By Larry Craig

We are told that the United States is a secular nation, that our government must be neutral on all matters of religion, such that it cannot even favor a belief in God over not believing in God.

That is either a lie or an enormous misunderstanding.

What is a religion?

A religion is a worldview, an all-encompassing description of life that answers such questions as: What is right? What is wrong? What is good? What is bad? What is true? What is false? What are the rules? Are there any rules?

A religion believes in a god, which is the supreme value. But people have supreme values that are not identified as a god but are supreme nonetheless. So in its broadest understanding, a religion does not require a belief in a god. Whatever you value or cherish the most or commit your life to becomes your god in a way.

So I will say that you cannot NOT have a religion, personally or as a country. Everybody has a religion. It may not have a name. It doesn’t need a name. Some have names because a lot of people have the same beliefs.

Make a list of what you believe about the most important things in life. Your highest values. Your moral code. That is your religion. You can call it Bob’s religion or Mary’s religion. Most people in America call it Christianity.

But they say now that we are a secular country. Well, secularism is a religion as much as Christianity is.

Secularism believes that your beliefs about God are no more important to live your life or run your country than your taste in food or music. No, God did not create the world and everything in it. Everything that exists — life, all life, your life — is the result of a combination of random and necessary chemical reactions that over time explains the existence of everything.

Government is the closest thing secularism has for a god. It is responsible for the welfare of the world and everybody in it. It is the highest authority. It doesn’t believe in an afterlife, yet alone punishment in an afterlife. So they are sure that you are punished in this life.

Its bible is science, used and quoted as necessary. Its savior is Karl Marx. Its prophets are Darwin, Huxley, Camus, Freud, and Nietzsche. Instead of Ten Commandments, they had four: tolerance, equality, fairness, and diversity. Now they have it down to three: Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Its moral code is self-fulfillment, however you define it.

Its temples and houses of worship are public schools and universities.

The problem is that the United States is based on a different religion. And its beliefs are not called beliefs but facts. Not even opinions. If those facts were just beliefs or opinions, they never would have fought a war for independence. We would still be colonies of England.

The four facts that our country was based on are: 1) there is a God; 2) this God created human beings; 3) He created them equal, which means that nobody has a divine or inherent right to rule over other people; and 4) this God gave human beings inalienable rights, which include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Now these are all distinct teachings from the Bible. It is a religion, and its name is Christianity. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation. The most obvious proof of this is the universal treatment of Sunday as the day of rest, which even today most of our society still honors. Even the Constitution recognizes Sunday as a special day without the regular business. (Article I, Section 7.)

This at bottom is why we have a gun and violence problem today. We used to teach our kids not to kill, to love their neighbors as themselves, and to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. Guns and violence only started becoming a problem when we stopped doing this.

The First Amendment was a prohibition on our government from establishing a particular Christian denomination, like they had and still have in England, where the King of England is Head of the Church of England.

Being a Christian nation doesn’t mean you have to be a Christian or that you are somehow a second-class citizen if you are not. But it is the foundation of what America is. You have inalienable rights that our government exists to protect, because it is a Christian nation. As a secular nation, you will see your rights gradually diminish and disappear as those who know what our country was founded on die off, and the new generation and immigrants who were never taught our founding principles mix in beliefs of everything from everywhere into the pot and slowly over time we become something very different from what made America America.

It’s not a matter of separating religion from the government. It’s a question of what religion will define our country. It was Christianity that brought us freedom and liberty as they knew it back then.

Now our country is trying to find a new way, unlike our founding principles. So what do we have? Our country is bankrupt, though we are afraid to call it that. We are more divided than at any time in our history. Some say we were divided more during the Civil War. No, then we were only divided on two issues: states’ rights and slavery. Now we are divided on everything. We have never felt less safe, at least in modern times. We have never had more people with mental health issues, where they lack hope, purpose, meaning, and joy.

It’s time we had a national conversation about who we are as a nation. And what we want to be in the future.