 |
 |
 |
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
 |
I have an unending affection for the animals, plants, smells, weather, and "mood" of my hometown and home state. I love its history, jaded as it is. I am a South Carolinian, through and through. I am also an American. I have traveled North and South, East and West across our country. I have read its history. I have seen and felt many of its special places. It is in me. I have lived in and learned to love other nations, and could live out my days in another place. But American I am. And I love her, I do. I am also an Earthling. I love God's world. I love the diversity of nations. My life is ever more connected with the lives of those in far away places. Now I am a Christian. I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus, who happens to be an Earthling, an American, a South Carolinian. I am an American Christian, not a Christian American. I am as equally averse to wrapping the flag in the church as I am to denouncing all things Western and American. Strictly and formally speaking, America is not and has never been a Christian nation. I do not even know what being a Christian nation could look like unless we scrapped our constitution, established some sort of monarchy, and hoped that it would be different from all others in history and not slip into cruel tyranny, and hoped that the populace became and remained real God-fearing, Spirit regenerated, Christ-like human beings. This is not likely. The Scripture nowhere gives me any confidence that anything like what I would call a Christian nation is either possible or likely. So, ours is not a Christian nation. It is rather a nation with a decent number of Christians who have sometimes less and sometimes more (and sometimes less than admirable) an influence upon her. It is true, from the standpoint of the Christian, and this must not be forgotten, that God has used and is using the Christians of America in significant ways in the world. American Christians have profoundly helped the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations. I am thankful for this. I am thankful that our secular, pluralistic constitution gives us the freedom to do this. I hope it will continue. It is also true that in His providence God has also used America's industrial and commercial and moral strength to help stave off domination of the world by both rightist and leftist forms of totalitarianism. I am very thankful for this as well. America was established on the foundation of its hatred of tyranny and totalitarianism, its love of individual freedom including religious freedom, yes, but also moral and economic freedom. This produced a constitution which offers protection against tyranny and places checks and balances in its government. Our constitution lays the groundwork for a secular and pluralistic government. Thus, ours is by definition not a Christian but a secular nation. It is not a theocracy, it is not a "Christian monarchy." Frankly, I'm glad. That sort of thing is precisely what caused the Pilgrims and many others to flee to America in the first place, though some of them made the "theocratic" mistake when they got here. Most of the Quakers and Scots-Irish and German Lutherans and Reformed and Moravians who settled in the Triad came here in the first place to escape the tyranny of either Catholic rule on the continent or Anglican rule in England. The ground was settled here by dissenters. So as a Christian I am glad I live in a secular nation. As a Christian, I am glad for our Founding Father's fear of monarchy and tyranny. The Pilgrims and some others like them who came to the various states had a vision for a new society, and new Israel, a new Eden. Such a vision was understandable given the long history of war and persecution in England and Europe. Nevertheless, it was somewhat dubious, or shall I say, utopian. Inevitably it had to run into the reality of both its own internal sinfulness and the external forces which did not share the specifics of its vision. The widespread hatred of State establishment of religion, shared in many ways by the various Christian entities within the colonies, of necessity would eventually place limits upon the ability of these Christian entities to govern themselves separately. They would be thrown into the pot of the individual colonial governments, and eventually the governments of the various states in the union. In a fallen world, religious freedom goes hand in hand with pluralism and secular government. Our constitution is a very dangerous thing. It places into the hands of fallen men and women the power of representative government. Our Founding Fathers, some Christians, some Deists, some Enlightenment rationalists, feared the loss of the moral compass. They knew that at least some notion of God and "natural law" was necessary to keep the freedom granted from resulting in mob rule or moral anarchy. Even when the notion of representation works rightly (that is, when powerful interests are not controlling the legislatures in all the ways they do that so well), the values that drive the people who seek to be represented will drive those that represent them. But the constitution does not and cannot guarantee what these values will be. It does not establish the core values which define the people of the nation. It grants tremendous freedom to people without in any way being able to determine what that freedom will lead them to do, except in the ways it protects minority rights against majority wishes, and protects the people against governmental tyranny. This is scary, and risky, and our Fathers knew it, and did what they could to hedge their bets in the way they structured our constitution. The core American value, put forward in our Declaration and guaranteed in our Constitution, that is, the value which I would call liberty or freedom, is not an inherently Christian value. But it does grant to Christians the right to live out their Christian life in peace and freedom. It gives Christians the right to bring influence to bear upon the nation, and to share about their religious convictions with others. These