"Right-wing evangelicals have hi-jacked Jesus for their own political advantage."

Frank, you are so right. Jesus is respected by the Muslims, and accepted as one of their most important prophets of God. Jesus is accepted by the vast majority of Hindus and Buddhists and revered as one of the most important prophets of God. Most Native American spiritual leaders admire Jesus and his essential teachings, because they are universal teachings. The people whom I regard as almost the least exemplary of Jesus' actual teachings are the Religious Right in America. Like the fanatics of the Spanish Inquisition before them, they have co-opted a beautiful spiritual teaching and turned it into a monstrosity.

And as others have pointed out, "God" is not an entity exclusive to the Christian religion, therefore a nation "under God" is not by definition a Christian nation. The Christians don't "own" God. :-)

peedeecee - Actually, my rightwing pal is very pro-Native American! In this he is consistent, as he always tends to favour the indigenous people (those who have been in an area longer) over the new arrivals. He's basically anti-immigrant. This is a bit ironical, though, because HE emigrated from Scotland to Canada when he was in his 20's. :-) He figures that doesn't count, because Canada was already an English-speaking and predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture when he arrived. He seems to be bothered by different cultures arriving from foreign shores. He is under the impression, same as Kipling was, that "the twain shall never meet".

What he is really objecting to is change, and that is a typically old time conservative position, isn't it? But it's not neo-conservative! Those guys would like to make big changes...all for the worse (unless you're very rich). He's not neo-conservative. He's old time conservative, but more than most. This helps explain why he can't find anyone to vote for. His kind of conservatism has almost ceased to exist on the political party level.