Is America a Christian Nation?

From Alexander Cockburn[!]:

Moral values this brings us to the well-known fact (greeted with amazement on Wednesday morning by the pundits) that the United States is a Christian nation. Tocqueville noticed this some time ago, and anyone driving today down any county road or state highway will see a lot of churches, still well ahead of casinos which are facilities also predicated on a relationship with Providence. The 2002 edition of the University of Chicago’s regular surveys reported that the adult population of the homeland is 53 per cent Protestant, 25 per cent Catholic, 3 per cent Christians of some other stripe, 3 per cent other religions, 2 per cent Jewish and 14 per cent holding “no religion”. Of the Christians, 25 per cent go to church once a week or more.

Even though the highest reading on any chart of Intolerance is that nourished towards Christians by secular liberals (after all, Christians believe in forgiveness and the possibility of redemption) I suppose we’ll have to put up with much earnest journalism from sensitive liberal writers driving into the Christian heartland to inspect and commune with the natives. I read one patronizing prospectus from a Californian free-lancer that sounded like an application by an anthropologist in 1925 for funding to inspect an African tribe.

More here.

(Via Get Religion)