LETTER: A Christian nation? What did court say?

The question of, “Is or was the United States ever a Christian Nation?” depends on who you ask. Our politically correct, sanitized history and our “caring” society today surely does not bear much Christian fruit, but what about the past?

In its 1892 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this issue in Rector, etc., of Holy Trinity Church v. United States (Feb. 20, 1892) after the church hired a pastor from England, paid his way to the U.S., and fell afoul of U.S. immigration laws.

The railroad builders recruited and prepaid the import of indentured slave-type labor from China. This cheap labor raised the ire of American laborers (unions?) and a law was passed forbidding this practice. In the process of determining that the law did not apply to pastors, the court examined numerous documents from our discovery era, through the colonial and constitutional periods, to statehood founding documents.

The court’s determination states: “If we pass beyond these matters to a view of American life, as expressed by its laws, its business, its customs, and its society, we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth.” From this point, it talks about oaths, prayer, Sabbaths, churches, missionaries, etc. and concludes with “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s good enough for me. —Warren Williamson, Lakeside