solong,
Ok, I have a some time to respond to your last and very long posting. I think you made the following points:
1) If people don't live by God's laws they will be judged harshly by God and they will not be materially successful.
2) If people live by God's laws they will be materially successful.
3) There was a time when Americans lived by God's law and that is what made America great.
4) These days we are not living by God's law and that is why we are lagging behind other countries in science, technology, medicine, etc.
5) Examples of God's law are the honesty and trustworthiness that allows business deals to be conducted by a handshake.
6) The Golden Rule as found in Mathew is an example of God's law and it began with Christ.
In my opinion, this is not Christianity, but a typical form of American Spiritualism. American Spiritualism is a Jeffersonian mixture of capitalism and only those things Jesus stood for that don't get in the way of capitalism. You might call it Good Personism, or Decent Personism. Its probably the thing that De Tocq heard in American sermons and saw Americans living it out as he said. But it is not really Christianity. Its is totally backwards from Christianity. Where American Spiritualism says that God Helps Those Who Help Themselves (actually Ben Franklin said that), Christ says God helps those who are most helpless. Where AS says good behavior and hard work is rewarded, Christ says that we all get the same wage, regardless of what work we do or don't do. Where AS loves capitalism and meritocracy, Christ wants an equitable distribution of wealth, no questions asked. Where AS holds successful people as a model to be aspired to, Christ says "the last shall be first and the first shall be last". Where AS says to make good and profitable business deals, Christ says give away all your money to the poor. Where AS wants to reward the disciplined successful clean living person, Christ wants to reward the godless nasty Samaritan for his compassion in the face of the suffering of a stranger and not reward the disciplined clean living, God fearing Priest and Levite (in fact they are castigated in the parable for those very qualities). Where AS sings songs of nationalism, Christ says that everyone in the world is our brother. And so on...
Secondly, your implication that we were once a more Christian nation could only be held while believing that business deals and domestic and foreign policy were at one time in the past all nice and honorable. You would have to deny the fact that at the time of De Tocq's visit, only about 10% of the US population attended church. You would have to deny the fact that American entered the Industrial Revolution from the economic strength it derived from its profitable cotton and textile industry that was built on the backs of slaves and exploited immigrant workers. Then you would have to deny that the very land from which we got all of our wonderful resources was stolen from another group of God's children througn inadvertent and then deliberate genocide (Its now estimated that the native population of the Americas was somewhere between 10 and 100 million people just before European contact.) You would also have to deny that the attempts to create theocratic God fearing communities (Rhode Island, for example in colonial times) were total failures commercially and socially.
As for the US slipping behind, using your logic, those now more successful countries must be more God fearing. When in fact, 80% of Americans claim to be religious compared to some 15-20% in the rest of the world.
Don't misunderstand me, though. I love our country dearly and I love how capitalism raises the standard of living for many people. But I don't love how unChristlike we allow (and have always allowed since the founding of our country) an extremely inequitable distribution wealth to occur as if that were the goal all along.
I also believe that Americans have a love for decency and straight dealing. But only superfically could you say those were Christian principles. What I mean is that compared to addressing the misery and suffering in the world, "straight dealing" would be way down on Jesus list of good character traits.
But in loving our country and loving decency and straight dealing, I don't confuse it with what Christ asks us to be.
I don't even have a problem with Good Personism unless it causes a person to think they are Christlike because they are honest and decent while in the meantime most of the world is starving and dying miserable deaths and they are doing nothing about it.
As for the Golden Rule, there are 30,000 children dying each month in the Sudan from preventable hunger and disease. What would you have any of them do for you if your role was reversed with theirs? That is what the Golden Rule is all about. I don't think honorable business practices even makes it on Christ's radar screen.
This is why I don't get invited to too many parties (or Republican rallies).