Christianity as official religion

The US Constitution prohibits the establishment of any religion as the 'official' religion of the United States. So, to do so, you would need to alter the Constitution, reasons aside.

- Because the rest of the Constitution is being ignored or weakened; why leave separation of church and state out of the fun?

- Because England has a state religion, and has less prejudice and religious strife then we do, freeing resources for more productive pursuits like installing video cameras everywhere; England is also more tolerant of Atheists.

- Because all government should be based on God's law.

An elaboration of serotonin's last: Because Christianity is right and true, and the more obedient we as a nation are to its laws, the better/happier/more prosperous we will be. Or because the millenium won't come until the kingdom of God is established on earth (I think I've got that right.)

-not my views by the way, but I've heard them from friends.

The storyline involves a proposal to ammend the constitution establishing Christianity as the official State Religion, which would render the "establishment of any religion" null and void as well as "no test of religion for any public office". The imlications, of course, go far beyond just those, but right now I'm just looking as to arguments for why it SHOULD be ammended.

The storyline involves a proposal to ammend the constitution establishing Christianity as the official State Religion, which would render the "establishment of any religion" null and void as well as "no test of religion for any public office". The imlications, of course, go far beyond just those, but right now I'm just looking for arguments for why it should be ammended.

Elaboration on my 2nd one.

If you look at the evolution of the cellular phone network on a global scale, you'll see two kinds of nations: those that federally mandated a specific kind of cellular system (e.g. "GSM" in much of Europe), and those that took a free market approach and allowed all cellular systems to compete with each other (e.g. "GSM", "TDMA", "CDMA" and others in the United States).

The nations with a federally mandated cellular system type have much better cell phones, and much cooler cell phone data and voice services, than the United States. The reason for this, is that cellular carriers in those nations spent all of their resources on better serving the public, instead of on trying to discredit each other's technologies.

One could argue that a nation with a single official religion does not waste the assets of that religion on competition with other religious sects (e.g. domestic evangelism), and so can better serve everyone by spending money on charitable causes and social programs.

If there must be only one religion in the United States, "clearly" it must be Christianity, as something like 66% (supermajority under Roberts' Rules of Order for-the-win) of Americans profess to be Christians or at least to worship the god Yaweh.

I'm guessing you're a non-Christian, and we all look alike to you. -grins- Check out http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_defn.htm and you'll find that there are thousands of Christian sects, many of which consider all but themselves to be heretics or irrevocably fallen from the true path. One way a sect forms in America is, a group of Christians who worship together have a falling out over either use of Church funds (do we build a gym, or classrooms?) or some social issue or point of doctrine (do we welcome, or scorn, the LGBT community?). The church splits in two, and each group holds fast to the belief that the other, while still nominally Christian, is "wrong."

In your plot, which one "Christian" sect would you make the state religion? Would you adopt a loose, or strict, definintion?

That Christianity reflects the values of the nation and the force behind the country's creation. That if a majority of americans want it, then it should be law, because, as a democracy, the state is meant to be what the people wish it to be.

Scary thought! :)

PS--I LOVED Constitutional law and still remember a lot of it, so feel free to PM me if you have an legal con law questions. :)

bleh. I am a card-carrying fan of the ACLU. But let's see about the dogmatic arguments I've heard ...

- Our fundamental ideas of morality were founded on the Bible. It is only right that we acknowledge our true heritage.
- It'll show how different we are from the godless Commies! That's why the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s, after all.
- We don't want to be atheists, do we? We want to be a shining example of morality. That's why we added "In God We Trust" to our money.
- It'll keep gays, feminists, pedophiles, Satan worshippers, and lawyers in their place.
- Christ is the light of the world and everybody knows it in their hearts, even if they refuse to reh-cag-nize. Look at how popular myths of King Arthur, Superman and Harry Potter are! See? They're all allegories, you know.
- It's for everybody's own good, really. Because if we don't bring 'em the message, their souls are in trouble. We're doing it because we really care about what happens to them. Those poor deluded Jews, Hindus, Muslims etc. need salvation and by God we're going to save them.
- We need the Lord on our side. All our troubles are because we weren't faithful, but once we turn to him, everything will be made right. He will perform miracles on our behalf. Oh, and he might smite our enemies for us, too.
- Jesus is coming. We'd better look busy. He promised he'd be back soon and that was 20 centuries ago, so it's got to be any day now!

