THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:
Yes and no. Understanding of that answer builds from five numbers: 62%, 17%, 43%, 38%, and 60%.
A survey of 35,000 Americans for the Pew Research Center’s 2024 Religious Landscape Study found that 62% identify as Christians of whatever sort, down from prior times but still substantial. That overwhelms the 7% for all other religions combined. Across these 250 years, Christianity has always been by far the chosen faith of the people with an unrivaled cultural heritage.
Dividing by Christian categories, the Landscape showed 23% of Americans are evangelical Protestant, 19% Catholic, 11% “mainline” Protestant, 5% in “historically Black Protestant” churches, and 4% others. As usual, atheists are 5% and agnostics 6% of Americans. However, there’s a significant 21st Century rise to 19% for unaffiliated “nones” with no particular religious identity.
Then this. In an April Pew survey with 3,592 respondents, 17% agreed that “the federal government should declare Christianity the official religion of the United States” (27% among Republicans). Significantly, another 43% opposed official endorsement but said government “should promote Christian moral values.” Meanwhile, 38% opposed both forms of government involvement.
So the idea of officially proclaiming the U.S. a “Christian nation,” which certain political and religious factions have advocated since the Civil War, has only marginal support, but – Democratic Party strategists take note – 60% desire at least generalized government aid for Christian concepts. Then more than a third, including many Christians, favor some version of “separation of church and state.” Federal court edicts continually draw such restrictions based upon the Constitution’s much-debated ban on government “establishment of religion.”
Whatever modern jurists think, was the U.S.A. created as a Christian nation? The Declaration of Independence declares that “Nature’s God” entitles the American people to their freedom and independence, that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” that “the Supreme Judge of the World” affirms the moral intent in forming a separate nation, and that Americans rely upon “the protection of divine Providence.” The Founders totally omitted such religious affirmations from the Constitution.
Unlike Europe with its established churches, the Declaration thus acknowledges a non-sectarian Deity, much like “In God We Trust,” first added to U.S. coins in 1864 and the national motto since 1956, and the “under God” added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 — as opposed to the specific God of Christianity. Scholars speak of this as our “civil religion.”
Non-sectarianism was affirmed in the Trump Administration’s announcement of “Rededicate 250,” the central religious event marking the nation’s anniversary, held on Sunday, May 17, at the National Mall. The rally, by “Americans of every background,” was to be “rooted in giving thanks for God’s presence in our national life throughout 250 years of American history and asking for his guidance for the next 250.”
Yet Christians, including political office-holders, were omnipresent at the actual event. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard spoke, but without acknowledgment of her Hindu faith. The featured clergy included only one non-Christian, Orthodox Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, who directs Yeshiva University’s Center for Torah and Western Thought. And among the Christians, evangelical Protestants pretty much ran the show over against “mainline” and liberal Protestants. Two prominent Catholic hierarchs appeared, Minnesota Bishop Robert Barron who leads the influential Word on Fire media ministry, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the retired archbishop of New York.
In the aftermath of “Rededicate,” evangelicals were upbeat while Americans United predictably decried “a Christian Nationalist crusade to impose one narrow version of Christianity on all Americans.” Certain Catholics were especially concerned. Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth University protested on patheos.com that the event was “state-adjacent promotion of Evangelical nationalism masquerading as historical memory” with a “toxic ideology” that “increasingly treats conservative Christianity as the authentic spiritual identity of the state.” An editorial in the liberal National Catholic Reporter contended that the day’s “breathtaking” distortions manipulated “the Christian faith into a national rally in support of the most corrupt presidential administration in U.S. history.”
Warnings against a loosely-defined “Christian nationalism” are frequently leveled against conservative religionists, sometimes suggesting multiplied millions seek to impose sinister demands upon everyone else due to numbers such as that 60% above. A prior “Religion Q&A” attempted to unpack basic aspects of this dispute. See www.patheos.com/blogs/religionqanda/2024/03/what-is-christian-nationalism-exactly/
Such sentiments need to be distinguished from the simple patriotism among Christian believers, that is, a shared love of one’s homeland. However, there is in fact a small but noteworthy a core of what can accurately be labeled Christian nationalists. They were helpfully explained in the May 9 Substack column of Michael F. Bird, an evangelical New Testament scholar in Australia who is familiar with the American scene. He defines Christian nationalism as “a cultural and political ideology that uses Christian symbols and rhetoric to advance the power of a particular social group,” believing “Christians must be in power, at least symbolically.” He depicts seven prominent strands as follows.
Reformed Theonomy – This combines Calvinist traditions with belief that God’s biblical laws should govern both the church and civil government, e.g. moral codes, Sabbath laws, and patriarchal families. One leading exponents is Idaho’s Pastor Douglas Wilson of Canon Press the small Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
Charismatic Dominionists – These Pentecostals and “Charismatics” teach the’ “Seven Mountains Mandate,” seeking Christian cultural “dominion” over the family, government, education, business, the arts, media, and religion, preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Some like Paula White saw Donald Trump’s candidacy in terms of biblical prophecy.
Catholic Integralists – They think the Second Vatican Council accommodated secular modernity too much and find inspiration in prior Christendom and 19th Century papal models, with the state subservient to the church.
Paradoxical Baptists – The mainstream Baptist heritage teaches religious liberty in terms of the separation of church and state. But a growing movement of Baptist-influenced U.S. evangelicals instead advocates a “Christian America” where true believers control education and government.
Christian Caesarism — This outlook treats Christianity less as a religion than a symbolic tool to legitimize political authority and uphold social virtue, order, and heritage, fusing national and religious identity to sacralize the nation’s identity. In the current populism, Christianity defines tribal belonging with less interest in the older moral transformation.
Byzantine Fortifiers — This group thinks of Christianity as a fortress protecting western identity against secularism and Islam, a la the Byzantium of old. Hungary’s now-fallen Viktor Orban and even Russian dictator Vladimir Putin are hailed for building sacred tradition rather than liberal pluralism
Christian Kinism – Bird considers this fringe variant a “dangerous and theologically indefensible” extreme. The group exploits Old Testament passages to treat ethnic and cultural homogeneity as God-ordained, with hostility toward race-mixing and multiculturalism, often united with Confederate nostalgia and antisemitism.
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