are precious rights that we all cherish. But America can and will have a Christian "look and feel" only to the extent that the values of a great many of its people are really and truly Biblical Christian values. The problem I see today is that there is confusion between what I call Christian values and American values. These are not today the same. I don't think they ever were, nor do I think they can ever be in any total sense. And even if more and more people became sold out to Biblical values, ours is still, and must remain, a secular nation. No matter how many of us are Biblical Christians, there is a necessary limit to how that translates into government and policy matters. One assumes that our culture and our laws would become more humane, more just, and more peaceable. But even if true Biblical Christians were a majority, the constitution would protect those of other religions and of no religion from domination by the Christian majority. It has to be that way. I'm glad, really, because I never see Biblical Christians being more than a small minority, and thus I appreciate the protections afforded me by our constitution. The reason I don't see the majority of Americans becoming Biblical Christians is because Scripture tells me it's unlikely, because Scripture tells me what people are like in their fallenness, and because I see the power of the values of the dominant culture, what have become in fact the working American values, being so deep, so ingrained, and so unshakable barring the most unbelievable work of God upon us, leading us to the most historically profound change and repentance ever seen in a nation. If you don’t believe that just turn on your TV and flip through the channels. But even if the majority of the people became Biblical Christians, they would not agree with each other on the specifics of public policy. And even if they did, their influence would only be limited, because in truth the notion of representation does not work nearly so well as thought. What guides a nation's policies ultimately are the power brokers, the corporations, the extremely wealthy, the entrenched career well-bribed politicians. It may sound silly and cynical to say so, but money and power rule: money and power drive policy. So even if the values of the majority were really and truly Biblical Christian values, unless there was a systematic profound revival at the level of the powers-that-be, the values of the small-people majority would only ever so much determine national policy. The forces of greed, conquest, and power have always been guiding forces, during and since the initial colonization by the Spanish, French, English, and Dutch. From the beginning the colonies were pawns in the competitive visions of these nations. The pilgrims and those like them were just a small bit of the mix in a big pot, and were even themselves being used by others for political and economic purposes. The drive for wealth and conquest and power, those forces which keep the sea in Daniel 7 stirred up and tumultuous – these have always been the most powerful, even in our own nation's settling and founding. For American Christians the problem has never been so much totalitarianism as cultural assimilation, assimilation to the culture's dominant values. This is probably more true today than ever before, but it has always been the case. I have read many accounts of early American Puritans, within a few years of colonization, of how afraid and concerned they were that their children and neighbors were being taken away by the allure of wealth and commerce. This assimilation to non-Christian values has always in our history been the bigger problem. When we combine this with the profound intellectual shift that has occurred since the Enlightenment, no wonder the dominant culture's values are out of whack. What are these dominant values today? What are those root principles which drive the American machine today? What does it mean to have "arrived" in America today. What makes up the "life vision" of most Americans today? What do we hope for, long for, expect, desire above all else? If someone were seeking the modern-day dream of America, what is it he or she would be seeking? Before I try to answer that question, let me ask another question. When Jesus said "seek first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness," what did he mean? How might you contrast what he meant by asking us to seek the kingdom and what our culture wants us to seek today? Answering that would be a good exercise. I encourage you to think about that. I see many Christians today so worried about persecution or loss of rights, while all along they buy into the dominant culture's value system. Assimilation is the enemy of the church in America today, not persecution. Here we have the freedom to be as much like Jesus as we want to be, and we are not choosing to do so. We are using our freedom to follow the values path of the surrounding world, and then getting mad when we fear the loss of some freedom we are not taking advantage of anyway. Yes, we should work to keep the playing field even, and to protect the legitimate rights of Christian Americans, but let us not think this is the main battle. I call us all to think hard, to work hard at figuring out, to pray and seek God, that we can know just what we are to be like as His representatives today, in this day and time. We must of course stay engaged in matters of public policy. We must vote, We must seek laws that are good and just and fair to all, and by all I mean all – the weak, the strong, the rich, the poor, the Christian, the Jew, the Muslim, the atheist, the white, the black, the Hispanic, etc. So, yes, we must seek the good of our country. But we must make the hard private decisions which would make us really like Jesus in matters of lifestyle, priorities, decisions, and attitudes. We must talk about what it means for us to seek first the kingdom, and then we must act accordingly. We are pilgrims. We are here for a while and then gone. What are we to be like while we are here? Peace. |
 |
|
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
