325.7 Million people live in America. 70% of those individuals claim to be a part of the Christian faith. As a result of having such a giant number of people having said faith a question has risen that many citizens believe should be answered; "Should the United States claim to be a Christian Country?'

Many conservative citizens believe we should, our founding fathers were Christians, and intended for the country to be as well, so why not stick with that mentality? We already have "In God We Trust" on all of our currency and many government buildings. In our pledge to allegiance, we even say "under God."

Unfortunately, I disagree; I believe we should not claim Christianity or any religion. If the United States decided to claim to be a Christian country, we would be isolating the other 30% of our population who either are of a different religion or don't believe in a higher power. The founding fathers also believed in religious freedom, which allows anyone to be a US Citizen and have any faith they choose to without being harmed (which isn't the case at the moment).

I am a Christian, I was raised in church, and was baptized at a young age. I try to go to church as often as I can and I love God will all my heart, but I believe we must separate our religious beliefs from anything to do with our government. We must do this not because we are against God, but we must do this to better represent the millions of our citizens who don't believe in the same faith as we do.

The United States has already taken a great step forward by removing prayer from our public-school systems. Many believe that this is wrong, and we should add prayer back into our schools, but again I must disagree. If the United States adds prayer back into schools, we will have many students singled out when they do not pray with the majority of the class. This will ostracize the population of non-Christians more than they already are in this country.

I believe that we must take things further and remove 'In God We Trust' from our currency, the reason being is not every citizen believes in God; some believe in Buddha or Ganesha. Simply speaking for everyone and saying In God we trust is wrong. We must also take out "under God" from the pledge of allegiance for the same reason. Millions of US Citizens do not believe that God is watching over this country. Having "under God" in our pledge and "in God, We Trust" throughout our government is making us Christians separate ourselves from the other non-Christians, and evening making it seem like we are better than the other 30% of our population.

Although it is up to our political leaders to remove Christianity from our government it is also up to us Christians to stop putting ourselves on a pedestal. We need to stop believing that the United States owes it to us to put these little religious remarks on anything that has to do with our government.

It is our duty as Christians to show love to all people and doing that we must make everyone feel welcome in this country, and we cannot do that when everything that has to do with the United States is slapped with something to do with our God. Therefore, it is our duty to make a difference in this country. We have to separate our religion from this government for the well-being of the entire United States of America, all 325 million of us, and we cannot forget the .7; every single citizen matters.