Opinion

Perhaps we're not a Christian nation

Posted October 01, 2008 11:00 pm

Elizabeth Pearson of Elmhurst, in her Sept. 8 letter, said that Barack Obama was wrong when he claimed that "We are no longer a Christian nation. We are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists..." Ms. Pearson said that "America was founded on Christian principles and is still a Christian nation."

This confuses me because I learned in my college classes on political science that in 1796, during George Washington's administration, we negotiated a Treaty of Peace with Tripoli, and it was unanimously ratified by our Senate in 1797 and signed by President John Adams. Article XI of that treaty reads, "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

I think perhaps I will accept what our founders declared as to the basis for the founding of our country.

Theodore M. Utchen

Wheaton

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