Pastor to rabbi, imam: U.S. is a ‘Christian nation’ but we ‘let’ you worship [View all]

A Pentecostal bishop on Sunday told a rabbi and an imam that the U.S. was a “Christian nation” that was bridging religious divisions because Christians would “let” other faiths worship and “we’re not going to persecute you.”

Speaking to a interfaith panel on CBS News, Hope Christian Church Pastor Harry R. Jackson responded to Rabbi David Wolpe, who said that the Americans should “celebrate difference” because “God is greater than any religious tradition.”

“In deference to the Christian foundation of this nation, it is that foundation that allows us freedom,” Jackson explained. “I don’t see this diversity in other places. So to the credit of our Christian foundation of this nation, this freedom we’re experiencing is because folks came and said, ‘We believe this is to be a Christian nation. We feel like we’ve been persecuted in the places we came from, and we’re going to intentionally let this nation be founded in a way that if you come here and you’re Islamic and you come here and you’re Jewish, we’re not going to persecute you.’”