by Allen Alberson

Created on: July 07, 2009

A lot of the criticism of Barack Obama's recent address to the Muslim people come from the belief that he stated that America is not a Christian nation. Being a Christian, I can see why this might be disturbing to some. However a lot of people throwing out this criticism have not heard the speech or have not read the text of it. Similarly there is criticism of him being apologetic. While the speech does strike somewhat of an apologetic tone toward the Iraqi invasion, it is not a strong tone.

At no point does he deny America's Christian tradition or heritage. He does state that America is a country of many religions and one of the concepts on which the United States was founded was religious freedom. It is really easy to criticize the president in the turbulent time that we find ourselves but it doesn't do any of us any good to pass judgment based on lies and untruths. We have to go beyond our political ideologies and personal beliefs and look at the reality of the world we live in today.

There are members of the religious right who will never accept the fact that America is a state with varied religions. Certain people believe that religious freedom only applies to them or to the Christian religion. This type of dogmatic belief system only antagonizes the Muslim population of the United States and the world at large. Even though Obama did not say that America isn't a Christian nation, the fact is, it is not a Christian nation.

It is true that the majority of the founders were of the Christian faith but they knew and accepted that people of other faiths were part of that nation. Their goal was not to create a religious state but a country where "all men are created equal." That was all men, not all Christian men. Obviously the founding fathers had their own biases and these freedoms were not extended to African Americans, Native Americans and other minorities. Women were denied the right to participate in the democracy for far too long as well. Still they lay a groundwork that allowed these groups to eventually win their rights as Americans.

Likewise, a lot of people use the lines " In God we trust" and "one nation under God" as evidence that America was founded as a Christian nation. Wait though, one nation under God, if this was truly a Christian nation why not "One nation under Christ?" Could it be that the founding fathers, were simply saying that while they accepted a higher power, they were not willing to exclude Jewish and Islamic peoples?

It is not

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