Is America Founded on the Gospel?

The other day I was perusing some of my friends’ posts and came upon one that claimed that America was founded on the Gospel. (Actually, it was a meme purporting that Patrick Henry made the claim.) I immediately experienced a visceral reaction, for if America was founded on the Gospel of Christ; that would potentially justify genocide, racism, sexism, slavery, greed, and a whole host of other evils. Now, stay with me.

One has to ask oneself: What exactly is the Gospel. Well, according to I Corinthians 15 it is this: “Christ died for our sins, He was buried, and He rose again the third day…” Later in that chapter, Paul says the Gospel is what saves us. (We can discuss what it means to be saved later if you’d like.) Suffice it to say that believing in the Gospel is supposed to change us from hateful, bigoted, greedy, selfish, murderous, adulterous, thieving… individuals. If it doesn’t, then it is not the Gospel but a false Gospel (see Galatians 1).

I find much to admire and honor in our nation’s founding, but I fail to see “Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the scriptures” in our founding documents. I think it’s obvious that many of our Founders were believers, but many others were Deists or nominal Christians. Our founding documents express familiarity with the Bible, Classical society, Natural Law, British Common Law, and Enlightenment thinking. To say our nation was founded on the Gospel distorts the Gospel.

As far as human nations go, I think America got a lot right, but precisely because our nation was founded by sinful men; we also got a lot of things wrong. Let’s stop equating patriotism with Christianity. Christ came to create a new nation founded on love for God and love for others. If the Gospel we believe does not give us that type of love, it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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