I'm not really sure that the United States could ever lay claim to having been a Christian nation.

That the right to worship in one's way was guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

That Christian religious leaders lament that people are moving away from the type of worship they feel (or believe) is the only way to worship is in itself lamentable.

Much of what we read and hear from the more vocal religious leaders is to put Christ as one's head or ruler of the heart. But then they add rules and regulations (which are often more than not to get around putting Christ as one's head or ruler of the heart) to signify as to who is really a Christian or not.

And, the majority of the religious leaders do themselves no favors when they start attacking each other or the general public or even the government.

Similarly, when the Christ commissioned his disciples to go spread the word, he additionally told them not to argue the case but to move on and find people who were willing to listen.

The founders of our Constitution, and thereby the Republic, tried to ensure that religion and government remain separate entities. We can go around and around as to the letter of that philosophy (e.g., prayer in a public school, which affects not just the Christians), and we have the Constitution-right to bicker among ourselves.

But when President Obama or anyone else connected to the Federal government tells the world that the United States is not a Christian nation, it is not an attack on America, as some would like to reword the meaning of what he is saying. In the area of politics--and here is where I wish to keep it--because what I think of the President and the man occupying the White House is a non-sequitur--the expression is designed to separate the philosophy and rights guaranteed within the our nation from nations that adamantly express themselves as Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever, which do operate from a theocracy point of view. (But at the same time, these leaders are not fooled, as they act more from a dictatorial POV; the people are the ones who are fooled.)

President Obama is expressing something that I believe most Americans can enjoin: the era of "we versus them" in a religious context has to end, if we are ever going to be able to end war and start getting along.