Is America a Christian Nation, Part VI, A Summary of the Issue to This Point

This series on American history asks the question, whether America is a Christian nation. To summarize the series to date, so far we have learned that the treaty which ended the American Revolutionary War,known as the Treaty of Paris of 1783, lists both countries agreeing to its terms, as subject to the authority of the "most holy and undivided Trinity."  So in that respect, it is conclusive to assume that both of these parties, Great Britain and specifically the United States of America, as they existed in 1783, were Christian nations, under the authority of God of the Bible including the New Testament.  If that were not true, then the sitting congress of the US, representing each citizen of every state, could not have ratified that treaty as written.  And if that might be the case, then officially, the American revolutionary war never concluded.

But in the succeeding segments of this series we have learned that there is a major question posed within the community of contemporary United States Constitutional Law scholars. That question is whether the nation whose representatives signed that treaty in 1783, and whose sitting congress ratified the same, was in reality a nation in the first place, but rather a treaty organization, and whether the nation known as the "United States of America," living under the US Constitution ratified in 1789, is truly that same nation, or organization, that agreed to the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and whether as a result the present nation, in effect, "rebooted" its sovereignty upon ratifying that Constitution, and for that reason became an entirely different nation, one which owes its sovereignty to an completely different set of reasons than any nation, or organization, that may have existed with the same name prior to that time, a brand new nation that was, and is, not beholden to the Treaty of Paris of 1783, nor beholden to any agreements previously agreed among the states, states which prior to 1789, agreed among themselves to be known collectively as the "United States of America."  (I know that was a long sentence.)

Now the issue here is apparent.  If the United States of America, agreed a nation today, is (1) the same nation  that came into being under the Declaration of Independence in 1776, under the reasons cited and agreed in that document, and (2) subsequently agreed to form a "perpetual union" of states under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, ratified in 1781, and (3) in 1783 also agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Paris of that year, agreeing to all of the terms of that treaty, then regardless of any terms that have been written since, into any successive Constitutions, or amendments to the same, the conditions which existed and which underwrote the authority of the sitting congress to construct and ratify that new Constitution, are the same conditions which authorize that agreement today.  (Another long sentence, I know, stay with me) And if that is the case, then one condition that still authorizes the Constitution today is the condition that the "United States of America" remains a nation under the authority of the "most holy and undivided Trinity."  So if America (meaning the United States of America) today, is the same America which has existed since 1776, and therefore since 1783, then in that major respect, America is a "Christian nation," a term defined as a nation that owes its sovereign authority to an endowment from God, the same God of the Bible and New Testament.

However, if the facts demonstrate that America is no longer the same "America" that existed prior to the Constitution's ratification, and instead came into being as a brand new nation under the terms of that document, then the present United States of America owes it's sovereignty only to that authority that is  implied between and among parties who agree to abide by a certain contract, that contract being the Constitution, a contract instituted and agreed by the duly-authorized representative of the group of individuals cited within that document's terms as, "We the people of the United States." If that might be the case, that the American sovereignty arises purely out of agreement among men, rather than endowment from God, then America is NOT a Christian nation, by any respect, but instead a republic whose only sovereign authority arose out of certain democratic efforts exerted by its people, resulting in a contract among those same people, regardless of the circumstances and conditions that brought those people to that point.

The issues of this series being summarized above, in the next installment we will begin to uncover which scenario depicted above is true, and which is false.  So please be looking for the next installment, which will be coming online soon...

Hank