Was America a Christian Nation? Stop Surrendering History & How to Read the Bible

Nate opens with a viral meme on "How to Read the Bible Like the Early Church Did," using Augustine's infamous allegorical reading of the Good Samaritan (yes, "the innkeeper is the apostle Paul") as a cautionary tale in bad hermeneutics — and makes the case that the early church didn't need a bound Bible because they were living the apostles' teaching in real time. From there, the episode turns into a full defense of America's Christian founding. Was America founded as a Christian nation? Nate walks through the state constitutions (Delaware's trinitarian oath requirement), the often-cited 1783 Treaty of Paris and its "holy and undivided Trinity" preamble, and pushes back on the popular narrative that the Founders were mostly deists. This leads straight into the Babylon Bee op-ed "Christians, Stop Surrendering History," where Nate and Sean dig into why Christians tend to apologize for the Crusades and slavery instead of pointing out that the Crusades followed roughly 800 years of Islamic conquest, and that the abolition movement was overwhelmingly Christian-led (Wilberforce, Douglass, and company get a shoutout). Sean pushes back with a "revisionist history" objection tied to crusading indulgences, and the two dig into whether the papacy actually blessed war crimes — spoiler: it's more complicated (and more Catholic) than the meme implies. Then things go feral for a few minutes with a very literal palate cleanser: killer whales absolutely obliterating a sunfish. Naturally, this pivots back into the Christian nation debate via a reaction to a viral clip from a pastor arguing America is not a Christian nation. The back half of the episode is a rapid-fire reaction session — a "don't get pregnant" TikTok that triggered a pile-on, an atheist's "why did God need a 14-year-old to get pregnant" gotcha (answered with a Genesis-to-Revelation walkthrough), a wildly unhinged geocentrism take on Joshua 10 and the sun standing still, and a lengthy, heated exchange with a Dean Withers-style debate bro using the real historical case of Lina Medina to attack God's goodness. Nate and Sean respond with Genesis 50:20 — "what the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good" — and walk through how that principle applies even to the hardest cases people can throw at Christianity. Serious theology, real history, and some genuinely unhinged internet content — that's Ask A Christian Podcast. For more content, visit: https://www.askachristianpodcast.com Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 02:53 - How to Read the Bible Like the Early Church Did 08:04 - Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? 10:22 - Christians, Stop Surrendering History: Crusades & Slavery 19:12 - Did the Pope Bless War Crimes via Indulgences? 26:36 - Killer Whales Blow Up a Sunfish (Viral Video) 26:51 - Continued: Is America a Christian Nation? 35:39 - Reacting to a "Don't Get Pregnant" TikTok 38:07 - Why Did God Need a 14-Year-Old to Get Pregnant? 41:31 - Did God Really Stop the Sun in Joshua 10? 46:15 - Debating Dean Withers: God, Evil & Lina Medina 55:41 - What the Enemy Meant for Evil, God Meant for Good Hashtags #AskAChristianPodcast #Christianity #Bible #Apologetics #ChristianNation #Crusades #Hermeneutics #BibleStudy #Atheism #ChristianApologetics #ProblemOfEvil #AmericanHistory #Faith #Jesus #Gospel