Excuse me, I think I need to go wash my mouth out with something tasty and sinful now. ^^;

I'll join with the poster upthread and ask, which Christianity? People never are simply Christian. They're Catholic, Protestants, CoE (Church of England), Orthodox, and so on. And while all the branches are based on the same text - although the translations might be different - they have different beliefs and so the consequences of choosing one for the US would be different.

I third that. The rationale used will depend on the specific religion proposed. It will probably be the case that the President and most of the Government will belong to the one church, and that will be the one chosen. Almost equal status will be given to all other Protestant churches. The Catholic church will be one step below, but above the non-Christian faiths. A fundementalist Christian (e.g. Baptist) is more likely to propose such a measure, but one of the more institutionalized churches (e.g. Episcopalian) is more likely to win a majority in a referendum. Decide what it's going to be, then learn a bit about the beliefs of that faith. I'd say once you know what they believe, it will be apparent why they should be the State Religion.

Having said all that, if it's a hell-raiser, Elmer Gantry type of Christianity, then the case is straightforward:

It was the Puritan spirit of the founding Fathers that made the country great. Over the last hundred years the once-great nation has been brought low by godlessness, greed, corruption and the influence of infidels. Jews are traditionally the people who undermine the moral fabric of a Christian nation, but nowadays of course the Muslims are attacking America from within and without. Only a return to the bible and righteous living can save America from ruin.

Because the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and based the government on a set of Christian morals which permeate all aspects of our society today, so why bother to uphold a miserly thing like "not having a state religion" when we're doing it in all but name only anyhow? (This is an actual argument I've heard off of Christian radio....not something I agree with.)

Also there has been talk about some right-wing Christians forming a Christian political party in the US...if you didn't mind avoiding the actual establishment of Christianity as the state religion, you could do something with a political party that runs things according to biblical truths but avoids actually naming a state religion. You'd have to tread delicately to make it plausible, but it could be done.

Good luck!

Maybe the Christian God actually reveals himself?

Or reveals himself to the President + several high ranking members, threatening that if they don't do it, terrible things will happen.

Yeah, that's all I got.

I'd have thought the easiest way to side-step the "which branch" questions would be to do as England did and set up your own new state branch of Christianity. That way you can cherry pick what you do and don't want to include, rather than taking one branch wholesale.

I agree with creating your own branch.

Most of the Christians I know would never want a church-state. They'd be the first to fight it. That being said, you can pretend those people don't exist, or have them be a crippled minority, or what ever you want to do.

But, of the few that I do know who would like that sort of thing (church-state) their reason would be that they believe that the USA is the New Jerusalem and that everything that applied to the Jews of the Old Testament applies to the USA today. USA = Israel.

Good stuff so far. Thanks for all contributions!

The proposed ammendment is meant to be a vague rather visceral reaction to an event that occurs at the begining of the story. The ammendment is not well thought out, but people's emotions run strongly. Throughout the book there will be the questions and arguments regarding Catholicism, Mormonism etc. What counts? Is it belief in the Trinity? Must it be structured, etc. But the wording in the ammendment is purposely (for my own selish writing reasons) nonspecific. The drafter thought he was being inclusive with it, but didn't quite hit the target.

That said, I like where this conversation is going. I am aware that most Christians would probably not support this ammendment, but throughout the story, it is just a proposed amendment, not a ratified one. The storyline focuses on public reaction to it, and to all its flaws.