Visitors to a Christian(?) Country- a few thoughts

Note to Friend following a welcome event for arriving foreign students-

Last night was also a good thing, and we did get a good crowd. There was one thing in your presentation that I thought was confusing.

1. First there were these wonderful testimonies from internationals who, when coming here, found America to be so much less than a godly place. Here they met real temptations they hadn’t faced at home.

2. Then there was this presentation on how America was founded on the Bible and on Christian faith.

I think this approach could be confusing to internationals, and I quite disagree with the claim that America was founded on the Bible and on Christian faith. The Bible and Christian faith had a profound and wonderful influence, but the real foundation of the American nation is, to the contrary, founded on violence, quite the opposite of Jesus’ example and teaching.

The United States was established first on the French/Indian war, and then the American revolution. The Revolution is was Americans are taught to see as the founding event. The expansion of America took place by the violent expulsion of the original inhabitants, many of whom had become believers in Christ, and the new nation prospered initially, at least in the agricultural sector, on the backs of slaves. Today the true peacemakers, according to the propaganda, are the army, the navy, and the air force.

It is true that when the settlers went west and found life in the wilderness lonely and difficult, they did turn to God in the evangelical awakenings, and that had a profound, beneficial effect on the spiritual welfare of the nation, but to promote Christian faith on the basis of Christian influence, when today there is observably almost nothing of real Christian influence outside the church in American life that internationals can observe–this  does seem to me to set up a contradiction in any thoughtful person’s mind.