These Are the Hands that Built America

This quote from President Barack Obama is too juicy not to discuss here. But my time is limited this week so please feel free to unpack for me.

Monday April 9, while in Turkey, Obama said

One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.

I agree.

President Obama and 76% of American citizens call themselves Christians (whatever that may mean to them). But we are a country of many religions or non-religious and we choose to consider ourselves unified by what we do have in common - certain ideals and values. The U.S. is about 70 to 75% Caucasian but we don't go around calling ourselves a "white" nation. If we called ourselves a Christian country, does that mean that 24% of Americans are not part of this country?

For anyone wanting to argue whether the U.S. was founded "Christian," they will need to address the fact that the nation became a majority "Christian" and majority Caucasian only after killing and driving out the original residents.

Frankly, isn't Christian a meaningless term anyway? Is there a universal definition? Don't Baptists define it with words that end up sounding a helluva lot like their religion? Catholics the same? On and on?

We may or may not see the end of a majority Christian America. But I'm ready to declare an end to calling our country "a Christian country." Next on the list is hopefully "the greatest nation on Earth...."