Is America a Christian nation? Should it be? What does it even mean for a country to be a Christian nation or a nation of any other religion? These were among the questions Pastor Jim Eaton of Mosaic Church in Frederick, Md., and I discussed for the National Day of Dialogue. The conversation recalled the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Among the throngs of protestors, that day were those who erected large crosses and other Christian symbols. It was their way of saying that America had to be reclaimed for its true, Christian owners. America, to them, was originally Christian (and white) and had to stay that way. The narrative erases multiple truths, as Pastor Eaton and I discussed. Native American religious practices existed long before America’s founding and continue to form an important part of who and what America is today. Enslaved Muslims, too, were present at the founding, and while the fact of slavery made them invisible to the founders, it remains true that Islam in America isn’t as “new” as many Americans assume it to be. And the founders themselves had beliefs that existed across a spectrum, some barely approximating what Christian nationalists today […]
