Depending on which poll you look at and how the question is asked, somewhere around 85 percent of us call ourselves Christian.

Christian: a person who believes in Jesus Christ; adherent of Christianity.

But are we a Christian nation? Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind for his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion-say, giving aid to the poorest people-as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior? After all, in the days before his crucifixion, when Jesus summed up his message for his disciples, he said the way you could tell the righteous from the ????ed was by whether they'd fed the hungry, slaked the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner. What would we find then?

USA's aid, in terms of percentage of their GNP has almost always been lower than any other industrialized nation in the world, though paradoxically since 2000, their dollar amount has been the highest. (Only since 2004 have they move up from last place, by one.)

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp#Almostallrichnationsfailthisobligation

1 in 6 children in the United States lives in poverty, nearly 12 million or 17.5% (compared with 8 percent in Sweden), 1 in 5 children under the age of 4 (19.7%) lives in poverty. In fact, by pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose-childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool-we come in last among the rich nations, and by a wide margin.

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, March 2001.

Despite the Sixth Commandment, we are, of course, the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate four or five times that of our European peers.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel05/preliminary060605.htm

Having been told to turn the other cheek, we're the only Western democracy left that ????utes its citizens, mostly in those states where Christianity is theoretically strongest.

Despite Jesus' strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate-just over half-that compares poorly with the European Union's average of about four in ten.

A rich man came to Jesus one day and asked what he should do to get into heaven. Jesus did not say he should invest, spend, and let the benefits trickle down; he said sell what you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me.

America: A nation of hypocrites