To answer the question: do I believe that the United States is a Christian Nation?

I say this as a veteran, a Christian, and a moderate: The United States of America is not now, nor has ever been, a "Christian nation." You could maybe call it a "Christian-majority nation" in the same way we refer to some nations as "Muslim-majority nations," but that's still a bit of a stretch given that all sects of Christianity, which includes denominations that other denominations do not consider Christian in the slightest, make up only 70%, and the single largest denomination classification according to Pew is Evangelicals, who largely have a problem considering the second largest denomination classification, Catholic, Christian at all. 

I say the following as someone who was studying to become a chaplain, and thus studied a lot of biblical theology, church history, etc. Christian theocracy never functions well. If it functions for an extended time at all, it's so quickly corrupted and turned into something blatantly against the teachings of Christ as recorded in the Gospels that the only reason it's called Christian is to grant the people abusing their power more legitimacy. If the USA ever becomes a Christian theocracy, it will fall, and it won't be pretty. If that happened during my lifetime, I would gladly do whatever I can to follow through on my oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and no matter what, theocrats are an enemy of the First Amendment and thus the Constitution. 

And for those wondering where my loyalties would lie because I'm still Christian, Christ said to "give to Caesar (meaning the government) what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's." Last I checked, ethical and theological truth are God's, and law, politics, etc. belong to Caesar. Allowing Uncle Sam or any of his little cousins (state governments) to call the shots ethically or theologically is taking from God what is God's and giving it to Caesar, a blatant violation of the order Christians were called to maintain. Both my identity as a veteran and my identity as a Christian are in sync: the United States will not become a Christian theocracy if I can do anything to stop it from doing so, and I certainly hope I am not alone in that. And if it somehow does, and I can do nothing to stop it, I will consider the United States of America to have broken faith with anyone who swore any oath to the USA under the Constitution, and I will not defend her again. 

I hope I never have to follow through on those last bits. Like many who chose to become warfighters, I don't want war. I just know what to do with it if we have it. 

God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise great day. 

Regarding Texas HB 1147

 Take 11 minutes and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Px833tzfs

Here's my commentary, what I commented on the video:

As soon as I heard the "approved for use by the United States Military" I immediately knew what you meant. I was trained to use those tourniquets, and as much as they are useful for a full grown adult, you're right, if they're not generation 7 or later, they're not actually going to work on a child's limb, not as well as you'd need it to. They weren't made for children. They weren't made for domestic use at all; they were made to very slightly reduce the attrition rate we faced from IEDs and small arms fire.

As someone who volunteered to join the military during time of war, to say I find drafting third graders into a war we never should have had to fight in the first place abhorrent is such a massive understatement that I lack the words necessary to correct that error. And that's what this is. Conscription, without consent. And as the old man said:

“I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

If conscription of adults is a cost too high, which I believe it is, conscription of kids is several degrees of magnitude worse. Screw the Texas Legislature, screw the GOP, screw the NRA. They wanna turn out schools into war zones, I say we treat them the same as any soldier who was so derelict in their duty that children needlessly died. And I will gladly volunteer to join the squad necessary to carry that treatment out.

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I shouldn't need to explain why this bothers me. I shouldn't need to explain why the concept that any government in the USA would consider or allow this before considering obvious alternatives is horrifying. I shouldn't need to point out that this is not even the first war that the GOP in Texas has drafted kids into on our own soil.

But for some reason I do.

If you care about anything outside of yourself, do something to push back against all of this madness, please. 

Thanks for reading. God Bless if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day.