Historically, America was an attempt to establish a nation based broadly on Judeo-Christian values (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”) and Enlightenment ideas of self-government. In 1798, John Adams, the nation’s second president, said, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

Theologically, a “Christian nation,” at least for Evangelical Christians, implies a nation where the vast majority of people are “converted” individuals who profess Christ as their personal Savior, a situation which has never been true in the United States, even when more than 90 percent of the population identified with some form of Protestant Christianity in 1790.

Lastly, one must make the distinction between “nation” and “government.” The nation encompasses the people and the society as a whole, as opposed to the government, which is merely the governing authority.

Most religious Americans believe in a secular government under the rubric of the First Amendment, but desire a religiously pluralistic, as opposed to a secular, society in which religiously informed viewpoints are welcomed in the public square on an equal basis with all other voices.