Taken Back

Gordon S. Wood, in his 1992 book, “The Radicalism of the American Revolution,” states that, by the 1790’s only about 10% of the American population regularly attended religious services to quote just one statistic.  Not exactly an indication of a wholehearted national commitment to Christianity!  It is a matter of simple historical fact that the United States was not founded as, nor was it ever intended to be, a Christian nation.  That there were strong, long-lasting Christian influences involved in the nation’s earliest history, due to the Puritan settlements and those of other religious persons escaping European persecution, cannot be denied.  But that is a long way from saying that colonial leaders, by the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, were intending to form a nation founded on specifically Christian principles and doctrine.
We Christians do ourselves no favor by bending history to suit our prejudices or to accommodate wishful thinking.  Rather than continue to cling to a “Moral Majority”-style fantasy that says America is a Christian nation that needs to be “taken back” from secular unbelief (we can’t “take back” what we never had), it would be much healthier for us Christians to face reality, holding to what Jesus himself said in the Gospels:  that Christians should never be surprised at the hostility with which the gospel would be greeted by the world, because most people would fail to believe in him, thereby strongly implying that, in every age and country, Christianity would always be a minority faith.
—    Rev. Richard T. Zuelch
Letter to the Editor
Los Angeles Times
14 August 1995
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On This Day In:
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2020	When Looking Around
2019	Except Dying
2018	History Will Judge Him Favorably
2017	Are You Confused?
2016	The Golden Mean
2015	To Infinity And Beyond
2014	Taken Back
2013	Windows Or Doors
2012	All Rise
2011	Vote Weight

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