Christian Nation?
An Empirical Attempt To Determine If The U.S. Is Indeed A “Christian Nation”
If you spend much time in US Evangelical circles, you will likely hear many affirmations that America was founded as a Christian nation. For many this is almost an article of faith. And statistics support this view. Of the US population, 78.3% describe themselves as Christian. Of those claiming Christian faith, 68% say their religion is very important to them. Though there are other nations that might lay claim to being more Christian, clearly the US is not inaccurate in describing itself as a Christian nation.
Yet questions arise as to what it means for a nation to be Christian. If we were to take the words for what they mean at the most basic level, I think we might have to pause a bit in our assessment. Wouldn’t it make sense that a nation populated by Christians would not just have citizens who espouse doctrine and values that reflected those of the founder of their religion (i.e. Jesus), but would be marked by behavior that equally reflected that founder.
It doesn’t take any more than a single reading of even one of the four gospels in the Christian Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) to realize that Jesus was characterized by some very strong values that affected everything he did. Of course, he deeply loved God whom he called “Father.” But he also was remarkably loving toward others, especially those who were the most vulnerable and needed the most help. Indeed, Jesus’ love was so sacrificial, he gave up everything to bring life and well being to the poor, oppressed, ostracized, sick, and dying.
While not everyone in a Christian nation would share the values and behavior evident in Jesus, I think we might be safe in saying that “on balance” a nation with such an identity would display such virtues more often than a nation with a different religious background or one with a more secular outlook. So let’s put that to a simple empirical test.
- Whereas #2: Reduction in spread of COVID-19 logically results in reduced mortality rates, particularly among vulnerable populations.
- Whereas #3: Those who follow Christ exhibit behaviors that reflect sacrificial love for the most vulnerable.
- Therefore #4: Wearing a face-covering to protect others from COVID-19 would be a behavior expected more frequently in a “Christian nation” than in a country not so identified.
So our research hypothesis (H1) to test whether the US is a Christian nation would be: That the US would have fewer deaths from the virus per capita than a similar nation that has a different religious tradition or is more secular.
Now let’s compare Japan to the US to test our hypothesis. Japan is similar to the United States with respect to quality of health care, standard of living, vulnerability to COVID, industrialization, and technological capacity, yet very different than the US in religious background.
Moreover, Japan has a large population which arguably is more urban (the greater Tokyo area has over 37 million people, most of whom must travel on packed commuter trains). It also has more elderly citizens per capita than any other nation. Both of these factors should make it highly susceptible to the worst effects of this pandemic and could potentially confound our research question giving a false positive.
So given the basic demographics one would expect mortality in Japan due to COVID to be at least on a par if not greater than the US. Add to that the fact that the US is a Christian nation, while only 1.8 percent of Japanese are Christian (57% claim to have no religion while 36.2% claim to be Buddhist), and we would seem justified in expecting mortality rate due to COVID to be at least equal between the two nations if not higher in Japan.
But that’s not the case. The US mortality rate currently is 42.29 per 100,000 population. Japan’s mortality rate is 0.78 per 100.000. In other words, the US death rate due to the pandemic is more than 54 times greater than that of Japan.
Our research hypothesis is not just rejected–it is blown out of the water. Japan’s mortality rate is not higher than that of the US. Indeed it is amazingly low by comparison. The reason? While there are numerous potential explanations one factor stands out. The country’s leaders asked the Japanese people to care for their fellow citizens by wearing masks and social distancing, and the Japanese did so. Mask wearing in public places is almost universal. Go to a crowded train station and you will see no one without a mask.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said in the United States. Despite governors and health officials pleading with the public for months, many refuse to wear masks. It would be one thing if we could attribute this behavior to atheist. However, refusal to wear masks has been widely noticed among those who most ardently affirm their Christian commitment.
So the question we in the US face is: Are we indeed a Christian nation? If so, why would the citizens of a non-Christian nation be more prone to care for the vulnerable than those of a Christian nation? Or to put it more bluntly, what is wrong with the Christianity in our Christian nation?
2 Responses
Keith, I think you establish your case in general, though strictly from a research standpoint, you would have to deal more explicitly with a number of other variables (as you are no doubt aware). E.g., mask-wearing is a key step in protecting against covid-19, but other differences between Japan and the U.S. would need to be considered, such as the availability, reliability, and response time of testing.
Also what role does individualism play, which is much higher in the U.S. than Japan, and for many Christians has been merged with their understanding of Christian faith.
Another matter, not related directly to your research, has to do with church history. With Constantine and then the reasoning of Augustine, the focus of Christian identity and authenticity shifted pretty decisively from behavior (doing what Jesus said; acting as Jesus taught and modeled), to confession (often little more than verbal assent) of authorized doctrines. We still suffer the hangover from that, of course. Alan Kreider does a great job documenting this Constantinian/Augustinian shift in his book “The Patient Ferment of the Early Church.”
Anyhow, thanks! I hope it gets Christians who are not. ideologues thinking.
Howard
You are absolutely right in your critique, Howard. As social science, there are significant problems with this blog. Clearly, Japan’s response to the pandemic was more rapid, centralized and robust than that in the US. Though unorthodox, I’m sure the national government’s actions made a difference in mortality rate. In addition, I’m dubious that anything remotely resembling an experimental or even quasi-experimental design could have been devised to study this topic. Too many uncontrolled confounding variables would make a complete mess of things.
However, rather than writing sound social science, I sought primarily to use the huge discrepancy between US and Japanese mortality as an “intellectual instrumentality” (to use John Dewey’s term). I do believe the current epidemiological research supports the notion that wearing masks makes a very big difference in the spread of the virus. I also think, based on my own anecdotal observations, that many who vocally support US Christianity and Christian nationalism are also reluctant to wear facemasks–even in the face of governmental mandates. Given the HUGE difference between the two countries in the number of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population, I would be surprised if a large portion of the difference between Japan and the US were not explained by the difference in mask wearing behavior. At least on the surface, such a conclusion, while not provable, is empirically sound.
You rightly point out two interesting matters. There is indeed a difference in culture between Americans and Japanese. Much anthropological ink has been spilled about the collective nature of Japanese culture vs. the more individualistic and atomized culture of the Anglo-American. You also rightly note the metamorphosis of much of the Church precipitated by the conversion of Constantine. While pietism, holiness, and activism have occasionally been rediscovered the dominant paradigm of Western Christianity has rarely included the radical discipleship of the early Church.
It is these two matters that I believe form the outline for an answer to the primary question of the blog: “What is wrong with the Christianity in our Christian nation?” First, the typical American Christian’s circle of care is individual, not collective. Second, American Christians have lost the significance of our confession to a life transformation built around love for “the least of these.”
Thanks for thinking with me about these matters, Howard!
Comments are closed.