role in our nation’s founding and history, that the founders themselves were not practicing Christians, but rather were Deists or Agnostics. In a 1962 speech to Congress, Senator Robert Byrd noted that of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 29 were Anglicans, 16-18 were Calvinists, and among the rest were 2 Methodists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 lapsed Quaker-sometimes Anglican, and only 1 open Deist — Benjamin Franklin who attended all Christian worships and called for public prayer.
Samuel Chase was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Justice of the US Supreme Court, and, as Chief Justice of the State of Maryland, wrote in 1799 ( Runkel v Winemiller): “By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion… .” (Maryland was one of nine States having established churches supported by taxpayers at the time of the adoption of the Constitution; these churches were gradually disestablished, the last in 1833. The Maryland constitution, typical of many of the States, restricted public office to Christians until, in 1851, it was changed to allow Jews who believed in a future state of rewards and punishments to also serve).
Christianity pervaded the laws and the legal system of the States and the federal government. For example, Judge Nathaniel Freeman in 1802 charged Massachusetts Grand Juries as follows: “The laws of the Christian system, as embraced by the Bible, must be respected as of high authority in all our courts… . [Our government] originating in the voluntary compact of a people who in that very instrument profess the Christian religion, it may be considered, not as republic Rome was, a Pagan, but a Christian republic.” In 1811 ( People v Ruggles), New York Chief Justice James Kent held: “‘…whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government… .’ We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity… . Christianity in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is part and parcel of the law of the land… .” In 1824, the Pennsylvania Supreme court held ( Updegraph v The Commonwealth): Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law…not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men… .”
Our sixth President, John Quincy Adams said “From the day of the Declaration…they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct”
In 1811 ( People v Ruggles), New York Chief Justice James Kent held: “‘…whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government… .’ We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity… . Christianity in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is part and parcel of the law of the land… .” In 1824, the Pennsylvania Supreme court held ( Updegraph v The Commonwealth): Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law…not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men… .”
Our sixth President, John Quincy Adams said “From the day of the Declaration…they [the American people] were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct”
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court said: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their ruler, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” This was said despite the explicit provision in the federal Constitution forbidding any religious test for federal public office.
Justice Joseph Story, who was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Madison, said in an 1829 speech at Harvard: “There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation.” Story wrote several respected treatises or Commentaries on Constitutional Law, in which are found the following: “Probably, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the [First] Amendment…the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”
“The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government”.
Justice Story wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court in 1844 ( Vidal v Girard’s Executors): “It is also said, and truly that the Christian religion is a part of the common law… .”
In 1854, The United States House of Congress passed a resolution: “The great vital and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
During the Civil War, The Senate passed a resolution in 1863: “…devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God…encouraged …to seek Him for succor according to His appointed way, through Jesus Christ, the Senate …does hereby request the President …to set aside a day for national prayer and humiliation.” President Lincoln promptly issued a Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day, stating “…in compliance with the request and fully concurring in the view of the Senate… .”
I’m afraid Obama is right. We are a secular society; we are multicultural and mulitreligious…and we have the Christian community to thank for this situation. Thanks to squabble among denominations Christian churches lost control of education in this country (Read up on the history of public education in this country. It started in Massachusetts because church schools were turning away students.) Thanks to politicizing Christianity we’ve alienated non-Christians and marginal Christians (Where in the Bible do we see Jesus or His disciples organizing a political party or belonging to one?) Thanks to Christians not living their faith, non-Christians see us as hypocrites (though everyone is in some situation – it’s human nature.) When was the last time you helped a poor person or family? When was the last time you invited someone to church? When was last time you opened and read from your Bible?
If we want to be angry with someone, look in the mirror.
Unfortunately, we ARE quickly becoming a secular nation. You are right about that. But we were built on the foundations of Christianity and I will die before I hand this country over to the devil! There are still enough of us left to make a difference if we will stop rolling over and letting the politicians tickle our bellies. I know a lot of people want to blame inside bickering for the decline of Anerica but I don’t think sewing more seeds of discord between the brethren is the answer. Grabbing eachother’s hands in LOVE is what we need to do, while standing together for Godly principles, but also in LOVE and not judgement. THOSE are the keys. If only people would listen. The solution is so simple.
See video of Obama saying we are not a Christian nation: http://bit.ly/nhz52
It’s very interesting to read comments, watch how the news twists or omits comments/statement made by people(Dr. Dobson, President Obama and for the most part any figure whether political or non-political and have a headline grab people’s attention. The author of this was kind enough to link that video where Obama speaks about our nation having a set of morals, values and respect for other nations. Correct me if I’m wrong because the headline of this blog is focusing on only the first few words of a sentence (something that the news did with Dr. Dobson as well). The president said ” We don’t consider ourselves a christian nation, a jewish nation or a muslum nation…etc.” Please note, that this statement is addressing a “modern international community” and he mentions ” morals, values and respect” serveral times. Correct me if I’m wrong again but it seems that he is trying to reach on an international stage and convey that the US can have a respectful relationship with Turkey. By doing this, how is the world or president Obama trying to steal christianity from us? I will now address a comment made by the author directy “I cannot believe that a president of this United States of America would have the audacity to say such nonsense!” I believe that God is the one that judges all and in other responses that you speak about ” Love ” and ” community ” You also speak about standing up for christ, please ask yourself ” what would Jesus do? ” Would he say? Would he respond with your words towards the president?